The Big Sand Box

Last week, we went to the sand dunes with several other families.  As soon as we got out of the vehicles, all the kids (small and big alike) shed their footwear and took off for the top of the dune.  Can you image a place that's more fun for kids?  What could be better that a huge open sand box with perfect sand and a huge hill?

It was great fun to jump in groups off the top of the dune.

Or roll all the way from the top to the bottom.

I love this picture of Silas launching himself off the dune with everything he can muster. 

Brynn and a friend pretended they were parched and dying for some water.

Here's a picture of us on top of the dune.

We watched a thunderstorm hit the city off in the distance on one side while the sun set on the other side.  A great evening was finished off with a picnic on the dunes and roasting marshmallows (sent out by Krista's parents). 

The Makings of a Dust Storm

This time of year, we get some pretty impressive dust storms around here.  We've had two in particular this year that are some of the most impressive dust storms we've seen during our years here.  These pictures are used courtesy of Ray (one of our MKs) who did a great job capturing the storm.  He happened to be on top of a tall plateau several miles outside of town.  From there, he had a incredible vantage point from which to view this vast storm approaching and then engulfing the city.  I'll share just a few of Ray's pictures, so you can be awed by the making of a dust storm.  In this picture, you can see the wall of dust starting to approach the city.  The dust storms are often on the front edge of a system of thunderstorms that are building.  Sometimes they are followed by rain, but not always.  They can be thousands of feet tall and miles long.

Here you can see the wall of dust towards the north.  This is just part of the line.

 And here's the line towards the south.  You can see the blue sky in front of and above the system.

Now it's getting closer to the city.

It gets darker as it approaches.  You can see it closing in on some of the bigger buildings in town.

 

 The line to the north has now covered the main part of the city. 

 

As the wall rolls over you, the sky turns dark red/orange.  You definitely don't want your laundry hanging on the line still when the dust storm hits.  This storm turned everything black as night when we were inside of it.  We couldn't even see one foot in front of us.

Here's the line to the south again as it is approaching two tall water towers on that side of town.  The water towers are dwarfed by the approaching wall of dust.

Here the water towers are being overrun by the wall.  One minute you are sitting in broad daylight with blue skies, and the next minute it is dark as night with howling winds and dust everywhere.  The dust covers everything and makes it way into all parts of your house even with the windows and doors closed. 

Here's our hangar after one of these dust storms.  Everything is covered with a thick layer of dust.  You can see the foot prints on the floor in the dust.  In the picture is our incredible hangar guard/helper who, without complaint, methodically went around cleaning the whole hangar after this storm, which was the 2nd one in about 3 days. 

Grocery Shopping Anyone?

We have a couple of small stores near us that carry a lot of the daily staples we use.  One day Krista was in one of these stores and saw an interesting sight.  There was a cat in the store and it was playing with a mouse in the aisle.  By the time Krista asked the owner if she could take a picture, the cat was bored with the mouse, but you can still see it by the red box on the left side of the picture.  This cat is now a fixture in the store in order to curb the mouse population.  The owner wasn't in any rush to remove the dead mouse laying in the aisle.

We also have 3 larger stores in town that are more similar to "grocery stores" we have in the States.  They have a section of packaged frozen items.  We saw this beauty sitting in one of the freezers.  It's a frozen chicken packaged nicely in a box.  As a special bonus, you get the whole chicken head/neck in the box too.  Any takers?

Sing It Out

 Krista filled a void at Sahel this year by teaching elementary music.  Every year is a an adventure and act of faith as the school tries to find volunteers to fill all the needed positions including teachers, administration, dorm parents, and maintenance supervisors.  This coming school year is no different.  There are multiple positions that still need to be filled.  If you know someone who'd be interested in investing a year or more teaching/helping at Sahel, let us know and we can put them in contact with the right people.  They'd be filling a critical role that helps the rest of us continue serving here knowing that our kids are getting a great education in a wonderful environment.

At the closing assembly, all of the elementary classes performed a song that they learned during the semester.  This is the kindergarten/1st grade class.  Elayna was in 1st grade.

Brynn's 2nd grade class.  Brynn was home-schooled this year, but she participated in music class and other special activities at Sahel.

Kira's 3rd grade class.  By the time the end of school assembly happened, half of the kids in their class had already left for various reasons.  The remaining 6 did a great job singing out.

The 4-6th grade classes had fun performing a Caribbean song.

