Hard goodbye

Pets are special creatures in our lives. I have had the privilege to own many pets over the years. Lots of fish, 2 turtles, chickens, honeybees, caterpillars, frogs, snails, ants, rabbits, and lizards. But by far my favorite pets have been dogs.

 I adopted Rue as a pup. She was less than 12 weeks old when I found her and rescued her from a local shelter in February 2013. Denise went with me and encouraged me to get my own dog. She fell in love immediately with Rue. After 2 minutes, I did, too.

I named Rue after a character in Hunger Games book that Denise and I listened to as we traveled across the US together. 

I was able to train Rue to be house broken. I taught her to sit, stay, roll over, lay down and play fetch. She taught me way more than I taught her, as I learned responsibility and patience from her. I am happy that I was her main provider.

Rue loved chasing small animals that wandered into the yard. Birds were her favorite, she also loved deer, cats, and squirrels. I always thought she would have made a natural bird dog.

I sometimes made silly sounds to Rue, and she would always tilt her head, trying to figure out what that sound was. She always walked with her tail curled up. 

I remember going on many walks with Rue. The first few times we went on walks she refused to go far from the house. I realized as a rescue, she didn't want to leave the comfort of her home. But day by day she would walk a little further. After a week she learned to trust me. She learned to love walks. Any time I grabbed the leash she leapt to the door to walk. We often walked 3 times or more each night around the 1/3 mile circle of my community. Sometimes we strayed farther. These were special times for me, just a boy and his dog.

Rue was not a lap dog but loved when I sat near her or lay beside her.

We did many adventures together. We hiked in the mountains. We visited towns. We visited Iowa where Denise's family lives. We went to dog parks. We visited Granny (my mom).

As our family left to pursue missions, we had to say goodbye to Rue being a part of our daily lives. My mom agreed to keep her while we were out of the country. We still spent lots of time with Rue when we were home. Our kids knew Rue and played well with her. 

Sadly the time came to say goodbye to Rue for forever. She was diagnosed to have a mass somewhere between her spleen and stomach this past week. She wasn't eating and had lost all of her energy. It was time to say goodbye. It was time to put her down.

She lived a happy life for nearly 10 years. I have had many dogs as pets but because Rue was the first pet I cared for as my very own she will always hold a very special place in my heart. 

Goodbye Rue. Enjoy the prairies and the birds on the other side. 

The animals

As we settled at home again after our vacation in the states, we have adopted a new pet, and are sitting for another. We wanted to introduce to you our animals!

Remember our turtles, Rosie and Rambo. They are growing! We need to build them a new cage as they have learned they are big enough to escape their current pen. We let them walk around the house for a few hours each day so they are less likely to escape when we don't realize it.

Meet Toby. He is an 8 yo bunny with a gimpy hind leg. But he loves to hop around anyway. He eats millet and some compost. Abby helped make a list of can eat and can't eat.

This is Karamel, the friendliest 5yo dog you would ever want to meet. We are watching her while her family is away on vacation. Josh lives for the moment we ask him to feed Karamel. His 21 month old legs carry him as fast as they can and he grabs as many dry dog food pieces as he can, then runs to the porch to place in her bowl. It's pretty cute. 😍 

The kids are enjoying the extra chores and the extra love they can give to the animals. We have found them all to be a great addition to our home.

Thanks for praying for us.

Vacation the the US part 3

As you can tell from the previous posts, we had a big time at home with family. And our vacation was not over! Another tradition we have had recently has been a beach trip to a water park! 

For 3 days we had the best of times. We played at the beach in the mornings. We swam at the pool. We played in the lazy river where there were sea monsters who attacked us! And oh the water tunnel slides! The water was freezing but was still fun. We played mini golf indoors in a neon glow in the dark building. Roy got to see another baseball game with more fireworks! So much fun! Sorry that with water there aren't as many pictures to share.

It was hard to say goodbye to family. Our month passed by quickly as we knew it would. We can't thank you enough for loving on us during our trip. All our needs were provided for so well. We felt blessed and very appreciated during our stay. Thank you to all for many special memories. 

vacation to the US part 2

Here are a few pictures from our time in NC while visiting family

Vacation to the US part 1

We had a wonderful time visiting with family during our month holiday. We have already been back for a few weeks but our memories continue to make us happy.

