Category: Culture

(Dirt) Road Trip – Day 2

On April 26, 2015

After a very fitful night’s sleep, I was up with the rooster’s crow the next morning. Having come from Abeche, where we were sweating both day and night, I didn’t think to pack a blanket, or even a sheet. So when the temperature dropped overnight I realized my mistake. Looking around for something to cover up with I found only my other clothes, so I positioned them over my body and tried not to move.

Packed and ready around 6AM, we headed out towards our next destination. It’s a town next to a refugee camp holding more than 30,000 refugees, mostly from the Darfur region of Sudan. The church has had a presence there since just before the refugees started pouring over the Chad-Sudan border, and they are in a good position to reach out to these refugees. For over a decade now the camp has been growing steadily, with no end in sight. The initial hope of returning quickly home has been squashed by the harsh realities of the conflict. They’re not going home any time soon. The initial surge of international concern has faded with the day to day difficulties of caring for so many displaced people. Many NGOs have long since gone home. Some remain to do the thankless work of providing food, sanitation, education, etc. to these seemingly God-forsaken people. May the God who heard the cries of the Israelite slaves in Egypt also hear the heart cry of these people and redeem them for His glory!

We arrived at our first destination around 8 AM, welcomed once again with a huge breakfast meal. Esh, or boule, a paste made of millet and formed into a large ball, was on the menu at each stop. This time it was complimented by a chicken sauce. Also a favorite for breakfast in Chad is a fried donut called “fongasso”. This is good for dipping in coffee or tea, or just eating as-is.

An example of “esh”, pictured here with a green sauce made from the leaves of the hibiscus plant.

Eating quickly and adding the missionary and his wife to our crew, we set out for a small town, village really, on the border with Sudan. The missionary, his family, and a few others are the only Christians in town. They have had some problems buying land there due to being Christians and Southerners. The missionary’s wife has been very sick, and they have struggled under the weight of discouragement. They haven’t received a visit from the church leadership in the entire 9 years that they’ve been there due to the lack of transportation. I imagine that I would have packed up long ago and headed back to familiar territory. They’ve persevered, and were refreshed by the visit from their brothers and sister. We gathered under a shelter made of sticks and straw and they discussed the situation there and how we could help. We drank tea (of course), prayed, sang and just chatted.

Spending time together talking, praying, and singing.

We went as a group to greet the government leadership in the town, to pay our respects and also to try and gain a hearing regarding the land issues. The local leader was friendly enough and and assured us that Christians and Muslims, we’re together and that he would see that the land issues are resolved fairly. This is a familiar refrain from local leaders in Chad, even if it doesn’t quite work like that in practice. Chad is officially secular in government, providing Christianity and Islam equal status under the law. But for Christians encroaching into Muslim areas, they often find fierce opposition in their attempts to buy land and build churches. Often they are relegated to the outskirts of town. But they can find encouragement in remembering that the one who sent them with His Great Commission also provided the Great Assurance, that he has been given authority over all things in Heaven and on Earth and that He will be with them always. We can’t fail, in the grand scheme of things, if by failure we mean that God’s will is thwarted. Hallelujah!

Some praise and worship time just before sending us off.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we had to leave again after just a few hours with these brothers and sisters. We packed up and retraced our route back the way we came, stopping for the night in the town near the refugee camp. After several hours of intense driving, constantly trying to choose the best path (meaning least likely to get us bogged down in sand), I was exhausted. After a quick bucket bath and a bit to eat, I crashed on the cot I had brought along. Having borrowed an extra blanket from the missions director, I slept soundly all night long. I would need to be well rested for our drive the following day, which would bring lots more rocky terrain and deep sand and we headed back west to our next destination.

