Category: Family Page 1 of 6

Outings and Kids Experiences

On March 4, 2022

This post is from our trip to the village in December…

Saturday, we traveled 40 minutes to a nearby town, HH, and got to visit with two other American ladies as well as visit the weekly market to see what foods are available there. We also brought a carful of village women who brought hugs sacks of peanuts from their fields to get ground into oil they can then use for cooking at home. Market day is an all-day affair. We left around 9 and got back right at sunset that day.

Lynzee, the kids, and I got to visit the close-by wadi (dry river bed) a few times to try to catch fish, look out for monkeys, and collect guavas from the trees. We also took a short walk out of “town” to see the recently completed schoolhouse made of dried millet stalks. The village men recently made a plan to start a French school for boys and girls that would require almost nothing from the village parents. The men have collected money, hired a teacher from N’Djamena, and built a building. They plan to start classes very soon.

We also took a 15-minute drive to a neighboring village on it’s weekly market day. I loved seeing the donkeys and horse carts arriving to market. The kids stayed at the shady wadi for a nature walk amongst the mango trees with Lynzee while I ventured into “town” with two of my local friends to get an idea of what things were available. I was pleasantly surprised to find bananas and watermelon amongst other dried goods.

I spent one afternoon in a different neighboring village with my Abeche house helper visiting many of her relatives. It was a good time to catch up after being gone for “two rainy seasons” as they informed me, and to further the relationships there. Maybe it could be a place for future teammates to live or for future work to be done? If you ask the kids what their favorite parts of their village time were, they’ll give a variety of responses: making friends, fishing, visiting the wadi, going on visits in the village, playing with a little puppy, riding a donkey, sleeping in a hut or grass shelter, amongst other things. They did well at embracing a completely Chadian life from eating only Chadian food (millet paste and sauce, mostly) all week to using a Chadian bathroom to remembering to kneel while greeting visitors in the local language who came all throughout the day. I was very encouraged by their contentment even when things were so different and often less convenient or comfortable.

God’s Grace in a Time of Transition

By kimberly

On March 27, 2020

In Family

We wanted to share a short version of how God has blessed us during this Coronavirus pandemic. A couple weeks ago, as we began hearing more news about the growing pandemic, we started keeping up more regularly with the news, knowing that we had flights scheduled for the end of March to return to the States for furlough.

On Sunday March 15, Josh’s birthday, we learned suddenly that Morocco shut its borders and air space. We made the decision that day to book another set of tickets through Ethiopia and Frankfurt, Germany, knowing that getting through Europe and into the States would likely be a challenge.

The following day, Monday, we made flight arrangements with MAF to fly us on Tuesday morning from Abeche to N’Djamena, arriving in the capital only a couple hours before we would fly out of the country. Getting a flight with MAF was a blessing, because otherwise we would have had to take an evening bus on Monday to the capital, arriving at about 2am.

Monday evening, we learned that on Wednesday, Chad would also be closing its borders and air space. This means that if we had not made the decision on Sunday to leave on Tuesday, we would still be in Chad today with no way out! MAF personnel greeted us with sandwiches in hand at the N’Djamena airport, another blessing because Josh wouldn’t have been able to easily get our family lunch in time to make our next flight.

The rest of our 30+ hours of travel went exceptionally smooth. The kids slept on the flights, everyone did great not touching things in the airports, the lines were short, and we were always moved to the front because of having small children. We arrived in D.C. exhausted but thankful on Wednesday. Thursday we walked around the National Mall, practicing social distancing. Friday, still exhausted from jet lag, we decided to drive from D.C. to Madison, AL, a 12 hour drive. It was tiring, but now we have been here a week and we are so grateful to have a place to call home. We were welcomed by Josh’s parents to a fully furnished home and overstuffed pantry of food (and cleaning supplies!) thanks to Grace Community Church.

In many ways, the transition to America has been a sweet one for our family. After such a busy season of ministry and language learning, we are enjoying time together free of outside distractions and visitors. We are still able to enjoy lots of good American food while easing into the social aspects of life here. We’ve decided to wait 2 weeks before having contact with others, so by next weekend we will probably be looking forward to seeing a few church friends while still practicing social distancing.

We are so thankful for all the ways God has provided in perfect timing for us in the past couple of weeks. We know that all of you have had changes to your plans and uncertainty about what the future holds. I pray that you can see even in small ways how God is with you in these times and that He never changes no matter what our outside circumstances may be.

