Psalm 91 by Caleb Karis and Benjamin!!!

The kids learned 2 verses a week for 7 weeks until the memorized the entire chapter!!!  Ben even helps them a little in this video.  enjoy!!!

Mike

Ben Turns 2

Thanks Nana and Papa!

Playing in the Rain

Dancing in the Rain

Not sure what they are supposed to be here!

Playing in the sprinkler

Pushing Dad down the slip 'n slide, shortly before Mom got thrown down the slip 'n slide

Blowing out the candles

Cake good!

We celebrated Ben's second birthday yesterday. It rained all morning, but that didn't bother Ben much. We had planned to play in the morning with water toys in the yard. Since Ben was OK with the rain, we just played in the rain in the yard with water toys.

In the afternoon we got ready for a dinner meeting with another family and made a cake for the big day. Everyone around celebrated. I roasted a chicken for supper with mashed potatoes (Karis' favorite). The chicken head, feet and organs went to the man that helps us around the house, he was delighted. The skin, bones and some meat went to the evening guards, they couldn't say thank you enough times. I drew a little Elmo face in icing on Ben's cake. It was a rather pitiful attempt, but he recognized it. All went well until I cut the cake and Elmo's face was on four pieces. I never could understand if Ben was upset that I cut Elmo or that he didn't get all four pieces!

Since we didn't buy a gift for Ben to bring, we had to get that here. He got a goofy little plastic guitar, which he LOVES, and some million dollar bubbles! OK, they weren't a million dollars, but knowing I can buy a couple gallon in the states for less than we paid does not make me feel great about the purchase. Ben thinks they are super wonderful, though, so I guess that works.

So, it was a pretty good day. A little weird, but a good day.

Heather

Ben "If You Give a Pig a Pancake"

This is Ben reading his favorite book. "If you give a Pig a Pancake."

Mike

Saturday Fun

It was a rainy day today. There wasn't much to do for most of the day. But around 5:00 the clouds broke and so we got out the slip 'n slide. All of the kids love water, so that's always a hit.

Thought you might like to see some smiling faces today. Gotta save my real news for the October prayer letter. Let me know if you need to get on our email list for that!

Love,
Heather

Beauty for Ashes

When we came back from our time in the states and Canada, our yard was looking a bit neglected and pitiful. With the wonderful tropical climate here, even me, being a terrible gardener, can keep a few flowers going. With lack of love and care the flower beds were a little ragged. With just a little watering and weeding they are looking a little better now.

It reminds me of the scripture where God promised beauty for ashes. We all make a pretty good mess of our lives, but with just a touch from the creator, He can make something good from what we have ruined.

Embarrassing Moments

So, a funny thing happened today. I was about to write up a blog about a typical occurrence in my life and the electricity goes out. Talk about typical. Fortunately I have battery and some time to kill, so here goes.

I’ve thought for a while about writing this incident, as it is really a great picture of life around here. For all of you that are prim and proper, this may not be the post for you. I can nearly see my sweet Grandma fainting and my wonderful Grandpa saying, “I thought we taught that girl better than this.” Maybe this won’t get back around to them, but at any rate, here goes.

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know that I spend a lot of my time in Vridi. It is a lower income neighborhood in our fair city. I came to love it nearly at first sight and have been there regularly for nearly 4 years. Many of the people there are immigrants along with a good helping of my precious Burkinabe women and a host of other lovely people. I’d guess that most of the families that live there make $5 or less a day for their whole family! Many of the houses are made of pieces of falling apart wood nailed together with a piece of metal on top, patched with plastic to keep it semi rain proof. Most often they don’t have running water. The family, which is often 7 or so people, lives in an 8X10 room. They cook outside on a little fire or a gas burner. They share a common “outhouse” that is nothing more than walled, no ceiling, stall with a tile or concrete floor and a drain at the back to take away excess liquid. They would use this for using the bathroom and showering. They would bring in their own bucket or small pitcher or water to use as this area doesn’t have running water either. As many as 5 families or so would share this “outhouse”.

