Birthday Time

We've celebrated two birthdays now in Africa. Caleb turned 9 the 27th of May and I am now 31 as of the 7th of June. For Caleb's party we had the whole mission gang over for pizza and cake. We'd intended to go go carting, but since we are now in rainy season, that didn't work out so well. We ended up staying home and peeling bananas with our feet. It was good for a laugh, I suppose. Caleb got two cakes because he had one that Auntie Barbara made for his party and one that Mom made for his real birthday.

We hope that you are enjoying your summer! Happy Father's day, Dad, McDad, and Grandpa!!! We love you.
Love, Heather

Sad Day!

I know that you probably already have heard of the passing of my friend, but I've felt the need to blog her story. Aissatou was a 32 year old widow with a 20 month old beautiful daughter. I met her in the first weeks I was here in Abidjan. We were instantly friends as she agreed to help me learn French. To start with, I visited her at her house at least once a week just for her to talk to me. Not long after that, her little daughter had wrapped me around her little finger and both Aissatou and Faridah were constant figures in our lives. Everyone that has visited us has met her, because she was so often here. When the kids or I were sick, she was here to say "Bon Guerison!", if we were absent for very long, she'd show up on the doorstep to say, "It's been two days!" We saw her anywhere from 3 times a week up to everyday.

Aissa got sick a few weeks ago. At first it was just some pain that she worked through. She even came over and cooked for our team. I encouraged her to go to the doctor from the start, but she didn't want to. By two weeks ago, she was so sick she couldn't get up and allowed me to take her to the hospital. A friend helped me pay for what she needed and she was released. She was never well again after that. We took her back later in the week, but she passed away at her own home Saturday of last week. I'd seen her just a few minutes before she died, but had no idea it would be the last time I saw her. The funeral was held the very same day.

Her little girl is with Aissatou's dad right now. They are trying to decide what to do with her. She most likely will not stay here across the street from us.

Aissatou's family is Muslim and her deceased husband's family is Catholic. Pray with us that somehow Faridah may someday accept Jesus as her Savior. Pray also that we'll have opportunities to share with her family. Aissatou had professed faith in Jesus some months ago and had been to church nearly every week since.

Thanks for sharing in my memories of a dear African sister.

Go Team!

Our first volunteer team survived 10 days in West Africa! We were grateful to have 4 college students from North Carolina here with us last week! We enjoyed the time with them although I've discovered that I'm getting old. While they were here, it suddenly occurred to me that college was a long time ago. Oh well!

They helped us map out a lot of the Baptist churches in our city and meet and pray for many pastors. Most of the pastors here were incredibly touched that someone had come to pray for them. So many times pastors here like there are asked to pray for others, but very rarely does someone ask to pray for them.

We also got to spend time in 3 different areas of our city praying for the lost and giving our testimonies/gospel presentation. We ran across many Muslims and Catholics and got to talk to them about our faith.

2 days were set aside to do kids' clubs. At the first one, we very easily had around 300 kids. There were 6 of us and 1 translator and 300 KIDS!!! The goal of that particular afternoon quickly turned into getting us and each kid through the afternoon without any permanent injury occurring. The concept of waiting in line or waiting for your turn is pretty foreign here, so you can imagine what that pile of kids was like. After we had finished, we paraded through the neighborhood with it last half of those kids following us. There were at least 10 or 20 at any given time hanging off of the college kids. We piled in the van and managed to back out of the place we were parked without squishing anyone and then our van was chased for about a half mile.

Our second kids club was slightly more calm. We were out in a village setting and the kids were more patient about their turn. There were only about 75 of them, so it wasn't as out of control.

We ate a lot of West African food. Everybody was great about that. The very first day when I thought we were safe at church, we were served a ginger drink that makes me want to cry every time I have to get it down. The rest of the week was a walk in the park after that, although I will have to say that the large green balls of something we had to eat one night was a little more of a challenge.

I'll try to get in some pictures of us in action in the next few days.

Other than team stuff, life goes on as usual. We said goodbye to a missionary last month, we'll lose 3 this month and then one more next month. Add to that that we'll be sending Uncle Jeffy and Auntie Barbara home in June to Benin and you can see that we'll be having some sad days. Everybody out here is family. We've all left family and friends far away and are here for a common goal. We need each other to make it, and the coming and going of friends/family marks our lives here.

French is still coming. Everyday I'm sure I learn more and more, but we are still far from understanding everything. High stress situations quickly bring all that I know down to about 0 comprehension! I have a friend who was asking me how much longer we are going to be learning French. When I told her we still had a long way to go, she was incredulous. She figures we should be moving on to something more interesting, like her language. :)

Right now we are looking forward to Birthday celebrations. Caleb's birthday is Tuesday. I can't believe it is upon us already!!! He'll be 9! We are planning to ride GoKarts Sunday afternoon with some of the missionaries here and then eat pizza and cake. Sounds pretty American, huh?

We are also excited about some more friends coming from North Carolina! A team of 4 men from our church are visiting a West African country this week. They are going to take a long layover here in Abidjan and spend a couple of nights with us. I'm not really sure what other parts of West Africa are so interesting, we think Abidjan about has it all wrapped up!! ;) Just teasing! I suppose we can share our great church with the rest of the region! ;)

I nearly forgot that we added another member to our family. We got the four legged barking variety this time. Daisy is a little mess. She loves to chase toads after dark in our yard. She is a friendly little thing and will hopefully be fun for years to come. Don't worry, Shadow and Kip, you are still our favorite dogs in the whole world.