A Week in the Village

By josh

On February 10, 2020

In Chad, Culture, Family, Food

In January, we spent a week in our newly constructed huts in the village. It was a very productive trip, and we were grateful to how warmly we were welcomed into the community. The women were very hospitable, offering us food and peanuts from their fields. We in turn, shared our dates and candy from the big city – a special treat they can’t get in the village.

Josh was able to visit several markets in surrounding towns. These are “traveling” markets that only come once a week. It was helpful to see what food items and household goods are available.

Isaac, Judah, and Calla were all able to make some friends, even though the village children only speak Maba. We are hopeful that this will help them transition well when we spend longer periods of time in the village.

Soccer is something of a universal language

One highlight of the week was hosting women from our village and 3 other neighboring villages to make grass mats for a privacy fence for our home. They each donated one or two bundles of millet stalks, walking or coming on donkey, and then spent the day making the grass mats for us. We thanked them publicly and also provided a goat and a sheep as a thank you gift for the women to share a nice meal together.

We attended a village baby naming ceremony that was actually not in a village, but in the middle of a field! We used our car to carry a laboring mother to a nearby hospital and back again, only to learn that her baby suffered trauma during delivery and is paralyzed. I had two women from different villages walk by foot to come greet me and bring me food. We saw camels almost every day outside our front door. We saw amazing amounts of stars in the night sky, and walked far away to use the bathroom since the wall around our actual bathroom was not yet complete! We have so many more stories to share; we look forward to sharing more with many of you when we come to the States this Spring.

Visit from Nana

By josh

On February 6, 2020

In Chad, Family, Food

Breakfast at the Radisson Blu, a special treat!

Nana (my mom) and her friend Brooke visited us the week after Christmas and we are so thankful for their visit. The travel in country was a bit sketchy and a cause for some stress, but their laid-back attitude mitigated the stress. We had planned to fly our family (using the in-country airline, Tchadia) from Abeche to the capital, spend a few days at a nice hotel with our guests, and then fly back to Abeche. Since Tchadia now cancels more flights than they actually fly, we ended up driving to the capital (14 hours, several times push starting the car from some overheating problems). “That’s OK” we thought, “because we’ll all fly back to Abeche together.” Except that the day before the flight they couldn’t tell us if the flight would actually go or not. So we punted again and just drove back. Now Nana, we feared, might not be up for a long drive with no A/C (part of the overheating problem) and no Starbucks. But we were wrong. She did amazing, as did Brooke, and we had a great drive. We saw lots of camels, which they were thrilled about, and even saw a camel caravan loaded down and moving to their next camp.

We made it in under 12 hours this time, which was amazing. Tired, but happy, the next day we had the huge party we had planned to celebrate Nana’s visit. This is expected in Chad, especially for someone who traveled such a long way. So that morning I headed off to the animal market with Abdoulaye and Brooke to pick a couple of sheep that looked like good eatin’. Meanwhile Kimberly managed an army of ladies who had come around 7:30AM to begin the process of cutting, peeling, slicing, pounding, etc. to make the sauce and all the sides to go with the meat.

It was a great party, and we had lots of people there to celebrate with us. Nana met all of our friends and neighbors, as well as some people we had never seen before. Nana and Brooke dressed up in their finest Chadian clothes, which Kimberly had bought for the occasion. We ate around 1:30PM, which is the normal lunchtime here in Chad, especially for parties like this. The food was wonderful, and Nana didn’t have to eat anything too exotic (that was one of her conditions for coming on the trip). Great day.

Thursday was a day to rest, as well as the last day for Nana and Brooke in Abeche. Our Chadian friends couldn’t imagine coming all this way just for a few days, since their visits usually last weeks or months, but we explained that Brooke had to get back to work. We passed Thursday at the house playing games, talking, and just resting.

Friday it was back to N’Djamena with Mission Aviation Services (MAF). This is a wonderful organization that works in hard to reach places to help missionaries get around. If you’re looking for a worthwhile organzation to support financially, consider these folks. The flight was on-time and uneventful, and we were back in N’Djamena by mid-afternoon. They flew out in the middle of the night.

We are thankful for a wonderful and encouraging visit!

Our Village Home

By josh

On January 5, 2020

In Chad, Family

A lot of progress has been made in the month or so since the last post. Work began on our huts after the last trip, and we now have two large huts and a ligdabe (I can’t figure out what to call this in English. It’s basically a standalone structure to provide shade made from wood and grass mats.) We have a pit toilet dug. Abdoulaye left today to go and put up one more ligdabe and a grass fence around the plot to give us a little privacy. Oh, and doors for our huts. I’m in N’Djamena right now after dropping my Mom and her friend off at the airport, but I return tomorrow to Abeche and we hope to be in the village by the end of the week for a week-long stay. Kimberly has been to the market to buy the household items we need to set up there. We bought a few more mats and blankets (it’s COLD at night right now).

