Dear Family and Friends,
Since Shannon's been good and has written most of these updates, I decided to give him a break and write one to you too. We started school last Monday (I know this is unthinkable to you teachers out there) and survived the first week and a half of school. :)
The children are very cute, energetic, and for the most part,excited to learn. A typical school day begins with our chapel time at 8am, and at 8:30 the children walk to class. Shannon and I each have 20 kids and our classrooms are next to each other. The classrooms are spacious and there are more than enough desks for everyone. The only thing we wish for is for better lighting, since we teach only by sunlight without electricity.
In the morning we teach reading, writing, math, and spelling. We eat an African meal for lunch made by the volunteers. Typically, the meal has rice with peanut sauce. Peanut sauce is made up of finely ground peanuts, palm oil, and some other spices. In the afternoon we teach phonics/word work, social studies/science, and then the kids either have art or music. Jeje, the missionary from Korea teaches art and we, er Shannon, teaches music on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I usually end up teaching the children some new songs at the end of music time and do my best to strum them on the guitar. The children absolutely LOVE to sing and it's a real joy to hear them. We can usually hear them in the chapel singing at 7:30 in the morning before school starts and they love learning new songs.
During the first week, we were concerned with the children because some of them stared at us blankly while we spoke to them. Since then, some of them have started to remember what they learned last year and they are speaking much better now. It's difficult because over the whole summer they haven't had any practice with their English, so we've been doing a lot of review with basic skills. What we're most amazed at is their range. Most of the children are very good at math, but they are at all ends of the spectrum when it comes to reading, writing, and spelling. So, we'll do
our best this year to especially bring up those kids that are really low.
After school we have orientation with Pastor Joshua at 3. Orientation is really good and gives us a chance to debrief and also learn from God's word. Then we usually go back to school to finish preparing for the next school day. Shannon usually makes copies at night. Hahaha, making copies is the most frustrating thing in the world because it's such an ordeal. In order to make copies we have to turn on the generator, which takes a lot of physical strength and is extremely loud once it's on. Then we plug it into the duplicator and hope and pray that it doesn't break down
that day. Our duplicator is tempermental, but PJoshua and Shannon do a pretty good job being handymen to fix it when it gets stuck and stops working.
At around 5-6 we usually make dinner. They do have a lot of things we can get at the Faranah market, like potatoes, bananas, onions, green onions, garlic, cucumber, and plantain. They also have these fried donut holes that Shannon especially likes to eat. Jeje loves to cook, so it's been great making dinners with her. We've been pretty creative with the food we have. They do have French bread in Faranah that is delivered by bicycle by one of the workers every morning for the children and us to eat. Shannon really enjoys being able to eat his peanut butter sandwiches
everyday. I don't know what he would do without them. So, we are eating well and we're healthy. I think we've actually put on a couple pounds here.
This week Pastor Joshua, Sarah, Caleb, and Christa are in Conakry, Guinea's capital. Conakry is the city we flew into when we arrived here. The drive there from Sambouya is 8 hours of mountains and is sometimes treacherous. Please pray for them as the trip can be very tiring. They went there to get more supplies and pick up mail. So this week, I've
been leading the praise time with the kids in the morning and Shannon has been giving mini sermons. Please pray for us that we would stay energized. The sun really does make you tired and it can make the children listless too.
I would say that the hardest part about teaching here is that we are constantly concerned about the children. Almost everyday, someone has a fever, needs bandaids, or has an upset stomach. Today in class I had someone throw up on the floor, and she never told me that she felt sick. So, we make an effort to constantly tell the kids how to stay healthy and to tell us when they are not feeling well. Please pray that the kids would stay healthy!
