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. 

our Christmas party with the neighbors

Ever since I became a missionary, one wish I had was to celebrate Christmas by inviting my neighbors for a Christmas party. I would serve them supper and then show the Jesus film. This year, that dream finally became a reality.

Our previous guard was really excited when I told him of the idea. He said he would invite all 10 of the neighborhood fada groups to come! I said, let's keep it simple for now. We settled on inviting 4 of the groups and I hope we can find a time to invite the others at a later date.

 I knew of someone with a reputation for cooking well. And she gave me a great price for supplying rice, meat, sauce, and beesap for our guests. I asked for food for 80 people, and she brought it directly to my home an hour before the party began. We had plates and spoons for 130 people, and 120 small water bags.

There is a family next door that loans chairs for neighborhood parties. I rented 50 chairs for the day. It was really cute seeing their small kids help carry the chairs across the street to my home. One kid could only carry one at a time but he was so eager to help! He often meets us at our gate when we come home to help open the gate and then close it back. These kids are special!

I passed out invitations for the party to each of our neighbors. My good friend who owns a boutique in our neighborhood posted the announcement on the main wallof the boutique! On the day of, several people stopped us in the street to ask if today was this day, and to say they would come.

Well, the hour came. I had music. I had food. I had chairs. But where are the people? In this culture it is customary to come a bit late. By 820 pm the first groups of people were starting to file in. By 835 nearly every chair was filled, and we started at 845. I presented our family, greeted everyone. I said how wonderful it is to gather together for a Christmas party. I shared that Christmas is a time I think of to give gifts to each other. I shared that I consider each of my neighbors a gift because of their friendship. And then I told the story of the birth of Jesus, God's gift to mankind, so that we may have a relationship with Him. Everyone applauded at the story! I shared that it is my hope to talk more about God with each of you, but tonight, let us share together in this meal.

We asked 3 ladies to help serve the food to everyone. Denise and I shared the last plate. We used all 130 plates. We gave out all the beesap and water bags. We used up all the food, but it seemed to be sufficient. Some of the adults who had food left on their plate shared with the kids, which is cultural here. Praise God for multiplying the food!

About 30-40 people stayed after the meal to watch the Jesus film in their language. Many men asked me to take a photo with them. Everyone took time when they were leaving to thank us for inviting them and to tell us they had a good time.

We hope this will be an annual tradition. It seemed to be a huge success. Now I hope to form a group of men from this who will meet weekly and study the prophets and the teachings of Jesus together.

This was a success thanks to many of you who prayed for this occasion and give to support the work Denise and I do here. We can't thank you enough. When ministry days are hard and it is difficult to find success stories, I hope to always recall this even as a moment where God began to work through his servants to reach the people here in this West African neighborhood.

Merry Christmas! 

Starting Kindergarten

It is a new season of life in the Thagard family! Abby started kindergarten at the end of September. She has been doing great! We look forward to her coming home and sharing any adventures of the day. I’m not gonna lie, it is tough to let her go for a full morning. (Class starts at 7:30 and ends at 11 AM.) Both Roy and I wish that we could just be a fly on the wall and watch to see how well she is doing, but it has been really good for her to be brave and go without mom and dad.

The school she goes to is a Christian school and has mostly missionary kids like Abby, but also a few national kids, and children of diplomatic parents from other countries. It is taught in English. After doing a couple months of summer school in French, Abby is so happy that she gets to hear English at school! There are a total of 10 kids in her class. The original kindergarten teacher wasn’t able to return this year, so Abby has two teachers who trade off throughout the week. The first (Mrs. A) is a mom whose son is in the class. She is a trained teacher. The second (Miss K) is a younger gal who is teaching for the first time. Abby has already drawn Miss K a picture for a present.

One way we get a snapshot of Abby’s day is by hearing how Abby did on the clip chart. Each child has a clothespin with their name on it and they all start at "ready to learn." They get to move their clip up to a “good day,” “great day” or “outstanding” according to how well they are doing in class. Most days Abby gives reports of getting a good or great day! Each morning all the kids start in the middle at “Ready to Learn” and there are steps to go down if they get a warning or have to go in timeout. The bottom level is “contact parents”. At first Abby told me that she wanted to get the bottom one because it had a telephone on it. I had to tell her that she didn’t want that one because it meant that she’d gotten in trouble and that she should try to get the top ones like great day with the stars and caterpillars on it!

