Passports have returned!

 It's getting real! We just received our brand new passports with 1 year visas for our return to ministering in W. Africa!  

Our new passports have quite the story, which I'll bore you with now. When we departed our host country in May to return to the US to give birth to Josh, we knew the US Embassy there was only doing emergency services for expatriates. This did not include passport renewals. We were told this suspension in service was only temporary, but noone knew how long the service would be suspended. Denise and Roy's passports were good for another 18 months, but we didn't think it was a good idea to return to our host country without the assurance that our passports would be valid through our upcoming term. We did not want to risk getting trapped outside of the US! 

By September 2020, the service to renew passports was still suspended. We decided together to go ahead and renew our passports. Expedited service was still unavailable, but routine service of 10-12 weeks was the expected return time for our passports. That put our passports to return around Christmas 2020, which fit our expected timeline to return to the field by Jan 2021. 

We also had to renew Abby's, and we needed to get a new passport for Josh. The kids' passports came in good time (expedited service was available when we renewed).  We had Josh's in our hands before Christmas after sending it off the first week of November.  Denise and Roy continued to wait. The wait continued through the months of January and into February. The end of February marked 24 weeks since we had asked for passport renewals. We were getting worried, frustrated, even desperate to hear anything so that we could return to work. We called National Passport weekly to see if there was anything we could do, why the delay, can we now expedite the service?  Never were they of any help to us. We were left with a quandry: Do we continue to wait for our passports to be returned? It could be any week. Do we ask for our original passports and supporting documents to be returned? By Christmas our host country was back to renewing passports and other routine services for expatriates. 

Finally we did some calling within our mission partners. We were given some good advice to contact one of our state senator's office for assistance. 48 hours after completing the application with our state senator our passports were fully processed and being mailed back to us!  Yay!  

Now we have our visas, our plane tickets, and our totes to pack. This is our week to begin our goodbyes to friends and family. Continue to pray for us as we begin the adjusting process. We anticipate it will be a very trying time for us all as we adjust to the very hot desert climate and non-English speakers. 

Thank you for praying! 

Dedicating Josh

 Who knew that planning a child dedication could be so hard!  Our amazing pastor at Winterville Baptist Church heard our request soon after Josh was born that we wanted to do a child dedication service for him. By the time we felt up for traveling (our church is 100 miles from where we are staying), "the sickness" as we describe covid to Abby, was getting worse and therefore our church was no longer meeting together. It was especially important for Denise to have our church family present for Josh's dedication, so we waited. Our passports were very delayed (next post) so we were able to wait to have this service.  When our church opened its doors again, we planned the big event!  However, covid was not done, and it zapped our pastor for about 2 weeks during the very week that we the dedication service scheduled. We had already made plans to see friends, so rather than cancel those plans we came to Winterville for the weekend and Roy ended up preaching while the pastor was out sick.  That service is here: Testimony of a new believer and God's Soverignty for us all 

It turns out our patience was rewarded as we were able to experience a great dedication service to honor Josh.  We hope you like the service as much as we did.  Here is the video which you can play on youtube:   Josh's Dedication Service

When we take trips, we often make the trip special for Abby. This time was no exception.  We planned to stay the night at a hotel in Greenville. Abby packed her suitcase full of stuffed animals, blankets, and toys! We made sure she packed her extra clothes, too. J  We saw 4! parks during our stay in Greenville. One before the service, 2 the next morning before leaving, and one during our picnic lunch. Abby has become quite the climber so one of us (usually Roy) is always spotting her in case she falls and for when she needs help on the monkey bars. She still wants one of us to push her on swings and tell her stories as she hasn't quite shed her independent shell yet. She enjoys meeting new friends at these parks. We counted 8 cement trucks, 6 slug bugs, 5 railroad crossings, 4 parks, and one bad wreck on the highway that caused a 30 minute delay. Sounds like a song!  

https://goo.gl/pQJvyX theanimalbridge

Language Learning the Silent Way

The Silent Way

You can google this method to learn the method we are using for language learning, but this is a photo of the color chart we use during class that teaches the silent way of language learning.  Our teacher, Juliet, doesn't talk unless necessary.  She instead uses her mouth to show how to make the sound without making a sound herself.  While listening to us, she points to the sound we should be making.  If we are right, she moves on.  If we are wrong, she tells us what sound she hears and patiently shows us the embouchure to make to correct ourselves.  One thing about this system is that it will mean our lessons are participatory.  So I look forward to the fun activities we do as a class to learn together.