On a funnier note, we've seen and eaten our fair share of strange things. Shannon always happens to see/catch/observe crazy insects/animals out here. So far this week we've seen an enormous millipede(probably 3/4inch thick and 8 inches long!), an iguana, a snake, and the biggest slug we've ever seen. He's usually attempting to prevent the kids from
throwing things at them. While we were in our village the other night, someone offered us what looked like a meatball. I took a bite and discovered that it was a fishball with bones. Being the nice wife I was, I offered
some to Shannon to eat. He took one bite and passed it on to a village kid who gobbled it up. "Adumang, adumang!" they said, which means delicious! We just nodded our heads and smiled.
Life in Bilingkoro has been interesting. We try to get home early enough to greet people about twice a week or so. The other times it is too dark or we are too tired by the time we get home to go around the village saying hi to everyone. We'll talk more about village life in another e-mail, but I realize I've already written far too much.
So now you know what a typical day is like for us. Sorry I can't be as concise as Shannon, but there is just so much to write. We think and pray for you all often. Please do the same for us! :) I hope all is well at home!
Love,
Shannon and Carol
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
three out of six
Dear Friends and Family, :)
Many of you are wondering about our luggage situation. We received three of our bags last week, so we are doing just fine. The bags we still hope to receive mostly have our medicine and clothing, but we're getting by on what past missionaries have left and the things Pastor and Sarah have provided for us. We're still hopeful about receiving our other 3 bags, so don't start sending supplies just yet! We filed missing baggage claims in Paris and Conakry and we have people trying to track down our baggage for us and a man, Banjou, who stops in at the airport every day or two to see if our bags have arrived yet. Our first three were not tampered with (much to our surprise!) so while you pray for us to get our other 3 bags, pray also that they arrive in whole.
Sarah has almost fully recovered from her malaria and just has a headache now and then, so praise God for that! J.J. had a minor accident with a moto and a tree last night, but she escaped with only a couple of scrapes and bumps and the moto is fine too. We're praying for a quick recovery as we prepare for school to start on Monday.
Our house in Bilingkoro is starting to feel like home now that we've moved in, but we haven't got to spend much time there yet due to our school preparations. We know a lot of the villagers by name though and we're starting to build some relationships. Everyone is very friendly and very patient with our poor language skills and we look forward to getting to know them better in the near future.
We made our first excursion into the Farranah market by ourselves yesterday and came out pretty well. It's not a huge place, but very crowded and pretty dirty. Fortunately we ran in to Benjamin, the up-and-coming pastor in Sambouya, and felt much more confident after he assured us we hadn't been ripped off.
School starts way too soon and we don't feel at all prepared yet, so prayer for preparation and safety for the kids traveling in (some of them travel 2 days to get here).
If you have been, you can stop sending e-mails to the TMICA email account, since we're now able to check email at our normal g-mail address.
We miss you all and think of you often!
Love,
Shannon and Carol
Many of you are wondering about our luggage situation. We received three of our bags last week, so we are doing just fine. The bags we still hope to receive mostly have our medicine and clothing, but we're getting by on what past missionaries have left and the things Pastor and Sarah have provided for us. We're still hopeful about receiving our other 3 bags, so don't start sending supplies just yet! We filed missing baggage claims in Paris and Conakry and we have people trying to track down our baggage for us and a man, Banjou, who stops in at the airport every day or two to see if our bags have arrived yet. Our first three were not tampered with (much to our surprise!) so while you pray for us to get our other 3 bags, pray also that they arrive in whole.
Sarah has almost fully recovered from her malaria and just has a headache now and then, so praise God for that! J.J. had a minor accident with a moto and a tree last night, but she escaped with only a couple of scrapes and bumps and the moto is fine too. We're praying for a quick recovery as we prepare for school to start on Monday.
Our house in Bilingkoro is starting to feel like home now that we've moved in, but we haven't got to spend much time there yet due to our school preparations. We know a lot of the villagers by name though and we're starting to build some relationships. Everyone is very friendly and very patient with our poor language skills and we look forward to getting to know them better in the near future.
We made our first excursion into the Farranah market by ourselves yesterday and came out pretty well. It's not a huge place, but very crowded and pretty dirty. Fortunately we ran in to Benjamin, the up-and-coming pastor in Sambouya, and felt much more confident after he assured us we hadn't been ripped off.
