Mike and Mindee in Africa

Blessed Assurance

2012-01-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

Classic mirror shot - including a cameo of the photographer!

Mindee was on the cooking crew this year. She taught her fellow chefs a little trick - using a matchstick to help alleviate the used-to-be-inevitable tears from onion dicing!

We had to document this rare event - Mike and Mindee actually SEEING each other on Outreach! (Normally we have very different roles and are often stationed at different work sites.)

Mike getting a shot of the roofing crew while Mindee gets a shot of him!

(See bottom left corner.)

Here's the shot Mindee took of Mike from the above picture...

Side note about the evening evangelism campaigns: 1000 people heard the gospel over the weekend. 2 of those villages heard the gospel for the very first time!

(Exciting news: 100 people in all responded to the salvation message)

Strength. Joy. Assurance.

These were the characteristics of this Outreach weekend. Despite numerous obstacles, including two tire blow-outs, two vehicle break-downs, luggage lost and spilled on the highway (yet luckily recovered quickly), and scads of technical difficulties, we were still able to accomplish what God set out for us. IN SPITE of our short-comings!

Strength. Many staff and students struggled with exhaustion and sickness before going on this trip, yet felt a supernatural strength and energy during this gruelingly laborous weekend.

Joy. Despite the onset of stress that generally accompanies this busy time of year at D.A., numerous people testified that they were filled with a pervasive, all-encompassing sense of joy as they toiled, worked and ministered throughout the weekend.

Assurance. Several of our student leaders confessed that they had been wrestling with doubts before going on this weekend. One such student shared that not only did he lead a Muslim man to the Lord one night, but he did so AFTER God used him to heal the man through the power of prayer! This 17-year-old who, a few days ago had been expressing doubts, announced publicly: "Jesus exists. It's irrefutable."

Outreach Weekend is back!

2012-01-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Tomorrow morning at 5:00 we head out for our second outreach weekend of the school year. There will be nearly 150 of us this time who seek to meet the physical and spiritual needs of thousands of Senegalese, all in the name of Jesus.

We will be in and around the same areas we worked in last November and look forward to reconnecting with some of the men, women, and children we have met before. In our last blog we told of how a village chief became a Christian at our last campaign. Since then his wife has also become a believer and we hope to meet more from his village who have since stepped out in faith to follow Jesus.

Please pray for us this weekend, for safety for us, for the Good News to be proclaimed and for people to hear and respond.

There are so many logistics involved in an event like this, and so many things that could potentially go wrong. We trust in God to provide for our needs and to work through us DESPITE any mishaps.

We also believe that this weekend could not be successful without prayer support from all over the world. We have a prayer chain here in Dakar where people have volunteered to pray during specific times of day and night AROUND THE CLOCK so we are bathed in prayer. We ask that you would consider doing the same and choosing a specific period of time during the next three days to lift this outreach up in prayer. Mark your calendar, set an alarm, and pray for us.

We can't thank you enough for your support.

We'll be sure and check in early next week when we get back!

Mike and Mindee

Outreach weekend report

2011-11-28T02:37:00.000-08:00

Satan attacks, hopes we will falter
But we have all the power through the Father of Lights
And in that power of God’s Spirit and might
The victory is ours in Lord
So take up the sword and put on the armor
Watching always praying pressing on toward the mark
Standing firm, standing firm on the Rock

The lyrics of this song from ICA is very true to our experience on outreach last weekend, an outreach that was predominantly characterized by two words. The first word is DELAY.

We left on time on Friday morning, arrived to our camp site by mid morning and began dispersing to our various locations. It’s always slow going organizing 140 people to do anything, even if we are about as well oiled a machine as you can get for our size. The delays we had were not generally a result of poor planning on our part (i.e., we tested all equipment before we went) - they were out of our control.

The foundation/brick team, the largest group, charged with digging and pouring the foundation for a new church building, headed out with the medical team who would work nearby. A 12 km sandy road stretched between the work site and camp - about a 30 minute drive. By late morning virtually everything arrived, but there was a delay in digging as the foundation was not properly marked and had to be re-measured. The brick makers didn’t have enough water so a vehicle had to run back to camp to get barrels - a 1 hour round trip. The medical team’s original location fell through so they had to relocate to a new spot. They didn’t see their first patient until around 1 pm.

Meanwhile the drama team, delayed at first by having to drive the foundation crew’s equipment to that site before heading off to their assigned villages, made it half way through their day before their generator broke. They had to come back to camp for repairs.

The drama team, inside the van, and some of the foundation crew and
equipment above and behind the van, head off to the digging site.

The bench crew, which works at camp, found that not one, but TWO generators (the only two left at camp) were no longer working so they were delayed until another generator could be delivered to them.

The water crew, whose job is likely the very most important one - filtering well water so we can safely drink it all weekend - saw their filter irreparably break only a few hours into the first day.

The mural team set out to paint a mural on the front wall of a church we built last year. Upon arrival, they found that an important tool for their job had gone missing and they would have to improvise.

Mindee's paint crew had the fewest setbacks, but did have a delay when the truck delivering their paint thinner got lost.

Mindee's paint crew

The food crew had one propane gas tank that wouldn’t open, leaving one burner inoperable which was meant to cook a HUGE pot of food.

My sound team was delayed both nights while we waited for our guides to arrive and lead us to our locations for the evening campaigns. Each night we were mere minutes away from complete darkness by the time we were ready to start the generator and begin running our halogen lights.

Mike in the sound trailer running the board during the evening campaign.

Each night, aside from our main evening campaign, we try to send two more projection teams out to show a movie and give a message in nearby villages. The first night, one location fell through so the team couldn’t go, the other had a technical malfunction which prevented them from playing their movie, even after several hundred people had gathered to watch it. Dejected, they promised to return the next night and try again.

During one of my many trips between the camp site and the foundation site, I got a flat tire. In my Life Skills class back at school I teach how to change a tire. THIS was not the same thing. Changing a tire on a sandy road is harder. ESPECIALLY when the jack for your car is back at camp holding up the trailer whose hitch broke on the way out. After a 30 minute delay of waiting for someone to arrive with a spare jack, the tire took another 45 minutes to change. Anyone want to predict how the spare tire fared? You got it. Flat too. Another delay while we secured the car, left it in the bush, and piled into (and onto) the rescue vehicle. It took an additional 2 1/2 hours to get the tires repaired and get the truck back.

There are more delays to describe, but I think this will suffice to set the stage. We were facing some serious resistance to what we were there to do.

Now for the second word. DESPITE

Despite the delays in each of these situations, we succeeded in all our projects. Everything that broke was either repaired or replaced, foundation crew poured the foundation, brick crew made nearly 600 bricks, drama made it back out to their remaining villages, even if it meant a late dinner for them that night, everyone had their fill of food and water, etc., etc.

At our main evening campaign the results seemed discouraging, especially after last year when hundreds and hundreds of people responded. We had a few hundred attend each night, but the first night, when the pastor asked for anyone who wanted to make a commitment to come forward, only ONE solitary man came forward. Eventually the pastor coaxed a few more individuals to come forward, but it was no more than 6 or 7 total. The second night was similar. One young girl stepped forward and stood, alone, for several minutes. Then, two more children stepped forward. No more.

In these cases the disappointment is only due to the DELAY in pertinent information. DESPITE it only being one man who came forward the first night, the fact that it was THIS one man may be the beginning of something far, far greater. For that one man who stepped forward that first night... was the village CHIEF!

We also had a delay in hearing the other good news. Most of us didn’t learn until Sunday night back in Dakar how the projection team did. They returned to their village the second night to show the movie and give the gospel message. DESPITE all the set backs the night before, around TWO HUNDRED people responded to the invitation to receive salvation!

There are so many more stories we could share and countless more we haven’t heard. One thing is certain. God is on the move in Senegal. He is breaking strongholds and softening hearts. He is revealing Himself in new ways to men, women and children. And we get to be a part of it.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. Keep it up, as we get to do this all over again in January!

Mike and Mindee

Mike accidentally distracts the kids during Sunday school. Oops.

Outreach weekend is here!

2011-11-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been a busy year so far. We can't believe it's already nearly December!

Tomorrow we leave for our Thanksgiving outreach weekend. Most of you know this is one of two major outreaches DA takes to villages in-country here in Senegal. There will be 140 people going. Here's a rundown of what we will be doing.

1) the drama team and children's ministry team will be traveling to a number of villages

2) a team will be painting a church in Bikol (the church of which we laid the foundation and made bricks by hand last Jan.)

3) a team will be painting a mural on the front wall of a church in Diofane (the church we built last Nov.)

4) our medical team which will include 3 nurses and a Dr. will minister in Diakhao

5) a team will be digging & laying a foundation and building bricks by hand in Diakhao

6) we will be staying at the YWAM center in Nakhar and a team will be setting up camp

7) a small team will be building 20 benches for the new church

In the evenings, we will be holding evangelism campaigns in the following villages:

Fri., Nov. 25: Diakhao, Gandiaye, Poukham Tok

Sat., Nov. 26: Mbelakadio, Ngouloul Peul, Mbouscene

(It might be fun to Google Earth those locations!)

We REALLY covet your prayers. We will be ministering in an area that is predominantly Muslim and we'll be ministering in villages that have just begun to hear about Jesus. Please pray for open doors and open hearts. Pray against spiritual resistance and that God will prepare the way for us. Pray for protection in travel and at all the ministry sites.

Sun. morning, we plan to worship on our way home in the church that we helped build last Nov. in Diofane. We're looking forward to the blessing of worshipping with our African brothers and sisters and seeing the results of our labor there last year.

We will send out an update after our return.

Thanks, as always, for your continued support!

Mike and Mindee

Prayer card and support letter

2011-07-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge. Hopefully you can read or print these as you wish. If you need anything more specific (better quality) let us know. Thanks!

ARMing up for the future

2011-07-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we had an opportunity to give an update to our supporting church in Klamath Falls, Oregon. We told of our ministry at Dakar Academy and how what we do allows other missionaries with children to do what they do better. We talked about how working with MKs and TCKs is a ministry in and of itself - how these are our future missionaries, future world leaders. We talked about our outreaches and how we are seeing unprecedented responses from the Senegalese.

When this church originally sent us, they agreed to a two year, short term trip. We just finished our fourth year and have told them there is no end in sight. We love the kids, we love the school, we love the nation and the people of Senegal and we want to be there for what God does next.

It was “Missionary Sunday” that week and we actually shared the stage with 3 other missionary families the church supports - one from Niger, one from Mexico, and one from Texas.

It was while our good friends from Texas were sharing that a light went on for me (Mike). This couple, Alan and Diane, have been missionaries for about as long as I’ve been alive. They’ve been involved in so many different projects and ministries, I can’t begin to name them. Over the past several years, they have been heading up a mission organization called ARM Ministries that partners with individual missionary families and their supporting churches and helps them accomplish their goal of reaching and staying on the mission field.

That light that went on is that what they do is specifically what we need.

For the past four years, Mindee and I have been direct hire with DA. This means that we have primarily relied on the small stipend DA provides and the support of a handful of dedicated families who have supplemented that stipend with one-time, occasional, or regular support. This worked well for our “short term” assignment, but now that we are looking more long term, we need to be realistic about our support needs. Joining ARM Ministries seems to be a wise and providential opportunity.

We are excited to partner with ARM Ministries as we continue to serve in Senegal.

Over the next few weeks we hope to write a new support letter that re-emphasizes our ministry goals and outlines new ways we can receive financial support through ARM Ministries. We hope to design an updated prayer card as well.

So please stay tuned. When everything is ready to go you will likely receive these items via snail mail, email, or by seeing them here on this blog.

Thank you to those who have supported us over these past four years. Thank you to those of you who will continue to partner with us in the future. We covet your support and your prayers.

Finally, thank you to those of you who actually read to the end of this blog. I know you have a lot to do. Thanks for spending this time on us!

