Dry Season Arrives

[Originally written around Thanksgiving, but posted late due to "technical difficulties"]

Hello everyone!

Well, it's already happened. With the first of November came the onset of dry season. It's been 2 1/2 weeks and we haven't even seen a gray cloud. It's hard to believe, but it is supposed to be like this for the next few months. Fortunately the temperature hasn't increased much and it has actually decreased overnight. We had to put the blankets on our bed and start wearing our warmer pajamas. It's still pretty chilly when we wake up in the morning so we bundle up for the walk to school. We're amazed at how much the temperature can fluctuate every day. We don't have a thermometer, but we guess that it gets down to about 40 over night and up to about 90 during the afternoons. Most of the villagers in Bilingkoro got a case of the sniffles, but they've been in good spirits and we think the chilly weather has cooled some of their hot tempers since the arguing suddenly ceased:) It's nice to have jacket weather when we know you're all getting out your warmer clothes too.

Our students have still been much healthier than those first few weeks and we ask for your continued prayer. We actually had a student get seriously ill last week. When they found her in the middle of the night she could not even speak or raise up her arms. They thought at that point that she would not even survive, but after a few days in the hospital she was back and good as new. Also, the wife of the new Sambouya pastor, Rachel, had an appendectomy which is unpleasant in the U.S., but very risky in these hospitals. She came out of it fine though and is now back at home resting up. We praise God for the answered prayers that everyone is back here at TMICA and well!

Here's an interesting fact. You can fit two live, adult oxen and four men in one compact car. It sounds like an old fashioned college prank, but we've witnessed this ourselves. When we were in Faranah at the marketplace we saw a car trying to get up a hill with all of the above. They had somehow stuffed one cow into the open trunk, one cow was strapped to the roof of the car, and the men were pushing and driving the car. I'd like to see more of these real world scenarios taught in our engineering schools.

Personal safety and animal rights aren't issues here. While walking to and from school, we frequently see cars crammed with people inside, on the bumper, and on top of them, along with bags and other things on the car's roof. We're always afraid someone's going to fall off, but it's more important to them that they get a ride than worry about falling off. They seem to number around 15-20 passengers per car, but they drive too fast for us to count.

Major cultural differences seem few, but there are a few minor ones that we have run in to...We gave an older woman a ride from our village to Sambouya and she had no idea how to open a car door from the outside or the inside. Cars are a rarity in the cities, but pretty non-existent in the villages. Teaching our students using American text books has provided us with some interesting teaching moments. Topics include surfing, mailboxes, ice skates (slightly ironic), stop lights and stop signs, baseball, fire trucks, lawn mowers (lawns are dirt), ovens, and so on. Imagine trying to explain these things to someone that's never seen or heard of them before. They don't always believe us, and when we try to explain things, it does make Americans
sound a little strange. Riding a board on waves!? Che!?

We attended a funeral in Bilingkoro a few weeks ago. By chance it was a Saturday and we happened to be around. One of the village men came to our door and told us that someone had died and we should go. We already guessed it was a funeral from the beating drum and the wailing women, but we've heard/seen so many strange things we didn't want to be presumptuous. We put on nice clothes and went out and discovered that there were hundreds of people, mostly visitors. The funeral is nothing at all like our funerals and so it was interesting to attend. They had set up a large awning where the men gathered to sit or stand or talk. (It was nice for me to be in the shade;) The women stay outside and generally sing songs of mourning and wail, so Carol sat with the women. She watched as the women came together in groups from their respective villages wailing and singing funeral songs.

The body was wrapped in cloth and lay in the deceased's house. In the house 10-12 Muslim men sat around reciting prayers from the Koran. I went in for a bit and said my own prayer. Many of the men were carrying money which they sometimes gave to people or pocketed. There were two men standing in the middle shouting things that I did not understand, but they seemed to bein charge. We stayed for about an hour and then we were told that this could go on all day and decided to head to Sambouya.

All of us are still doing very well. Jeje is now confident enough with her English to teach art on her own and even moved to her own classroom. It's very nice for Carol and I to get the break a few times a week. Pastor's family is doing great also. We got to have dinner with them and some other missionaries from the area last weekend. It was nice to have some other adults, and Americans, to chat with.

We're still eating well. We had some of the mac and cheese that my mother sent to us and right now the ladies are trying their hands at making some fried chicken! Carol has mastered French fries and somehow the ladies still make many traditional Korean foods as well. We keep saying that we'll start dieting at the beginning of every month, but so far that keeps getting pushed back...

We said last time that we'd write about some TMICA history. We are so indebted to all the people who came here before us. By no means are we living in luxury, but we definitely have some comforts that we never could have anticipated. And having students who already know how to line up and sit quietly and do their homework and hold their pencils is a blessing we cannot measure. TMICA (Teachus Mission International Christian Academy) opened three years ago. Pastor Joshua, his family, and many supporters planned, raised funds, and built a school that can currently house about 120 students plus staff. The timeline on which all of this happened is so small that nothing less than the hand of God at work could explain it. The continuing vision is to educate these students all the way through college. In addition to the school, TM is also devoted to starting churches and making disciples/disciplers. Benjamin, a native Guinean who has been discipled by Pastor for nearly 3 years just took over the responsibility of preaching the church services in Sambouya. Pastor and his family are relocating to a nearby village to begin their second church in February.

TM is also in the process of beginning a new ministry in Cambodia which broke ground in June and made TMICA truly international. There are 1,581 peoples in the world who have no access to the gospel and TM's vision is to reach all of them.

On a final note, we saw our first real snake a few nights ago. We've seen a couple babies, no bigger than a pencil, but we were walking home at night and came upon it in the road. Fortunately we noticed it before we stepped on it and it slithered away. People here have been killed by them before so you have to take them seriously. This one wasn't huge, only about 3 feet long, but it was as thick around as your upper arm. The villagers that we told afterward warned us about the grave dangers of walking at night and insisted that we take the motos at night.

There's a couple of big events coming up that we would appreciate your prayer for. Urbana is a ginormous Christian gathering that happens every three years and this year it is in St. Louis. TM will have a booth and some representatives there to share our ministry and recruit teachers and missionaries. Please pray that God would use this event to help expand the TM ministry and provide teachers for years to come. Secondly, a group of men and women will be coming from California for M4E in January. They will come to see and learn about village life and the work that is being done at
TMICA.

Thank you for your prayers. We know that God is answering them and we feel blessed everyday because of it.

Love,
Shannon and Carol