A Big Step Forward

By josh

On December 7, 2019

In Chad, Family, Ministry

Thanks to all those who prayed for my trip this past week. It was very encouraging. We left on Tuesday morning around 7AM, two Land Cruisers loaded down with wood for the construction of two huts. The village elders have previously agreed to give us a plot of land for building on, though it has been a little unclear up until now exactly where. So, one of the purposes of this visit was to determine where our concession will be, to deliver supplies, and to arrange for the work to begin.

The trip from our current home to the village is about 90km (56mi), which on a good day takes about 3 hours. We arrived in the village around 10:30am to find it almost completely empty. All of the people were out in their fields gathering in the millet and peanut harvest. Some camel herders had brought their camels near the village and allowed them to graze in the fields of the villagers. This angered the villagers, but the camel herders are from a well-connected tribe, and the last time the villagers chased the camels away the herders returned with military backup. This conflict between sedentary farmers and nomadic animal herders is not new, but every year there are flare-ups of violence that see dozens of people killed. In fact, our region is current in a “state of emergency” because of violence between the Maba people and the Chadian Arabs. Anyway, these villagers were now highly motivated to gather their crops ASAP, so they were sleeping and eating out in the fields in order to get it done quickly.

After resting for a few minutes we headed out into the fields to greet people. We ate lunch out in the field, prepared by Abdoulaye’s aunt.

After visiting some of the older women we went to look at the village well. One other purpose of our visit was to look at the pump, which has been broken for several years, and determine the specifications for a new system. One of our colleagues here has funding for a project to replace broken well pumps with solar powered pumps and water tanks that will allow access to clean water and will last longer before requiring maintenance. We’ve partnered with him to outfit wells in two Maba villages with these systems, one of the villages being this one.

From the well we went down to the nearby wadi and ate some guavas fresh from the trees. The wadi is a beautiful place full of large mango, guava, and palm trees where monkeys and kids play side by side. The water is almost gone from the surface at this point in the year, but it’s still relatively close to the surface so people come and dig holes to get their daily water supply.

We returned from the wadi, and throughout the evening men trickled in to greet and left again to sleep out in their fields. We were able to hold a brief meeting with the chief and elders to explain our plan for the well as well as for building huts. They were happy with both plans, which was encouraging for us.

We slept outside under a blanket of stars and under literal blankets. This time of year brings cold nights, especially outside of Abeche. Wednesday morning many of the men came by and they discussed the specifics of our plan to build huts there. They marked out the land they would give, and Abdoulaye marked out on the ground where he wanted the huts constructed. The walls of the huts will be made of bricks, handmade and fired by the villagers. They will give us the bricks for one hut as a gift, and the bricks for the other we’ll buy from them. Several thousand handmade bricks is quite a generous gift!

After the impromptu meetings and a few more greetings we took off to see the other well nearby where we plan to replace the pump with a solar powered system. We talked with the villagers briefly, asked some specifics about the depth of the well and how many households are served by it, and then headed on for the final stop of our trip to visit some friends living in a nearby town and drop some of their belongings off for them. After that, mid-afternoon on Wednesday, we headed back to Abeche. We arrived just after dark, exhausted but thankful for a profitable trip.

Meeting the Maba Sultan

By kimberly

On November 2, 2019

In Chad, Family

With the Sultan and his advisors. The Sultan is holding Norah.

This week, we had the unique opportunity to greet the new Maba Sultan in Abeche. It was a wonderful way for us to introduce ourselves as learners of his people’s language and culture; to congratulate him on his new position as sultan; to share with him our prayers for wisdom and blessing in his work; to identify ourselves as working with the church and longing to show God’s love to the Maba people. We brought our children along, as well as Abdoulaye who helped secure the appointment. The sultan and his “cabinet” of men loved the children! They received us all with a very warm welcome and gave us an invitation to come visit again whenever we want. One of the men said he wanted to come to our home to visit with us in Maba. Relationships are so important in Chad, so all in all, this provided a wonderful occasion for us to establish a positive relationship with this influential Maba leader; our hope is that in the future he will know of us when we choose to begin work in villages.

2 Nights in the village

By josh

On October 24, 2019

In Chad, Family

This past week we took the whole family for 2 nights in a Maba village, the same one Josh visited about this time last year. Josh’s language tutor is from this village and had returned there to visit while we were in the capital. So we decided to take our family to visit his village and pick him up to come back and restart language lessons.