Mike and Mindee
ARM Ministries
www.armmin.org

Easter in Senegal

2011-04-23T03:01:00.000-07:00

On Good Friday, the view of the crosses on

the roof of the library at Dakar Academy.

In Senegal, Easter isn't really that big of a deal. A few stores may have a few "Easter-y" items for sale - the foil wrapped chocolates, plastic eggs, and pastel-colored decorations - but it's nothing close to what you see in the states. And while the Senegalese, world-renowned for observing every holiday they can (no matter with which religion it's associated), actually DO take Easter Monday off, it is nowhere NEAR the production they undergo in observance of Muslim holidays like Tabaski or Korite, during which nearly one million sheep and goats lose their lives as almost every family in Senegal engages in a fête (feast) for celebration. And while some Senegalese (even Muslims) will use this holiday as an excuse to have a feast, even without acknowledging the REASON for it, life will generally continue as normal here, despite the fact that we are observing the most important event in all of human history.

The DA community will have a sunrise service out on our school's basketball court. In traditional Senegalese fashion, we will be sure and crank our sound system as loud as it goes (just like the Muslim prayer calls we hear five times a day, including at 5 a.m. each morning). That way it won't only be the missionary community that joins together that morning to celebrate our risen King, it will be the whole neighborhood!

We continue to love being out here. Easter isn't the same old thing year after year. It's not over-commercialized. It hasn't lost its meaning. After all, how could something lose its meaning if most people here haven't found its meaning to begin with? Our work is not done in Senegal and we continue to live with the belief that "greater things are still to be done in this city."

As our school year comes to a close we become nostalgic of things past and hopeful of things to come. It was a good year, marked with significant change to our school and improvements to our campus. It's been a hard year with unprecedented power cuts and Mindee's knee surgery. But there is hope. Generators and batteries are allowing us to function fairly normally at work and at home even when our power company fails us, and Mindee's knee is on the mend.

Mindee is 4 1/2 weeks post-surgery and well into recovery. We flew to South Africa over spring break where she had ACL reconstruction and a torn meniscus repair. Since then she hasn't been allowed to put ANY pressure on her right leg, but in 1 1/2 weeks, she can slowly begin re-introducing that leg to walking (20% body weight per week). We look forward to June 7 because that is the day she'll be allowed to walk brace and crutch free. However, an additional 6 months of rehab are required before she's back to full strength. Thank you for your prayers and support on her behalf. It's a long, slow road to recovery, but we're glad we were able to start down it now instead of having to wait until summer.

We will be heading to the states this summer for a brief visit with friends and family. We will be in Klamath Falls, Oregon, for most of the month of June, then Pensacola, Florida for almost 3 weeks in July, during which Mindee's younger sister, Amber, will be getting married. We look forward to catching up with many of you in person during this time.

We'll be back here in Senegal on July 22, ready to start another year of school and ministry. Thank you so much for all you who support us in prayer and finance. We cherish your generous gifts and couldn't continue doing this without you.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating the incredible gift we have in Jesus.

Mike and Mindee

Trips, trips and trips

2011-03-12T01:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We wanted to give you a brief update of our lives and ministry here in Senegal as well as share a few entertaining videos for those of you who have a few minutes to spare. (See if, after watching the videos, you understand the title of this post).

Overall, things are going very well for us at Dakar Academy. Our outreach in January was a huge success. Our first night campaign, in fact, had so many people attend (an estimated 2,000-3,000), that they overwhelmed our stage and sound system and we had to shut our part of the program down early. Fortunately, the Senegalese pastor was able to deliver the gospel and hundreds of people responded. Logistically, it was our worst "performance" ever, but also one of our most successful. Below is a photo from that first night, followed by a photo of a few of the hundreds who made a commitment to follow Jesus.

A difficult change this year in Dakar is that the electricity situation has gone from bad to worse. For the past several weeks, the power has been OFF more than it has been ON. This has been especially taxing on us at school as I, Mike, am teaching mostly computer classes, and virtually everything Mindee does in the library is done on computer.

The OUTSTANDING NEWS, however, is that just yesterday we had a massive generator delivered to our campus, which will be installed today and tomorrow so should be up and running on Monday. It has been a painstakingly long process to prepare the school for this enormous step, mostly because the wiring of our campus was done piece by piece over the last 50 years and much of it is very dangerously "third world." But we have high hopes that this generator will solve many of our problems at school. We thank God for his timing in providing this particular generator at this particular time, just when we needed it most.

The final piece of news that we'd appreciate prayer about is that this Wednesday, Mindee and I will be flying to South Africa so Mindee can have reconstructive surgery on her knee. She injured it over a year ago and we have finally been able to make the arrangements to get it repaired. South Africa has very good (and less expensive) medical care, plus we are are going during spring break instead of waiting to get it done this summer in the states so she can be fully recovered more quickly. Her surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, March 22.

Now for some entertainment. Mindee and I really enjoy making short video productions on our Mac. Here are two that we've made recently. The first is a fundraising promotional video for putting artificial turf on our school's soccer field. The second is a "therapeutic" video we made poking fun at our woefully inept power company, Senelec.

Enjoy!

Mike and Mindee

Toubabs in Tattaguine

2010-11-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

Well, we returned yesterday sweaty, sooty, and yes, stinky! Yet despite all this, we arrived home intoxicated by a joy and eager anticipation in what the Lord did this past weekend and will continue to do in the area of Tattaguine.

The weekend was laden with an abundance of small mishaps, from a blown-out tire (with no spare) to a shortage of drinking water to sandy village roads trapping our vehicles up to a dozen times or more! But the kids' attitudes remained chipper and upbeat despite such set-backs, thanks to our Outreach motto, "Be flexible!" Because what's a misspent hour here or there pushing a whining vehicle through mounds of loose, torrid sand in light of the eternal?

(Picture: Mike ended up being the runner between various sites - but he only got stuck in the sand twice!)

This was our mind-set as we departed on our multifarious adventures, including millet-pounding, peanut-harvesting, medicinal aid, children's outreach, drama presentations, brick-making and laying the foundation of a new church in the village of Diofane.

I, (Mindee), co-lead the millet-pounding group with a fellow staff member from Dakar Academy. It was an experience that was uniquely African in and of itself. We gathered under the bough of a thick, looming boabab tree and waited as the women of the village went into their thatched huts and brought out three wooden pestles and six mortars. Then, under the watchful eye of a gathering crowd, they showed us how to pulverize the stalks of millet until the chaff and millet corn fully broke away from the husks that they clung to. The women worked two-to-one-pestle and mesmerized us with the rhythmic cadence of their pounding, which despite the brute strength and formidable endurance involved, was soothing and musical in essence. They were even able to toss the wooden mortar in the air at times for a timed clap here or there, still without missing a beat. Then, once they were done, they expertly sifted through the hodgepodge of chaff, millet corn and husks and separated the millet corn from the rest, using only the wind and their swift, practiced hands to guide them. It was impressive to say the least.

Then WE had a turn.

(Picture: the bundles of millet)

By now, it felt like most of the village had congregated under the baobab in anticipation of the "toubabs" participating in their livelihood. Six of our high school girls tentatively took hold of the mortars and took a whack at it (excuse the pun). Good natured thigh-slapping and howls of laughter echoed through the dusty roads of the village as awkward limbs flailed and rhythmless pounding prevailed. After wiping the tears of laughter from their eyes, the women then patiently demonstrated once again how to properly pound the millet and we once again watched in fascination as they made it look smooth and effortless.

Eventually we got the hang of it. The awkward thumping ultimately transformed into a steady tempo, although it never did quite have that musical resonance to it. We worked tirelessly as well, although again, I'm sure we accomplished far less than they would have had they done it themselves (I think we completed about one bundle of millet per hour, totalling 13 bundles in all).

(Picture: the millet corn after being pounded & sifted)

Still, I don't really think that was the point. I don't think Fatou or Lois or any of the other women in that village NEEDED us to do a job that they were far more accomplished in doing. I think it was more the fact that we wanted to learn, wanted to help and cared about their livelihood, about THEM. I know those women are still probably getting a good chuckle out of those 'crazy rhythmically-challenged toubabs', but I also hope that they remember the kind smiles, the intense longing to learn and hopefully, and most importantly, the Christ-like love that bled through our actions.

Another truly humbling aspect of this Outreach was the fact that the site that many of the females settled in to stay for the weekend was actually the completed church building of a foundation that I helped lay last year! What an exceptional privelege it was to see the finished product of my own (as well as many other’s) hard labor of love from the year prior. And to top it off, we were able to worship in that very church along with it’s congregation on Sunday morning! Isn’t God awesome? ☺

(Picture: the sifting process)

But I think the MOST awe-inspiring reality of the weekend was the fact that this was the BIGGEST response to the gospel that we’ve ever experienced. 735 people prayed to accept Jesus and at least 3000 heard the gospel message. Wow. What an incredible honor it is to be apart of planting and harvesting God’s kingdom here in Senegal. And having the experience of pounding millet really brought all those biblical parables to life about cultivating and yielding a harvest (a.k.a. the kingdom of God)! Now I know what it means to “let them be as chaff before the wind.” (Psalm 35:5)

So thanks for all of your prayers over the weekend. I guess now all that we ask of you prayer warriors is that you continue to do what you do best and persist in praying for follow-up in the area of Tattaguine. We have dramatically increased the work load of the national pastors in the area (which they couldn’t be happier about), but we just want to make sure that the believers that came to Christ this weekend continue to grow and mature in their new-found faith.

Lastly, and what’s especially exhilarating is that it looks like Diofane could actually become an all-Christian village in what is deemed a mostly Muslim country. Don’t we serve an amazing God??

Thanksgiving outreach

2010-11-25T13:12:00.000-08:00

Dear friends and family,

Tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. we will get up and prepare to head out on our weekend outreach event. We'll drive a few hours inland to the village of Tataguine, which is where we built a church last February. You should check it out on Google Earth. Over 50 people and counting attend that church now and neighboring villages we have been to in past years are showing similar growth in their churches as well.

This weekend we will tear down a thatch roofed building that over 100 believers have been meeting in and dig and pour the foundation for another church building. We will also be involved in several other ministries in the area including a few new ones this year -- peanut harvesting and millet pounding. Much like the early church, the people in these villages don't tithe currency, rather they tithe a percentage of their harvest. Many of our students and staff will assist in the preparation of these contributions.

This will be our largest outreach event ever with 160 people in attendance. We appreciate your support during this weekend and will be sure and report back in shortly after we return.

If you are interested in knowing specific things to pray for, here is a brief description of what Mindee and I will be doing during the event.

During the day I am the official "documentarian" taking photos and video of all the teams (to see the product of last year's work, see the video link at the bottom of this post). In the evenings I will supervise and work with the sound guys as they set up for and run sound during the evening campaigns. This is a BIG prayer request as the effectiveness of those campaigns is contingent on there being electricity for us to use for our program, the national pastor's message, and the movie. On Monday our tech rehearsal had A LOT of kinks to work out - in fact it was the worst rehearsal of this kind we have probably ever had. It isn't a matter of incompetence or inexperience, there's just something about outreach events where things that ordinarily work just fine simply STOP working. That's why we make sure we pray over the event each night before setting up and ask for God's protection over our equipment. It's a frustrating job and can be extremely stressful when we're trouble shooting so we ask for your prayers for us and our equipment for each night of the campaign. Furthermore, these guys work hard on other teams during the day, work all evening on sound, and seldom get back to camp before 1 or 2 am, so prayer for extra stamina for Saturday and Sunday after long Friday and Saturday nights would be much appreciated.

Mindee will be helping head up the grinding crew. Specifically for her, I think it's important that she doesn't overwork herself to the point where she gets blisters on her hands as she will be playing keyboard during the evening campaigns. She'd also appreciate prayer for the evening events and the instrumentalists' parts in it (as well as the sound system working so she can hear herself and others... :-)

Of course the biggest prayer request is that all that we do brings glory to God and that His truth would be made known to these people.

Thank you so much for your support. We know that a big part of the success of these events is you and other faithful supporters bathing it in prayer.