First Sumaya

By kimberly

On January 15, 2015

In Chad, Culture

Earlier this week, I was invited to my first baby naming ceremony by another friend who is here learning Arabic before moving to another town. This friend lives fairly close to me and the new baby’s family lives in between me and my friend. It was very similar to the ceremonies I have attended in Senegal. We arrived around 1pm and greeted the many women scattered throughout the compound who were cooking the large meal or socializing on mats in the shade. Then, we were taken into the mother’s bedroom where she was sitting with her 7 day old baby on the bed underneath a mosquito net. She will stay in her bedroom or the compound for 40 days, if I understand correctly. We greeted her and the few friends and sister who were there with her and gave her our gift (blanket, socks, etc). We had a small snack of cookies, candy, and Chadian tea. We chatted with the family and my friend introduced me as one of their neighbors. This family has four wives and 40, yes forty, children. The compound is huge and each wife has a house of her own with mud brick walls around. The lady we visited this day has seven living children but has lost six children. The husband is in his 70s and I would say this lady was my age or a little older. We visited with her sister also, who was a very friendly woman. She was nursing her baby and when she finished we noticed how thin the baby’s arms were. It looked just like the photos of malnourished children we all have seen. She said her daughter, now 8 months old, had been sick for some time but is now better. That sight was a shock for me and heartbreaking also, but truly, this is a reality here that I am sure we will face over and over again in ministry. We finished our visit with the mom and friends by praying for her and the baby to be healthy and strong and for God to bless her family. Then we were taken to the house of another wife where ladies were sitting on a mat chatting until the food arrived. We had rice, meat, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, and a host of other things that were all quite tasty. We sat around a common large plate and there were several small bowls with different dishes for the celebration. I had to leave a bit early unfortunately, because our first language lesson was starting at our house, but my friend was able to stay and help wash dishes with them.

Foods We’ve Eaten Our First Week in Chad

By kimberly

On November 1, 2014

In Chad, Culture

My main stress upon arrival in Chad was wondering what I would feed my children, especially Judah, who is my picky eater. Thankfully, for now, we have found things that he likes and we are past the jet lag so he is eating more regularly. Our friends from language school in France met us at the airport and she had some staple items waiting for us, along with some tortilla soup which Josh and I ate for a couple days. They showed us a restaurant where you can get pizza to go. We have done that twice because it is easy and affordable. Since I don’t have an oven here at the guest house, I can’t make it at home yet. We will probably buy a solar oven for about $75 soon.
We had lunch with a missionary family this week, and they served a typical Chadian dish cooked by their house helper. It was rice with fish in a peanut sauce. Pretty good!
I found spaghetti and bowtie pasta to make, which Isaac was excited about. I made a curry sauce with beef, okra, and tomatoes over couscous (Isaac ate tons of that!), and I made lentils with rice on Sunday morning to have when we got home from church. The lady who sort of runs our guest house taught me to boil my water, add the rice, then let the water come to a boil again and take the pot to a nice, sunny place (lots of those around here!). Leave it for a few hours and the rice will be ready to eat, but not dried out. It was perfect for a Sunday meal – kind of like a slow cooker, but without heating up the kitchen too much and without using electricity! Christine, my house helper, makes tortillas (she learned from a missionary a long time ago) and she knows where to take my meat to get it ground, so tonight we will have tacos for dinner! I made quesadillas for lunch today and the boys loved them.
For breakfast, I found a cereal like Kix that the boys like and it is not too expensive. I can make pancakes from scratch and cook biscuits on the stove top. Peanut butter can be purchased by a few different ladies who make it to sell. I found pre-made strawberry yogurt to feed them until I can gather enough glass jars to start making my own regularly. Soy sauce, olive oil, canned goods, etc. are available and sort of expensive. I saw frozen Snickers and Mars bars for about $6 a piece – we’ll have to save that for a very special occasion! We always have tons of bananas, which Judah loves. We can find pineapple, watermelon, apples, melon, green beans, tomatoes, onions, salad, and cucumbers in the market. I found grapes on a roadside stand for about $12 for one normal bushel you purchase in the states. He let me buy just $2 worth, and I put them in a fruit salad that evening with honey.
In a place as hot and dry and poor as Chad, where I hear many Chadians only eat once a day or every other day, I feel very blessed with the variety we have found and I am beginning to feel like I can make nutritious and delicious meals for our family.

Some Things We’ve Learned While in France

By josh

On July 3, 2014

In Culture, France

A few things we’ve learned in France –

Don’t judge the cheese by the way it smells. Josh has tried many French cheeses, and while many smelled awful, once the molded rind is cut off, the cheese tastes nothing like it smells.
How to be sick “well” – we have had numerous stomach viruses, colds, fevers, etc. and see it as great preparation for Africa. How to be joyful and keep a servant’s heart when you are dog sick is not easy, but has been a huge lesson for us this year!
Enjoy the French bakeries while you have them. Chocolate bread. Fresh, warm baguettes. Fruit tarts. Éclairs. We can’t even pretend we are suffering here!

