Rejoice and weep, grow and delight, suffer and laugh with us through this year!

Can you tell we are captivated with tongue twisters?  Wheaton is studying games of colonial children and she has discovered some real winners!

When I sit down to write the NEWS here, there doesn’t seem to be anything newsworthy to write about.  Does it really matter that Corey is traveling to Thies more often for meetings and does grocery shopping for me?  This is one of my big thrills.  Or, the battery in my car finally succumbed to the heat and died, so I now have a brand new battery in it?  “My” dog has started jumping over the 7- to 8-foot wall enclosing the property, but can’t get back in so she throws herself against the metal gate at 3 AM until I get up to let her back in; so I now tie her up at night.  Wheaton lost another tooth – finally!  And we are over half way through this school year!  The girls and I discussed this and decided it is a mixed bag: we all love that summer vacation is nearer, but we also (in varying degrees) dread the rushing away of time that will end my stay here with them.

Nothing thrilling is it?  And yet, here we are in the midst of life and God is here with us.  I am sure without doubt that I am exactly where I should be; doing exactly what I should be doing (and amazed at the un-likeliness of it all!).

I recently read something by Oswald Chambers: “The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is.  Our human relationships are the actual conditions in which the ideal life of God is to be exhibited.”  This makes me realize that how I interact with Emma, Molly and Wheaton, Rokhaya (our house helper), Corey, Katie, the neighbors who bring the dog food, the folks I see as I walk in the neighborhood, the shop keeper I trade with, in short anyone with whom I interact will be impacted by the depth of my relationship with Jesus Christ.  Since my schoolroom is the residence of Jesus Christ school becomes (or can become if we choose) an opportunity to interact with Him.  He DOES show us the way when we walk with him.  My charge is to so live in front of these girls that they see and learn how to interact with Christ in the daily-ness of life.

Because of this I realize that these mundane things are significant and have eternal meaning.  It makes me eager to share with you just what my daily life is like and about.  Then your prayers can be more specific and targeted so I don’t grow weary and falter.  What follows is a general outline of a typical school day.  I hope you enjoy this glimpse into my daily life in Kaffrine!

6:00 AM       Arise, dress, make my bed and tidy my room.  Remove four 1-quart containers of ice from the freezer to thaw before I empty them into the drinking water cooler.  I then refill the containers with filtered drinking water and freeze them for the next day, refilling the filter.  Next I fix breakfast, have devotional time, wash breakfast dishes and do other housekeeping chores.  I ensure the school room is ready for the girls and put on the music for their Bible verse memorization.  Finally, I go outside to sweep the front porch, give the dog a treat and play with her a little, water the plants and wait for the girls to arrive.

8:00 AM       When the girls arrive and settle we begin with singing their Bible passages, a math drill and any general discussion of the day that is needed.  All girls then start with corrections of work I checked the day before and then their scheduled assignments.  I have individual time with each as needed.

10:30 AM     SNACK TIME!  We take an official 15 minutes for a snack of fruit, cookies, popcorn or special treat.  We compete with some computer or Kindle games, too!  By this time, the temperature outside has risen above that inside and I have closed all the windows and doors in the house to trap the cool air inside.

10:50 AM     Wheaton and I do her History and Science together.  Around noon if there is one, we get to watch part of a relevant movie if everyone is done with (the majority of) their work.  For example, while studying India, we watched the movie Gandhi.  Emma and Molly are reading “Around the World in Eighty Days” and we are watching that movie now.

1:00 PM       Lunch!  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we all go over to Corey and Katie’s house for lunch; Tuesdays and Thursdays Corey and Katie come to my house.  We share a wonderful house helper, Rokhaya, who prepares lunch for us all.

2:00 PM       Anyone with school work left over continues school; others stay or go home.  I check work and return to each girl’s desk, prepare for the next day’s school and straighten up anything out of place.

6:00 PM       It is then about supper time, and it is also time to watch the thermometer again to see when outside gets cooler than inside.  I then open all the windows (they are screened) and put fans in them to blow the heated day’s air out and pull the cool night air into the school room and my bedroom.  I light mosquito repellant coils and spend my evenings reading the girl’s next school books, or ones I enjoy, sewing, reading and sending emails, writing newsletters, and any other thing needed or wanted.

10:30 PM     Head to bed.  Shower off the sweat and dirt from the day, pull the mosquito net out over my bed and fall asleep for the next day of fun and excitement in Senegal!

Thank you for letting me share my pilgrimage with you.  Many days I get up without energy and find at the end of the day I have had enough energy for everything that was needed.  Sometimes I get up feeling like I can conquer the world and get buffaloed by girls or nothing goes right.  (How can you show a movie or guide internet research when the power is off and you can’t run TV, router or computer?)  And yet God is here.  He is in control and manages everything.  I am content.

Take a moment to look at us hard at work in school:  click here for pictures

Prayers and Praises:

• Please pray for this next week (1^st week in March) as Corey and Katie are attending a meeting in Thies and the girls and I will be staying in Kaffrine without mom and dad
• Thanksgiving for good relationships and school progress with all the girls
• Protection of Corey as he travels more to meetings in Thies and Dakar; and for us as we are in Kaffrine without him when he is gone
• Pray the extra height we added to the compound wall will actually prevent the dog from jumping the wall
• Praise for the Smith house that I live in rent free
• Praise that, so far, I have had adequate income; but please continue to pray for my support level to increase as I anticipate increases in my expenses in the coming months