The top colors on the chart are vowels and the colors below the line are our consonant sounds in the French language.  As you can see, there's a lot of vowel sounds!  And many of these sounds are still confusing to me.  We have moved fast, covering nearly the whole chart our first 2 days of class.  Now we are putting sounds into making words and have begun with numbers.  Some numbers have 8 or more sounds we have to make! 

Something funny about numbers in French, when you get to the number 70, you have to say "sixty ten."  When you get to 80, you're saying "four-twenty."  So it is a confusing counting system.  We played a game our 3rd day of class with saying aloud our French phone numbers.  This was quite a challenge to do, but certainly helped to enforce this counting system for us.

Our class of beginners has 6 of us together.  Two are single, and we are one of two couples.  The other couple has 3 children, one of which is Abby's age!  They are already playing together a lot in their nursery time during each day.

Another game we played was learning colors.  We were introduced to 5 colors--yellow, black, red, blue, and green in blocks called reglettes.  We would choose (prendu) the correct color from our teacher's tray.  We would then take turns giving a block to each student, and saying the full sentence "choose a (color) block."  When everyone had a turn, we would tell our teacher what we had. "I have a red block, a yellow, and a blue." When everyone finished this sequence, we then would say what each class member had. "He has/she has..." and while doing this at times going back to the color chart to sound out the words we were using correctly.  I see this color chart being very important in our phonetic exercises. 

One great thing about being here at this school is the attention to speaking phonetically correct.  We certainly could have taken French from a tutor in America.  But what if French was their second language?  Then the mistakes they may make are taught to us and we would have extra work to overcome that mis-learned application.  Having a French teacher correct us now and work with us to enforce proper pronunciation is important so we can speak French as missionaries.  I've heard several missionary friends who learned French in a country in Africa say that they had to relearn their mistakes.  So to all that have made it possible for Denise and I to be here to study, thank you!  It's going to be hard work, but it's going to help us to share the gospel.  

Denise, Roy, and Abby safely arrived in France!

Hey All!

Here we are in the romantic country of France!  We are still in jet lag mode and entertaining a toddler full of energy, so we'll work on the romance a bit later!  J  And since this is Denise's pseudo-author, I can say things like that and get away with it!

While we can still remember some of the many blessings we have had along our journey, let me share about these amazing adventures with each of you!

Since our cultural training class in NC, we have flown to Seattle to visit with our supervisors and support team members.  Now our brains are even more overloaded as we journey.  The flight to France was great, left Charlotte at 430 and arrived in France 7 and a half hours later.
The time difference is 6 hours, so we landed just after 6am local time.  Customs was a breeze, just a simple stamp in our passport, grab our bags, and we were on our way.

I was just telling a good friend of mine that we give up some comforts to be able to serve as missionaries, but along the way we meet some amazing people who become friends.  Some of these friends and these blessings:

-A friend arranged for us to get a ride from the airport to our school.  What a blessing!  We hope to treat this man to a fast food meal in the near future (he is American and confessed he missed Wendy's from home...maybe we can find a burger king or kfc, which they do have.

A family staying here in language school invited us to dinner with their family our first night here so we wouldn't have to worry about cooking our first day.

We were able to go shopping with some students today at the African Market.  They go every Friday after class.

A sweet 10 year old girl made us homemade chocolate chip cookies today to welcome us to class.  Her and her dad brought them up to our apartment this afternoon.

Many times when I'm getting a little down, or wonder if God has called me to do what I am doing, these little confirmations come to me.  It's as if God is speaking my love language to me to remind me of his provisions and faithfulness to me.  These reminders make it

We successfully have made 2 shopping excursions and installed new sims cards on our phones. 

Denise made chicken parmesan tonight for supper!  Did I say how blessed I am??  Oh, opps, almost forgot I was writing this in first person.  This should read, "Roy doesn't know how good he has it, that he was able to have chicken parm on his second night in France. He better pay up big time!"

Abby is doing well.  She has a sand box outside and has loved filling up trucks and her shoes with sand.  We met her teacher today, she will have 5 others in class with her.

We'll post pictures and more stories later this weekend.  For now, let us go off to bed so we can get on our routines.  Thanks for your encouragement and prayers!  Please let us know if you have questions for us.  We can answer those in later writings.

 
I have wanted to post this photo on our blog.  This map shows the farm that CEFA (Center of Education and Formation of Agriculture) operates in Gamboula, Central African Republic.  It is this site that Denise and I will be working and ministering to the Fulani.  Through this farm we can begin to study and better understand the agricultural management opportunities the people in CAR have available to them.

Looking at this map shows an area of roughly 1,000 acres.  You see small creeks that run through the property, which are used in 2 locations for tilapia fish farming.  Roy Danforth, the missionary present on the farm today, is pointing to one of these locations on the map.   I remember the director being somewhat disappointed by the lack of fish harvested.  Perhaps this is an area that can be improved on the farm.