Always watch where you are stepping – most people don’t clean up the sidewalks after their dog leaves “gifts.” In fact, Paris spends millions of dollars each year on “motocrottes” – motorcycles that suck up the doggy gifts at the end of each day. You can’t make this stuff up!
Go ahead and get used to the weird business hours. Doctors take walk-ins from 8:30am till around noon. Then they break for a long afternoon rest and don’t open back up for appointments until 5:30pm. Grocery stores open around 8:30 and some will close for a few hours in the afternoon. The bigger ones are opened all day. A few are open on Sunday, but only in the morning. As you can see, we had a lot to memorize when we first moved here!
Central heat isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We enjoyed our first winter of no central heat. We have radiators that are heated by warm water and do a great job of keeping the apartment warm. We realized just how stuffy central heat in the States can feel and how much it dries out our sinuses. It feels a little old fashioned to use radiators, but we truly prefer it!
Don’t say “bonjour” or even smile to people on the street. Being from the South, we have a hard time with this “rule.” It is ok to look or stare at people when you are passing them, but if you say “bonjour” they mostly just look at you unless they have lived away from France for a while. Even smiling at them seems awkward, because they rarely smile back. We truly cannot imagine how difficult ministry must be here. Going to Africa seems like a piece of cake – everyone greets you and wants to know why you are there. It is an open door to share about Jesus! Here, things are much different!
Always be dressed as if you will be receiving visitors. We live in community here on campus and many times a day people are knocking on our door asking to borrow milk or sugar or asking Josh if he wants to play soccer, or if our kids can come play with some other kids. This, too, is great preparation for life in Africa – people will be knocking on our door day and night asking for help or just to visit. We might as well get used to it.
Living in community is wonderful, but not Utopian! We enjoy the almost constant fellowship with other like-minded friends/classmates here. Our children have built-in entertainment at the sandbox every day. Everyone is willing to serve and help when a need arises. We are encouraged and challenged by Jesus-followers who are striving to please God with their lives. But, we also hear kids screaming all hours of the day and night, have to navigate play times outside with different styles of parenting, and we share a washer and dryer with the other families and hope that everyone follows the schedule. We are with the same people every single day – in class, after class, at church, on the weekends. That is just our reality. We will certainly miss our community when we leave!
Enjoy the flowers! French towns have a grading scale depending on how many flowers they display in their town. We enjoy the different colors that change with the seasons and have never seen so many flowers in one place! Everywhere we go feels like the Botanical Gardens!

10 Ways Life is Different in France than in America

By kimberly

On March 10, 2014

In Culture, France

No car – no stocking up on bulk items and no once -a week grocery shopping trips. Josh does the grocery shopping 2-3 times a week, by foot or on his bicycle.
Lots of French bread – we eat it with almost every meal.
We haven’t participated in corporate worship in our heart language (English) in 6 months. It motivates us to learn French so we can understand and worship from our hearts! The French Evangelical church is exceptionally small, but a positive thing is that practically everyone who attends church regularly is a committed follower of Jesus, as opposed to many of our churches in the States who would be classified as “cultural Christians.”
No greeting people when we walk by. Unlike in the Southern part of the United States, where, at the very least, most people smile at strangers, French culture does not require greetings or smiles to strangers. If you see someone you know, you are expected to greet with “Bonjour,” but if you see the same person later in the day, you aren’t supposed to say anything!
Going out to eat usually means McDonalds, which we never did in the States! Most restaurants do not open until 7pm, which is when we are starting bedtime routine with the boys. For the first 6 months we never made it out for dinner – it’s good for the waste-line and the pocketbook!
Laundry. We do our laundry on scheduled days each week, taking turns with other families who live on campus. The school has three washers, one dryer. One load of laundry = $5. So, yes, we re-wear our clothes. A lot.
Our evenings no longer consist of curling up with a good book or watching a movie. Instead, we eat dinner, play with the kids, put them to bed, and…..STUDY!!! French verb conjugations, grammar, vocabulary, listening exercises, etc. It’s really exciting, I promise.
Living in community. We live in the building with the same people we go to class with, attend church with, and share a common area outside with. Our children play together every day all day at nursery, go to church together, and play outside together after school. When we hear a child cry, we all guess who it might be, and Isaac will confirm if it is the correct child.
Surrounded by BIG, beautiful mountains. When language learning gets difficult, the Alps have a way of reminding us who has the power to move the mountains!
Josh helps wash dishes by hand! We don’t have a dishwasher, and since Josh and Kimberly are both in language school full time, the household duties have become more shared these days.