No Greater Joy

 I'm not sure that there is any greater joy for a father than to see his children follow the Lord.  Brynn and Elayna took a big step a few weeks back.  They both chose to publicly declare their faith in their Lord Jesus by being bapt*zed, identifying with him in his death and resurrection.  The service was held in someone's pool with a gathering of people from the community here.  9 people were bapt*zed this day.

We're thankful for the wonderful community of people here who help mold and influence our children as they grow.

Learning the ropes

Ryden stayed with us for 2 months from April - June.  We took him on a flight to Galmi Hospital and left him there for a week to shadow several people in and around the hospital compound.

 

When he came back from Galmi we put him to work at the hangar.  His main task was to inventory the parts on these shelves.  They're parts for our Piper Saratoga, which we will be selling in the next year once the 2nd diesel plane arrives. 

 

 Inventorying the parts in an arduous task.  We're grateful for Ryden plugging away and entering the part numbers and descriptions for us.

Ryden also had a chance to watch as we did maintenance on the planes.  We pulled him away from the parts inventory for a day to open and close inspection panels on the plane as we did a routine inspection.

 One day a week, Ryden helped at Sahel Academy shadowing the man in charge of general maintenance.  At the end of the school day, he went with a group of students and staff to one of the local orphanages to play with the kids.

A visit here wouldn't be complete without a visit to see the giraffes.  Can you image using your tongue to pull leaves off the branches of a thorn tree completely covered with 2 inch long thorns?  Sounds painful to me!

A New Life

My friend, Ibrahim, who works for us recently had a new son.  This is his 5th child (4 are living... 2 boys and 2 girls).  It is a common story among families here to have lost one of more children to some kind of illness.

 I was off flying the day Ibrahim's son was born so Krista went to the maternity center to see his wife and baby.  When she arrived there, they were ready to release them so Krista piled the whole crowd into our vehicle and drove them home. 

Brynn and Silas were with Krista as well.  Brynn enjoyed holding the baby.  They visited with Ibrahim's family and visitors for a while. Everyone wanted pictures taken, which we'll print out later and give them copies.

The local custom is to hold a bâpteme (baby naming ceremony) on the 8th day after the birth.  Friends and family gather early in the morning.  The local leader for the major religion comes and performs a spiritual ceremony and then the name is revealed.  That name becomes the baby's first name and the first name of the father becomes their second name.  It's similar to saying "Jacob son of Isaac" and "Isaac son of Abraham."  The women and children gather inside the home and in the courtyard of the property.   

The men gather outside the gate on the street.  Plastic chairs are rented for the occasion.

Eventually, platters of food are brought to each group.  Sometimes it is rice or baguette and then sauce with a few chunks of sheep, goat or chicken meat in the sauce.  Everyone gathers around a platter and shares.  You use the utensils that God gave you (your fingers) and scoop up a handful of rice or baguette and then use it to soak up some sauce.

Kira's Agent Party

 

We celebrate Kira's birthday on her half birthday since her real birthday is so close to Christmas.  This year, Kira decided to have an Agent Party.

 The kids were welcomed to the training facility where they were given their junior agent ID badges and code names.  Senior agent Alpha Zulu introduced them to the role of a special agent and taught them how to use their agent supply kit if needed. 

Unfortunately, senior agent Alpha Zulu was captured by Captain Tantrum (aka Ryden) while the junior agents were taking a water break.  The junior agents were thrust into their first official mission:  capturing Captain Tantrum and rescuing senior agent Alpha Zulu along with the birthday cake and presents that Captain Zulu stole.

The junior agents sounded the alarm (party blowers that were issued in their agent kits) whenever they spotted Captain Tantrum.  They were careful to wear their agent masks to hide their identities whenever they went outside the training facility.

They had to learn on the fly as they found and followed clues step by step.

The junior agents worked together to decipher codes.

At one point, they untangled a complicated web.

 The clues at the end of the web were pieces of a map leading to the next clue.  At last they discovered a video recording that senior agent Alpha Zulu had left in case he was captured.  This message led them to a radio transceiver to contact the last remaining trusted senior agent.  He disclosed the location of Captain Tantrum's hideout.  The junior agents successfully captured Captain Tantrum who led them to Alpha Zulu and the stolen cake and presents.

The party was saved thanks to the skillful junior agents! 

