October

The month of October has brought much joy but also much challenge. The beginning of the month had been spent telling stories to our friend, Jan, and then meeting with some girls in the afternoons to help with their English homework. Our friend and translator Enoch would come to our house each morning and help us as we would go out and share stories with Jan. I may have mentioned her in the last post, but she is a woman who is a new believer. She wants to grow in her faith, but like many women here, their husbands forbid them from going to church if they follow a different religion. In the case of Jan, she is a Christian but her husband is a Muslim. She cannot read and doesn’t have access to a radio, so we had been going over to her house in the mornings to share Bible stories. One of her neighbors even asked if she could start to listen to the stories too!

Love these two girls

We were also taken on a retreat for three days on the coast. We got to spend time relaxing, swimming, and then at night we would do a devotion with Mama K and Heather. They both encouraged us to keep on with our work and to seek the Lord in all that we are doing. Our last day of the retreat was Tiffany’s 22^nd birthday!!!

On retreat

When we got back from the retreat, we learned that our translating friend has taken a second job. Previously, he had just been working nights, which allowed him to go out with us and share stories with Jan and others. However, we are now without a translator and just trying to trust in the Lord for guidance in the remainder of our time here. Without a translator, we will not be able to continue storying or do many of the things that we had planned for. However, we are learning to trust in the Lord during this time. There is a Sage Femme (or a Midwife) at one of the hospitals who had said that we could come work with her. Maybe this is the direction that the Lord wants to take us for the remainder of our time here? We are still continuing with helping our girls with English and we are also hoping to start a Bible study with them soon.

Precious, our favorite little tag-along 

Right now, we are at the guesthouse because the Presidential Elections for Cote d’Ivoire begin tomorrow. We are praying for peace during this time. Last time there was an election, a war began. So, we are praying against that. Once we hear that things are peaceful, we will be going back to our house, which is in another area of the city.

Next week will also start our health program that we will be starting with the woman at church. Each week will cover a different topic. This week we will be talking about how to care for your body. Some of the other topics include how to eat well, family planning, first response, and how to identify/ care for big illnesses.

Our prayer requests would be that the Lord would guide us in what we should be doing without the use of a translator, whether that is the Lord providing another translator or working at the hospital or something that we haven’t even thought of. Please also pray for peace during the election as well as for our health program. Pray that the Lord would work through us in all that we do during our time here. Tiff and I have also had moments this past week where we really feel like we are missing our families, so pray that we would be focused on our time her and not overwhelmed with thought of being back with family. Also, we have our next round of blood tests on Monday, so pray that they would continue to come up as negative. We finished our antivirals this past week and are so thankful to be done! Please also pray against sickness in all ways, shapes, and forms.

Thanks!!