The road passed through this wadi (a seasonal riverbed, dry during most of the year)- happily not too deep for us to cross. For about a dollar some young guys will wade out and show you the best path across. Definitely worth at least a dollar.

We arrived mid-afternoon on Thursday after taking our time and making several stops in towns along the way. We spent the afternoon greeting people and eating and drinking hot, sweet tea. People seemed to be genuinely happy that I returned and brought my whole family.

One highlight of the trip was our time down at the wadi about 1km from the village. Most villages are near wadis because even during the dry part of the year people can find water by digging a hole in the sand, going deeper and deeper until they hit water. With water not far below the surface for most of the year, and filled with water for several months of the year, wadis are the greenest places in the Sahel. Many wadis in Chad have mango, guava and palm groves. And the temperature beneath the shade of these large, leafy trees is significantly cooler than outside.

Another highlight for the boys was getting to ride donkeys down to the wadi to fetch water.

6 Nights in the Village

By josh

On December 23, 2018

In Chad, church, Family, Ministry

We’re back now from our trip to the town/village where we spent 6 nights starting last Friday. It was a great trip, very encouraging and also eye-opening!

We arrived Friday afternoon after about a 4-hour drive. We’re thankful that the drive was uneventful, always a blessing here. We settled in Friday evening, girls sleeping inside and the boys outside under the stars. I was glad we had brought all of our thick blankets because it was COLD!

Saturday was market day, so the ladies went to visit the market in the morning and the men took a walk around town, including the market, in the afternoon. Iwas asked that morning if I would preach the next day at the church. It wasn’t a total surprise, because we’ve learned it’s typically an honor given to visitors and I had been put on the spot once before. So I had come more prepared than the last time, with a sermonette I had just shared the weekend before at our TL retreat. But it was in English, and I had to preach in French. So Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning were spent translating the sermon, because my French is not good enough to just do it on the fly.

Sunday was church, of course. The kids do Sunday School first, and then they leave and play outside or go to their houses while the adults do church. The service was pretty typical, about 2.5 hours long with lots of drumming, dancing, singing, preaching, and church business at the end. After that was a break and then a separate communion service. Needless to say we were ready for a break Sunday afternoon, and we just spent the time resting.

Monday through Wednesday mornings were English class for Kimberly and Danielle. They did great and the kids and teachers loved it. They asked when we’d be back to do more, but at the moment we don’t have any plans.

Josh spent the mornings with the kids, doing math with Isaac and reading with Judah on a mat under a shade tree while Norah took a nap and Calla Grace played. We brought Ashta, our house helper, with us so she helped as well.

We enjoyed talking with the missionary, Jeremie, about his ministry in this town. He’s been there for 17 years, and is well-known and respected by the community. We learned more about the school, the upcoming “evangelization campaign” that the church is planning in a nearby village, and the particular challenges faced by the church in ministering among Muslims. Our good friend Abdoulaye was with us, and he spent much time in the market sharing the gospel and his personal testimony. He gave away many of the memory cards we had prepared with Bible stories in the Maba language as well as some evangelistic videos in Arabic.

We are thankful for our time in the village and the time spent strengthening our relationship with Jeremie and the small church there.

Here’s a link to some more pics from our trip, as well as other pics from the past couple of months.

The Blessing of MAF

By josh

On May 15, 2018

In Chad, Family

Last Tuesday afternoon, as we were packing and preparing for the long car trip from Abeche to N’Djamena that were were anticipating making on Friday or Saturday, I happened to glance at my email and noticed an email from Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), who operate a couple of small planes in Chad to assist missionaries and other non-profit workers with transportation. The email said they had a flight coming to Abeche on Wednesday, and then returning to N’Djamena on Thursday, and that they had seats available. Very interesting. The last time we made this car trip across the country it involved 14 hours of driving, several of those in the dark. And driving in the dark in Chad is not fun at all. Donkeys have died. Anyway, we were dreading the trip but there aren’t a lot of options. Normally to get a MAF flight, if there’s not one already scheduled, you have to charter it. That means paying for the entire plane, which usually means a couple thousand dollars. It didn’t even cross our minds to fly because we don’t have the money. But when someone else charters the plane, and shares the costs, it starts getting tempting. So we found ourselves on Tuesday afternoon scrambling to tie up loose ends so that we could fly to the capital on Thursday, and from there we’ll fly to Europe for a few weeks of meetings/vacation before returning to Abeche mid-June. And a very generous supporter paid for our flight, which was inexpensive for adults, half-price for the kids, and Norah was free.