A day in the bush

 

 I recently had the opportunity to spend a day in the bush with a friend from another organization.  This was also a great chance for Ryden to experience life in the bush and what is happening in this area.  Our destination was a village about 2 hrs from town where my friend's been going once every two weeks along with another coworker from our organization.  They first had contact with people in this village about 10 years ago.  There wasn't much interest back then from the villagers in having someone teach them about God's Story, so our coworkers focused their efforts elsewhere.  Then, about 3 years ago they heard that there was a group of people in this village asking for someone to come teach them.  They visited the village again and began teaching a group that quickly grew to 50-100 people depending on the week.  After a little while, the village chief told them that they couldn't come anymore.  This decision was met with some protests from the villagers, so they decided to hold a meeting.  Our friends were there at the meeting and told them to talk about it and let them know the decision.  As they discussed it, an older man finally said to the chief, "I didn't like you before you became chief and I don't like you now."  He continued on to say that he wanted the teaching to continue.  After that, the chief reluctantly agreed to let the meetings continue.

About 6 months ago, several people from the village (5, I think) came to the point where they were bapt*zed.  The day I went along would be the last visit with this group for about 6 months as both of our coworkers are on their home assignments now.  The goal for this visit was to help the group begin to understand how they could listen to an audio recording from the Word, ask questions about the passage and then glean truths from it to apply to their lives.  No one in the group knows how to read, so audio recordings are the only way they can hear and study God's Word.  

The trip began with us picking up a local pastor from town.  About 45 minutes outside of town, we stopped along the road where a small clan of women, children and a few men were waiting.  They were relatives of the man at our next stop and were hoping some of them could catch a ride to his place.  We agreed to take one of them (the son-in-law pictured above).

We then made another brief stop at the last bigger town to buy a bunch of straw.  Our coworker with whom I was traveling owns a few cows that his friend takes care of in the bush.  The straw was for the cows and it's cheaper to buy from the rice fields by the river than further out in the bush.

After another brief stop to buy a bag of mangoes as a treat for the group in the village, we arrived at our first planned stop.  This is the home of my coworker's friend, who is a believer and goes along to help translate.  Ryden is pictured here standing by the doorway. 

These two huts are also part of his home.  Now that the rains have started since our trip, these huts are actually surrounded by millet stalks starting to grow in the fields all around.  In a few months, the millet stalks will be taller than the huts and you wouldn't be able to see the huts from this view.

We went inside his home to visit and meet his family.  The man on the right is the head of the family and the one we were taking with us to the village.

Sitting on a shelf around the top of the wall were dishes and pots.  This is a display of the good "china," which is used for special occasions.  The "everyday ware" was sitting on a similar shelf on the other side of the hut.  

Next to the door were a number of clay pots which are filled with water used for drinking, cooking and cleaning.  The whole family will share the few cups sitting on top and dip them into the same pots.  The water is hauled from an open well about 1 km away.  

As we were visiting, this calf walked into the hut to get a drink of water from the same pots.  One of the daughters willingly hopped up to serve the calf a drink in the blue bucket.

Cooking is done over a wood fire.  The goats are lounging around next to the cooking area.  In the background are two small huts for chickens.

The main staple is millet.  Here two of the women in the family are pounding the millet for the next meal. 

The family sleeps on beds made of sticks.  This one was outside.  Each hut has 2-3 similar beds inside for sleeping as well.

 These are a few of the kids in the family.  They are precious, beautiful little girls made in the image of God.

After visiting for a little while, we loaded up again and continued on another 30 minutes into the bush to our destination.  The meeting happens under the one large shade tree in the area.  When we arrived, there were two of the older men laying on mats in the shade of the tree.  We joined them and sat around visiting while we waited for people to gather.  After about 20-30 minutes, we had a group of around 40 men, women and children.  My coworker had to wing it a little bit as his original plan for this last meeting fell apart when he learned that the local pastor with us didn't bring the tape player and recordings that he wanted play for the group.  My coworker speaks one of the local tribal languages, but most of the people in this gathering are from another people group who speak a different language.  He wanted to play the passage for the meeting in their language so that they could understand it better.  Instead, he ended up reading it in the local language he speaks and then someone loosely translated it into the other language.  There was good interaction and feedback from the group as he asked them questions and had them work on gleaning the truths from the passage for themselves.

At the end, he emptied the sack of mangoes on one the mats and the older men distributed them to the group.  Everyone was very grateful. 

On the way back, we stopped again at the family's group of huts to drop off the folks from there.  We picked up some more cargo (grass thatch rolls used for making the huts) to be hauled part way and dropped off on the way back to town.  The man of the family continued with us part way as well.  We dropped him off at the home of a friend he wanted to visit who had just lost a child.