School starts way too soon and we don't feel at all prepared yet, so prayer for preparation and safety for the kids traveling in (some of them travel 2 days to get here).
If you have been, you can stop sending e-mails to the TMICA email account, since we're now able to check email at our normal g-mail address.
We miss you all and think of you often!
Love,
Shannon and Carol
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Update :)
Hey everyone! :)
We've been here for about a week now and already we're sending you our second e-mail! We're guessing that from now on we'll probably try and send an e-mail twice a month or so. Unfortunately, we're unable at this time to receive any e-mail through our gmail account. If you could send e-mails to both our gmail and tmica@teachusmission.org, and put our names in the subject line, it'll guarantee that we'll be able to read what you send.
During this past week we've been continuing orientation with Pastor Joshua and JJ, the other missionary teacher in the mornings. Usually after orientation we usually do laundry or other chores until lunch. Washing laundry by hand is hard work and during the rainy season, it's hard to predict if your clothes will be dry by the end of the day. :P For lunch we have a typical African lunch made by a native volunteer. Currently, the woman that makes us lunch is the mother of Nona, one of our students
this year. Our lunches usually consist of a bowl of rice with some type of sauce, such as peanut sauce on the side. We've even had chicken and fish.
After lunch we've been going over to Bilingkoro, the village where our new home is. Slowly but surely it's becoming clean. When we first walked in, the house was boarded up and littered with bugs, dead and alive. We've both killed more than our share of spiders, ants, roaches, grasshoppers, etc. Shannon even killed a couple of lizards (they are everywhere!), but I couldn't bear to see them being killed.
Our biggest surprise came from the beehive that was in our bathroom window. Fortunately, one of our brave native volunteers, Clemon, sprayed the beehive with insecticide a few times and took care of them. Yesterday, Shannon opened the bathroom window and cleaned up hundreds of dead bees. Unfortunately, we couldn't use the honey from the beehive since we had sprayed it.
We'll be moving into our home in a few days. We've almost cleaned up the entire place except for the bathroom and kitchen. Since we've been going back and forth from Sambouya to Bilingkoro, we've greeted many people along the way. The elder in our village introduced all the children to us the other day and we shook their hands and tried our best to say hello. It's funny, because when we're cleaning inside the house, we'll hear the children saying, "Tubab, tubabo!" to each other, which means white man,white man. They often ask or mention Mira and Nara's names, the two
missionary teachers that lived in our house last year. When we leave, the children always run around to where the dirt road is and make sure to say goodbye twice.
As for our prayer requests, please pray for Sarah, Pastor Joshua's wife. She tested positive for malaria yesterday and is resting at home now. Please also pray for our luggage, which still hasn't arrived. We were told that it would be a semi miracle if it even came. The rest of us here are all healthy and eating well. Shannon's getting used to eating lots of rice at every meal, since we do eat a lot of it here.
We hope that all is well back in the US. If you haven't been, but would like to recieve email updates, please e-mail mieko743@yahoo.com to be added to our mailing list. God bless!
Love,
Shannon and Carol
We've been here for about a week now and already we're sending you our second e-mail! We're guessing that from now on we'll probably try and send an e-mail twice a month or so. Unfortunately, we're unable at this time to receive any e-mail through our gmail account. If you could send e-mails to both our gmail and tmica@teachusmission.org, and put our names in the subject line, it'll guarantee that we'll be able to read what you send.
During this past week we've been continuing orientation with Pastor Joshua and JJ, the other missionary teacher in the mornings. Usually after orientation we usually do laundry or other chores until lunch. Washing laundry by hand is hard work and during the rainy season, it's hard to predict if your clothes will be dry by the end of the day. :P For lunch we have a typical African lunch made by a native volunteer. Currently, the woman that makes us lunch is the mother of Nona, one of our students
this year. Our lunches usually consist of a bowl of rice with some type of sauce, such as peanut sauce on the side. We've even had chicken and fish.