A month passes so quickly! We wanted to do so much and tried to squeeze in as much as we could. We passed through 13 states and drive 3800 miles to see family in Texas, Iowa, and NC.

In Texas we enjoyed a time of rest for a few days. Denise's brother recently moved into a new house, and their daughter is recently married. We had a blast exploring their property, playing softball, riding the gator. The kids played with lots of toys and had fun playing with the dogs, cats  and rabbits.

We left for Iowa to visit Denise's parents. There we visited some parks, rode a tractor and ATV (Josh's highlight for sure). We attended a baseball game and Denise's dad came with us. There were fireworks after and he commented those were the best he has seen in a long time! Abby got glasses. Denise took the kids horseback riding! Roy helped mow grass.

We traveled for 2 days to go to NC. The kids did really well throughout the long car rides. We had snacks and played car games. We listened to music and books on CD and took naps. It rained for a lot of the trip to NC, so we had to be creative with our stops to stretch our legs. Thankfully we found some malls to walk in. We took advantage of the food courts to get what we  each wanted. And found amazing play areas the kids enjoyed. They made friends and had the best time!  And we were able to meet Roy's aunt and uncle on the way to NC! 

We arrived in NC and had a week full with family and fun times. Most nights extended family came by to greet us and play with kids. We finally had rain in NC and interrupted quiet time for a special time of running through grass puddles.

Josh loved hearing the cars drive by when he was outside. We visited a Mega Play indoor kids play park, which has become tradition for us. We did some shopping here for supplies for our return. We shot off our own fireworks. Roy even snuck away to play golf with his cousin.

Easter celebration

We had such a fun gathering to celebrate Christmas, we had hopes to do it again for Easter.

Since January, I have been discipling our previous night guard and a few of his friends through the gospel of Mark. We have been asking the question, Who is Jesus? And letting the Word of God tell us. 

So far we have learned

*he was born of a virgin

*John the Baptist gave testimony to who he is

*he was tempted but lived a life without sin

*he taught us how to pray

*he taught us how to fast

*he healed

*he forgave sin

*he has power over nature

Our previous guard is very outgoing! He knows lots of people in our neighborhood and seems to have a passion for others to hear the gospel. He wanted to invite 5 different groups of young men to come for an Easter gathering. I told him it would be our pleasure. Invite your friends and we would take care of the rest.

We arranged a lady from the discipleship school to cook for us. I met her and learned she doesn't speak French, and someone was going to find a translator. I happened to ask if she spoke Fulf. and she does!  We can talk in Fulf. I share that to say it is nice to have an African language here. She cooked a feast that would have fed 80 people! 

 On the day of the party we rented chairs from our neighbors. The kids love to help bring the chairs and I enjoy seeing them so happy to help. They are always wanting to help open and close our gate (and always wanting to sneak in to swing and play with toys, too). 

We planned to read the story of Jesus praying in the garden, being arrested, crucified, buried, and resurrected. With intention, I told the story to emphasize Jesus' identity. It was Judas one of the 12 who identified Jesus. He remained in the arms of the guards. Jesus said he is the Son of God, and it was such blasphemy the priest tore his robe. Jesus talked to his mother Mary, 2 of her friends, and one of his disciples, John, on the cross. And after his resurrection Jesus showed his disciples the piercings in his hands and feet. 

Muslims believe Jesus was born of a virgin, prformed miracles, ascended to heaven, and will come back again to the earth. But they do not believe Jesus suffered because as God he should not be allowed to suffer. They believe Jesus was not actually on the cross but was substituted by another man. With this knowledge I made sure to tell the story so there was no question to what the God's Word teaches. The men asked questions. They certainly listened to the story. It will take more stories, more teachings, but I thought the message was clear and was well received.

After reading the story we served a meal. Easter fell during Ramadan this year. I wondered if it would be well attended...I thought they may be tired from their fast and the heat. This turned out to be true as fewer than half of who were invited came. But we still had a good turnout of 30-35 men. And many stayed after the meal to watch the Abraham film.

