Busy Days

Here's what Ben thinks about picture day!!

Ben's Vridi Canal fan club

The days of April flew by in a blur.  I was looking at the date in number form yesterday and trying to figure out how I was reading it wrong.  The African way of writing the date is day first then month, so I am often puzzling out the date, but this time that 5 at the first really did mean the fifth month.  WHEW!  How did that happen?

I owe a big thank you to all of those that prayed for me during the pastors' wives retreat last month.  It went off fairly well.  Getting used to how some things are done will take time.  The very first night we ate supper at 9:30 PM!  I was getting a little hungry by then.  At every gathering here in Abidjan, a prayer session is held where a leader guides the prayers for things like confession of sin, prayers for the country, prayers of praise and thanksgiving.  The morning of day 2 rise and shine was at 5 AM, so after quickly taking my cold shower, I was wandering around trying to find a quiet spot to read my Bible (and possibly catch a nap Sshh!!) I got pulled into an impromptu prayer meeting.  At 7:30 was an official prayer meeting before breakfast, 9:00 for one after breakfast and by 9:30 I found myself led in a confession of sins for the fourth time that morning!!!  To be honest, the fourth was probably a bit worthwhile as I needed to confess my bad attitude about all of this confession! ;)  If I kept count correctly, we confessed our sin a total of 6 times corporately!!  I needed the sixth most of all as it was just before the second night of eating dinner after 9PM!!  My stomach was growling out loud and I really had a headache and my attitude was neither gentle nor kind at that point.    Note to all, the white missionary needs food at regular intervals. ;)

After dinner, or midnight snack that is, I got a call that one of my Vridi friends had lost her little sister.  She was quite distraught and I wanted to get back right away.  The retreat was out of town and finding transportation at that hour wouldn't have been safe.  I decided to wait until the next morning's 5 AM wake up call to look for a ride.  I was really a little disappointed at that time with how the time had gone.  I didn't feel like we were connected.  As we all should have been getting ready for bed, one of the women started calling us all back for a debate.  She was playing it off very silly, but when we all got together it was clear that she was honestly broaching a very serious woman's issue.  Through silliness for the next two hours we talked and were real with one another.  It was my favorite part of our time together.

I missed the last few hours of the retreat, but I needed to get back to town to be with my friend.  I helped her walk through the legalities of death in a couple of hours and stood by her side as she bid her sister farewell.  Death isn't pretty anywhere, but here, they make no attempt to hide its ugliness.  It was very hard for me to stand with her as she viewed her sister one last time.  To add to that, crying is not permitted.  Many people here believe that crying hinders the departed ones ability to pass on to heaven.   Too many tears could block their route entirely.  One of the saddest parts to me is that to the best of my knowledge, this woman died without Christ.  No amount of crying or not crying was going to help her.  As tears silently rolled down my friend's face, I comforted her as best I could.  Others were quick to demand she stop.  This is something that will never be easy for me.  I've learned new things about cemeteries here, most of them I didn't want to know.  I'll spare you the details!

As the next week played out we did some strategizing for our team.  We've been busy writing up requests and trying to get the man power to accomplish some work in the next few years.  We have some exciting things on the horizon.  Hopefully we'll be very sensitive to the Lord's work and follow well his plan for this city.

We are looking forward to a team that is coming next week.  We will be happy to have 3 guys from Parkwood BC in North Carolina.  The kids are looking forward to the end of school.  Looks like we'll stay busy for the summer too.

Let us know if you are looking to come our way!
With Love,
Heather