The Bus Fell in the Water

We've been enjoying our time back in Abidjan even though a lot of our time over the last few weeks has been hearing the difficult stories of friends from their time during the crisis here. I had wanted to write here some of their stories, but there were some pretty terrible things that happened and so I've decided to cancel that idea. We knew they'd lived through hunger and thirst, fear and gunfire. I was a little unprepared for the torture that happened right in the street.

Our Vridi friends had been glad to tell us that although they suffered hunger and fear, for the most part, they suffered the crisis without permanent loss. This week, loss came to Vridi.

Mike, Ben and I arrived in Vridi Friday morning to visit some people. Ben hadn't made an appearance yet at Vridi and he is a BIG attraction! Soon after we'd gotten there one of the people that passed us in the street stopped us to say that "a bus had fallen in the water". The French at Vridi is always interesting and she was indicating another part of town, so I couldn't figure out her story. Besides that, I didn't know her from the man in the moon and so we moved on. Upon arriving at the stall of my market friends, I was not even greeted properly before the whole story came rushing out. There was a city bus crammed full of people, many of them from Vridi, that had an accident on a bridge and as a result, tipped over the side and plunged into the lagoon. 37 were quickly found dead and 10 survived. The numbers will most likely rise to around 100 men, women and children, as this was a busy time of day for the bus. For me the worst of the news was that the husband of a friend was among those on that bus. She waited around 36 hours to hear the final news. Her name is Marie and she has a daughter just younger than Ben. She is Catholic, but has listened to many of my stories. Pray for her tonight as she deals with her first night of no hope! Pray too that I can be an encouragement and a comfort to her in the coming days, weeks, months.

Heather

Catching Up

Belcarra Park

I thought Caleb was the only mountain goat in the family.

Celebrating Mike's Bday with a few more days in Vancouver

Ben loves water, expecially falls

Karis, Ben and I went to Bridal Falls while the other two took the trailer for the biker church.

Here's Ben and Karis at the bottom of the falls.

Lily Pad Lake!

Happy fisherman getting his gear ready

bird

Caleb chipped his front tooth in a scooter trick gone wrong the second full day in Africa.

Chicken and Fry night is back!

Potato Chefs

Ben knows how to carry his liquids in carry ons.

Last picture in Vancouver

I guess it's time for a little catch up. As I mentioned last time Mike hurt his knee a few days before our departure date and we did indeed receive a 2 week 1 day delay in our return for him to get physical therapy. Thanks to your prayers, the injury wasn't as significant as first thought. I think it is entirely possible that miraculous healing took place as all of the physicians were thinking it was BAD! What was found on the MRI was not nearly as bad as first thought. We are all glad to now be on the field instead in line for surgery somewhere!

While in Canada for the extra weeks, we moved to a different house to save the company some money and so our internet was off and on for that time. Here is a little run down of some of our adventures.

Caleb convinced a colleague with a vehicle to help him get his fishing license, which we'd tried to do earlier, but were unsuccessful. The laws were tricky and finding some place that could actually print a license was quite time consuming. Armed with his new fishing license and later on a new pole, we tromped here and there so that he could use it. One such adventure was at my expense and chronicles how many of my adventures, or misadventures as may be more suiting a name, go. I'd worked all day with the kids of a new group of colleagues coming to Vancouver and upon arriving home, found Caleb chomping at the bit to fish. I quickly made supper and then phoned a friend that had said she would be heading out and could drop us off at a lake. Unfortunately, I called too late and she was already gone. So Caleb, Karis, Ben and I headed out for the bus. We had just missed it and so had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. Upon finally arriving at the location the computer directions had told me to get off the bus, there was no lake in sight. So we started walking after a good 10 minutes, we found a sign for the lake. As we tromp off into the woods, still not seeing a lake, we hike for another 20 minutes and FINALLY we see the lake. Please remember we have a 21 month, and not too keen on hiking, in tow! So we get there to a small dock and for about 50 yards out the lake is all lily pads. It's now approaching 8:15 PM and Caleb is trying to get his rod ready to throw out. I am no help at that as I haven't done too much fishing myself. I'm trying to keep Ben amused so he doesn't fall in the lake, but he is tired and cranky by this time. He picks up Caleb's tackle box, which I figure is OK because it's latched, and quickly heads to the edge of the dock and chucks it as far into the water as he can. Horrified, Caleb runs over and is prepared to jump in if he can't fish it out as his grandfather gave it to him. Fortunately he gets the tackle box out with the rod as it continued to float for a few minutes. Now it is nearly 8:30 and Caleb is just starting to fish. He can't get the line out beyond the lily pads and loses one piece of bait after another casting, getting stuck, pulling the line out and starting all over. By close to 9 we've all had it, dark is approaching and we still have to hike out to the bus stop. Nobody is in a good mood at this point and Caleb is sure he knows a better way out to catch the bus. So we try it. After 30 minutes we finally hit the road just to see our bus pass us. Not good, but there is another bus on that road so we still have hope at this point. We hike/jog along the road for nearly half a mile trying to find the bus stop. Just as it comes into view, the second bus passes us!!! So now, it is really late. The two buses have just gone by and we are really tired both from the hour of the day and from all of that walking. We have to wait over 20 minutes for the next bus, and everyone was so glad for that day to be over, that Caleb didn't ask me to take him fishing the rest of the time we were there!!

We caught a few more provincial parks while we were there the extra time. Mike and Caleb got to help a Biker church get their trailer to a big rally called Sturgis North. We also got to dogsit for a colleague so our kids are ever so anxious to get their own dog back now.

