Snippets of life in mission by the Johnson family.
"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)
It was a mercifully slow day today. None of us got much sleep lats night because Joel fussed and cried and generally kept us up most of the night. Not sure if he's getting sick or just too hot. Hopefully tonight won't be a repeat.
Anywho, on days when we just need something low-key and easy for dinner, we often have scrambled eggs and french fries. Today was one of those days, and we also let the boys watch a movie while they ate. They chose to watch Veggie Tales' Jonah, which, of course, we've seen several times before, so 2/3 of the way through the movie (after I was done eating), I thought I should find something to help me stay awake to the end of the show. I decided to paint my toe nails. I had no idea this would lead to some great quality mother-son bonding time!
Yes, as you guessed, Joel first noticed that mommy was painting her nails "like Auntie Liz does" and was curious about it. Next thing you know, he was begging to have his toes painted. Oh-oh. What's the protocol for a mother telling her three-year-old son it's not "manly" to do something? Obviously, reasoning with him that this is something only for girls didn't work. So, I finally did what any good mother would do in this situation...I deferred him to daddy. "Go get daddy's permission," I said. Well, apparently daddy can't stand up to the cute begging, either. "Only one toe," he says.
By now, I'm sure you can see where this is going. We had a regular toe-painting party this evening (fortunately for Dale, he escaped, though). When Caleb realized what was going on, I had already put all the supplies away and thought him "safe"...until he threatened to paint his toe nails with a black marker. Well, I reasoned, burgundy toe nail polish is better than black marker, right? So when Dale realized what had been going on (he was in the other room the whole time and refuses to be held responsible), I had a ready excuse.:)
It's just silliness, but I thought it was fun silliness worth sharing.
We are back in Diapaga today after spending a pleasant, if hot, week in Mahadaga. I've complained a few times these last few months that our weekly visits to Mahadaga have been incredibly exhausting and intense, and I was surprised to find I did not enjoy the time in Mahadaga as much as I'd thought. I now realize that was partly due to the shortness of our "visits" home. We were trying to cram 7 days worth of catching up into 2 days. It was insane.
This past week we were not in Mahadaga for any real particular reason other than because Betty needed to use our car. What a difference that made! We still managed to find a few things to do, but overall it was a much more relaxed time. And upon returning to Diapaga this afternoon after a week away, I realized how much I've been missing my own home these last few months. Coming back here after being able to relax in the comfort of my house with my things doing the things I'm used to with the people I know was a bit...disconcerting!
Instead, as we came up the drive to the house in Diapaga, we found an unknown van parked in our yard as there is apparently a pastor's conference going on at the church next door. And when I walked in the house and started opening up all the windows, I was surprised to look out on the verandah and find a "squatter!" Turned out to be one of the conference attendees who had decided that our verandah looked like a nice place to take sieste and had set up his own cot there. I guess he didn't know there were people actually living here...
And as I put the groceries away in the cupboards, I found that the mice here are really rather desperate and determined! They've been getting into anything wrapped in plastic or paper (like macaronis or kool-aid envelopes) for weeks now, and once I removed all those sorts of items from their reach, they had started on cardboard (like boxed foods), which I also removed before leaving (though I apparently forgot to remove the bullion cubes). Now, it seems, they've started chewing holes in the plastic lids covering tin cans of food, and even chewing through thicker, harder plastic to get to my maple flavoring extract! We had brought our Kitty to live with us when we first came, but we had trouble with her "potty-training", and we also suspect that someone tried to "catnap" her at one point, so we took her back to Mahadaga to stay.
Well, needless to say, the "camping adventure" we were excited about when this language study time started is starting to get old. But we are hanging in there. This time around we intend to stay in Diapaga a little longer than usual as a final "push" as we wind down our time. Dale has medical committee meetings in Fada coming up May 23rd and 24th, so we anticipate those meetings will signal the end of our language study time. That should give us enough time to settle back in our home in Mahadaga before the adventures of the summer months begin!
Hi Everyone! I am so excited to FINALLY get this blog post up! It means we're finally back on the web! If you were following our blog before, you know that we were having technical problems with our old blog. I finally got frustrated enough to switch to blogger, and so far so good! I was even able to import most of the posts and other information I had on the old blog without too much hassle! So, hopefully this transition will feel fairly seamless to you, though I'm sure there are still a few things I need to clean up. If you run across any, feel free to email us and let us know! This new blog interface seems much simpler to use, so I'm hoping that'll make it easier for us to post more often. Here's to hoping anyway!
It seems like a lot has been going on lately, it's almost tempting to make this a "catch up" post, but I'm afraid that would get long! Suffice it to say that we've been on the road a lot recently, between our weekly trips to Mahadaga, the regional church women's retreat that I spoke at, meetings with ministry partners to the CAH, and a marriage conference in Fada.
This weekend we found ourselves pleasantly "immobile" as our vehicle did all the travelling without us. Our colleague, Betty Eichhorst, left Mahadaga on Thursday to return to her home in Canada. She doesn't have her own vehicle, so we came in to Mahadaga Wednesday afternoon so she could use our car (she hired a driver) to get back to the capital where the airport is. Betty has been working in Mahadaga since 1956. She retired from full-time missions work with SIM in 2000, but has still been coming to Mahadaga for 6 months at a time every year since then. Recently, it seems she states it "may be her last time" each time she arrives in October, though usually by the time she's leaving in April she's making plans to return again. This time, however, she seems less sure, and there's a sense we may be seeing the end of a legacy here in Mahadaga! Whether we'll see her again or not we do not know, but may the Lord reward her with a gorgeous crown on that Great Day of Accounting!
After taking Betty all the way back to Ouaga, our car was due back Friday or Saturday. However, the Walsh family, who also serve with us here in Mahadaga, are having car trouble of late. They were on their way to the marriage conference in Fada last weekend when the radiator in their car blew up about 100 kms from the mission station. They had to be towed all the way to Fada (after waiting for several hours in the hot mid-day sun!), and then towed again to Ouaga after the conference was over where there was hope of a mechanic (and parts) that might be able to fix the car. Unfortunately, by the Thursday when Betty arrived in Ouaga with our vehicle, it became clear that the Walsh vehicle needs a heart transplant. Yes, folks, a replacement motor must be found, and for a Nissan Terrano, those can only be found in Ghana in this area. That means 3-4 weeks before the car is running again. So, in the end, the timing worked out perfectly for our car to be in Ouaga while we stayed behind. We agreed to extend our stay in Mahadaga, and the Walshes now have a car to drive back to Mahadaga tomorrow (Monday).
That was a pretty long-winded way to say, we ended up spending Easter in Mahadaga! With all of our adventures of the last couple of weeks, Easter sort of snuck up on us, and we weren't really "prepared" for it as far as the usual celebratory preparations go. We did attend Easter service at our local church. The service started at 8 and ended at 11:15, with at least 4 choirs performing, 2-3 theater pieces, and a couple of expressive dance numbers before the pastor preached an 8-point sermon on Christ, the Conqueror of death! You can experience a little of our service by viewing the video below.
All in all, we had a relaxing, quiet morning, enjoyed the Easter service at our church, made an Easter dinner of left-over honey-baked chicken and macaroni and cheese, and took a joy-ride through the fields of Mahadaga on the Yamaha Rhino.
A few weeks late, but we finally got our 1st Qtr 2011 edition of our newsletter "Burkina Blurbs" finished, emailed out, and now, with our new blog up and running, posted online! If you're not on our email list and would like us to email you directly with the link to the newsletter each time we post a new one up, please let us know!