Abby loves music and so she tells us that music is one of her favorite classes. She also gets to check out 2 books each week at the library. The first week she came home with 2 Curious George books and the 2^nd week 2 Clifford the big red dog books. She is so excited to read them together throughout the week! She also enjoys playing outside at the playground. One week she brought home a brown paper lunch bag with instructions to bring 3 things that show what she likes. It was a challenge to find small things, but she did a great job and got up in front of the class to show off her treasures (one of which was her stuffed caterpillar--her favorite animal). Her teacher was nice enough to send a picture of her doing show and tell.

Abby showing caterpillar

Abby is already a great reader after doing a year of Hooked on Phonics at home. We know that she will continue to improve. We can already see her improving in her writing and getting more socialization with friends! She has a couple girls who are her age she is becoming friends with. One is in her class and another is doing kindergarten at the French school where Abby went to summer school. Abby is the youngest in her class and so we thought a lot about whether this was the right time to start school or if she should do English or French school. After a couple weeks of school we are confident that this is the right time and the right place for Abby to be learning and we thank God for the opportunity she has to get good instruction in a Christian environment.

Recess!!!

 

Abby loves that Cali greets her every morning when she returns from school. 

Kindergarten open house was her birthday!

Family Addition

We are a few weeks late, but allow us to introduce to you the newest member of our family!

 Her name is Calli. She is a very loving chocolate lab. She is about 5 years old. She loves to play fetch and find the coolest places in the yard to lay. Even when it means digging big holes under the car!

Abby is in love. She chases after Calli anytime they are outside together. She feeds Calli and sits with her, watching her eat every bite. She brushes Calli off before bringing her in for the night. She shouts "Calli Calli" at least 300 times each day. 

Abby even told us that having Calli makes her feel more like she is in America. We are so glad this gives her a deeper level of comfort away from the comforts of her American home.

As I have observed Calli and Abby playing together, a spiritual concept has struck me. Calli is pretty good at obeying when Denise and I ask her to sit, come, and stay. But Calli has no regard whatsoever when Abby gives a command. So it makes me wonder who am I plugged into in life, and how do I know who to obey? Do I listen to God when He directs me each day? When He wants to spend time with me? Do I instead put my focus on people that do not love me as much as the One calling to me throughout the day? 

May we remember every day the One who calls to us, and may we make it a priority to stop, listen and fellowship with God.

Back to Normal, we hope!

It has been a little while since we have updated you on life here. Here are some recent happenings!

July and August were rainy season. Overall we felt it was a light rainy season. There were some big rains and some local flooding. We did have neighbors experience some flooding. They lost everything. Roy helped carry beds and belongings out while the men took doors off their door frames and hit their mud homes with hammers to destroy them before the flood waters did. Maybe they did this so noone would go back to the home and it collapse during the night when someone was sleeping, that is our best guess. It was surreal to see men taking everything including the door frames, and seeing them chunk pieces of their breaking house into the water.

    

This picture is drawn to show where the flooding occurred 2 weeks ago. Our house is shown with a star between the 2 ponded areas of water. You see the green, which are hills nearby. The darker blue is a depression area that fills with rainwater and run off from the hills. In our last big rainstorm the water ran off the hills and flooded the area in light blue. They said it last happened in 2018. 

You also see the schoolyard (also edited in the color blue) which has been under water since June. Our house is on a high point between the 2 areas and is not in danger of flood waters. We didn't even have a puddle in our yard, while neighbors 200 feet away were in flood waters 20-30 inches deep. But we are on an island when big rain storms come. To get out we have to wade through or drive through water in any direction. 

We are finally feeling healthy again as a family. For weeks we have all been passing along runny noses, coughs, fatigue, and low grade fevers. Denise had Malaria and Roy is sure he did, too. 

Roy's Bible study group has taken the rainy season off. He has plans to start it again within the next few weeks.

   

Abby has taken a few more naps than normal.

Abby and Roy after getting tested for Malaria.

 She had a great time with her summer pre-k program. It was an adjustment for her. For 3 hours, 3 days each week she was with her teachers who only spoke French. Some days were especially hard. After 2 months she was getting used to it, even wanting to stay until the end. She heard stories and colored, she played with new toys and played on the swing set. We are so proud of her for being brave for the summer program. Real school starts in just a few weeks! We are all excited for her as she grows up so fast.

Roy prepared and preached 3 sermons for the English-speaking church we attend over the last month! He felt blessed and challenged to be able to do that. 

Here's to living la vie sauvage! (the wild life)