"For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God." (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Solitary Pursuits































Once again I've slacked off posting something here, so I'm just basically posting something to make sure I don't get too far behind. I've been slacking off taking pictures, so I haven't felt like I've had anything all that interesting to show here.
So, what's happened since my adventures wandering the millet fields of Mahadaga trying to find a circumcision party? Well, Dale left for a few days in Ouaga to pick up a 3-man team coming from Kenya and the US to help us make a new professional-level video of the Centre for the Advancement of the Handicapped in hopes of expanding the Centre's exposure amongst potential US donors. The guys have been great and obviously know their stuff. We appreciate how hard they are working to make sure they do as good a job as they can and we're excited to see the finished product in a couple of months (after all the translation and editing gets done). Their coming did mean a full schedule for Dale, though, as they hit the ground running. Dale spent 3 long days driving them around the fields of the Tapoa province in Burkina Faso, visiting various clients of the CAH for interviews.
This past Thursday Dale left with the CAH co-director, Ounteni, on a 10-day trip to Abuja, Nigeria and back. They are attending the Afri-CAN conference, a conference focusing on home-based therapy initiatives in disabilities work throughout West Africa. The conference is sponsored by CBM (formerly Christian Blind Mission), but the World Health Organization and UNESCO are also taking part, so it's become a great opportunity for our little Centre in this rural corner of the little-known country of Burkina Faso to network. It's the first time Dale's had to be away from our family for this long, especially taking into account his trip to Ouaga earlier this month and the extremely busy days he had the few days he was home in between trips. So our month is turning into quite a busy one. We're doing well, though we are looking forward to things settling down again in a few weeks.
The trip to Abuja is a 3-day ordeal. Fortunately, Dale and Ounteni only had to drive the first leg of the trip themselves to Niamey, Niger where they met up with a larger party that car pooled together the rest of the way. They've had adventures along the way, including sighting 4 giraffes along the road, waiting 2 hours at the border crossing into Nigeria, taking a wrong turn which added several hours to their trip and forced them to change the place they originally intended to stay the night, and a minor accident. Fortunately, they arrived at their final destination safely this evening, and will have the day tomorrow to rest up before the conference starts on Monday. Prayer requests for travelling mercies can sometimes seem trite, but I have been so grateful for the Lord's protection over Dale and the group he is travelling with as I've heard about their "adventures". May I never take his guiding and protecting hand for granted! The conference will last through Friday, and on Saturday they will begin the long 3-day journey back home.
Otherwise, the boys and I have been getting along pretty well - better than I expected, actually, if I'm honest. Besides tending to the boys and my usual "household chores", I've been busy trying to keep the video team fed (not necessarily cooking all their meals myself, but ensuring that they have food coming). The team leaves on Wednesday, after which I will begin preparing for semi-retired missionary Betty Eichhorst's arrival on Saturday.

1 comment:

  1. Wow you are busy! Praying for traveling mercies takes on a whole new perspective. I'm sure this will be challenging for Dale being gone so long. I'll bet he's ready to come home and rest too and visit with his family! I really don't know how you do it! Our prayers are with you. And you and Liz need to realize to your family anything your write really doesn't seem boring to us! We love hearing your stories, and want to know every boring detail. And how is home schooling going? The bread baking sounds wonderful. Have a great week!

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