We look forward to being able to report back to you the many ways God shows himself during this weekend.

Mike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN9ugtzrDnc

Flight of the limitless imagination: a glimpse into a child’s world

2010-09-27T11:27:00.001-07:00

A young elementary child walked into the library this morning and handed me a brightly colored sketch (about the library) that she had created just for me (and “Mr. E-M” as well – since we do come as a set!). According to this child, the sketch was about a dream she had experienced about the library, complete with book-sprouting trees, seeds fashioned out of letters and a random assortment of knickknacks created solely out of books (a.k.a. stairs, telescopes, hats, etc.).

The dream was rooted in the book world, a place of awe, child-like bliss and sheer, boundless imagination.

This little girl, (Megan), with her frizzy copper colored hair, contagious smile and mischievous twinkling brown eyes, has never failed to brighten my day whenever she turns up in the library. She loves books like a child should, captivated by the wonder, curiosity and delight within each enchanting page.

And shouldn’t each and every child marvel at the masses of books at their fingertips, each individual book a doorway to a magical land, a spine-tingling quest or perhaps even a glimpse into the enthralling past or even more intriguingly unknowable future? Such stories of fantasy, wonderment and adventure: filled with heroes and heroines; cleverly weaved tales; silly and laughable characters; imaginary fantastical creatures; amusing life-long lessons and so forth.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: this child is a fantastic reminder that the library is not merely a building filled with stacks of dusty, old books. It is an entryway into the remarkable world of wisdom, knowledge and raw human inspiration -- each word, each page, each book another vibrant, eye-opening narrative within the flight of the limitless imagination.

On a side note, Mike and I just returned from a very enjoyable, yet restful staff retreat. It was a wonderful time to bond with fellow co-workers, revel in God's beauty and creation along the seashore, relax in our air conditioned rooms, stuff ourselves at each meal, and play crazy games like "killer bunnies" and "the toothpick game" (which consists of diving in the pool, releasing a toothpick and then fighting against the frenzy of people who are trying to catch it first as it floats to the top! Ha!)

However, even as we are feeling refreshed from the weekend, we do ask that you keep us in your prayers as the dreaded month of October is approaching. Not only is this the time of year when the students tend to test the rules, but it's also Senegal's hottest month of the year and the one with the most power cuts. (We may have a battery back-up system in our apartment, but school is quite another matter! We have one small generator for the entire school, and it can only supply so much power.) Anyway, all that to say, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

[To see fun pictures from the weekend retreat, see below...]

While playing "killer bunnies" with some friends, Mike & I decided to let loose our "inner nerds"

Both of us took a leap off of the roof of the main dining area into the pool... with permission from the manager, of course! (Still, don't tell our students... we don't want to set a bad example! Heh heh.)

With a pair of wings, wouldn't Mike look downright angelic? =)

The retreat "worship team" - what a treat it was to play with my father and

long-time family friend, Brad Trosen!

My letter to Joe

2010-09-10T04:07:00.000-07:00

This is a letter I wrote to Joe, the 2nd grade son of my friends Steve and Janna. They live in Illinois and are preparing to move to England so Steve can go to Cambridge. Janna is homeschooling Joe and they just started learning about MKs so she asked if I might share a little. I thought you all might enjoy the letter as well.

*****

Dear Joe,

I hear you are in 2nd grade now and learning about MKs. Wow. That's really good. I didn't learn much about MKs until I was about 10 years older than you are now, but once I found out about them, I learned they were a really special group of people.

As you probably know by now, MKs are kids who live in a different country from their own because their parents are serving God by working with people who might not know Him. That's a really important job. MKs usually have really interesting lives. Some of them grow up learning several different languages. I knew one boy not much older than you who could speak FOUR languages-- English, French, and two tribal languages - Baoule and Jula. Even though he was American and spoke English like you and me, some of his very best friends only spoke a tribal language because they grew up in an African village.

A lot of what you see in books and pictures about Africa is true. People really do live in mud huts with grass roofs. Some of them don't have any furniture in their homes, no electricity, no television, internet, or telephones. They work very hard farming the land and growing food for themselves and their families. They enjoy spending time together in the evenings telling stories and singing songs.

Not everyone in Africa lives that way though. My wife and I live in an apartment building in a big city. We can look out our window and see a highway with traffic driving up and down it. We have electricity and internet and TV and just about everything you might have in America or England. We work at a school just for MKs. When we teach MKs, it makes it possible for those kids' parents to go spread the gospel to some of those people living in those huts out in the village.

In fact, sometimes I get to go WITH MKs out to those villages to help spread the gospel myself. It's really fun seeing all those MKs out there taking part in what their parents are here in Africa to do. I know it makes God very pleased as well.

Living in Africa is an adventure. There are a lot of things that happen here that you might think are really weird, but to someone in Africa, it's a regular, every day thing. One time I saw a cow sitting in the back of a van. It had horns that were so long, they had to poke out the side window (it was like one of those "Saebu" cows from Veggie Tales). Another time I saw about 10 sheep sitting on the roof of a bus. I guess that's how they get around over here. When I drive I have to watch out for entire herds of cattle that might be walking along the highway. Sheep and goats are everywhere, and a lot of people don't drive cars, they drive carts pulled by horses. Driving here is a REAL adventure. No one ever stays in their own lane. Sometimes we drive on the wrong side of the road or even on SIDEWALKS to get to where we are going. It can be exciting, but also a little dangerous.

We have all kinds of cool animals here. There are big, fat, blue-bodied, yellow-headed lizards that run all around our school. I once saw a monitor lizard that was about 6 feet long from head to tail (and this wasn't at a zoo, it was out in the wild! Actually it was walking past the swimming pool I was swimming in). There are some places near where I live that have monkeys, zebras, giraffes, and even a few rhinos. I know a lot of MKs who have had monkeys as PETS!

Sitting around listening to MKs tell about their experiences is one of my favorite things to do. Everyone seems to have an exciting story about traveling or animals or something else they've done or some place they've been. I'm excited for you because you get to have some of those experiences yourself. Not that you'll be seeing many rhinos in England, but it will be a different place filled with all kinds of new experiences.

I hope one day you'll be able to tell me all about it.

Have a great day in school and be extra nice to your teacher. (I think she knows where you sleep at night).

Love,

Uncle Mike

PS -- If you want to watch a short YouTube video of MKs from Africa, ask your mom to show you this video I made last year of our trip to a village, or this other video from two years ago which has one REALLY SCARY creature in it that my friend Josh found. If you want to see the kind of kids around your age that go to my MK school, ask your mom to show you this video of me and my third grade class.

Our Inverter

2010-09-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

ABOVE: This is a picture of our apartment during a power cut before you bought us our inverter.

BELOW: This is a picture of our apartment during a power cut after you bought us an inverter. This photo was taken at 9:00 p.m. WITHOUT using a flash.

This is a picture of the two 200 Ah deep cycle batteries that power our apartment when the electricity cuts out. They each weight about 80 lbs and we are keeping them in one of our kitchen cabinets.

We are SO thankful to those of you who made this possible. We ordered this inverter in April, it arrived in August and was installed yesterday. The power has cut both nights since we have had it installed and we are thoroughly enjoying its conveniences which include lights, fans, a working refrigerator and no extension cords strung out across our apartment floor.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking part in this project. We are so blessed to have so many faithful supporters to come alongside us.

Mike and Mindee

Here we go again

2010-08-14T01:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Family,

A new school year has started and we've already hit the ground running. We have been looking forward to several changes that were to take place at Dakar Academy this school year and so far we have not been disappointed.

To start, this is the school's 50th anniversary, so we have events and activities throughout the year geared towards celebrating the fact that this school has been here in Senegal helping advance the kingdom of God for 50 years.

There has been a lot of work done on the physical campus to tune it up for this grand occasion. Lots of new paint, a new playground, renovations... I, Mike, continue to work on ideas to bring ELECTRICITY to the campus when the city power cuts. I have more hope than ever that we will take positive steps this year in solving our problem. I'm very proud of the fact that last year we were able to hook the computer lab (one of my primary classrooms) to a generator along with outfitting Mindee's computer in the library with a battery that would allow her to work uninterrupted even when power cuts. These things hadn't been done before in those 49 years of operation. Now for the REST of the school!

I will also be looking into new ways of collecting water to irrigate our soccer field. During rainy season, shoots of grass blast through the sandy soil long enough to tease us and give us a brief glimpse of what COULD be. If you stand to the side of the field and crouch down low to look across it, it looks like it is covered in lush, green grass. But walking onto the field reveals that each blade stands alone, no less than 2-3 inches from its neighbor. This hint of green only lasts about 2 months, then dries up and leaves us with a dull, brown, dusty lot on which we play our sports.

LEFT: "Pretend" grass on our soccer field during rainy season.

RIGHT: Mindee playing Ultimate Frisbee last year on our usual playing surface. Note the dust at her feet.

When 50 years worth of DA alumni were asked what they would most like to see improved about DA, the number 1 answer was "grass on the soccer field." It's been a fantasy here for decades and it IS possible (our "rival" school, the American international school - ISD - across town has grass, which is why we SO love playing sports on their turf). The most likely option for now is to look into artificial turf, however, in my opinion that is TOO expensive and TOO HOT! (10-15 degrees hotter than the air temperature in Dakar = melting your shoes off!) I've been told that they've tried two times to get enough water for the fields, but both attempts failed. So I'm working on an idea that has not been tried, but likely WOULD provide the water we need. (If any of you reading this is "agriculturally inclined" and would like to offer some wisdom, please let me know.) For more details, check out the first issue of this year's DA student newspaper when it prints in October.

Speaking of newspaper, I have a whole new teaching schedule this year. They are keeping me very busy with teaching a math class, 3 middle school computer classes, Life Skills, Photography, Journalism, and Yearbook. So far it's a pretty exhausting schedule but I'm sure once I get used to it I'll really enjoy it.

Mindee continues to work in the library and has revolutionized it in regards to its organization, appearance, and development. She's even helped us join the technological age by joining us with an online research library called EBSCO which increases our resources exponentially.

We have also welcomed a new director to our school this year. His name is Joe Rosa. He and his wife Sharon worked in Central America for over 20 years before joining us here. They have already set a tone of encouragement and excitement for this school year.

So we are eagerly anticipating what is coming this year. As you can see, we have really fallen in love with Dakar Academy and we are invested in this school and its future. We continue to thank God for you, for your prayers and financial support. We are especially grateful to those who have loyally supported us from the beginning, especially when our two-year short term trip evolved into what it is now (this starting our 4th year and no real end in sight). We are just so excited to be a part of what God is doing here in Senegal, not only at Dakar Academy with these students, but with the Senegalese people as well.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your partnership. May God bless you.

Mike and Mindee Evans-Maxson

PS-- For those who helped finance our inverter, we continue to wait for it to arrive on container. Most recent estimates have it in port on August 26. In the meantime, we continue to experience power cuts on a regular basis. (In fact, the power is out right now as I type this, but my laptop has a good battery and I've plugged our modem into a smaller inverter to temporarily access the internet.) Earlier in the summer was the worst it's been since I've been out here with cuts up to 10-12 hours per day. Recently it's been better, although it was out most of last night and now again this morning. All that to say, we still look forward to that purchase and even though we haven't seen it yet, we still thank God for you and your generosity in helping us get it.

Room to Breathe

2010-06-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

P.S. (Pre-script): There's something worth seeing at the end of this blog, so if you're not one who's all about the reading, at least scroll down to the bottom and see what's waiting for you. If you like the suspense, read what I have to say first...

S. (Script):

Well we made it. The school year is over. The year-end festivities past, the seniors have graduated and just about everyone has flown the coop for the summer. A mere remnant of DA staff remain here for summers while most head home for a brief hiatus in the land of plenty. For the past several weeks we've heard talk from those anticipating McDonalds, Starbucks, or, best yet, Walmart to meet their every need.