You notice green grids along a large portion of the farm.  These are 2.5 hectare (5 acre) grids that have been designed for agroforestry.  Agroforestry is a key management component of successful agriculture in CAR.  In the US field crops want to capture all the available sunlight possible in order to maximize production.  In CAR, however, sunlight is available evenly throughout the growing season as it is near the equator.  So sunlight is in abundance and can actually overheat the soil.  Trees spaced appropriately can keep annual crops growing well without extreme temperatures in the soil.  Also, these trees have the potential to bring nutrients to crops.  Roots of trees that go deep into the soil can find such nutrients like phosphorus which are critical for plant and root health.  Specific species of trees can actually help fix nitrogen in the soil.  Trees can also provide fruit for many years to landowners.  The importance of a successful agroforestry program cannot be understated to farmers in CAR, and will be a major source of development taught on the farm to neighboring villages.

There are further items on the farm that I hope to develop further.  Kudzu, cowpea, and a peanut variety which does not produce seed have all shown potential on the farm.  Using these in a crop management system may help improve crop yields with the nutrients they provide to the soil.  Managed appropriately, these species can be of great benefit.

Another part of the CEFA farm are the nutrition gardens.  These are small raised beds, but exist to grow produce vegetables year round.  We hope to produce an abundance of vegetables that will aid in providing a full balanced diet to families.

A final area of the CEFA farm that we hope to develop related to crops is some of their major crops that are grown in the area.  A large portion of the Fulani frequently visit the local hospital in a malnourished state.  It is a major goal of the CEFA farm to improve food calorie crops that are available to the people in CAR.  Cassava is the major crop grown in the area, though corn and peanuts are also commonly grown.  If the farm can look at improved varieties of these crops that resist disease while producing a larger crop, this will add value to the Fulani's farms and their markets.  We will purposefully explore these possibilities and provide seed, tools, and knowledge to villages through these agricultural principles.

All the crop species and forestry work is being done on 2/3rds of this tract of land.  Let me introduce you to the last section of the property.  This is the part that is on the top-right of the above photo.  It is the livestock area of the farm, where Denise's love for animals will be explored. 

Denise will be asked to help evaluate their cattle production.  In doing this, she may explore grazing options--looking at grass species the cattle prefer, improving their diet with added milo, oats, millet, and other grass species, and introducing sectional grazing when an area of grass has been overgrazed to allow the area time to recover.  She will teach animal husbandry--taking care of the cattle, preventive care, noticing signs of skin infections, disease, etc.  She will teach basic things such as watering, how often to milk, basic clean up of their pen.  We would like the chance to help villages build their cattle herd population back up again as Fulani cattle herders move back into the area.  Perhaps we can do this in programs that gift an animal to a village, with the expectation that the village returns the gift in the form of it's offspring to sustain this project.  Denise will have cattle breeds that do well in the environment.  She will also work with other species, such as goats, sheep, and chickens for Fulani farmers to have other animals to raise.

You see there are many opportunities for us to explore in agriculture here on the farm.  I admit this is a dream job of mine to help manage a research farm such as this.  But let us not forget our purpose for doing this, and it is to build relationships in order to share the Gospel to those who do not know about our loving God and his saving grace in Jesus.  We desire to help the people have a better life.  But most of all we desire they know about Jesus.  Please pray that we find appropriate ways to share our faith while we model successful agriculture production techniques to them.

This is from Roy, who has blog-napped this space for the day.  For those of you still following our blog, we are sorry for the lapse in writing.  You see, we have had a few major events in our lives since July 2016.  

Here was our major event:

Isn't she adorable?  After 28 hours of labor (maybe harder for me I realized it would be, I'm glad for the modern advances of medicine that took some of Denise's pain away), we celebrated our Daughter Abby being born!   She was born September 23, 2016 at 1:08 am.

Meet our family, Christmas 2017:

And now we are embarking on an incredible journey as missionaries with CVM back to Africa to work with the Fulani in Central African Republic.  Many of the older blog posts tell a more of the story, and we will promise to add more to our story as we experience it.  So please follow along and encourage your friends and family to keep in touch with us.

We leave this Saturday March 17 to begin our cultural training sessions for 4 weeks in western NC.  On April 14 we will venture to Seattle to visit with our supervisors and other co-workers who support us here while we serve as field workers.  And we will be in France for 12 months learning French starting April 30.  So lots of moving parts these next few weeks and months.  Continue to pray for us for healthy adjustments (physically and emotionally) and pray that our heads and hearts will be opened and receptive to all that we are learning.