African outfits

African outfits
Our crazy family

Friday, January 13, 2012

Friday of our first week in Ndu

Here it is Friday already, we haven’t had much internet – I only have it when I use Peg’s internet port but she needs it for her work.  The electricity goes out most days at least once.  I have a load of laundry in the small washing machine waiting to have electricity again so that it can finish running.  I will have to wait until tomorrow to hang them out to dry.  Our cooks have made another amazing meal for our team – it has cabbage and meat baked inside a pocket of bread dough.  The house smells so wonderful; they baked bread for us today also.  Hopefully Alyssa will be able to enjoy it, she ate koki from a vendor and was throwing up all night.  We are calling this the “Koki Lesson”.  The town of Ndu has market day every 8 days, the cooks brought back some wonderful fruit for us to try.  The kids have been so good about trying new things.  Kyle needed a pair of jeans so he bought some used from the market.  They fit well and we asked him where he tried them on.  He said that he just put them around his neck (?).  Turns out if you button your pants and put the waist around your neck, and it doesn’t choke you, they should fit.  All of us girls bought fabric at the market to have made into skirts.  We called a tailor to come measure us for outfits; hopefully she’ll have them finished in time.  We asked her to join us for dinner and it was obvious she was uncomfortable.  We also had our neighbor Dan for dinner; he and his family are here until the end of February.  His family is at a conference but he had to remain on campus to teach a class.  His house was too quiet so he came and hung out with us for the evening.  It’s much like the “group home” atmosphere we have at home – lots of laughter and fun.  The sunset from our front door is so incredible.  We have a tree with purple flowers and the ski turns a beautiful purple color with a haze from all the dust – it is breath taking.

It’s been interesting for me today as I’ve observed the different people on our team.  All of us are in the process of being changed and the time is going by way too fast.  There is this sense of urgency to get the projects done that have been started.  Relationships are being built and we have this desire to help these people that we have started to care about.  There are so many needs around us and it feels somewhat overwhelming, we wonder if we are even making a dent.  Drew is working with men doing heavy labor and they do not have money for lunch so they get slow in the afternoon.  Right now we have cooks that make way too much food for all of us so Drew has brought them back some of the leftovers.  I wonder if this is a good idea to set this precedence from the beginning of our 2 month stay.  We will not have a cook feeding us after the team leaves and wil the number of people requesting lunch gets to be too many?.  Levi invited a couple of boys he had met into our house to show them what our football looks like, a short time later I opened the door to about 15 little boys trying to push their way into our house.  It’s almost impossible just to do something for one or two people.  I don’t have any answers but I am praying that we will have wisdom.

Kaley, Alyssa and Ellie have been working in the child care center; the kids are not there yet since the students are still on their semester break.  Today they bought bright colors and painted the doors, windows and cabinets of the center – it looks great!  They have asked Emma (the child care director) for a list of needs that we can maybe help them with.  She was teary as she said that she has been praying for some kind of miracle like this.  Many times she has requested from the school to make changes for the children but there is just no extra income and she ends up feeling like a beggar.  It would be wonderful if the playground equipment could be fixed so that it is safe again.  I took my Norwex window cloths down and we cleaned all the windows – the child care ladies were amazed.  We used the Enviro cloths to clean the doors too .  There is very little access to water so they loved the fact that the cloths cleaned so much without needing more water – I just would fold it over to a fresh side.  Ellie is hoping to help with the children when they arrive on Monday.  Kaley and Alyssa are both wishing they could stay longer.  I am wishing they were staying longer too.  This place is going to be very different without the whole team here.  We are working on getting our house ready that we are moving in to, it’s not as nice as the one we are in currently 

3 comments:

  1. Hi Marie, I'm not sure if you are able to read these comments...but I wish I could talk to you so this is my best bet! I am loving your blogs and all of your wonderful descriptions. It sounds so wonderful and I think I would love it there. I'm already wondering if you will go back again and if we can come with you next time. :-) Enjoy and soak it all in...the amazing God who brought you this far will work out all these details about providing lunches for the men and accomplishing the work! Praying for you daily.... Julia

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  2. Its Brett. I'm so happy to hear that the tradition of the group home is still going strong :) I'm also praying that God continues to bless you and the people that you meet.

    p.s.
    I miss our group home :)
    Brett

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  3. Thanks you guys - I can read the comments and I love them. It's easier to read from here or my FB. I've had trouble getting into my Yahoo account.

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