End of 2009 Newsletter!

4th Quarter Newsletter

Please click on the link above to view our latest newsletter (October-December 2009).

We left Burkina Faso on November 18, and finally arrived back in PA on December 15th. We enjoyed our visits with friends and family in Europe and North Carolina, but we are glad to be back in "home territory" and are looking forward to settling down a little bit. We're grateful that we had this time to decompress a little. Soon we'll be ready to start sharing with you our experiences in Mahadaga. It's been a shock to re-enter the US during the Christmas season, but we're really glad that we have the chance to celebrate Christmas with our families this year and to experience a white Christmas!

May your hearts rejoice as we celebrate the arrival of our Savior - the coming of the Eternal God as a little babe.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

December Prayer Letter

December 2009 prayer letter

Click on the above link to view our December 2009 prayer letter.

By the time you read this, we will probably be at SIM headquarters, doing our debriefing from our first term in Burkina Faso. It has been a bit of a crazy month as we packed up our whole house in Mahadaga, travelled around Europe, and are finally on the last stage of our journey home. We are looking forward to a little bit of down time over Christmas and the New Year. As long as our 8-month home assignment seemed to us, we are now starting to realize how quickly it will probably go by! There are so many of you we would love to see and the time will fly by just as the last couple of months have. Still, we thank the Lord for guiding us each step of the way and being with us through every part of our journey. We thank you, too, for coming along with us, whether in person or in spirit and in prayers. We're excited to show you pictures and tell you stories in person so that you can get an even fuller experience of this journey we have been on!

Love,

Dale, Florence, Caleb & Joel

I love Paris in the winter...

The next stop on our trip home was a quick visit to some friends in Grenoble, France. We left the beautiful Pyrenees behind and 7 hours later were greeted by the Belledonne and the Chartreuses mountain ranges that cradle the city of Grenoble between them. We were now not too far from the Italian border! We were also greeted at the train station by friends Marie-Neige and Perrine, two young French nurses who spent several weeks working at the medical dispensary in Mahadaga just over a year ago. We stayed with Marie-Neige's family, who was incredibly welcoming. Caleb and Joel also had the chance to catch up with their friend, Joshua Lewis, the morning before we left Grenoble. Joshua and his parents, Mark and Carine, and his sister Anaelle, spent 2 years serving with SIM in Fada, Burkina Faso. We often stopped off in Fada on our trips to the capital and the boys had great fun together. The Lewis family recently returned to France after finishing their ministry commitment in Burkina Faso, so it was nice for Caleb to be able to see his friend again so soon!
We left Grenoble two days later for a mini family vacation in Paris. We were able to find a small, reasonably-priced one-bedroom apartment for 3 nights in downtown Paris, near the Cite Universitaire (across from Parc Montsouris, for those of you who are familiar with Paris or who want to look it up on the map). This gave us the flexibility to make our own meals and the location made it easier to get around to see some of the sites. We braved the metro system and are now feeling like Paris metro veterans, though the first few experiences were a bit nerve-racking, especially with 2 little boys in tow!
We didn't end up giving ourselves much time to actually "tour" Paris, but we couldn't fathom returning to the US without having seen anything (imagine all the questions!), so on Wednesday afternoon we strapped the two boys to our backs (me, African-style and Dale using a back-pack carrier) and set off to see the sites. Our first stop was, of course, the all-important restaurant Quick, the French version of McDonalds. But once we had the boys' bellies filled, we were free to play the tourist part. The weather was gloomy and cold, but we were undaunted, determined to tour Paris or bust! In 8 hours we managed to visit Notre Dame (try keeping 2 boys who love hearing their echo quiet in a big place like that!), Sacre Coeur (wish we had known about the furnicular on the way up!), the Arc de Triomphe (Champs Elysees was beautifully decorated for Christmas, but we were too tired to walk along it), and the Eiffel Tower (there was a mixture of rain and sleet up on the top!). At the end of it all, we stopped for some delicious hot chocolate and a freshly made chocolate banana crepe. That was probably the best part of the whole day!:0)
Thursday morning we had a crazy and "never-going-to-do-that-again" experience trying to catch our flight to Dublin. Let's just say that lugging over 90 kilos worth of luggage and one small toddler (Caleb was wonderful about walking, thank goodness!) around the city and metro system is no easy feat! Nonetheless, we arrived safely in Dublin and have spent the last several days relaxing, staying in out of the cold (read: sorry, no pictures!), and visiting with Dale's aunt, uncle and cousins. Tomorrow morning we board the plane again for the USA! We will go straight on to SIM USA headquarters in Charlotte and stop off to visit more relatives in North Carolina before heading home, but it won't be long now!

