Much has happened

Hello everybody!

It's only been a few weeks since our last update, but it feels much longer. So much has been happening around here that it'll be hard to remember everything to share...I'll do my best.

So the strike was narrowly averted when the leaders agreed to a midnight decision of postponing the actual decision until the end of March. We're glad that my parents were able to arrive safely. Now we'll just pray that all the potential turmoil will never occur. Please pray that the president will return the director of communications back to his post so that the strike will not occur.

Our vacation was very nice and relaxing. When we returned here to Sambouya the temperature had dropped considerably during the mornings and nights. It is now down to the low fifties when we get up in the morning, which probably seems pretty great to most of you right now although it feels cold to us. It's still about 90 degrees in the afternoons. It's been breezy which feels great, but it brings in dust and ashes into our classrooms. During this time of year the villagers tend to burn the long grass and some of their fields.

We had a great visit with my parents. They, as well as Keith and Kise who were here, brought us lots of great stuff from home! Thanks for all of the gifts! They've adapted very well to life here and the time they've been here has flown by so quickly. All the things they thought would be difficult have turned out to be not nearly as bad as they believed they would be. They were even able to eat banaku fila which, to be perfectly honest, looks like something you might find in a baby's diaper. (It tastes much better than it looks!)

We've been very busy since my parents arrived, getting lots of things done that had been sitting on the back burner. Our library, though not yet complete or fully functional, is full of books! The kids were amazed and LOVE all the new reading materials. Now we have to find a way to get them to put their books down when we want to teach:)

We also had a s'more feast with the kids, which was a lot of fun. The children are probably still dreaming of marshmallows and chocolate. Thank you, Nara! My dad has been busy teaching our carpenter, Daniel, how to use his new table saw. He and Pastor also spent a little time fixing some of the old plumbing in our house. Mom has been helping a lot in the library doing the beautifying and organization. Now we even have a check out system. They've also been helping out in the classrooms. Mira has come down with what seems like malaria again and it's been nice to have the extra hands to help out the guys in their classrooms. She took off most of the week to rest and recover. Your prayers for her recovery and strength are much appreciated.

It's been circumcision month in our area of Guinea. There's a lot of celebrating and partying going on. We learned that boys are only circumcised every three years but they do a group of girls every year. This is the year when the boys and girls coincide. The children who are going through the ceremony have to wear all black outfits for awhile. Sadly, this past week we lost a young girl from Sambouya to what we heard were complications from the ceremony. Circumcising girls is supposedly illegal in Guinea, but the village traditions are not easily let go. We knew the little girl and gave our condolences to the mother. Hopefully this terrible tradition will end soon and open up some avenues for us to share our faith with our village friends.

We had our first Children's Church service with the Sambouya kids this past Sunday. Everything went very well and we had a good time with the kids. They're not used to being spoken to in church and we're not used to speaking so it will take some getting used to, but we're excited to see what happens with our ministry! We also learned how terrible our Malinke was when we asked some of our students to help us translate our lesson. Even in the simplest language we got laughed at...but on a positive note we did learn a lot in the translation process. As always, please pray for our language learning. All the other missionaries have also started their new ministries. We are praying that these fields will be white and ready for the harvest.

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The rest of this I am writing from here in Conakry. I brought my parents to the airport on Friday but we had some serious brake problems on the road. Fortunately, we were all safe. We stopped in a town 30 minutes out of Conakry and got some minor repairs done to just get us to the airport. Saturday morning I took the car to a shop for repairs, but it won't be finished until Monday morning. In the meantime I spoke to Carol on the phone yesterday and it sounds like she may be coming down with malaria once again. Her symptoms seem consistent but it is not confirmed yet. She will likely test today and start medication.

We hope you enjoy the pictures. We tried to include some from our village this time. It is possible that this will be our last update until the end of our time here in May. We have no trips to Conakry planned and our e-mail situation is still not resolved. So if you don't hear from us, don't worry! We're still alive.

That's the news from Guinea. We're praying that God will bless you abundantly more than each of you has blessed us!

Click here to see a slideshow of pictures that accompanied this email from Shannon & Carol.

Love,
Shannon and Carol