Catch Up Time

Well, this past Saturday, July 12th, marked our 4th week of living in Burkina Faso, West Africa! And it has been a full 4 weeks. We have not blogged for nearly 2 weeks now for at least 2 reasons. First, we didn't get our Internet up and running until last week, and second because after we did get it running, we have been pretty much spent by the end of each day. Oh the conveniences that we so readily took for granted: dish washers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, hot water heaters, etc. However, we have learned how to wash dishes outside and how to launder our clothing without the aid of the those amenities we took for granted, and it is rewarding…yet time consuming. We have also learned how to take a bath with a single bucket of water if need be (part of which could be heated on the stove to take the chill off, when there is a chill), though we do have showers in our home. We are thankful that the ministry director, Patrice Hein, has found someone who can help out a few days a week with some of those tasks. This will significantly free up our time for language study, which is the real focus for the next 3 months. 

Speaking of which, we are now into week two of learning French and it is going well. Tracy is learning from Celine Hein (the ministry director's wife), and I am learning from a young man named Christian who is about to begin his student teaching this coming year. We are each tutored 3 days a week for 2 hours at a time. With the exception of Sunday being our day off (though we hear 3+ hours of French at church), our tutoring happens every other day so that one of us is always with the girls. Later on, once busy in ministry, the woman helping with the house chores will probably also be the one helping with our girls. Please pray that we have a good relationship with her, are a blessing to her, and especially that Maleah and Grace take to her well. THANK YOU!

Packed Up for Diebougou and Leaving the Ouaga Mission Baptiste

 

The drive from Ouaga to Diebougou is about the same 

as the drive from Jackson, MS to Atlanta, TX.

When the power goes out (which can happen quite often, especially during rainy season) flashlights are a must. The one seen in this pic is a solar powered light. During this post-supper outage the kids played on the Kindles. 

 Home sweet home, "Bon arrivée!"

Here are our girls in their home-schooling room playing "airplane."

Our Dishwasher.

Our washing machine above and our dryers below. 

 

If you do not put your laundry out earlier in the day, it may not be dry by evening (unless it is really hot). In this case, we started too late and so had to web out girl's homeschooling room.

Ed's tutor, Christian.