Where does my help come from?

The second leg of our journey home brought us to Lourdes, nestled in the Pyrenees Mountains in the south of France not too far from the Spanish border, to visit Florence’s cousin, Linda, and her husband, Patrice. Total travel time on Monday from Geneva to Lourdes took us 10 hours and 45 minutes (including 2 train changes), so it was a long day. Patrice and Linda had warm food waiting for us at the end of the line, and we soon discovered that Patrice is a chef! You can imagine that we’ve been enjoying some wonderful meals during our stay in Lourdes, not to mention some interesting conversations on politics and religion. Lourdes is world renown as a place of pilgrimage for those of the Catholic faith. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to a young girl named Bernadette at a grotto located near the river that runs through town 14 times. Mary instructed the girl to build a fountain, purify herself in the waters, and tell the people to come and do likewise. Later, they were to build a place of worship where people could come and bring those with illness to be prayed for. Today, the town of Lourdes receives around 8 million pilgrims each year from all over the world. There are 3 main basilicas that are beautifully made and during the height of pilgrim season, full of worshippers.

Because of the intense focus on the pilgrimages made to Lourdes, it’s often easy to miss some of the other points of interest in town. The Pyrenees, though not quite as high as the Alps, are still quite beautiful, and the town offers some great views of the mountain range. There is also a castle built on the highest hill in the middle of town. The story is that during the Crusades, King Charlemagne chased the Arabs from Spain to this castle where he found it impossible to enter and had to lay siege on them. Near the end, both armies were near starvation, when an eagle flying overhead dropped a fish it was carrying in its mouth onto the castle grounds. The leader of the Arab band took the fish and pinned it to a note he sent to Charlemagne saying that they still had plenty of food and would outlast him. Thus, Charlemagne decided to pursue a treaty rather than completely obliterate the Arabs. The treaty, though, did put the lands under Charlemagne’s dominion and under the influence of the Catholic church.

On Friday we decided to visit a nearby town called Pau. Pau is known for its milder climate and “vacation homes” built by the English in times past. It is also the site of King Henri IV’s main castle. Henri IV reigned in the late 1500s. We were shocked to learn that, while he only ever recognized 14 children, he had as many as 72! Apparently, aside from the 2 wives he took (at different times), he had as many as 56 mistresses among the noblewomen! Also shocking was the news that he only ever bathed once in his whole life! There was a common belief during his time that demons could possess you if you submerged yourself in water, so he never bathed! And finally, we also learned that during his time, because of the cold winter nights, it was common, when visiting a lord, to share his bed, along with his wife and children! Later on in history, the same castle was used by Napoleon III, and more often by his wife, Empress Josephine, who was Spanish and preferred this southern location close to her home country. It seems like so long ago, but our tour guide reminded us that it’s only really been 4 generations since that time. It sure made the castle walls come a bit more “alive” for us!

We missed celebrating Thanksgiving this year, though we did enjoy some roast chicken and potatoes on Thursday evening with our hosts and explained the Thanksgiving story to them. With no Thanksgiving holiday in France, the big burst of Christmas preparations that generally happen the weekend afterwards are also missing, so we are still feeling a bit far off from Christmas! This afternoon we catch the train to Grenoble to visit more missionary friends who spent time with us in Burkina Faso. We are so blessed to experience the fellowship of believers on an international level!