Join me in praying for our neighbors. Pray they will be sensitive to the gospel and seek truth. And pray for our former guard. He professes his faith but he has suddenly become unreliable, and is always demanding money. He was terribly mad that we didn't pay him for this gathering and stormed away very angry. Pray that we can restore peace in our relationship.

teaching nationals

In our region of west Africa, we have a daunting task--to tell the unreached about Jesus. As new missionaries, it can be overwhelming. How to start, what to say, learning their language, discipling believers. All of this is still new to us. 

How wonderful to have a team, including within other agencies, collaborating with us to reach nationals! 5 missionary families joined in to help teach at a recent conference. 80 natioals attended from parts all around the region to come together, be encouraged by other believers, and be taught the Word of God in their own language.

This was the second such conference that was held for these believers. The first emphasized theology. The elders attending the conference now wanted to learn about faith.

A program was designed. We had nationals share their testimony. We had a national believer teach from Romans on faith. We had a missionary teach from James 2 on the importance of faith and works. Roy shared his testimony and shared from Eph 2 that to understand faith we must understand grace. 

The majority of our focus, though, was on teaching the idea of storying. We modeled storying for them so they could take these stories and share them with their families and in their home villages themselves.

We used the faith chapter, Hebrews 11, to tell the story of 5 patriarchs and their acts of obedience as a response for their faith in God. Each of us was able to take one story and share it in their heart language. After the story they were to get into small groups and retell the story themselves. After that, they discussed it together-what they liked about the story, what they didn't like. What they learned about God, what they learned about man. And finally, how to follow the story, or better worded, how to apply the story into our lives today.

Denise told the story of Abraham and Sarah leaving their father's land and going to a foreign land, and God blessing Abraham and providing descendents as numerous as the stars and as the sands. She was the rock star! Everyone applauded her story telling.

Roy shared about Moses. Though the Israelites lived in slavery, God never forgot them. Time and time again God made a way to protect the Israelites from harm and provided for their needs. Moses obeyed God.

We were even strong enough in the language to participate in the small group stoeying with these men. We were encouraged to understsnd the stoey and walk together retelling the story and what we learned. 

Roy has already built into the lives of 6 national believers who were able to attend this conference. And he met several new friends as well. One friend lives in a village nearby and wants to start his own house church of believers. After this teaching he feels empowered to do this.

At the closing of the conference, 7 men made their decision public to follow Christ and were baptized!  It was really special to see a glimpse of God's glory this week, and to play a small part in it.

Thank you for your prayers!

minor sicknesses

We post many of our happy moments. These are celebrations we love to share with you. However, many moments exist where we are not able to do what we hope to accomplish. Sometimes our young kids keep us busy in the house. Sometimes ws are so tired we have to choose to say no to things we were hoping to do. And sometimes small sicknesses arise that make us drop everything to tend to the one sick.

Life in a 3rd world country has many challenges. Speaking a different language is tiring. Driving to town, shopping for groceries is tiring. One day recently Roy spent 5 hours in the market looking for a part for our fridge. In the states it woule have been a quick trip to any appliance store. Some days we are only able to get one or two things accomplished. On those days we especially pray for good rest and hope the next day we have more energy.

The winter months here are brutal for catching germs. With Abby in school she will pick up new germs and share with the rest of us. It seemed she shared small colds with her daddy two or 3 separate times in the last 6 weeks. We encourage her to share, but not share colds! 

Roy had a nasty bug for 3 days that pretty much kept him in bed during that time. He also had a stomach bug that lasted over a week. In the midst of that he (and Denise!) was able to teach the children during our spiritual life conference in January. We had 10 kids learn how God knows us, hears us, comforts us and forgives us. 4 VBS lessons in a day and a half! We had so much fun.

Now that we are back in our normal routine, we are still having to pause some events because of sickness. Roy was scheduled to start again with his men's neighborhood group, but there was a death in a family. Then a mother got sick, then a son. We hope to gather again very soon.

In moments like these I want to push myself through. Even at 80% I want to learn language, visit neighbors, translate stories in 2 separate languages, and guard kids. Those things take all my energy when I am at 100%! So much of life here is learning patience and fexibility. Learning what we can and cannot do. Learning to listen to our bodies and have the freedom to say no. 

This post is simply a remark that even in the times I have to wait for others and wait to take care of myself, God is still at work around us. And he is still at work in me. 

Thank you all for your prayers for our family.