After lunch we've been going over to Bilingkoro, the village where our new home is. Slowly but surely it's becoming clean. When we first walked in, the house was boarded up and littered with bugs, dead and alive. We've both killed more than our share of spiders, ants, roaches, grasshoppers, etc. Shannon even killed a couple of lizards (they are everywhere!), but I couldn't bear to see them being killed.
Our biggest surprise came from the beehive that was in our bathroom window. Fortunately, one of our brave native volunteers, Clemon, sprayed the beehive with insecticide a few times and took care of them. Yesterday, Shannon opened the bathroom window and cleaned up hundreds of dead bees. Unfortunately, we couldn't use the honey from the beehive since we had sprayed it.
We'll be moving into our home in a few days. We've almost cleaned up the entire place except for the bathroom and kitchen. Since we've been going back and forth from Sambouya to Bilingkoro, we've greeted many people along the way. The elder in our village introduced all the children to us the other day and we shook their hands and tried our best to say hello. It's funny, because when we're cleaning inside the house, we'll hear the children saying, "Tubab, tubabo!" to each other, which means white man,white man. They often ask or mention Mira and Nara's names, the two
missionary teachers that lived in our house last year. When we leave, the children always run around to where the dirt road is and make sure to say goodbye twice.
As for our prayer requests, please pray for Sarah, Pastor Joshua's wife. She tested positive for malaria yesterday and is resting at home now. Please also pray for our luggage, which still hasn't arrived. We were told that it would be a semi miracle if it even came. The rest of us here are all healthy and eating well. Shannon's getting used to eating lots of rice at every meal, since we do eat a lot of it here.
We hope that all is well back in the US. If you haven't been, but would like to recieve email updates, please e-mail mieko743@yahoo.com to be added to our mailing list. God bless!
Love,
Shannon and Carol
Friday, September 01, 2006
Wow! (Part II)
It's been so exciting since we've been here in Sambouya. Sambouya village is right next to the school campus, and Pastor Joshua and his family live right next to the village as well. We've been staying at the center temporarily since we got here, at the guesthouse, which is awesome. If you ever want to come out and visit us, your accommodations will be pretty nice! In the guesthouse there are beds with mattresses, the living room area is very open and large, there is a kitchen and a gas stove, and there are bathrooms! You don't have to squat to use the toilet, and the faucet and shower do work, even if the water only comes out in a trickle and it's REALLY cold. Because it is rainy season now and the water tank outside is large, we don't have to ration our water that much like we do during the dry season.
So THIS, is Guinea in a way I have never seen or experienced before. I am completely amazed at how God has done all these things in such a short period of time. We peeked into the classrooms, kids' dormitories, chapel, and some other buildings the other day. I can't believe at all the work that has been done. Pastor Joshua has such a vision that they're planning on starting the middle school and high school buildings this year.
As for the surroundings, it is very lush and green around here. The campus is surrounded by trees, bushes, and reddish dirt covers the ground in patches. We were told that as it changes from rainy to dry season, the green begins to disappear.
The other day we visited Bilingkoro, the village we will be staying in. I have to admit, in some ways we would like to stay in the guesthouse because the other teacher will be living there and it is nicer than we thought it would be. However, Shannon and I would like to try and live in the village so we can interact with the villagers and get to know them as well. If we live at the guesthouse, which is right on campus, we would rarely interact with people in the villages unless we walk there. Bilingkoro is about a 15 minute walk from the school. It's a little hilly on the way and there is a red dirt path wide enough for cars to get through that you can travel on to get there. People in the villages are very friendly, and you'll hear shouted greetings of "Inike! Tanante!", which mean hello in Maninka. It was funny when we were going through the village the other day and ended up having a crowd of about 30 children following us all the way through. Here it is uncommon to see a "tubab" or white man, so we're quite a sight to see.