So now that you are all up to speed on the background details that you can’t see, here comes today’s story. I always make sure I use the restroom before heading out to my beloved Vridi for reasons that I am sure are already clear to you! This particular day I didn’t need to go, but I did what my Mom always told me on long car trips and went anyway. We’d had a particularly spicy African lunch and it didn’t really register in my head that I had probably put down a half gallon or so of tea. I was in a hurry as usual and hit the ground running. After about 10 minutes of the car ride there, I realized I “needed” to go again. I should have stopped somewhere at that point, but since I had just gone, I figured it would be OK. After another 10 minutes of the trip, things had gotten to be more of an emergency. I began to look everywhere for a place to stop, but I’d gotten out of the more modern part of the city and couldn’t find any place. I began running through my options in my head and none of them were good. I had about 10 more minutes on the ride to Vridi. I could make it, but it wasn’t going to be easy. I had 20 minutes to get back home and I couldn’t make that. I could have an accident in the car, but then I’d have to walk past the guard and our visitor that was at the house. Not a good option. If I made it to Vridi, the only possibility of in door plumbing would be at a pharmacy and I didn’t think they’d let me back into the medicine area to use theirs if they had one. Being turned away at that point would have probably caused an accident before I could get to another place. This left my only real option of going to some of my acquaintances house where I park my truck and asking to use their “outhouse.” I don’t know these ladies very well yet, but I figured now was as good a time as any to get better acquainted! ;)

All of this terrible problem was compounded by the fact that I wouldn’t be able to use any polite language to describe my predicament. I would generally ask for a toilet, but knowing they wouldn’t have one, made that choice of words impossible. Other polite phrases I know are not always understood by the type of women I would be asking and so I was about to have to walk up to a lady and say, “I have to pee now!” I was excited to see two young teenage girls sitting in the place of my new friends and figured this would be the least embarrassing route anyway. So I walked up and blurted out my phrase. To my chagrine they looked at each other and pointed down the street and said go that way. Now at this point, I HAD TO GO! I didn’t know if they were pointing me to a public toilet, which would consist of several holes in the ground for which I’d have to pay a few cents. I didn’t know if I had a few cents, but I did know I didn’t have time to find it nor the public toilet. So I looked at the closest adult female there and again repeated my phrase. She started to look around and I got desperate. I dropped all sort of manners and formality and said, “I have to PEE NOW!” clapping my hands to punctuate my need. She seemed to understand and started walking back to her house. She didn’t say a word, but I followed like a hungry puppy. She went into her house, but did not invite me. I waited at the door and she returned and signaled for me to follow. There were a few women in her courtyard and she looked at them all and announced, “MamaBenjamin has to pee.” GREAT! Now even more people know. I wave and smile politely. Not sure what my response is supposed to be at this point.

She turned on her heal and headed back out of the courtyard. I have no idea where we are headed, but what choice do I have at this point? We headed down into the next courtyard. We find a lady with a baby in her lap. They have a short discussion, then my “helper” announces AGAIN, “MamaBenjamin has to pee!” REALLY?! Another smile and wave. “Well you can’t take her in there!” says the other lady. “Oh yes she can!” I say. On we go.

Now we come to yet another LARGE group of women. Here we go again. 1…2…3… “MamaBenjamin has to pee!” I’m figuring at this point we should just get a megaphone and let the whole neighborhood know so as to save some time. I gave up with the smile and wave now and try a desperate look. Now my “helper” turns to me and matter of factly says that the woman to my right just lost her mother. HORRIBLE timing! I murmur I’m so sorry and then look to the closest person begging for the directions to the outhouse. She says, “You can’t take her in there it’s dirty!” “It’s fine,” I say. “OK, but I don’t have any water in my pitcher. I’ll have to go get some.” “Water or no, I have to GO!” Another lady offers up her pitcher with an amused grin. As I am ushered around the next corner, I gladly run for the tiny wooden smelly space. I couldn’t have been happier to be anywhere else! As the immediacy of my problem fades, I now realize that I must walk back past all of the women who are just now discussing the nutcase that is using their outhouse.