I, Mike, have been patient with them, allowing them to yearn, all the while grumbling to myself about how I will NOT have those experiences this summer. In some ways it's kind of mean of them to rub this in my face, but it's not too bad for two major reasons: 1) it was my CHOICE not to go home for the summer, and 2) I really don't miss it as much as I used to. (Now ask me if I miss it at the END of the summer when everyone comes back refreshed and well fed while I've been here wallowing in the heat and I might have a different answer, but for now, that's my line and I'm sticking to it!)

Actually, this summer should be fun. Any day now the pace is going to slow way down and we'll be able to catch our breaths. Since grad, we've been helping a lot of people move, plus the school container came in and dropped off hundreds of new library books so Mindee is virtually buried in work right now, but she's having fun. (Dream vacation, right Rachel?)

We've got some good co-worker friends staying this summer and some others who come back from a year-long furlough in two weeks. I have a lot of projects planned for the summer that I haven't had time to get to during the school year. Lot's of woodworking, home improvement, manual labor type stuff.

Plus, the World Cup starts today. (It's kind of a big deal out here). Senegal didn't make it, but we're really rooting for Cote d'Ivoire and excited to follow the action over the next month.

Mindee WILL get to go back to the east coast (Florida and Georgia) for about 3 weeks in July to visit her sisters, best friend, and baby niece, as well as make a few of those oh-so-essential Walmart runs. I'll hold the fort here and whittle things.

As for our electricity project, we ordered the inverter shortly after that last blog I sent and it made it to the port in time, so theoretically it is on a boat somewhere on the Atlantic right now, or maybe sitting in a port waiting to head out. At any rate, we won't see it until July or August, but at least we're pretty sure it's coming. Our project is now essentially FULLY FUNDED thanks to many of you.

THANK YOU so much for your dedicated (and prompt) giving to this project. We'll be sure and send pictures of what you helped supply once it's here and all set up. You will have made our lives MUCH more comfortable which will translate to less crankiness and a better ability to put up with people rubbing their Starbucks experiences in my face! So thanks for that.

And now the grand finale (the thing that some of you skipped all that to get to). I finally had a chance to put together the outreach video from our outreach last February. I think it does a good job at summarizing what we do on these weekends and helps remind you, our supporters, of a major reason we are out here and why we feel it's important for us to stay. (I'd also like to mention that I made this video on the computer you all helped us get last summer, so hopefully it helps encourage you that it was money well spent).

Thanks for your continued prayer and support. We'll miss you this summer but look forward to the next time we meet.

Enjoy!
Mike and Mindee

Can you help?

2010-05-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Family,

I have good news! It's May 1 and the power hasn't cut for a couple of days. Yay!

A year ago, this might not have been as exciting news. This time of year typically has more consistent power. Usually, sadly, it is the very HOTTEST part of the year (August - November) when the power cuts the most. But this year, my statement actually IS good news...

... which makes my statement bad news...

This year we haven't had much relief from power cuts the entire year. While they were longer and more prevalent in those hot months, they have persisted to interrupt our lives on a weekly, if not daily basis. That, combined with the fact that our "cold" season has been a good 10 degrees hotter than our last few, has made some of the circumstances of our living situation a little bit more difficult this year.

It seems like the greatest toll is on our mental health. In school, a power cut means that the Powerpoint Mindee created for her writing class will go unseen. It means my Yearbook class will have one less day to make their deadlines. It means lesson planning, and grading, and countless other computer related tasks must be put on hold for who knows how long. (I'm working on all of this, by the way, and we have made significant progress this year on getting our school on backup power). At home, a power cut in the evening means no internet, no TV, little light, and no ability to unwind from a long day the way we would otherwise have planned. A power cut at night means a less comfortable night's sleep and a harder day tomorrow. All of these problems are tolerable in and of themselves, but when they are only here for a season, you can tell yourself, "just a few more weeks of this and then it will be better", and it gives you hope. When you have NO idea when the next cut will be nor for how long it will last, there's an anxiety that sets in and the next time the power DOES cut, hopelessness and helplessness pervade.

I don't mean to complain. We knew when we came here that there would be sacrifices. But I'm the kind of person who likes to try to solve problems... make progress... improve life. And as it starts looking more and more like our "short term" trip to Senegal is heading more towards an indefinite stay, I would like to see about solving this problem, which is actually not that hard to do.

There is a way to hook up a piece of equipment into our electrical system as well as a couple of 12 Volt batteries which will allow for our entire apartment to continue functioning virtually normally when power cuts. For you technical people, I'm talking about a pure sine inverter. Whenever the power cuts, the inverter switches power over to the batteries and everything continues functioning as normal.

The reason I'm writing you about this is that the equipment we would need is a bit out of our financial reach at the moment, yet we have an opportunity to get such an item (which weighs about 60 pounds) loaded onto a container in the US and shipped out to us THIS MONTH. If we don't do this now, we won't have another opportunity to do it again for at least another year.

The cost is going to be about $2000 for the inverter. The nice thing about inverters is that, unlike generators, there is no additional cost to running it (like buying fuel). So this should pretty much be a one time expense.

I asked my dad for advice about this purchase -- if he thought it would be good stewardship of the money you send to us, and if he thought we should share this desire/need with you. He said this: "It's simple: if you can't sleep at night you can't work during the day." He helped confirm with me that this item will help us in our ministry and that it would be a wise purchase. He also seemed confident that the finances would be available for the purchase and told me to go ahead and get it while the opportunity is there.

If you would like to help with this specific project, a contribution to UEFC designated to "Evans-Maxson Emergency Power Supply" would do the trick. I don't know if all that will fit on the memo line of a check, so maybe you could add a post-it or something. :-)

We won't be seeing most of you this summer and we're sad about that, but we continue to thank God for you and your support for us and our ministry. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We continue to feel that God is doing amazing things here in Dakar, and that "greater things have yet to come in this city."

Thank you for your partnership,

Mike and Mindee Evans-Maxson

European escapade

2010-04-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, during Spring Break, D.A. sent us to a conference in Germany. It was quite refreshing going from hot, hazy, gritty Senegal to

fresh, lush, chilly Germany. Not an ounce of trash be

smirched the

quaint, cobble-stoned streets and the houses were painted in delightfully bright, contrasting colors.

Many of the German words we saw were ludicrously lengthy, but were also quite entertaining to articulate (or at least attempt to articulate). It was also quite amusing to watch some of our favorite shows in German (particularly when we wondered how they translated the English slang “izzle”!)

The conference itself was a breath of fresh air and we left with our cups overflowing. I, myself, attended every librarian workshop and seminar that there was and relished in my fellow co-worker’s passions, ideas and insights. My favorite workshop was “How to make your library THE place to be”. I am constantly on the look out for how to make our library a welcoming place, a sanctuary of sorts for people to come to study, read, relax and enjoy. On the other side of the spectrum, learning why we catalogue the way we do was not all that thrilling. Definitely important, but a bit of a snoozer.

Still, I walked away from the conference with more knowledge, and more importantly, with a definite confirmation that what we’re doing at Dakar Academy is God-ordained. Can there be a higher calling than working with youth? Did you realize that children make up 50% of the world’s population and that 85% of Christians surrender their lives to Christ between the ages of 4-14? Statistics say that the probability of converting someone over the age of 20 is an astonishingly low 6%! Wow. What an impact we can have!

However, the impact we make can be for the good OR for the bad. I was humbled by the assertion that the way we interact with kids and the impressions we leave on them can easily alter their course for life. One harsh comment or one loving, compassionate moment can forever influence a child and even go so far as to send them down a certain path. Haven’t we all had those definable moments?

When I was a young, budding author, a particular English teacher of mine gave me a blank journal with a cover woven out of exquisitely colorful African fabric and a note written by hand on the inside cover. The note simply encouraged me in my aspirations as a writer, but I read that note just about every time I opened that book to write inside of it (which was quite often!) Someone believed in me, and thought that I had a special talent, which is one of the chief reasons as to why I became an English major (on the writing track) and am now teaching creative writing to children today. Thank you, Miss O!

Anyway, after our brief stint in Germany, my parents, Mike and I took a train down to Italy (since we were in the neighborhood) to hike the gorgeous, picturesque towns of Cinque Terre: five coastal cities nestled amid the cliffs along the Mediterrean sea. Mom actually had to retire her high heels for the two days we were there as we hiked from town to town, walking along trails carved within the cliffs, with the smells of salty sea air and fresh spring blossoms accompanying us. The view was stunning and each town was uniquely it’s own, though all had an equally enchanting European small-town feel to them, with their endearing little shops, multihued houses with matching wooden shutters and enticingly delicious smelling restaurants and cafes (none of which Mom missed poking her head into for investigation). We got on a cappuccino kick while we were there and had cappuccinos once or twice a day at least. (By the way, many of you might be thinking, "What grown children want to vacation with their parents?" We do! That just goes to show how awesome my rents are!)

Well, the two days flew by, and we had to say goodbye to Cinque Terre, but the grief was short-lived as we hopped a train to Venice where we only had four hours to explore before we had to catch a plane back to Dakar.

Venice is definitely unique. We bustled through the crowded streets and wandered into the high-priced, glass-blown shops only to nervously duck back out again in fear of breaking something too costly for us to repay. Mom didn’t wear practical shoes that day so we took a water taxi back, which was actually a brilliant oversight on her part. =) Unlike when we were walking the narrow streets amid the throngs of people, we were able to actually see the exquisite antique architecture of the buildings during our relaxing and scenic boat ride back. We took many a picture of the numerous gondolas that we passed as those were out of our price range; Mike just couldn’t seem to part with $150 in order for a guy in a striped shirt to paddle us down a canal. So we took the slightly crowded water taxi and Dad sang for us instead. =)

Fifteen or so hours later, we landed back in Dakar (rather joltingly I might add – I think Mike hit his head on the seat in front of him) tired, yet bursting at the seams and raring to go. Never had I been so happy to see our D.A. kids stumbling onto campus to resume school. What a refreshing experience – to be reminded that what we’re doing is significant and to even be told that we are “heroes”.

Pray for me as I don my cape and do my best not to trip over any kryptonite…

Outreach Weekend

2010-02-24T12:29:00.000-08:00

We took this photo on Valentine's Day

from the top of our apartment building.

Dear Friends and Family,

It's been several months since we last posted. A lot has transpired since then which we'd love to share with you, but in order to keep your attention through this entire post, we'll just hit the highlights.

We have been pinching our pennies all year in order to pull off a surprise visit to family during Christmas break. After a week in Klamath Falls, we snuck over to Washington D.C. to surprise Mindee's younger sisters D'Evan and Amber. (They give the best reactions EVER so it was a joy to wake them up the morning after Christmas and see their stunned faces). Later that day, Mindee's older sister, Tiece, her husband, Ted, and their new baby Alina dropped in for ANOTHER surprise visit. Mindee was in heaven all week first meeting, then hugging, kissing, and spoiling her new little niece.

We hit the ground running 2nd semester back at DA. Mike added a new course to his schedule -- Intro to Photography. Mindee started the semester by beginning her purchase order for the library -- quite the daunting task. Evan and Jewel returned from their time in the states, Evan mostly healthy though never getting a clear diagnosis. It's been great being back in ministry with them.

We've continued our regular assignments as well as some of our "extra-curriculars" including worship team and coaching varsity girls' soccer.

THIS WEEKEND we could really use your prayers as we head out on our outreach. We'll be going with a record number of DA students and staff (about 140) into several villages to do our campaign. We will dig and pour a foundation for a church, roof another, paint a mural, and build benches. We'll have teams doing drama, medical, and children's ministry. Each night we will have evening campaigns in three separate locations. There will be songs, the gospel message presented by a national pastor, and a movie. We will sleep in tents, filter our own water, dig our own latrines, and construct our own showers. It is an IMMENSE undertaking with an incredible amount of logistics. We know from experience that many things will go wrong, but we pray that no matter what, God will be glorified. Please join us in praying for protection for all involved and for God to work through us to bring more people to a saving knowledge of Him.

