Bitter Sweet, How it Should be : )

Well this is the end… some days it felt like it would never get here and other days it felt like time was slipping away faster than I could grab on to it and really understand all that was going on around me. Here is the play by play from the last week in the bush!
Monday we went back to check on the little boy who we’d given medicine to. He seems to be doing fine. There was a big nice tree on the road on the way back to our home compound so we took the opportunity to climb it and look around and really take in Africa. The smells of freshness in the air, the sounds of women pounding in the distance, the feel of the sun on my skin, being able to look around me and not see any buildings on any side of me but just clear land with a hut dotting the horizon every few kilometers, our big shade tree; these are all things that I’ll treasure as we head home. When we got back to our home compound that afternoon one of our moms told me that one of the toddlers had said my name! We haven’t ever heard her say actual words before. She’s still in the cute babbling trying to talk stage so it was really sweet that my name was one of her first words! I spent that evening with “Linda” and her husband joking with them about being old. I started calling her husband “dotijo” an old man and she got a big kick out of that and laughed real hard! She said that’s right because he didn’t go to the dance party the Monday before and all the old men and women stay home and sleep. He tried to defend himself and say that he went to another village to dance, but I have friends in the other village and I told him them didn’t see him there either! So we all laughed about him being and old man… he’s 28 and says he is still a kid because he has no hair on his face… silly. It was a fun night.
Tuesday our fill in supervisor came out to spend some time with us and say good bye to the lady who had prayed to follow Christ, but she was out at her sister’s compound because she was having a baby so we got a little lost and ran across a knew compound and met some new people which turned out to be fun. We said goodbye to another lady on the way back to our home compound.
Wednesday morning was good bye time for our host family… that was the hard one. My little boy looked so cute in his new sweater that I got him at market! I told his uncle to tell him every day that I loved him and he told me he would : ) We also gave a little something to everyone in our immediate family. We went out on moto taxis and I left first. I hugged all the women and waved at the men then our mom called me back over to her and she was crying and told me to greet my family for her and thank them for letting me come live with her. I cried a few tears when I saw her eyes welling up. The rest of the day I spent packing and cleaning… staying busy.
Thursday we got to go back out and say good bye to the new believer since we didn’t get to see her on Tuesday. She was excited to see us and we gave her a parting gift too. She wasn’t near as hard to say good bye to because I know for sure I’ll see her again! That night Lauren and I and the other two girls we’ve been working with in the other village had a bon fire and roasted spam and played with glow sticks and pop rocks and listening to music. It was a great final night in our town in the bush.
Friday we came into the capitol city on the bus… always an experience. The bus didn’t have any more seats but the driver let us on anyway and we just sat on the floor. Then I got hit on the head by a big metal bar! The driver stopped the bus to check on me gave me some gum and called him my poppa b/c he checked out my head! Silly.
The weekend we spent resting from the bus ride and sleeping off the big bump on my head. Saturday night we had carolers at the mission compound! Sunday night we went to a Christmas play and caroling at church! Today is Monday and we started debriefing! Tomorrow we’re doing some souvenir shopping and a debriefing session. Wednesday we have our last debriefing session then that night we go to the airport!!! Debriefing has been neat to process everything with other people and articulate the things that the Lord has done. I’m real excited to get home and tell you all so many stories that I couldn’t write here, and show you pictures! Please join me in praying for traveling home. I would really like to not get stuck in JFK because of weather and I would really like for all of our connecting flights to be on time. If all goes as planned I’ll be in Texas late Thursday night!! There really is no place like home : ) It will be so sweet to be home and to see christmas decorations and hug all of you, but there is a bitterness in leaving these people we shared this part of our life with. But I guess that's the way it should be. If I wasn't sad to leave here or happy to come home something would not be right about leaving. Biiter sweet... See you soon : )

Powing Planting and Harvesting!

What a week! Monday we didn't get out to the village until the evening because we had so many things to get done in town with the post office and internet but we got to go to the dance party to celbrate Tabski! It's the holiday when they celebrate Abraham almost sacrificing his son and God giving him a goat... well we went out to the field late at night again and had a blast dancing to the drums with all the other young ladies in our village and watched the guys dance too! Tuesday we went to visit a new lady. She had heard about us and was hurt that we hadn't yet come to see her! She asked for stories and kept asking for stories. She was difficult to read though, we aren't sure if she was just trying to provoke us and see how far we would go with it or if she was really interested. The next day we got to go visit one of my favorite ladies!! She asked us last week how she could follow Jesus after the story of the woman at the well. This week we did the story of Jesus raising Lazerous from the dead. It was a little crazy at her hut with kids being loud but she was attentive and there was a need in me to stay there and try to talk about the story even though everything was loud and distracting. The Lord gave me straightforward questions to asked. I asked if she understood that Jesus gave his friend life and she said she understood. I asked if she wanted life from Jesus and she said she did. I asked if she wanted to follow the road of Jesus and she said YES! Our fill in supervisor was in the hut next to us talking with this ladie's husband and I went and got him and told him we needed help with language and he explained very clear to her that the road of Islam and Jesus was 2 different roads. She understood that you cannot follow 2 roads and she wanted Jesus. She prayed right there and told God she was sorry and she wanted Him!!! It's so neat because the Lord told us so many times to be content without seeing the harvest that what we count to be slowness is his pacience that he'll send other workers out to harvest what we've plowed and planted but we got to see the first harevest in our village!!! How stinkin cool is that?!? Well after she prayed Lauren and I were crying the sweetest tears of joy and I jumped up and plopped down on her bed next to her and hugged her so tight!! We told her she was in our family now!! We're going back this week to give her some taes with bible stories so she can start learning and sharing with her friends and to say good bye to her. The day just kept getting better, we got to go to a neighboring village tha some friends work in and talk to new believers about batism! There is a new little church body in Africa! Thank you for your prayers!! The Lord spoke to me out of Coloassians this week and said that prayer is labor... thank you for laboring along side me! You have worked and this is the fruit of your labor!

Thursday we got to go give a little boy medecine for an ear infection, and pack up most of our hut. We have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning in our village. Then we say good bye. Good byes are hard, but in arabic they have a phrase "in sha allah" if the Lord wills it. So when we leave here I get to say mi warti in sha allah. I'll return if the Lord wills it. I've gotten to see every aspect of the Lord's work here in these 4 months. I've gotten to labor in prayer in tilling up the hard soil in planting and now in harvesting!!! We get to continue laboring along side missionaries all over the world in prayer when we get home and even plow plant and harvest in America!! I'm so excited to be home, but the bitterness in leaving a second home here will be in my heart as well. Thank you again for laboring with me.