good idea, bad idea

Ever have one of those really good ideas that turns quickly into a bad idea? So here's how my good idea/bad idea played out the other day:

I thought it would be a "good idea" to do a fun, crafty activity with Isabelle that would also be a nutritious treat & maybe even help Luke to finally eat a banana. (Yeah, the kid does NOT like bananas ... or any fruit for that matter, despite "introducing" it to him a bazillion times. I never give up!) So Izzy & I made frozen bananas dipped in chocolate on a stick. Great idea, huh? Fun craft with the Belle & nutritious treat hidden behind a thick layer of chocolate for the boy!

Well if you've never experienced Niger heat, you won't know that it doesn't matter if something is "frozen" when it comes into contact with the 95 blazing degrees that makes up the air in your home. That "frozen" banana quickly became a sloppy, sticky mess. And you know what? Luke STILL did not eat the banana ... but he loved the chocolate!

More chocolate, Mama?

Izzy did fair on hers & made minimal mess with the chocolate.

We decided about halfway through that his little navy polo shirt had taken enough of a beating & probably needed to be stripped off of him before it was ruined for life.

Good idea: nutritious snack for your kids. Bad idea: covering it in chocolate in extreme temperatures knowing that your son will still probably not eat it!

conference

Randy has been doing conferences for our believers for 2 years now and we just finished one last week.  These conferences provide unique teaching times where we have the believer's undivided attention for 4-5 days.  Also, it gives them a chance to meet and fellowship with other believers from different villages.  For 5 days men from 4-6 villages come together to worship, study, eat, and fellowship.

Randy has done such an amazing job at organizing these conferences and last week was no exception. I was especially interested in this conference because about half of the attendees were from Ayorou!

I had such a blast just being around some of my closest friends in the world!

The topic for this past conference was the church.  Myself, Randy, 2 local pastors and a national partner all took turns explaining what the church is and what her mission in the world should be.   We had a great week of teaching and the believers grasped the concepts and have now been sent back out to their villages armed with this new understanding of the church.

Here are just some of the highlights of last week!

Izzy helping out the cooks!

3 headed monster game - you can take the man out of youth ministry but you can't take the youth ministry out of the man

worshiping together

Randy directing the choir! teasing, teasing. Randy was training the men in the Creation to Christ (C2C) story.

The whole gang! What a great week!

E2E

About this time last year God begin to lay something on my heart for reaching the Songhai.  We had struggled at each step of the way in Ayorou with the question of "what next?"  Someone wants to hear more, what next? Someone believed, what next? A group is following Christ, what next?

These questions, while simple, were not easy to answer.

Then, knowing we were going to be overseeing all the Songhai work, not just Ayorou, these questions were multiplied.

God began to lay on my heart a simple strategy that would take a church planter from entry to exit.  With each new group or village there would be a clear process of moving from entry to evangelism to discipleship to leadership development to exit.  The last one was especially important as we seek to hand off the work to our national believers as soon as possible.  We're calling this strategy E2E.

It is very simple and works on the presupposition that God's sheep hear His voice.  In other words, we speak the name of Christ boldly and often in places it's never been spoken and to people who've never heard.

A year ago, when this started coming together in my mind, the picture was not just Parker and I or even the Songhai Team.  It was a coordinated effort by us, our Great Commission Christians, our national partners, and our volunteer teams.  That we'd all be moving in the same direction for the same purpose.

I am so excited now as this dream from over a year ago is becoming a reality.  We have trained and sent out 4 national partners (2 by 2) with the E2E strategy into Songhai lands.

Serving in Boubon

Serving in Karma

Please pray for them as they take the Light into some of the darkest places in the world.

at long last

On Wednesday, March 23 our beloved crate finally arrived at our house! Seven long months of being "in transit" & it finally made it. It was a roller coaster of ups & downs with this thing .... "It'll be there in October." "Oh wait, we don't know where it's at." "It's sitting in France. Not sure when it'll leave." "It's leaving France & will be in Africa in 6 weeks." "We think it's somewhere still on the Atlantic." "It's in Niamey but it's held up at customs." "Your crate's coming today. Oh wait, I mean tomorrow. Oh wait, I mean the day after tomorrow."

But finally they got something right & it showed up at our front gate! We were just a little excited & couldn't wait to see if everything made it in tact. When we sealed up that crate on August 8, 2010 we shoved as many final things in it as we could & then took a drill to it & shut 'er up. We were really afraid that when they undid the first screw, the whole crate was going to pop open like a balloon!

Luke & I waited in the driveway & watched all the action unfold from the back of our pick up truck.

They had a hard time getting the metal bands off & even broke a pair of scissors trying to get them undone.

But they finally pried it loose & then the "magic box" was opened. Issa kept calling the crate our "magic box" because he could not believe how much stuff we fit into it!

We were so excited about the crate coming that morning that we just left Izzy in her PJs! Woops!! She had tons of fun playing with her friends while the fellas unloaded the crate.

When she came over to sneak a peek, she got so excited seeing some of her "new" toys & was jumping up & down in the middle of the street!

It took less than 20 minutes to unload that sucker. It only took 4 weeks to pack it!

Izzy & Luke's very belated Christmas present was a slide. Better late than never right?

28 boxes, a queen mattress, a twin mattress, a pair of reading chairs, a pair of camping chairs, a slide, a mini basketball goal (Luke's birthday present), table & chairs for the kids, play kitchen, an office chair, 2 tri-cycles (future presents), rugs, a new computer, a folding table, an A/C, loads of toilet paper & paper towels & who knows what else we threw in there at the last minute ... all on our front porch to be unpacked, sorted through & put away somewhere in our house!

It wasn't long before Daddy got right to work setting up stuff for the kids! We were so glad we made that trip to IKEA before packing the crate!

We decided that the dining room table would be the best place to sort through all of our home decor items (aka - all the results of my many trips to TJ Maxx & Home Goods). It took a little longer than expected to complete this task & we are still trying to hang pictures on the walls! It's a wee bit difficult to nail into cement walls! Who knew? Also, in packing our crate & all these lovely picture frames, we didn't even think about needing pictures to fill them. So, currently, we are very chic in having tons of empty frames hanging on our walls!

And to end our exciting day of getting our crate, Izzy & I ended up at the clinic because she became very ill during the day & we thought it best to get her tested for malaria. Sure enough, it came back positive & we spent almost 6 hours at the hospital that night getting her IV treatments. We ended up going back & forth to the clinic for the next 3 days for her to receive a total of 7 IV treatments that lasted usually 3 or 4 hours each. Needless to say, our crate very quickly lost its appeal when our baby girl got sick.

But she's all better & back to her crazy self & amidst all our busyness of life here, we are finding time to enjoy the contents of the crate & starting to make this house a home.