We will report back in to give you an update when we return.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support. Without you, we couldn't be here.

Mike and Mindee Evans-Maxson

Crazy Friday Nights in Senegal

2009-11-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Well, Mike and I have certainly been very driven lately. I know this is not a satisfactory excuse for our pitiful shortage of blogs, but perhaps you can better comprehend and empathize with a story.

It was Friday night and as class sponsors, we were asked to drive a handful of sophomores to a class party clear across town. It had been an active, frenzied week for us so I’ll be the first to admit that we weren’t exactly stoked to spend our first free night in weeks stuck in Dakar’s never-failing Friday night gridlock towing a crammed cluster of raucous teens in our wake.

Besides the unquestionable assurance of traffic, we were also appointed the task of driving what we jokingly refer to as, “The Ambulance”. This particular vehicle happens to be one of the school’s finest: a rickety, battered beast of a clunker furnished luxuriously with two thinly padded benches lining the sides of the back compartment and a back door jimmy-rigged with a latch that has to be shut from the inside but opened from the outside, which always promises to be highly entertaining.

After a tumultuous, jarring ride through crowded paved streets and pitted dirt roads, we arrived at our destination. Because of the traffic congestion, it inevitably took twice as long as it should have, but with a sigh, we dropped off our rambunctious, enthusiastic crew with the promise to come back in a couple of hours for the return trip.

We settled back in our tattered seats and rejoined the traffic, quiet apart from the squawking gear shifts and rattling doors. We decided to treat ourselves to dinner while we were out and fought traffic all the way to “The Blue Note”, a classier, albeit pricier restaurant in Dakar that is known for its jazz music and succulent dishes. We pulled up in this shabby, dilapidated monstrosity of ours, sporting nothing better than our casual school wear and strolled into the dimly lit, deserted interior of the restaurant. It was nearing 8:00 PM so I was surprised that we were the only customers; I know that the French generally prefer to eat later than Americans so I thought that 8:00 PM would have been the prime time for them. However, no band was to be seen, only two waitresses stood chitchatting in the corner, and one lone tech guy wandered about on the stage, testing out mics and instruments for a sound check. So apparently we were still early.

This is where Mike’s part of the night went sour. Mike usually likes to order what he KNOWS that likes; he doesn’t typically order outside of his limited array of favored dishes. However, on this particular night, he was feeling exceptionally adventurous and decided to go out on a limb by ordering the dish ‘Carpaccio‘ even though he didn’t know what it was. I suppose when you live in a different culture in which you only marginally understand the language, you have to appreciate the learning experiences for the added thrill they bring to your life.

Anyway, when our food arrived, our waitress placed a plate in front of Mike overspread with a thin layer of pink, cold mush smothered in olive oil and a few other spices and garnished with about 4 croutons. Because of the dim lights, Mike couldn’t quite make out what the unidentified pink slab was, but he dutifully piled it on his meager amount of croutons and kept insisting, “It’s just some kind of tomato sauce -- it just tastes different. Tomatoes, tomatoes...” until he had himself convinced. I had one bite out of curiosity, determined that it was not tomatoes and let Mike have at it.

When we got home later that evening, we googled ‘Carpaccio’. Much to my amusement and Mike’s horror, the pink mush turned out to be RAW MEAT! Mike says that he would like to convey his love to all of you -- just in case anything happens in the near future. =)

This experience seems to summarize our lives over the past several weeks -- the hectic pace, a handful of surprises (sometimes unpleasant and yet other times humorous). Our semester continues to go well, although incredibly busy.

One highlight of the semester was being able to visit with Ben Cornelius, a member of UEFC in Klamath Falls. He was out here for an international school’s conference and we were able to have lunch with him one day and dinner the next. He was adventurous in his meal selection as well and did not shy away from local delicacies, even when a bug crawled out from under his salad! It was a special treat for us to have Ben here, and be able to show him around our beloved Dakar.

In other news, as of two weeks ago, my dad’s energy level has started to increase and has remained up! This upswing has been VERY encouraging to us, especially since it's lasted this long. Thank you, Jesus! It broke my heart to see how exhausted my dad often was, and how the constant lapse in energy seemed to squelch that usual twinkle in his eye and the hint of laughter brimming in his voice. If any of you know my dad, you know what I mean - he is one of the most jovial, spirited and vivacious people I know. =)

And to top it off, Alina's doing well, too! (Alina is my sister Tiece’s 10-week premature baby girl - it was really touch and go there for a while.) She is the heart and joy of our family right now; I live day to day waiting to see any new videos posted on facebook of this new little vibrant life that has so drastically affected our little family. In fact, the other day I was enraptured by a video clip of pint-sized Alina spitting up milk! Ha ha. I never thought I'd be one of those people who croons about a video of a baby spitting up milk, but my, how things can change! I'm sure it has everything to do with the fact that I have a personal connection this time around to the little tyke on screen. But anyway, she is now home safe and sound. Please continue praying for her, however, as she is still so small (Mike says he wants to put her in his pocket - and he almost could!). At one point, not too long ago, my brother-in-law, Ted, could fit his wedding ring around Alina’s wrist. So we continue to lift up this tiny little bundle of joy to the Lord for his provision and safe-keeping.

We are continually thankful for those of you who support us, even during lapses of communication. We offer you this blessing from Senegal: May your cars run smoothy, your meat be cooked and your family members remain healthy!

Things Fall Apart

2009-08-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those days, no, weeks, where nothing seems to go right.

Everything's breaking, and I mean EVERYTHING. Mike's been fighting a losing battle with our internet on a day-to-day basis, several hours a day. A violent rain storm took out our wireless router a couple weeks ago and it's been out ever since.

The breaker switch which runs the electricity on one full side of our apartment just gave out. No TV, no AC, no lamps, no fans, etc. in our bedroom or living room.

Which might not matter anyway, what with the regular power cuts every day. Three times today, even, and still counting. It makes you really stay on your toes when your lesson plan for the next period is to teach the fifth grade class how to use the computers to find books in the library. The irony in this whole experience is the fact that I tried printing out a slideshow that I had prepared for the class just in case there was a power outage - and in the middle of the print-job, the power cut! I tried three different times today to finish printing this document and was interrupted by power cuts each time.

The sweltering heat really enhances the power cuts as well. What is mind boggling to me is how the Senegalese have nothing but a light sheen on their faces (and possibly a hint of B.O.) while us whities definitely look the part of the unbearably hot foreigner, with our flushed ruby red faces and sweat soaked clothes. Even on the way home today, I noticed so many of the guards on our street lounging on mats in the shade, like they were enjoying a lazy, summer day while I trudged determinately through the sand in a pair of stifling black slacks and sweaty, dirty black flip flops, and no doubt a grouchy scowl on my face.

It's been a rough start to the school year, there's no doubt about it. Many, if not most of you know about the family crisis we've been having, with dad's health issues and my niece's recent dramatic entry into the world. If you don't know about my dad, he's been experiencing some alarming symptoms that swayed my parents to leave for their furlough a month and a half earlier than planned. My dad has been to the doctor and is still waiting on test results even now so please keep him in your prayers, along with Tiece and Alina, who could still use them, too). Needless to say, those problems on top of circumstantial day-to-day frustrations have made this an unpleasantly memorable start. I'm hoping, no praying, that the trend doesn't continue!

All that to say, that despite the rotten circumstances in our lives right now, Mike and I (and my entire family) have committed ourselves to praising God despite what is currently happening in our lives. Our speaker last Sunday put it this way: "Don't forget in the dark times what God promised you in the light." I like that. Now let's hope I don't forget it.

And so it begins

2009-08-11T15:27:00.001-07:00

We are back in Senegal after a wonderful summer. We were able to spend time on both coasts and see many of you. For those of you we missed-- you are more than welcome to come here and see US!

Tomorrow school starts up again. Our roles this year will be a little different than in the past. Mike will teach 3 periods of middle school math, a high school journalism class, and a class called "Life Skills" which is basically teaching high school MKs how to survive once they get into the real world. Apparently since Mike's made it to the age of 30 he is qualified to teach it. Mindee adds a high school Creative Writing course to her library responsibilities. She's a little nervous about teaching but the subject is right up her alley.

We've been working 12+ hour days since we got here five days ago and should try to get a decent night's sleep before the big day so will cut this short.

Please remember us in your prayers, especially on Wednesday, our first day.

Mike and Mindee

Rest in Peace, dear, dear flamingo

2009-08-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

The night before we left my parents' house this summer, it was "flamingo'd". That's the equivalent of getting "T-P'd, but with lawn flamingos instead.

With Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) as an inspiring force, I rearranged the flamingoes to the scene below.

What must the neighbors have thought?

Top 10

2009-05-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Top 10 things we look forward to doing in just one week when we go back to the US (in no particular order):

1. Eating fast food and drinking Starbucks and Dutch Bros.
2. Frozen Pizzas -- (i.e. not having to make everything from scratch, especially when using yeast and having to plan ahead 2 hours so the dough rises sometime before bedtime)
3. Drinking tap water and having endless ice cubes "magically" emerge from the freezer door -- not having to constantly filter water and refill the ice cube trays
4. Understanding what everyone around us is saying
5. Driving on roads not filled with pot holes or loose, deep sand which can easily trap a vehicle
6. Driving on roads where everyone stays in their own lanes (and off the sidewalks), where we don't have to dodge as many people, mopeds, and horse carts as cars, and where traffic lights and stop signs actually HELP the flow of traffic
7. Not sweating through our clothes before even getting to work
8. Walking anywhere without getting our shoes filled with sand
9. Not having 10 stray dogs barking outside our window each night
10. No power cuts

Top 10 things we will miss about Dakar while gone for the summer:

1. The community of missionaries serving in Dakar
2. The friendly Senegalese always greeting us
3. The entertaining sights of men carrying sheep on mopeds or on top of busses, or cows INSIDE vans
4. The pulley system we've rigged between our apartment and Mindee's parents' house so we can borrow a cup of sugar or some eggs any time we want without ever having to leave home
5. The Dakar Academy students -- some of the best kids in the world
6. Mindee's beautifully redecorated library
7. Outreach events -- going into the bush to build churches and spread the Gospel
8. Working side by side with Mindee's parents in ministry
9. Being able to buy completely random household items, from TV remotes to toilet plungers, from the comfort of your own car whenever street vendors catch you stuck in traffic
10. "The Africa Diet" -- it's easier to keep off the extra pounds out here

No boys allowed

2009-03-05T11:54:00.000-08:00

“No boys allowed,” is not a common phrase in the African bush, especially regarding the ever popular, male-centered sport of soccer. But last weekend, this phrase was used unusually more than once.

This past weekend, 21 Varsity girl soccer players, 4 coaches and 2 adult volunteers packed up and headed north to minister to over 50 young girls in the area of Thies.

Upon arrival, many of the young girls in the village were doing their

typical Saturday morning chores. The likelihood of conducting an all-girls soccer camp that afternoon looked fairly bleak and frankly doubtful to happen.

However, we trudged out onto the middle of that dusty, deserted soccer field and began passing the soccer balls back and forth amongst each other. Foreigners in a village will characteristically guarantee a crowd, especially if you tag-team this with the prospect of soccer, which, as I’ve stated before, is an incredibly popular sport in Senegal. And yes, immediately all the boys came out of the woodwork. And yet… we began to see the heads of little girls peering from their doorways in curiosity. Our coming was no secret; we had arranged it with the chief a year ago, which is also remarkable in and of itself because after our boys’ soccer camp last year, it was the chief who suggested we come back and do the same for the girls in his village. This is basically unheard of in the male-oriented, hierarchical nature of the sub-saharan African village. Females are pretty low on the pecking order, particularly when it comes to sports. Thus, you can imagine just how ecstatic we were when the proposal came from the chief himself.

So when we saw the girls starting to timidly approach us on the field, most of them in their customary long skirts and head wraps, but some sporting long shorts and T-shirts, we were encouraged. I even saw a few girls holding gel shoes in their hands (which would be our equivalent to kleats). At first, it was just a small handful here and there, but before we knew it, we had over 50 girls clamoring to be a part of our soccer camp.

