Hot day

the girls don't know what they're missing when it comes to kiddie pools and such, and they manage to have a great time on our porch with water!

it's hot days like today that I think about how I would pay good money for one of those plastic pools but we're making do. :)

Hope for Life

Here is a young lady with her sweet baby girl.

She had some very difficult circumstances surrounding her pregnancy. Through our unofficial "sponsor" program, she was able to get the help she needed and because of this she kept her baby, although initially she wanted to have an abortion. We are very thankful for the people who help women like her and if you are interested in being a sponsor for another woman who finds herself with similar difficulties, post a comment below or contact me to let us know.

Kids Games

On Wednesday our pastor organized a kids’ game day event in our neighborhood. They had a team of young people visiting specifically to do kids ministry so after doing events in various neighborhoods they came to our house. The team was from different towns all around the country and it was fun to see how energetic they were and what a great job they did with the kids. Here’s a picture of a few of the team members on our porch:

Orcxance with the other pastor who came:

The team walked to our house from our church (quite a distance) and got an early start setting everything up for the games. I got a chance to practice my hostess skilled which is something I was looking forward to doing well (after my visit to Point Noire I was really inspired to be better at it.) Our pastor brought the breakfast supplies and I got down to business getting everything set up on our porch. I heated water for tea and coffee, set out every last cup we had, and made mayonnaise and sausage sandwiches for everybody. After the team had breakfast I washed everything so it would be ready for water breaks later and then the kids started coming.

About 90 kids showed up in our backyard and the team organized them into smaller groups. They did bag races, musical chairs, relay races, some balloon game, dancing and several other games that were new to me. One involved trying to get a loop around a bottle stuck in the sand. The loop was attached to a fishing pole stick with string. My girls enjoyed the balloons but were too timid to join in most of the activities, except Molly did do the candy string game.

In addition to leading fun activities and games they shared the gospel and told Bible stories. Here’s a picture of the littlest group hearing the story of David and Goliath.

The little kids also played the “cut down the candy” game in which they are blindfolded and snip at strings with candy attached. They get the piece of candy if they can cut it down.

Orcxance wanted us to make something special for the team and decided on flatbread pizza but we didn’t know how many there were until they showed up. So we ended up cutting all the little pizzas in half so everyone just got a sample.

Orcxance only did a few hours at work and was able to be home helping with everything and it was so fun to be working on something together. We made a good host team. While he was buying water, soda and other snacks, I was cooking for the team. Then we played one of the games together and handed out stuff as needed.

Being an expert at improvisation he also helped get the speaker system out to the yard behind our house and connected it via some sketch extension cords and wires. and Eileen got pretty excited about getting candy...

The Beach

Thanks to the generous hospitality of some longtime CMA missionaries, we got to visit Point Noire after the conference and visit the beach twice!

Going to the ocean on the Congo coast has been a dream of mine for a long time and I hope we can come back as a family for vacation here.

We went to two different beaches, one was walking distance from the house where we stayed, although the path to get there was a little unique.

We also went to the early morning fish market down on the coast and loaded up on ocean fish to take home to Oyo.

Shekinah (currently being hosted by the missionary couple) and I at one of the beaches:

Meanwhile the girls had fun making dirt creations with papa, seeing 12 chicks emerge from the nest, and eating lots of cookies.

I came home to a luscious tomato harvest and some very happy children!

C&MA Women’s Conference

I am currently spending a few days down south with our pastor's wife Jeanne at a women's retreat.

See the map (we went from Oyo to Dolisie (circled in red)

It took two days on the bus to get there and we got to stop overnight in Brazzaville and see my sister in law Joseline. Orcxance took time off and stayed home with the girls.

It has been a really great time so far!