When we were cleared for travel, there were no good tickets available. We were offered a ticket that would have us traveling the wrong way around the world to get to Africa with three days travel or a ticket way in the future. Since we have a volunteer coming the first week of August, we didn't want to wait and come just before him, so decided to go the torturous 3 day option. Everyone did fairly well on the trip, but we have all hope to never to do that again.

Now we are back in our old house. Thanks to the help of a national, we had most of our belongings back in place in just two days. There are still a few boxes to unpack, but we covered a lot of ground in a little time. We are beginning to catch up with a few friends. We hope to see so many more this week. We are already hearing terrible tails of the trials they've suffered in our absence. I'll have more of how God answered your prayers of protection for them in the coming days and weeks.

Everyone is so happy to be home. The kids are acting like all of their toys are new and amazing. It is so much fun to see Ben learn about his new environment. He loves the ants and lizards and frogs! Just a blown kiss or a little goodbye wave gets him cheers from the crowds and feeds his baby ego!

I'll be sure to write more soon although our internet is not great right now. We are borrowing from the mission and hope to get our own hooked up soon so that things will move more quickly. Even at that, it won't be as fast as I'm used to. I'll have to learn patience again.

With love,
Heather

School's Out

Deep and Wide
This was about where Ben realized that the whole room was watching him and started really hamming up the performance. It was side splitting entertainment!

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.

If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet.

We had our last day of class today. The kids had some special things planned for our Celebration time, so I had to share some cute shots. The little ones were terribly cute with their three songs. Ben, being quite the ham, danced and jumped around through the whole thing! The big kids quoted a good portion of I Corinthians 13 and a long recitation about Romans. Everyone did really great, I just wished I'd had a video camera!

For those that keep up with us on Facebook, you've already seen some pictures and know about Mike's knee injury. We are still waiting on results from the MRI and a decision to be made about what that will mean for our travel plans. We're still hoping for the best.

With Love,
Heather

Lasts

Football Fun

Just Hanging Out

Crazy Hat Day

Caleb admitting defeat in a wrestling match with B

Ben loving on his buddy S

We are half way through our long week of lasts. A sweet M came over on Friday and the kids had some special time with Aunt S while Mike and I got to have a "last" date. Tuesday night some other friends came over and we had some family fun with them. They are the closest family in proximity to us here and they have been very special to us. Everyone here has been so great and we'll hope to be crossing paths with them again sooner than later. We had some nice "last" moments with some national friends too and hopefully more to come as the week wraps up. And this will probably be my "last" post from Vancouver.

With love,
Heather

Family

We are making lists, sorting what to keep and what to trash and what to keep and eating weird stuff as we prepare to head back to Abidjan. We are making plans for our return and dreading goodbyes this week.

I talked to my friend, Agira, in Africa, and she has been having trouble with her left hand/arm. Pray that God will heal her. She's supposed to go next week for an Xray to see if they can find what is going on. She seemed really down when I talked to her, so I am looking forward to being on the same continent and staying in touch better.

We'd also love for you to pray about details of our return. There are lots of decisions to make as we go back. Pray that we will hear well from the Lord and make good choices.

With love,
Heather

Summer Fun in Vancouver

Long Day!

Playing ball with the boys! Thanks for being so patient Uncle R! Ben is going to miss his little friend S too!

There's a whole park and Karis and Ben are playing on the dirt pile.

Ben loves to CHEESE!

Goofball

Weady, Set, DOOOOO!

"You stay over there, and I'll stay over here!"

Lovin' the water

Park Fun!

Today was one of the rare days of our stay here when the temperature got nearly up to 70. It may be the warmest day before we depart, so Karis and Ben tried out the water feature at our neighborhood park. Karis loved it, but was cold within a few minutes, as you can imagine. Ben thought the water was much better for stomping in than for running through. Apparently he prefers puddles to sprinklers if the temperature is below 70! Can't say that I blame him.

If you are one of those "prayin' Christians", I ask that you'd pray for a recent contact that Mike had. It's a lady that I feel like is teetering on the edge of a decision. We have so little time left and I hope she will understand fully the gospel and make her choice while we still have time to hook her up with someone else here.

It's about time to be hearing of some of you buying those tickets to Africa. We need HELP out there. Let us know if you are looking for an overseas trip and think that Abidjan might be right for you!

With love,
Heather

Ticket Day

When we were in our orientation session before going overseas for the first time, we were told that it isn't unusual to have a "ticket day". A "ticket day" is a day when one says to themselves, "if only I had a ticket in my hand right now, I'd go home". We were told that we just need to hang in there and remember our calling and hope our spouse didn't have a "ticket day" on the same day!!! ;) I was thinking of that as I counted how many more days were left until our real ticket day when we will head back to our West African home. In less than two weeks, our feet will be on African soil again!

Knowing our time here in Vancouver would be short, although there have been moments that our departure seemed an eternity away, I determined to "be" here and "connect" here, but on a limited level. I planned to engage myself in our task here, but to hold people at arm's length. Our task as sent out ones requires that we get personally involved in the lives of nationals, pray for them and love them, but I figured I just needed to get along with the other sent out ones here. I mean, we're all going our separate ways soon, to work with the people we hold dear, so no need to get emotionally attached. Well, of course you can imagine that we work with really great people and so that desire drifted off somewhere and I've found people that are great kingdom workers, amazing partners in ministry, wonderful thinkers and strategizers and yes I love them!

So as we pack our bags and try to make up menus to use up supplies in the cabinets we are looking to more tearful goodbyes not just to nationals, but to co-laborers as well. SBs have amazing people on the field and if you are one, you should be proud to know that.

God bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you!
Heather