It was exciting. I don’t know if I can explain the joy on these girls’ faces when they got to touch a soccer ball, some of them probably for the first time in their lives.

We had girls from the ages of 4 to about 16, all thrilled to be there. Some of the younger girls’ feet never touched the ground the entire time we were there because our Varsity girls were passing them around from the arms of one girl to the next. I think we broke one little girl’s heart when we finally had to put her down on the ground and leave. It was moving, if only because we knew it was because she treasured how much love and affection was lavished on her that day.

After we completed all the soccer stations, we gathered under the shaded, leafy canopy of a tree and presented the gospel using the wordless soccer ball. One of our adult volunteers presented it in Wolof, one of the main tribal languages here in Senegal. At this point, all ages and genders were allowed and about 150 people were huddled under that tree, listening to the gospel message.

After the presentation, we played a soccer game with the older girls in the village, mixing the teams together so as to be fair. It was wild, chaotic and essentially elementary (if you’ve ever watched elementary kids play soccer, you’ll know what I mean), and yet it was a blast. Many of these girls didn’t have any training, but they had the heart of an athlete: bold, aggressive and possessing a sheer love for the sport.

I know that this was an incredible experience for the soccer girls and for myself. I hope it stands out as a stark reminder that we should never take our circumstances in life for granted because there’s always somebody out there that would snatch them up in a heartbeat. I know that I am extremely blessed to have been born into the family that I was, to be raised the way that I did, and to have been given the opportunities that I have had. I am very aware of all of this, but it always helps to have a little reminder. =)

Mindee

Outreach Video

2009-02-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

Two blogs back I promised I would let you know when I finished with the outreach video I was working on from the Thanksgiving weekend outreach. Here it is. Enjoy.

Catching our breath

2009-02-16T00:33:00.000-08:00

The beginning of the second semester is usually the busiest time of the year here at DA. After a relaxing Christmas break we jumped right into another full-scale outreach event to the village of Sass. You may recall that we built a church there last year. Since that time, the area has been thriving. We went back to start the foundation of a new church building in a neighboring village, roof another, and paint the inside of yet another. That's three separate church buildings along with medical, drama, evening evangelism outreaches and more. It was a wonderful time and we look forward to hearing what God will continue to do in that region.

The rest of January and February has been speckled with other events including "Olympics Days" -- a school-wide track and field competition, Spiritual Emphasis Week, and budget meeting after budget meeting. Mindee had the massive undertaking of doing inventory of all 17,000 + items in the library, then had one week to order all she needed for next year. Suffice it to say, she was a bit stressed.

One other event I (Mike) was involved in was helping my 3rd grade class with presenting chapel to the rest of the elementary classes at the end of January. I wrote a script that would involve all of my students, then we made a video about how to "refresh or be refreshed". While my buddy Kevin, a professional video-guy will probably scoff at this amateur job, I'm pretty proud of it--seeing as how it was my first try at something like this. I sure learned a lot. There's a good message and the kids are adorable. I got permission to share the video with you, so please follow the link below to meet my students and get a sense of what some of my job looks like. I'll put the link at the bottom of the blog if you promise to read the rest of it before going there.

We've also put a significant amount of time into the planning of our summer itinerary since plane tickets had to be purchased by now. We're excited to be able to see many of you over the summer-- we'll be spending a fair amount of time on both coasts. Klamath Falls will be home base on the west, and Pensacola on the east. I'm still trying to figure out if we can stop over in the middle, but I don't know yet.

As for our future plans, at this point we have decided that we WILL continue on here at DA for at least one more year, if not indefinitely. It has been a very good fit for us and we feel that we are an important part of what God is doing here in Senegal. So until something comes up that pulls us away from here, we plan on staying.

To our monthly supporters, expect individual contact before the end of this school year to discuss what that means for you. We know that many of you made a two year commitment which will be ending soon. We are so thankful for your steadfast support for us. You are a big part of what has kept us out here.

With less than 4 months left of school, we are trying very hard to "keep our heads in the game." It's particularly difficult when we have all the things about the States and "home" that we've been missing for 2 years to look forward to. It's hard not to check out. Please pray for us as we finish this part of our race. We are so privileged to be here and we don't want to take that for granted. On the other hand, we can't wait to see many of you this summer. We'll let you know when we'll be where when it gets closer to it.

Until then, thanks, as always, for your prayer and support. Enjoy the video!

Ten Thousand Words on the Koulocuk Outreach

2008-12-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

If a picture paints a thousand words, here are ten thousand on our last outreach.

The outreach went very well overall. There were some fairly typical setbacks that accompany about anything you try to do in a third world country, but overall it was a successful weekend.

Here are some of the pics that highlight some of the things Mindee and I were involved in. I am working on a video of the weekend which I hope to finish over the Christmas break. When it's finished I'll post it on Youtube for you all to see.

One of our "buses" broke down about half way there. This push-start attempt by DA'ers and helpful bystanders eventually got us back on the road.

Mindee headed up the paint crew, painting the inner walls and
window shutters of two churches in the area.

Mike was the photographer, shooting video and
stills of all the other work going on.

Mike also helped with leveling a soccer field and putting in goals.

The kids worked really hard all weekend.

A typical road block on the way to the village.

The Muslim holiday of Tabaski was last week. Each family is to sacrifice a sheep or goat. Ever wonder how 800,000 livestock get into a major city? Now you know.

A few of the faces reminding us why we do what we do.

Merry Christmas.

Love, Mike and Mindee Evans-Maxson

Thanksgiving Outreach

2008-11-27T12:37:00.000-08:00

This will be a short blog, yet I believe it is an important one.

This post is to let you know that at 5 a.m. tomorrow, we will be going with about 120 other DA staff and students to the village of Koulouck. It is several hours inland from Dakar. We will spend the next two days roofing a church, leveling a soccer field, painting, building benches, and doing medical outreach, drama, VBS and more. We will spend the next two nights on evangelism campaigns proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

As on all of our outreaches, we do this in partnership with the existing churches in the area.

Please pray for our safety on the roads and in the bush. Pray also that God will use us to reach these people, that they would hear the message. Please pray for the Senegalese Christians who will remain to minister to these people after we depart on Sunday afternoon.

We will report again sometime next week and tell you how it went.

We are very excited about this weekend. It is one of the highlights of our year and a big part of the reason we are here at all. Thank you for your prayer and support.

Mike and Mindee

Ticket Week

2008-09-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

I (Mindee) have been having a ticket week. This is a phrase we missionaries use to describe a particularly difficult time in which, if we had the choice, we would buy a plane ticket immediately and leave our troubles behind.

So... yeah. I've been having one of those weeks. You see, we've been having power and water cuts every day this week. Let me tell you that spending eight hours throughout the day in a stagnant, dark library, unable to accomplish anything of substantial importance is frustrating. When this happens more than once a week, with the additional plus of no water nor electricity when we get home, it starts to wear down our tolerance.

Also, even if the electricity does stay on for a decent amount of time, there hasn't been any internet connection for the past week. (You may be wondering how it's possible for me to post this -- one of our friends is lucky enough to still have internet at their place and so we dropped by after school to hijack their connection for an hour or so.) Anyway, it's surprising how much this affects just about everything -- what I am able and unable to accomplish in my job, what I do at home during my personal time, my ability to keep in contact with loved ones. Apparently some routers went down and it has affected half of the city's ability to connect to the internet, including the school and our apartment. They're saying it's more serious than they originally thought and that they don't know when it will be back up again. We're all thrilled to hear that.

Mike was sick earlier this week, and he rarely ever takes a sick day, but on this particular occasion, he did. On this specific day, however, the power was cut for 11 hours. Mike ended up laying spread eagle on the tile floor in an attempt to cool down (did I mention that throughout all these power cuts, the heat is extremely intense? This is the hottest part of the year, and it's pretty rough even with a working fan.) With a fever, no power and no water, this made for an exceptionally uncomfortable sick day for poor Mike.

While I am not fully ill, I have felt off and on all week as well. I've been fighting a cold, symptoms including a sore throat, exhaustion and achiness. And while it's also slightly humorous, I also burnt my tongue, and much to my dismay, have discovered that the combination of a burnt tongue and a sore throat makes eating and drinking a cheerless, challenging occasion. If you know me, you know that I take a lot of pleasure in eating so this has taken some of the small delights out of my days.

However, I stopped thinking of this as a ticket week when I found out some rather shocking news. One of the school guards named Aliou Samba Deh passed away from a heart attack just last night. This is a guy that we came into contact with on a daily basis, greeting us at the gate each morning on our way to work with a smile and an occasional joke. The devastating part of this is that we're pretty sure that he wasn't a Christian. It was and is a rather harsh reminder as to why Mike and I are here in the first place, and while I stopped and chatted with him in broken, pitiful French on occasion and I know the other staff at the school reached out to him, it pains me to think that he never came to know Christ and never will.

So while thoughts of the conveniences of Ameica still linger in my mind, tempting me to want to dwell on how life could be, I remind myself of Aliou Samba Deh, and the many others like him that need the love and forgiveness of Christ.

And I refuse to let myself think of it as a ticket week any more.

P.S. On a positive note, one of our co-workers was telling the staff about some muslim religious fanatics in her neighborhood that were acting out (self mutilation, chanting, etc.) in reaction to the maribous' (muslim leaders) announcement that the rains were over. Ever since we heard this, the D.A. staff have been praying for rain to contradict the maribous and show them that God controls the weather, not them nor Allah. Then today, it poured. =) How awesome is our God!

Send Refreshing

2008-09-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since we last checked in. A lot has happened. Hopefully this can serve as a brief update.

School is back in full swing for us. I (Mike) am teaching 3rd graders this year. I was given the honor of moving down from fifth grade to take on this "problem class" which has nearly destroyed its previous three teachers. It wasn't my choice... and I still can't quite tell whether the higher-ups think very highly of me and my teaching abilities or they just want to get rid of me and don't have the guts to just fire me.

Fortunately for me, it doesn't matter much because I'm not going anywhere. At least not because of a handful of unruly 8-year-olds. True, they aren't the angels I had last year, but they ARE good kids and they ARE, for the most part, behaving themselves. Thanks though, for continued prayers on my behalf. Some days are certainly better than others, and I do appreciate the support.

Mindee is in the library full time and (putting my extreme bias aside for a moment of course) she is the coolest librarian EVER. No offense to any librarians reading this blog. One responsibility she has is teaching the wee ones about proper library usage and dewey decimal, etc. She ran a great treasure hunt last week for a few different elementary grades where they had to solve the clues to figure out which book held the next clue until eventually they discovered their treasures of toys and candy at the end of the hunt. See? Great librarian. She also really enjoys interacting with students from all grades, kindergarten through high school. It's a good fit for her.

We are also keeping busy with the worship team where Mindee continues to play keyboard and I oversee the "tech guys" running sound and power point. I am assisting with coaching varsity boys volleyball this semester as well.

I'd like to take a moment now and give my condolences to any of you on the East Coast who are reading this. I say this because in about two weeks you are in for a doosey of a storm. (That's right... a Doosey.) Hurricanes are said to be birthed here in West Africa. So what is good news for us (nearly record rainfalls) does not look good for you. Last week we had a storm so strong that trees broke in half, classrooms flooded, and the rain was so heavy you could hardly see 10 feet in front of you. Winds were probably nearing hurricane levels if I had to guess. It made a real mess.

... so good luck with that.

Going along with all this rainfall but "ironically" conceived before any of it began is Dakar Academy's theme for this year. Evan and Jewel are the chaplains here and in charge of this kind of thing and sometime this past summer they decided on the theme of "refreshing" for the school to focus on this year. There are many tangible and spiritual applications to this one word -- how we can refresh others and how God can refresh us-- and it has been well received as the topic of several sermons and messages in church and youth group.