Visiting the Doctor in France

By josh

On October 25, 2013

In Culture, Family, France

Yesterday, I took Judah to get his 6 month immunizations. The process for getting shots or visiting the doctor is pretty different in France than it is in the U.S. First, I took Judah last week to have a consultation with the doctor. Thankfully, his office is within walking distance, and he speaks excellent English. He checked Judah’s weight (8 kilos – 16 lbs) and height (27 inches) and wrote me a script for the immunizations he would need. A couple days later, I took the prescription to a pharmacy to purchase the immunizations and then keep them in my fridge all week until the next appointment. The doctor does house calls during the day (minus his lengthy pause in the middle of the day) and doesn’t start seeing patients in his office until 5:30 pm. We had an appointment at 6 pm (typically, that is Judah’s bed time these days, but he did great yesterday at the appointment!). We sat in a tiny waiting room and finally the doctor called us in. He answers the phone in his office, makes his own appointment schedule, takes the payments for the visits, and makes change out of his personal wallet. It is quite a different experience from a Doctor’s visit in the States! Not wrong, just different.

Tips for Living in France: Never Smell the Cheese Before Eating It

By josh

On October 2, 2013

In Culture, France

France has some magnificent cheeses, and we’re just getting started tasting a few of the hundreds of varieties. If you smell the cheese before tasting it, you may never get to the tasting. Some of the cheeses have a wax/mold crust that will wake up the dead. Sometimes you just have to fight back the tears and press on to the goodness. The best things in life don’t come easily…

A Typical Week

By josh

On September 29, 2013

In Culture, Family, France

Every day, we open our curtains to LOTS of sunlight and beautiful scenery. There are mountains completely surrounding us here in Albertville, and the mountains look different all throughout the day. M/T and Th/F we have classes we start the day by walking Isaac to nursery, which is on the first floor of our apartment building. He plays with his friends, sometimes does artwork or goes outside, sings songs and hears a little French from his teachers. Isaac takes better naps at his school than he did when we were letting him come up to our apartment for naps. After we drop him off, we walk over to our school which just has a small parking lot in between our school and the apartment building/nursery. We have a devotional and/or worship time with the other students every morning for about 15 minutes before classes begin. From 9:15 – 11:45, we are in class (we have one 15 minute break at 10:30). Kimberly is in and out some with the baby, but since he is a decent sleeper (he naps in the nursery), she is able to attend most if not all of the lessons each day.

At 11:45, we break for lunch. We walk back to our apartment to eat, study, and/or rest. In France, all the local stores, bakeries, and government buildings are closed from noon till around 3pm. There are a couple large grocery stores that Josh sometimes bikes to during lunch if we need some grocery items. It takes him about 15 minutes to bike to these stores. The roads here are all very pedestrian and bicycle-friendly. They have a pedestrian lane and a bicycle lane painted on all the roads, so it is easy to get by without a car.

At 1:50 pm, class begins again. We stay in class until 4:30 (with one 15 minute break at 3). After school, we pick Isaac up and let him play outside with all his little friends in the sandbox. There are tricycles, scooters, basketballs, and a little playhouse that the children love to play with. He is in kid heaven here with almost constant playmates! Kimberly makes dinner and we just do regular bedtime activities. After the kids are in bed, we usually have 1 ½ to 2 hours of studying to do each night just to keep up with the intensive material we cover each day.

Wednesdays, we have no classes, but we both take turns studying or sometimes hire one of the nursery workers to play outside with Isaac for a couple hours so we can get some studying in during the morning. Then, we try to focus on making the rest of the day a fun family day. Sometimes, we take the bus into town and get groceries and eat pizza. Sometimes, we go to a park or just play outside with the other kids. Sometimes, we stroll downtown (a five minute walk) and visit a bakery for a fun treat. Saturdays are similar. We have an evaluation that we both have to complete. So we take turns doing that and then spend the rest of the day having fun.

Sundays, we go to l’Eglise Protestant Evangelique– the one church option we have in Albertville. We are enjoying the church more each week as we are able to understand a little more each week of what is being said in the services! The people are very friendly and we are hoping soon to be more regularly involved in a sort of home group (Kimberly) and a bible study (Josh) that both alternate meetings every other week.

So, there you have it! A typical week in our lives here in France!

kimberly