I Lift My Eyes Up

We made it safely to Switzerland, the first stop on our long journey home. Aside from a tiring day and a few "close calls" the trip went pretty smoothly. It did help us appreciate all the little ways that the Lord takes care of us, even making things work out when we're on vacation!:0) We arrived in Switzerland around 9:30pm on Wednesday, November 18th and were greeted at the train station by our friends David and Aline Lampert, a young Swiss couple we got to know well when they spent a year serving alongside of us in Mahadaga.

Our Swiss hosts have spoiled us! Aside from the beautiful views, we've enjoyed some great meals, sight-seeing, great fellowship and lots and lots of chocolate and cheese! Thursday afternoon we walked around Montreux and got some pretty views of the lake and castle (Chateau Chillon). Friday we toured the castle in Gruyere and then the fromagerie (cheese factory). Saturday we took the kids to a nearby water park (indoor, of course)! And Sunday we had a great time getting to know the Lampert and Bussy families. In a couple of hours we board the train again to make a long trek south to Lourdes to visit Florence's cousin. Stay tuned!

Off We Go!

It's been a whirlwind of activity the last few days as we've wrapped up our first term in Mahadaga, Burkina Faso. Aside from all the packing and last minute work we wanted to get done before leaving, we had lots of visitors and well-wishers. The team at the CAH had a little farewell party for us on Friday afternoon.

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We spent most of Saturday answering the door as various neighbors came to wish us a safe journey. On Sunday after church, our whole church congregation walked us home and gathered at our front doorstep to pray with us, sing us a farewell song, and then wave goodbye.

We spent Sunday night at the SIM mission station in Fada (the halfway stop between Mahadaga and Ouagadougou, the capital), then continued on to Ouagadougou Monday morning after saying a few more farewells to a few more friends. Monday evening we had a meal together with three other missionary families, 2 of which are also heading back to their homes in Australia in New Zealand in the next few weeks. It was a good chance for some fellowhsip and for the kids to see their missionary friends one last time before we head home.

Though we are only planning to be gone for 8 or 9 months, this seems like a long time for many of our Burkinabe (and non-Burkinabe) friends and neighbors! In some ways it will probably seem like a long time to us, too, as we will be missing out on some milestones in the lives of some of our friends (births, moving, etc.) and we will be away from our SIM Burkina family who is becoming dearer and dearer to us as time goes on. But we are also looking forward to seeing all of our friends and family in the US and Canada. We will even get the chance to visit some of our friends and family spread out across Europe along the way! So despite how hard it can be to say goodbye sometimes, we are grateful for the Lord's goodness in taking care of us. And we are reminded that one day we will be reunited with many of you for good...no more separation and goodbyes! Let's work all the more to make sure that as many of us as possible can enjoy that day together! In the meantime, keep checking back in and we'll try and keep you posted on our travels! Until we meet again!

November 09 Prayer Letter

November 2009 prayer letter

Already we find ourselves at the end of a very long, fast journey.  But it's not really the end - it's also the beginning of the next leg of the journey!  We're amazed that time has passed so quickly, and that this is already our last prayer letter before heading home for our first home-assignment.

Looking back, we know that we could not have drug ourselves through all of the difficulties, all of the hurts, and all of the tough lessons without your prayers and encouraging words.  And we know that we still need your prayers as we continue this journey.

Even though it can take some work to get these letters out every month, it's always exciting when we do because of all of the responses we get back from all of you!  Thanks for your encouragement and thanks for bearing with us.

God bless you as you read this letter, and then as we see each other face-to-face once more in the coming months!

5 to a motorcycle

Our school's "ambulance" is a motorbike. Right now, during "malaria season", our 260 school students are getting sick at an alarming rate. There's often a line of children waiting to be taken to the medical clinic, 1 kilometer from the school. Yesterday, I saw the ambulance leave the school...the driver and 4 children: back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back! What ambulance would we use if they had an accident?!