Old Friends and New Friends

In the back of a taxi on the way to make some visits are Benjamin and his new friend Kylee.

Caleb is still enjoying learning to play tennis.

This month we enjoyed visits from our friends, Deron and MaryBeth, that lived in Abidjan when we arrived. They've been in South Africa for almost a year now, so we got to meet their new baby. We also enjoyed have the Singermans with us. In what is an ever changing life, we were glad to reconnect with old friends and connect with new ones!

Jumping

With a cloudy political climate, here's one of our little rays of sunshine. He loves the little jumper Gramma sent. Our Benjamin is never still. Even if he's in your arms, he's "running" and "jumping" and "flying".

Our love to all,
Heather

Friends

This one was taken a week and a half ago when Benjamin met his new friend Kylee.

3 Month Old Ben

I've been trying to see if I can get video uploaded, so tell me how this works for you. It is about a month old, but thought I'd give it a go.

Heather

4 Months and Counting

Our little Benjamin is four months old. Hard for us to believe, so I know it is for you too. We've been enjoying a lot of company over the last couple of weeks. Several missionaries have come to spend a week or two here that we haven't seen in a while.

We're still working on language, which takes most of our time. Mike and teammate Jon visited a new area this week and were encouraged to find people asking to hear the "stories".

I send out a monthly prayer letter by email. If you'd like to hear more about our ministry experiences and how you can pray for the people of Abidjan, I'd love to add you to our email list.

Heather

Just An Ordinary Day

I have had a lot of people ask me what a normal day for me is like. First answer of course is that normal went out the window a long time ago. Yesterday was one of those whacky days and I was in the middle of it getting irritated about it, then I decided to write about it instead.

I got up at the crack of dawn, not because I'm a good missionary and that's what good missionaries do, but because my sweet baby likes that hour of the day. A little later everybody else joined us and we ate breakfast and read the Bible. I threw a load of clothes in the wash (thank you to our merciful Father that knows I don't have the patience to wash clothes by hand!) and started washing the dishes. Now I was feeling pretty good about how the day was shaping up so far, I mean we read the Bible before noon for Pete's sake! Now let's see, "Pride goes before a ...", oh forget it. So Mike goes off to do language and run an errand and I start the kids in school. I get Benjamin down for a nap and he wakes up in 2 minutes. The dog starts barking incessantly. Both other kids are wanting immediate help with each of their school acitivities. So I get the baby who commences to cry for the next 3 hours unless I let him nurse constantly. Someone lets the dog in and I get a whiff of rotting frog carcass on her, so I send her back out! Of my two children still doing school, one suddenly can't spell 3 letter words, the other can't even write the first letter of a word without help.

I put the screaming baby in his bed. He's crying anyway, why not! I threaten the two older kids within an inch of their life that they'd better start applying themselves. I grab the dog who is again barking like a fool, and head off to wash her. So now I've got the dog all suds up, the baby's crying, I've got one kid hanging off of my leg saying "Mama, how do I spell, Benjamin is crying?", the other kid was smart enough to give Mom a little breathing room at this point and was attempting his grammar project solo. Fast forward a little while. How I got out of that mess is really a blur. I had collapsed in the living room into our stinky arm chair and I'm thinking to myself, just wait until Mike gets here and I'll run away!!! About then, I heard the gate which meant he was home. Ha! Wait until he sees this. Then I begin to realize the whole house is quiet. I look around and realize the baby has fallen asleep nursing, the oldest kid is reading quietly in a chair, the younger kid is correcting her math page by herself, and the dog is lying quietly on the rug smelling like a rose! Why me?

The rest of the day was much more boring, grocery store, language learning, buying veggies, meal prep, team meeting, bathing and putting to bed the baby and all of that stuff.

We've got some exciting days to come. Friends from here and there all over West Africa are headed here in the next month. Everybody is excited to see various people they love and miss. We hope to see you soon too! Come on over, we've always got an empty bed and a spot at the table for friends!

Love,
Heather

What's so funny Benjamin???

I'm sitting up like a big boy!!!! Do you think I look older than 3 months in this picture?

I can see out and I might be able to pull up in a few days and escape!!! You better watch out mommy and daddy!!!