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