Jammin' to the exercise ball- con't

I decided to take pity on all of you and see if I could send you part of the video. I have learned a new skill this morning in the attempt. I'm not sure how it will turn out, but I have captured stills from the video and will post those so you will see a glimpse of jammin' to the exercise ball. Sorry I can't send any of the sound. The drumming on the ball and all the giggles really make the video fun. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Jammin' to the exercise ball

I have been trying to post this video all week, but it has been "update week" for my computer. Every time I've been on-line this week, my computer has been downloading updates. This may not be a problem where you live, but when your FASTEST connection is 28.8, let me tell you, those updates make uploading anything almost impossible. So, I have just checked and nothing is downloading. We shall see what lasts longer, the video upload time or my patience. Here we go...

Okay, this has become a contest of wills. I have fixed and eaten a salad, read a chapter of a book, written a couple of e-mails, been knocked off-line (thus having to start the video upload all over again), but I hate to give in. You never know, it might be that the video only has a few more seconds to go before it's finished...

This is the deal. I am going to go get ready for bed. It's getting late and I'm cold. Okay, it's probably in the 70's in the house, but that 's cold for me. I will leave the video uploading until I'm ready to go to bed and then that's it. Be warned. If I quit, there will be no more video attempts, at least not from Africa.

It's official. I have abdicated. There will be no more video attempts until we have a much faster connection. Sorry everyone. I am going to post this stream-of-consciousness blog and leave you all wondering just what jammin' to the exercise ball could possibly be.

Fun at Aji's house

Once in a while a mother shows up at my house with some of her children in tow. I keep toys on hand for such occasions and sometimes we just have a roaring good time. Yesterday a friend came with her 3 youngest children (actually one of them is the child of her co-wife who died when the child was only about 5 months old-long story). The daughter of the co-wife is named after my sister, Ruth, so we keep in close contact. She's wearing the blue shirt.

My new digital camera arrived this week, so it was fun to have some willing subjects. I have to play with my toys too!

Frogs in the bedroom

Some people have a problem with mice in their house. I don't. I have frogs. Okay, technically, toads. Frogs in the bedroom, frogs in my office, frogs hopping down the hall and frogs thumping around in the closet. I have caught or chased out of my house at least 10 frogs. I think they are gone now. It's cooler outside so they aren't drawn to the cool tile between my back screen door and the wooden door. If you opened the back door you would find a frog pile in the corner between the doors and if you weren't careful, the pile would disperse into the house from there. My poor housekeeper had to keep chasing frogs out every time she opened the back door. She's afraid of them, like most Gambians, so once they were in the house, they were my problem. People were amazed when I tracked them down, caught them by hand and threw them out the door. Here's one of my buddies. I took his picture before I grabbed him and threw him out the door.

Package, anyone?

We really enjoy getting mail. It doesn't happen very often, which is probably why we enjoy it so much. In order for us to receive mail, first of all, someone has to send us something. Second, the U.S. Postal Service has to get it to The Gambia. Third, and this is the sticking point, the people at the Banjul Post Office have to actually sort the mail and put it into our P.O. box. Fourth, Barney or Max have to pick up the mail at the post office and take it back to the mission office. Fifth, someone coming to this side of the river has to remember to bring the mail along to give to us. So, we get mail sometimes and when we do, it's an occasion!

We really enjoy getting packages. Sometimes, however, we find unexpected things in the box!

Check out this package.

It's amazing what fits into one of those new flat rate air mail boxes.

Okay, I confess. The cat didn't arrive in the box, but it sure is cute. The cat is actually a hand-me-down from one of the missionary families who left. Some people get furniture, books or other stuff, I get a cat. Her family was going to moving to Banjul, so I told them that I would take her. She's not so bad as cats go. Don't tell her this, but I'm more of a dog person.

Answered prayer

I often wonder how people without a relationship with the Lord manage to weather the storms of life. Of course we know many who turn to drugs, alcohol and rampant hedonism to escape the realities of life, but here we see people just plugging away, stoically accepting whatever comes.