We love and miss you all!
Heather

A Free Gift

Every Tuesday we have been going to a little neighborhood teaching some people about Christ. A lot of the people in this neighborhood are Muslim, so it is an extremely slow process to tell them about Christ. However, we have had some men come and demand that we tell them about Christ. So every Tuesday we have all been going to this little neighborhood (Vridi) telling the good news of Jesus Christ to these men and some women. This last Tuesday the men decided that they wanted to give us something back. So here is our free gift from these men. Her name is Crissy. Isn't she cute!!! Caleb and karis are thrilled. Crissy is still a little afraid of children. She came from a home that had about 10 kids and she was abused a little. But, over the last couple of days she has started to warm up to Caleb and Karis. In the last two pictures she is lying/sleeping under Karis' chair as Karis does her school work.

Names and Appearances Have Been Altered to Protect the Innocent!

In West Africa, things are not always as they appear to be. We had a nerd party to say goodbye to our favorite office worker here. She is wrapping up her time in Abidjan this week and heading off to the good old USA to bless the rest of the world with her always positive spirit. She'll be sorely missed, but don't worry there were no tears shed at this goofy party! It is a little bit difficult to remember that you are sad when you are looking at a fully grown human being across from you with their hair sticking in all directions, tape on their glasses and a huge calculator in their front pocket!! If you ever have to have a going away party you should try it. Also fun, try explaining to an African what you are wearing, why and what exactly is a nerd. Slightly more amusing, explain in limited French why your friend is wearing a sign on her back that says, "I eat paste!"

Another oddity to our life here, Caleb and Karis have taken to collecting strange pets! Now, we all miss our dogs. The kids have never lived without at least 2 animals in their house and we've been without our pets for about 9 months now. We currently have a pigeon, who was caught and wings clipped by our guard before he sent the kids to ask for the thing. At any given moment the kids have a box of snails in the front yard, that Mom insists that the lid be left off so they can make their not so quick getaway when they get tired of their prison. Also known to be in boxes around here are a variety of sizes of toads that live here. In French toad is crapaud (pronounced crappo), similar to the name I might come up with for the critter if I were picking names!! ;) They've very frequently tried to catch the millions of lizards that run around this place most measuring in around the 6-10 inch range. Fortunately they can't seem to catch them! And we have bats that live in the trees in our front yard, not that we encourage that, but they live there nonetheless. Now I love pets, I really do. I just prefer pets with fur that either say bow wow or meow. We would love to have our dogs from home and don't know that I'll ever give up on that, but for now I'm thinking we might need to get something more along the lines of a traditional pet to hold us over.

French is still going well. You just get to this point and you realize how very long you've worked at this and how very far you are from where you want to be. We are still telling stories in Vridi once a week. Tomorrow is Cain and Abel for some and creation for others and stories about Paul for even others. I sure hope I can keep track of who is which lesson!!!

Baby Jeremiah is still doing well. We hope to be able to see him sometime soon, but Mom says he's getting bigger.

We are excitedly awaiting our first volunteer team. We can't wait to get them here and spend some time getting out into the city. We are planning to do some research, prayerwalking and just outright evangelism. I'll try to get a prayer schedule out soon if you'd like to pray for them. We are also thrilled about skipping a week of formal French classes to hit the street and really see what we've got. We thought about doing without a translator, but decided we didn't want to put the team through that kind of torture. We do want them to come back after all!

It is book time in the McAfee household. Come on over and I'll read you a story before bedtime!

Love,
Heather

Where's the Monkey?

If you look really close, there are monkeys in those trees. In the other picture, the two little white monkeys wearing their favorite PJs crashed out together are wiped out from a long day in the bush! They enjoyed spending time in the village.



This is one of our night guards here at the compound sporting his new bike! The kids had to go fetch theirs bikes so as not to be outdone.

We've been to the bush! Can't say we were all that impressed with the long ride and bumpy road. Quite honestly even using the word road is somewhat misleading, I prefer to think of it as a string of multi sized potholes with an occasional set of ruts for your tires and the odd stretch of creek in the middle of it! Mike kept saying that for all of the safari effect we were getting, we really should be seeing some animals. We saw the occasional cow and many sheep, goats and dogs. Not exactly what we hoped for.

The village we stayed in was fun, though. We were able to meet the chief and his family. We also got to watch the ladies draw water from the well and carry it on their heads. We even saw little girls about Karis' size carry a huge bucket of it on their head.

Karis is now completely well. She's running around like a wild Indian again and enjoying life. My arm is also much better. Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers for us.

We have a new French tutor now. She seems to be very capable of taking us to the next level of French. We are still plugging along. We are actually able to learn and tell some Bible stories now if we apply ourselves and find patient listeners.

We are also looking forward to having our first volunteer team soon. We can't wait to see friends from home!!

We love hearing from you guys. Skype, email, come, whatever! ;) Send us pictures of you too.

Love to all,
Heather