As a way to introduce this theme to the student body at the start of the school year, Evan wrote and composed a song called "Send Refreshing," then commissioned me to produce a music video to go with it. I used home video and photos as well as some shots Mindee and I found online to create this video. If you have a chance to watch it on YouTube, I think you'll find it... that's right... "refreshing." If you listen carefully to the lyrics, there are several places where they line up nicely with the video. Pay close attention to the very last shot as it is of a dear man who lives near us named Tapha-- a Muslim man we all hope and pray becomes "refreshed" by us.

Thanks for your continued prayer and support. Check out the video by clicking on the link below.

WATCH THE "SEND REFRESHING" VIDEO

PS-- You might like to know that along with the shot of Tapha, the last 2 minutes of this video show scenes of the DA campus, students, staff and national workers during a Friday afternoon rainstorm. It happens so rarely that the kids just spontaneously went and played in it. I was fortunate to have my camera with me that day to record it all. This can give you a bit of an idea of what parts of the school look like. ... just know that the amount of grass you see here is extremely unusual.

Excerpts from Asia

2008-07-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

Now that we're back from our adventures in Korea and Thailand, we thought a good way to summarize our trip would be to take excerpts from some of the letters we sent to our families while we were gone. It will hopefully give a taste of some of our experiences without being so overwhelmingly long that you fall asleep before the end of it. We'll fill in a couple more blanks at the end as needed.

Hope you enjoy!

June 13 (Day 6)
Dear Parents,

We made it to Korea and, whew, we're beat. We spent the whole day shopping, down at the market, at Costco, etc. We bought all kinds of beautiful house decorations, gifts and souvenirs, not to mention some clothes and necessary food items! (By necessary, I mean flavored coffee syrups and candy.) =)

Tomorrow we're going to do a teeny bit more shopping and then relax before camps start on Sunday. We also hope to see Gloria this next weekend. It's going to be a busy week!

Love you VERY much,
Mindee and Mike

June 28 (Day 21)
Dear Mom and Dad,

One more day left in Korea! It's been so much fun being here, hanging out with Tiece and Ted, working at the camps (we have lots of pictures to show) and exploring Daejon with all the lights, noise, smells and sights. We're going to miss the conveniences and cleanliness of Korea when we go back to Senegal. =(

June 30 (Day 23)
Hi everyone,

Just checking in to let you know that we're here in Thailand and it's amazing!

Last night we arrived to a delicious Thai meal and an hour long massage each (it kinda hurt) :-) We'll do that again though.

Today we're going elephant trekking and to a snake show.

Tomorrow is Mike's favorite-- Phi Phi ("Pee Pee") Island. (He found Poo Island today and has been giggling ever since).

Our hotel is beautiful and our room overlooks the water [all for about $40/night].

We'll check in more as we find the time-- there's a nice little coffee shop across from our hotel and it has internet.

Mindee and Mike

July 1 (Day 24)
Dear Parents,

Yesterday an elephant sneezed on us -- several times. Also, while Mike was driving, it went on a rampage through the jungle (no joking)! I was holding the video camera, but I didn't get it on film because I feared for my life and was just trying not to fall off the elephant!

No snake bites, but we were coiled up in a python's deadly grip. We managed to escape without losing any limbs.

Today, a fish bit Mike. Yes, a fish. He bled.

I stubbed my toe on a rock. I bled.

So far nothing fatal. Tomorrow we may try to hold tigers.

We'll write again soon -- hopefully.

Mindee

July 3 (Day 26)
Dear Parents,

My life's ambition has been fulfilled. I got to hold a baby tiger in my arms and feed it yesterday. Now I can die.

But I'll try not to. Don't worry.

We also saw elephant, crocodile and monkey shows. The elephant one was our favorite. Elephants have such personalities! Before the show started, we saw a trunk sticking out from behind stage as though it was waving at us. It was cute. Mike waved back. He's a dork, but I love him anyway.

Today we went shopping. It was fun to bargain, yet the vendors were much more polite than what we're used to in Senegal. Twice now vendors have told us NOT to buy something they were selling because it wasn't good quality. Talk about brutal honesty. One lady hit Mike when he wouldn't come down an extra 20 baht (60 cents). She was smiling, though. And we ended up getting our price.

Oh, and on our way back, we had to honk and swerve out of the way to miss an elephant who was ambling up the hill ahead of us in our little tuk tuk taxi. Mike got pretty excited, but unfortunately he didn't have his camera out in time. Oh well. There were also plenty of elephants grazing on the hillsides along the road. We thought there should be an elephant crossing sign somewhere.

Now.... we're just hoping they'll let us on the plane with all our merchandise! Otherwise Mike will have to stay behind... =) We leave tomorrow morning at 4:00 AM sharp. I had three coffee drinks today (I had to get in as much Starbucks as possible to make up for the last few days and ahem - the last year - without it) so I don't know if much sleep will take place between now and then.

Well, we better get to packing. We'll report in when we get to Senegal or, heaven forbid, next time we're stuck in Lisbon.

Love you,
Mindee and Mike

July 6 (Day 29)
Dear Mom and Dad,

We made it back to Senegal in one piece. Well, kind of.

Everything was fine in our return flights-- oh, except that good old LISBON (@#$^!%$!) lost our luggage. Yeah. So we got in to Dakar around 1:30 am this morning (which, depending on which time zone we've been in recently, feels more like 2:30, 4:30, 10:30 or 12:30 the next day) and waited for about 2 more hours before getting our lost baggage processed so they will know it when they see it. We'll try checking on it tomorrow morning as it should come in on the next flight in from Portugal, which will be the middle of the night tonight.

We're a little nervous though as we did a significant amount of shopping over the last month-- all of which could not be easily recovered as it is unique to Korea and Thailand. We were so pleased
with ourselves, too, because we managed to get in all the shopping we wanted, fit it all in, and not have to pay any overweight charges. Blasted Portugal!!

We'll let you know when it turns up.

Otherwise, we're in good shape. The overall experience was amazing and we can't wait to show you our video coverage and pictures.

Now we have our new apartment to look forward to decorating. We're going to go over and see our newly covered furniture later today and take a couple loads of our stuff over as well. Should be fun.

Love you guys!

Mindee

July 7 (Day 30)
Dear Mom and Dad,

Just wanted to let you know that our luggage made it in safe and sound. Mike went in early Monday morning to pick it up. He was awake at 4:30 anyway due to jet lag.

Mindee and Mike

POST SCRIPT -- The main thing we want to add beyond what we reported to our parents throughout the trip is that the two weeks of summer camps were wonderful. We were so busy that we had next to no free time, yet the investment was well worth it. We worked with 160 high school kids the first week and about 40 elementary kids the second. In collaboration with a ministry organization called CentriFUGE we got to be a part of two life-changing weeks for many young people. We were involved in a lot of recreational games (ultimate frisbee, volleyball, basketball, floor hockey, and more) as well as helping with Bible study groups and leading evening devotions. We had a great time being involved in a ministry a little different than what we do at DA. It was also great working with Mindee's sister, Tiece, and brother-in-law, Ted at the school they work at in Korea. It was great to finally get to see some of what their minstry looks like.

As always, thanks so much for your prayer and support, even when we're away from Senegal.

Accidental European Vacation

2008-06-11T03:30:00.000-07:00

For those of you who were keeping track, we DID make it to Korea.

We are just two days late.

Here's the story. We got out of Dakar just fine, flying to Lisbon, Portugal. Depending on who you ask, what happened next is the fault of either Air Portugal, Finn Air, us, or a guy named Carlo. Any ONE you ask, they would blame another of those four.

Long story short, we didn't make our connecting flight out of Lisbon AND were unable to get re-booked on any other flights. That was on Sunday. The next available flight getting us anywhere near where we were headed left on Tuesday. So we had a two day layover in Lisbon "on us" AND the only way to get OUT of Lisbon was to buy completely different tickets on a completely different airline.

That one hurt the ol' pocket book a little bit. Fortunately, we had some rainy day money saved away in a bank account I had nearly forgot I had. (Now I actually CAN forget about it because there's no more money in it.)

At first we were very discouraged. The combination of spending extra money and being stuck somewhere you don't want to be can be rather troublesome. Once we "embraced" our situation, however, we were able to look for some "silver linings."

1. On our first night, while wandering the streets of Lisbon near our hotel, we happened across a McDonald's. ...haven't had a McDonald's hamburger in awhile... That was a nice dinner.

2. In perusing through the yellow pages, I found that there is ONE Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Lisbon. ...haven't had KFC in awhile... so on Monday morning we tackled the Lisbon subway and headed toward where I thought the KFC was generally located. (I had narrowed it down to a street that went for a couple of miles, so I figured if we got off at the street and took a nice walk, we were bound to run into it sometime before dying of starvation.)

We found it and it was in the middle of (3.) a humongous shopping mall. So we spent Monday shopping for several items that, as it turns out, we would have had a lot of trouble finding in Korea, but which we very much needed before returning to Senegal.

4. Also in the mall was Pizza Hut. ...haven't had Pizza Hut in awhile... That was a nice dinner.

Monday night we worked out a new arrangement with our travel agent (that's Carlo), who was surprisingly helpful despite the fact that I had woken him up at about 4 a.m. Sunday morning when we first were stranded and he had been working on our case ever since.

On Tuesday we returned to the airport and headed to Frankfurt via Lufthansa Airlines. That flight went off without much of a hitch... except it ran a little late and we didn't have much of a layover there before the final leg from Frankfurt to Seoul.

In Frankfurt we got off the plane in the A terminal and had to walk to gate C16 which, of course, was the absolute FURTHEST gate from our current location. We had about 10 minutes until boarding. We sped down corridor after corridor, mile after mile, it seemed. At one point we passed a Starbuck's. ...haven't had a Starbuck's in awhile... That would have been nice. But we had no time. Mindee used all the willpower she possessed to keep on going.

We finally reached our gate with about 5 minutes to spare... only to find that our flight to Korea was delayed by about 2 hours. Bad news? No, GREAT NEWS! (...haven't had Starbuck's in awhile...) Mindee stayed at the gate and sent me back for the drink she's been craving for the past 10 months-- a Starbuck's venti dulce de leche frappaccino. I walked the 12 miles back to the main lobby (I actually had to get my passport stamped another two times just to get there and back) bought TWO venti fraps (those are the really big ones) and headed back towards the gate.

... it wasn't until I got right up to the nice German lady at the last security checkpoint that I remembered the rule about liquids. She politely told me that I had to "finish" my drinks before passing that point. heh, heh. Finish? TWO fraps? First of all, that wouldn't be possible. Second of all, even if it WAS, what would my wife do to me if I got back to her and told her that not only had I not brought her her heart's utmost desire, but that I had in fact drank two in the mean time? I would be a single man today. So I turned around, walked around a corner, stealthily slid both fraps behind a flower pot, cleared security, ran to get Mindee, brought her back to the spot, and we enjoyed our Starbuck's on my side of the check point.

That would be "silver lining number 5".

...And then we got on a plane, sat for 10 hours (and 5 movies and no sleep) and finally arrived in Korea.

It really was a pretty decent way to start our vacation, even if it was all completely on accident.

Time to get out of Dodge

2008-06-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

“Senelec” is a dirty word in Senegal. At least it is this week. Senelec is the name of the company which is in charge of supplying electricity. Senelec shouldn’t quit its day job. Over the past few days the power has been off as often as it has been on. Two nights ago it was off the whole night. A night here without fans brings two major discomforts: heat and mosquitoes. That was not a fun night.

Yesterday evening was DA’s high school graduation. No electricity meant we had to use a generator to power the ceremony. Generators are noisy.

Today was supposed to be a productive day wrapping up our classrooms and other responsibilities at school and getting cleared to officially start our summer break. …kind of hard to finish your paper work on a computer that won’t turn on.

And I’m pretty sure it’s Senelec’s fault that as of about 4p.m. yesterday, we haven’t had any water either. (I don’t know HOW that is Senelec’s fault and not just an unfortunate coincidence, but it’s more fun to imagine that it’s a grand conspiracy to get us all really cranky).