You’ll be proud to know that I got myself together. Walked back out like nothing was going on and faced those ladies. I walked directly to the poor soul that had just lost her mother and asked for the details. After being sufficiently informed, I asked to pray for her. This also gave me a few seconds to ask for divine help for my wounded ego. Fortunately it also gave me time to remember that He cares more about my humility than my comfort. I drew myself back up, thanked all of the women for their kindness and hit the road to find some more friends and see if anybody needed to hear a story.

I am sure that news of my exploits has leaked far and wide by now. I hope that I have been sufficiently deflated so that more humiliation can wait a few days anyway.

Here’s hoping that I have decreased so that He can increase.

Heather

New Friends All Around

So something unexpected has come with our return. Everyone is making new friends. As I'd already mentioned, word has gotten out about my Moore speaking skills (or lack thereof) and that has won me some new buddies in Vridi. Mike has turned into a tea drinker so that he can hang with some new buddies in Marcory. Some men drink a mint tea that goes on for several rounds. The tea gets weaker and sweeter as you go. I'd found some guys that get together every afternoon to drink tea. They kept wanting to talk to me and so I figured I'd introduce them to Mike. They are very friendly, but also very closed to the gospel. We'll see how it goes in the long run.

We'd found a little basketball court that the kids played at some. Now they took down the goals, so there is no way to play there, but there is a soccer field right beside it. As we've been in the area for the last few weeks, Caleb has gotten more comfortable with the kids there and has started to play soccer with them some. Fortunately sports is a universal language and their love of sports helps them all to just all hop in there together.

Most of the kids in that neighborhood are Ivorian and the little girls are usually busy helping mom or when they are a bit older than Karis, getting their own work. We've run into a few girls, but girls don't usually play ball. That means that Karis would have to make small talk and that is more complicated than just language skills. It means knowing what a little girl that age would talk about here. Since that is complicated, Karis has had a hard time finding buddies. She had a buddy during our first year here, but since she moved away, not much else.

Yesterday I had our pile of kids out and about. They were all grumbling except for Ben who was enjoying the stroller outing. The big kids knew that the walk was going to be over 2 miles round trip and weren't thrilled about that. Caleb was griping that he wanted to go play soccer with his new buddies, but that involved a separate 3 mile walk that I wasn't up for in the hour or so before I had to start dinner. Since he's twelve now, he thinks he can do anything, but I didn't want him making that long trip alone including crossing a 4 lane divided highway. Since we all know that moms of 12 year olds are all mean, you get the gist of the conversation. Finally a few blocks from home, we found another group of boys playing soccer and so he joined them with promises of being home in an hour. Karis, Ben and I hit the road and as we were just about home, we ran into a pack of girls on bikes. There must have only been 7 or 8, but as we stopped to talk to them they were all talking at once and I thought there were 50. After there initial shock that children in the US don't speak French they speak English, we had a few other interesting discussions. They each pointed out the houses they belonged to, right on our road, but behind HUGE walls. After I carried on with them for 20 minutes or so, I left Karis to talk to them. First I had to pry her fingers off of my shoulder and pull her out from behind me. Then Ben and I made a sprint for our gate and slammed the door. ;) She was afraid at first, but after a few minutes, the girls had begun to be buddies. When they all had to go home a half hour later, they were all sad and we tried to figure out when they could get back together. They wanted to come to the gate to get Karis this morning at 9, but since today is Sunday that didn't work. They were here around 3 this afternoon when Caleb and Karis went out to greet them. They took them back to one of their houses to swim. Since they had 3 nannies with them, there were no worries! Now I just need to hook Ben up with a family like that, I can sit around and do nothing all day! Unfortunately school is an all day affair here, so there will only be the weekends to play, but that is better than nothing! We are so thankful for new friends.

Now if I can only form my new Vridi friends into storying groups, we'll be all good!

Love,
Heather