Our new home is cozy. It needs a lot of cleaning because there are lots of cobwebs and dust around, but there are three small rooms, a stove, a sink, and a bathroom that we can use. The villagers are very friendly here. There will be a generator in our new home so that we can actually use some electricity for a couple hours at night when we come home from teaching. Plus, we will be able to take a shower and wash dishes and such as long as there is water in our water tank.
So far life is pretty relaxed. We went to the market today for some groceries (we'll describe it more later), and hooked up a solar panel on the guesthouse so that we can turn on a few lights at night. The weather has been relatively mild, probably only up into the mid-eighties, but we know that won't last long. Orientation has been fruitful and there is a lot for us to learn and remember. J.J., the other teacher from Korea, is great and we have been spending a lot of time with the Kim family and playing with the kids.
This coming week we'll start preparing for school as the kids are showing up on the 17th. Please pray for their safety(many travel two days to get here) and our preparation. Also, are bags have still not arrived and we don't know if or when they will come. Fortunately, Pastor J. and Sara have put together a survival kit to get us through a couple weeks, as well as things left behind by previous missionaries that we can use. (We'll let you know if we need some things sent, but we're fine for now)
Hopefully we'll update often and write less! We hope and pray that all is well with all of you back home! God Bless!
Love,
Shannon and Carol
So THIS, is Guinea in a way I have never seen or experienced before. I am completely amazed at how God has done all these things in such a short period of time. We peeked into the classrooms, kids' dormitories, chapel, and some other buildings the other day. I can't believe at all the work that has been done. Pastor Joshua has such a vision that they're planning on starting the middle school and high school buildings this year.
As for the surroundings, it is very lush and green around here. The campus is surrounded by trees, bushes, and reddish dirt covers the ground in patches. We were told that as it changes from rainy to dry season, the green begins to disappear.
The other day we visited Bilingkoro, the village we will be staying in. I have to admit, in some ways we would like to stay in the guesthouse because the other teacher will be living there and it is nicer than we thought it would be. However, Shannon and I would like to try and live in the village so we can interact with the villagers and get to know them as well. If we live at the guesthouse, which is right on campus, we would rarely interact with people in the villages unless we walk there. Bilingkoro is about a 15 minute walk from the school. It's a little hilly on the way and there is a red dirt path wide enough for cars to get through that you can travel on to get there. People in the villages are very friendly, and you'll hear shouted greetings of "Inike! Tanante!", which mean hello in Maninka. It was funny when we were going through the village the other day and ended up having a crowd of about 30 children following us all the way through. Here it is uncommon to see a "tubab" or white man, so we're quite a sight to see.
Our new home is cozy. It needs a lot of cleaning because there are lots of cobwebs and dust around, but there are three small rooms, a stove, a sink, and a bathroom that we can use. The villagers are very friendly here. There will be a generator in our new home so that we can actually use some electricity for a couple hours at night when we come home from teaching. Plus, we will be able to take a shower and wash dishes and such as long as there is water in our water tank.
So far life is pretty relaxed. We went to the market today for some groceries (we'll describe it more later), and hooked up a solar panel on the guesthouse so that we can turn on a few lights at night. The weather has been relatively mild, probably only up into the mid-eighties, but we know that won't last long. Orientation has been fruitful and there is a lot for us to learn and remember. J.J., the other teacher from Korea, is great and we have been spending a lot of time with the Kim family and playing with the kids.
This coming week we'll start preparing for school as the kids are showing up on the 17th. Please pray for their safety(many travel two days to get here) and our preparation. Also, are bags have still not arrived and we don't know if or when they will come. Fortunately, Pastor J. and Sara have put together a survival kit to get us through a couple weeks, as well as things left behind by previous missionaries that we can use. (We'll let you know if we need some things sent, but we're fine for now)
Hopefully we'll update often and write less! We hope and pray that all is well with all of you back home! God Bless!
Love,
Shannon and Carol
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