Bedrock Bowling!

Looks like Fred Flinstones

It's a long way to the ground!

Chopping the seeds from the pods

All that work for these!

Hello to everyone,

Just wanted to give you an update on our progress here in the city. We just had our first language evaluation and everything went fine, we have a better understanding on how they work and where we are at in the process. It is encouraging to know how far we have come but the evaluations also serve the purpose of showing us what we must do in the future to learn the language well. We appreciate all of you who helped us by praying for our evaluation time.

I have posted a few pictures to give you a visual on how things are somewhat different here in Abidjan. The bowling ball at the top has a small chunk missing but believe it or not, it still shot down the lane fairly smoothly. Several of us celebrated a friends birthday at a hotel on Thursday night, the hotel is closed but they still have their bowling alley open. There are about ten lanes but only about four of the lanes work (or I will say they are"workable.") The distorted bowling balls, uneven lanes, and the fact that you could order a horse burger made the night a blast for all of us (I passed on the horse burger).

I took the next three pictures in our front yard. The man climbed the tree with only a machete and a vine. I thought he had a rope around his waist but later realized it is a large vine tied in a knot that he used to scoot up the tree with. He would have surely died if the vine had broke. It cost about two dollars to have him cut down the two large pods and inside the pods are hundreds of "seeds." The seeds are processed and smashed in a wooden bowl using a wooden mallet until it is mush. The mush is made into a sauce and is served over rice. We had fish (the whole fish, head and all) in ours and I kind of liked it but Teresa and Autumn didn't seem too hungry that day!

We have a week of church planter training coming up soon and as Teresa posted in the last blog, we are hoping to go the the beach for a couple of days after that. We really miss all of you so much but I am so thankful that God provides all that we need here in Abidjan. We are not in short supply of anything here including friendships. God had been so faithful to Autumn as well and has heard all of your prayers specifically for her.

Earlier today, I was reminded of our hope in Christ as I listened to the song "Days of Elijah." We used to sing this song all the time at Emmanual Baptist and what an encouragement to know that this world is not our permenant home. Jesus is coming back and what grateful hearts that should give all of us. Thanks for being our co-laborers as well as our friends.

Blessings,

Jon

Life in Abidjan

We just completed 5 days of One Storying Training. As tiring as it was, it was a great time of learning! Most of the people in West Africa are oral learners, so we learned how to take the scriptures and tell them in story form. You think no problem, I know these stories, but don't realize how much of the stories you don't remember. We went out in a local neighborhood and shared the stories (with a translator). Through this time we made many new relationships. Please pray for Raymond, he seems to be really seeking. He has agreed to allow Jon come back and tell him more stories. We prayed for an interpretor and met a man the next day that has agreed to do this. This man may know the Lord, if he does then Jon will be training him how to share God's word and if not he will hear the stories also.

The day before our training started we went to get our Ivorian drivers license. Wow, was this a process. We left the office at 7:30 am and returned at 5:30 pm. We spent 9 hours in line! Must I say, outside in the heat! We didn't realize that it would take this long, so we didn't take any sunblock, water, etc. So, I was cooked when we got home.

On Thursday we will be starting back in our French learning and two weeks after that we will be having Church Planting training. After our CP training, we are going to take a few days vacation and go to the beach. We have been very busy and are ready for a break!

We are so ready to be able to have long conversations with the people we meet! Continue to pray for our language learning and the relationships that we have made.

As always, we love to hear from you. Shoot us an email to let us know what is going on in your life.

Blessings,
Teresa

House church

We just enjoyed a great time of worship at home! One Sunday a month we have family worship. The other 3 weeks we attend an African church, but currently can't understand much of the sermon. This morning we listened to a sermon online from Adrian Rodgers and was greatly encouraged by his words. He spoke about being real toward God and others. God knows our hearts and we need not to act like something that we are not. God blessed us with his presence and a wonderful time of praise and worship!

Everything is going well in Abidjan. We have got ourselves on a schedule and are beginning to make some relationships. Please pray for my friend that I go sit and practice my french with 4 days a week. She is muslim. She loves for me to come and talk "small talk" with her but I don't know yet how open she is with me sharing Christ with her. Pray for me as I am trying to learn Creation to Christ in French so that I may be able to share with her soon. Jon is making some contacts in the area that we think God is leading us to labor first. Pray that God will show us that person of peace that will open his/her house for a Bible study, etc.

Our homesickness is getting better, but we still would love to come and visit you! This has made us even more eager to learn french because we can not leave our region until we have reached our level in the language. We pray that we will be able to visit you about this time next year. I know, that is a looooooong time; but, you can come and visit us at ANY time, we don't have to be fluent in language for you to visit! ;-) Seriously, if any of your churches would like to come for a mission trip to Abidjan, let us know. We would love to have you!!!

I hear that most of you got some snow yesterday.....boy, am I jealous! I wish you could just send a little of that cooler weather this way! The hottest time of the year is here, but the rainy season will be here in a couple of months. Hopefully, the rain will cool us down a little!

You can pray for us tomorrow as we met with the West Africa homeschool consultant. Autumn will be in 9th grade this upcoming school year (wow, I will have a high schooler!), so we need to look at what we need to do to be sure her schooling is done through an accreditated program. Our other option currently is the missions school in Senegal, and none of us is ready for that just yet! It looks like a great school, but we are still adjusting to being in Africa and aren't ready to be separated. Continue to pray that God will send Autumn a friend. We went to the American Embassey (very impressive) this past Wednesday to get our Ivorian drivers license and found out that there are several americans in the city. They gave me an email address to contact concerning things for teenagers. Pray that this contact will lead us to a friend for Autumn. She is very content right now, but we all know how important it is to have a friend your own age. God has blessed her with other younger MK's that she can get out and play basketball or a board game with. We are also very thankful for the internet. Autumn talks to her friends daily on Facebook and they stay up late every Friday night to talk over skype. All these little things have been a great blessing!

I want to leave you today with a song that we sang this morning:

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, tried and true
with thanksgiving, I'll be a living
sanctuary for you

To the nations, we follow you Lord
be exalted, be adored
Come Lord Jesus and lead your people
to the nations, to all lands.

I pray as you go to church this morning that you will open your heart to the word the Lord may have for you.

Blessings,
Teresa