I almost had another very sad post, but God is good and has answered our prayers.

A few days ago, I heard from my friend (P) whose daughter died a few months ago. She had been called unexpectedly to another daughter's home because her granddaughter was missing. The child and her mother were visiting relatives because the mother was sick and seeking medical treatment. The evening that they arrived, the child (about 5) went with her cousins and other kids from the neighborhood to watch TV at a nearby compound. The child never came home. The family made announcements on radio and TV, searched the neighborhood, went to all the police stations in the area, but nothing. I didn't hear about it until the child had already been missing for 10 days. My friend called to make sure that I had heard. She was also concerned because she had heard that her daughter-in-law here in the village was sick. P was feeling pulled apart as she tried to support her daughter whose child was lost and also care for her son's wife who was trying to handle the responsibilities at home.

We were horrified at the fact that this child had been missing for so long and of course, we thought the worst. I was also very concerned for P because she was still struggling with the death of her daughter and was now dealing with an emotional pain that might not ever be resolved. We prayed hard for the child to be found and two days later, P called me and said that the child had been found. She seemed to be okay. The circumstances that led to her recovery are truly miraculous. Another child who was being held in the same compound, escaped and told the police where she had been held and that there was another child there. Of course when the police came and told them to produce the other child, the people denied everything. After the police left, the people got nervous and moved P's granddaughter to another compound. They were too nervous to keep her, so they moved her to someone else. Several compounds later, someone finally decided to take her to an orphanage and leave her there. Meanwhile, her family decided to check the police stations and that orphanage again and there she was. God is so good.

I am looking forward to seeing P again when she returns home and rejoicing in the way that God answered prayer.

Death

One of the hardest things for me to get used to here is death. Now it seems like death would be the same everywhere, doesn’t it? However, people all over the world respond to this universal experience in different ways. Here in The Gambia, when a person dies people initially wail loudly until all the friends and neighbors hear it and come running. After that initial outburst though, fatalism takes over as you hear people telling the grieving family that it was God’s will and they just need to endure it.

In the past few months I have attended 3 funerals of young adults. Somehow those are always the hardest. As we chatted with the family of one young man, they were comforting each other with accounts of how faithful he was in doing his prayers and how no one had anything bad to say about him. I had to bite my tongue not to cry out at the vanity of putting your hope of eternity on your good works or good character.

A good friend of mine lost her daughter a few months ago too. I sat in her house as people came to pay their respects. If she cried, they told her, “Just endure it. All we can do now is pray for her. Don’t cry. Endure it.” My friend still comes to my office regularly when she needs to talk or cry, because I provide a listening ear and I don't scold her for crying. Her daughter was a recently married young adult and no one really knows what she died from. My friend's account of their days in the hospital are heart wrenching as both of them knew that she was dying. All I can do sometime is cry with her because there is absolutely no hope I offer her.

I struggle with death in this culture because I believe that people who die without trusting in Jesus Christ as their Saviour are eternally lost. Are Americans who die without Christ also eternally lost? Yes, of course, but since most Americans have heard the gospel many times, you have some hope that perhaps the person accepted Christ as Saviour before he died. Here people talk about having hope, but they are putting their hope in good works instead of the blood of Christ that paid the penalty for the sins of the world. Their hope is in vain.

Just a few days ago though, we experienced a different kind of loss as one of the believers passed away. Unfortunately, we are still not a strong enough group to have a Christian funeral and a plot of land to bury believers. Her husband is obviously struggling with his loss, but he told me just today that he believes that she was truly trusting Christ. At her funeral, her relatives wanted him to go with them to the gravesite and pray for her to get into heaven as they do at Muslim funerals. He refused and as he told me today, "She has already gone where she is going to go." This death, although painful, leaves us rejoicing that she came to know the Lord before she died. What a difference that makes!