Sunday, November 9, 2008

Life and Ministry

Now that the awaited visit is over and our conferences for the year are over, we are back to normal stuff around here. Caleb and Karis are enjoying their extracurricular activities too.

I am enjoying the extra time to spend with my friend Agira. She's such a sweet lady. She believes the stories I tell her, but has told me this week that she has made her choice and she will be Muslim until she dies. I pray that God will change her heart and she will see Jesus as the only way. For now I am enjoying her love for people and life and soaking up all of the cultural knowledge she openly shares with me. I stood in her yard and washed clothes last week. It was great!! :) Don't get me wrong, I've washed things out by hand before, but not out in the yard of a precious African lady who has done this every week since she was a child. You would not believe the amount of begging and pleading and coercing I had to do to be able to do that too. It helps to be a stubbornly, independent American. And if I thought being a blaringly white lady in a West African city was a spectacle, being a blaringly white lady washing laundry in somebody's yard was up there with little green spacemen!!! Now if I can only get Agira to stop giggling when she tells people that she didn't pay the white lady she hired to work at her house because she didn't do a good job, I'll be famous!

I've been enjoying spending some time with a university student who is a new believer. Seeing the Lord work in her life to teach her and bring her another step closer to completion in him is great fun!

I even got to spend a little bit if time with a lady from our church this week. French learning is a lot more fun if you do it while chatting with friends from here there and everywhere!

Our Vridi storying groups are still coming along. In one group, the Muslim with whom we have been storying prayed to accept Christ as Savior. Please pray for him as he explores what all that means for him and his family. Two other groups are also quickly moving toward the arrest, trial and crucifixion. Pray for them as they count the cost of following and are faced with a decision. We are especially missing our supervisor right now and her great insight into this cultural as we continue on. We'll be glad to welcome them back again in late December.

Life is excitingly normal around here too. There are many possibilities in the coming months that are keeping us on our toes. Our new teammates will be joining us in just over a month! We have some churches we are talking with about the possibility of partnering with us! A new baby will be born to my sister's family the first part of next year making the 3rd neice/nephew that I will be thrilled to meet for the first time at our next homecoming! A strategist is still on track to be with us for the first couple of months of the new year to help us really get going here in the city. We have a team coming from our home church in May. And we may get to have a group of seminary students be with us in the fall of next year! All in all, the possibilities are huge and we are so grateful for the many ways God is working! We'll have much to thank God for this Thanksgiving, not to mention all of you!!!

Sorry there are no pictures this time. I need to carry the camera around more!

Our love to all.
Heather

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