It’s times like these when I remember that we really do live in a third-world country, no matter how hard we try to deny it.

It’s also times like these when I remember that a glass half empty is also half full. The night we were all up at 3 a.m., I actually had a pretty good time scaring all the women in the house with a strategically placed cardboard cut-out of Legolas (the hunky elf from Lord of the Rings). Graduation went very well. If we hadn’t had a generator, it would be an entirely different story. Today’s inability to do much work allowed us a nice (albeit forced) reprieve from an otherwise hectic week. And while we haven’t had water in our house, we were fortunate to have a lone spigot outside which offered a trickle of water, which we used to fill buckets, barrels, and two camp-showers (turns out it’s pretty handy being related to the DA outreach coordinator). And obviously we have power NOW or I couldn’t be writing this at all.

So things could be a lot worse.

Regardless of how we perceive our recent “situations,” we truly are beginning to look forward to getting out of town. We leave for Korea early Sunday morning. We’ll be in Asia until July 6, then return to an apartment in need of Mindee’s special touch.

Please pray for us as we try to get everything in order before we head out. There is still a lot to do (including, hopefully, getting at least one more shower before the trip).

Please pray for us as we travel this weekend. It will be a 30 hour trip with stops in Lisbon, Helsinki, and finally Seoul, before taking a bus or train south to Daejon in central South Korea.

Please pray for us in Korea, as we will both be counselors at an elementary camp and a high school camp.

Thank you so much for your continued support in prayer and finances. We’ll report back when we get the chance.

Defining moment

2008-05-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Mindee here.

Today I had an epiphany. I'm a grown-up.

I mean, I've had those defining "grown-up" moments before in the states -- driving myself to work, dropping off my pay-check at the bank, paying rent and decorating my own place... all those moments. But today I had a "grown-up missionary" moment.

You see, Mike and I went shopping by ourselves today. We've gone before, but for the most part, we've steered clear of the market without a sufficient translator by our sides. Today we went to this little whole-in-the-wall store that had a faded blue canopy outside of it with peeling, white stenciled letters spelling "Bed, Bath and Beyond" (seriously) and a rusted, garage door as the main and only opening. It happened to be closed, and to our chagrin, steam was billowing from the hood of our car so we were kind of stuck there. Abandoning our car to let it cool down, we decided to check out the market nearby and were, of course, overwhelmed by vendors. I spotted one fellow with an armful of brightly colored mismatched towels and proceeded to browse through his selection since towels were on our list anyway. I bartered with him in French, managed to find a couple towels that were the same decent color and brought him down half price, to which he acted quite disgruntled, but eventually conceded, "C'est pas grave" (No big deal) with a half-hearted shrug and a slightly concealed little skip in his step (I'm pretty
sure that that price was no steal for market towels, but still, I paid less than I would in America so I'm not complaining.)

Meanwhile, as I was being swarmed by market vendors (suddenly all the towels in the market seemed to come out of the woodwork), Mike was working on fixing the car, with the aid of three other Senegalese men, who of course, were all professional mechanics and knew far more about our car than Mike did. =)

Between all four of them, they managed to jimmy-rig the hose to the radiator so that the car was able to limp home. Yet despite the fact that the two stores we wanted to visit were closed, our car broke down and we spent half our day off being beleaguered by market vendors, we came back feeling quite accomplished. We didn't do what we set out to do today, but we did manage to navigate our way around downtown Dakar, do a little bargaining, buy some items that we needed despite setbacks, survive market warfare, and get back home without ever feeling fear, overwhelming frustration or confusion. All this for two new missionaries still learning the lay of the land and the culture.

So that's why I feel like a grown-up. I was a grown-up in America, but now I'm a grown-up in Senegal, too. At least some days. =)

This and That

2008-05-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

Mike here. It's well past time we gave you all an update. I suppose there's a lot to tell, although I'm never sure how much of it any of you really want to read about, or how much of it is just interesting to me because it's HAPPENING to me. Ah, the joys of being self-centered.

Well, I guess I should fill you in and assume that if you're reading this, it's because you're genuinely interested, and you're not just doing it out of some obligation. Ah, the anguish of self-doubt.

Okay, here's the skinny... (By the way, at the bottom of this blog is a picture of something I am particularly excited about. Can you resist the temptation of looking now and read the post FIRST? I dare you...)

We had a great visit with my family last month. We did lots of fun touristy things around Senegal and I think they got a pretty good sense of what life is like here (except for the part where we actually go to work, since we were on break at the time). Rachel has some stories about the trip over on her blog if you want to check them out.

Once the fam left, we hit the ground running to finish up the school year. Mindee had a week of full-time kindergarten teaching, as opposed to her part-time kinder/part-time librarian gig. It's not natural to have kids that age in school from 8-3. I think a lesser person would have hidden under a rock and waited for the week to pass, but Mindee did a great job, despite the immense toll it took on her energy. (I wonder if kindergarteners are her kryptonite-- they would be mine). Neither of us have any coaching responsibilities this term, but it seems that our schedule is just as full with work as well as extra-curriculars.

Now we're just trying to finish out the school year well. We'll be done in early June.

As for our summer, I suppose there are a few minor things you may want to know about.

First, I don't think we've mentioned this here yet, but Mindee and I have been given the opportunity to go to South Korea this summer and work in two youth camps with Mindee's sister, Tiece, and her husband, Ted. Tiece and Ted are dorm parents at a boarding school called TCIS in S. Korea and this camp is run through their school. Mindee has always wanted to get to Asia. We are also looking into the potential ministry opportunities there should we ever feel the need to leave DA. (That's not something we're planning on doing, but you never know). One great thing about it is that the pay for the camps will COVER our plane tickets. That's the only way we could justify the trip. We're really excited about many of the aspects of the trip-- the ministry opportunity, seeing Ted and Tiece (and Mindee's younger sister, Amber, who will also be there), seeing Korea, reconnecting with one of Mindee's closest friends from high school who now lives in Korea, getting out of Africa for awhile, having a Starbucks (Mindee might put that one higher up on the list)... We've also been saving up our date money this year so we can stop off in Thailand "while we're in the neighborhood" for a few days.

That will all happen in June.

When we get back, we will be moving out of the house we've lived in this year and into our own apartment. It's just around the corner from the house, but will provide a little more independence than we've had this year. We had a WONDERFUL year living with Mom and Dad Evans, but are excited about having our own place next year.

In July, we will hopefully make our long-awaited trek back to Cote d'Ivoire to visit ICA. Mindee has postponed this trip for over 6 years now, having initially planned to return there the Christmas after she graduated from high school in 2002. We are looking forward to revisiting some very memorable spots and finally getting a bit of closure to a very important part of both of our lives.

In August I will have moved into a new classroom and will then be teaching 3rd grade, which will have some distinct challenges that I'm sure we'll get into in a future blog. I will no doubt have some specific prayer requests about this new assignment that I am not particularly looking forward to. More on that later.

And now, the GRAND FINALE. This is the most exciting thing that has happened in the recent days. I am so incredibly excited about it I can barely express it! I GOT A SWEET NEW RIDE! That's right, my own vehicle! It's amazing the sense of freedom you get when you have your own set of wheels. You're not dependent on someone else getting you from A to B. You can DO IT YOURSELF! I love it. I also love how other people enjoy my new method of transportation, for it seems it brings a smile to every one's face. What I DON'T fully understand is why they simultaneously laugh and point as well. I don't really care for that. But nonetheless, I love my new wheels, and I love how they make me feel.

Okay, I'll admit. It's NOT great in the sand. In fact, I nearly pitched head-long over the front as the tire dug into the soft sand... but otherwise, I LOVE IT!

That's the news from Senegal.

Safe and mostly sound

2008-03-26T01:56:00.000-07:00

My parents and sister arrived safely this morning. They were welcomed to Senegal by a group of very aggressive baggage handlers who needed a severe lecture (or beating), neither of which I was equipped to give, unfortunately. But once we got away from the airport all was well. We have some fun activities planned, hopefully none of which are even remotely as stressful as were their first five minutes in Africa.

As for now, it's time to sleep off the jetlag!

Dear Mom, Dad, and Sis,

2008-03-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hey. Long time no see. I have a couple of weeks off of school and I was thinking... maybe you could pop on over here and pay me and Mindee a little visit.

How's Wednesday? I'd be available to pick you up at the airport around, say, 5:30 a.m.? Mom and Dad, all you have to do is drive down to southern CA, pick up Rachel, fly out of LA to New York, get on a South African Airlines flight and fly to Dakar.

It'll be fun! What do you think?

See you then!

Love,
Mike

PS-- If you wouldn't mind, would you pick up a few things for us from Walmart on your way out? We haven't been able to make the trip lately. Thanks!

The rest of the story

2008-03-15T02:56:00.000-07:00

In our previous blog Mindee described the experience we had on our last outreach. You may recall that it was a somewhat unique experience for us due to the amount of resistance we encountered. A VBS team was chased away from one area and told never to return, while an entire worksite was closed down because a large number of locals showed up and demanded we leave. They didn't want us building a church in their town.

There are two fairly common reactions to this type of an experience. Probably the most common is that of discouragement. We mean well. We want to help. We want to show God's love. We want to GIVE, and yet, they don't want to receive. It feels a bit like failure and rejection.

The second possible response is that of excitement. Our school's theme for this year is "God's Warriors" and this was certainly a battle. Satan is not happy with what was and is happening in areas where he has previously had no resistance. We got his attention.

Sometimes it is necessary to separate yourself from the situation before you can really see what is happening. A wise man I know calls it “expanding your frame of reference.” Oftentimes we don’t have answers for why things don’t go the way we plan (although in Africa that shouldn’t ever be a surprise). I have many questions for God about why He lets things unfold the way He does. Usually we have to accept, in faith, that there’s SOMETHING up that we don’t understand. This time, we got a glimpse of that SOMETHING.

And now, THE REST OF THE STORY.

When the angry mob showed up at one of our worksites, they protested our building a church in their town. While we had gone through the proper channels of obtaining building permits and getting permission from the town’s mayor, our Christian Senegalese partners did not wave that in their faces and insist on their legal legitimacy. Rather, they calmly asked if a discussion might be held in order to resolve this disagreement. The “mob” consented and a meeting was scheduled for the following Monday.

While the DA team went home, our partners met with representatives of the opposition and the mayor of the town. He conceded that, yes, he had said that every town should have a church, and that he had given them permission to build there, however, he could see how this upset the Muslim community. In order to appease everyone, he offered a compromise.

His suggestion was that, rather than building a CHURCH on that property, they build a HOUSE there. In exchange, he would grant these Christian men a plot of land totaling 3 hectares (7.4 acres or 30,000 square meters or about 7 football fields) on which they could build a church building at a later date. (They made sure the land would be accessible, within city limits.) This seemed to please our opponents, as it meant there would no longer be a church at that location, and the meeting adjourned.

Now here’s the best part. The “church” that was originally to be built on that initial plot of land was actually going to be a HOUSE CHURCH – a house which allowed for small cell groups to meet there. No modifications needed to be made to the original plans on that piece of property nor to the ministry which would take place in that building, AND the church in that area got a substantial donation by the town mayor for an eventual church building, once their numbers reach a point where they will need it.

By protesting our work in their town, a group of Muslim men multiplied the chances for a thriving church to rise up among them.

Even in our perceived failures, when we look at the bigger picture, we see God at work.

And that’s THE REST OF THE STORY.

…this not to mention that at the VBS site, where kids were tearing up hundreds of evangelical tracts and throwing them to the wind, the Word of God was canvassing the country side. Maybe their act of defiance to this message was inadvertently a powerful evangelical tool. …Maybe.

Isaiah 55:11 – “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

Smile, God loves you!

2008-01-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

“Smile, God loves you!” This phrase took on a whole new meaning this past weekend. In fact, we probably faced more open hostility during this Outreach than any others we’ve been on before. We knew that it would be tough, going to N’Guekokh (pronounced En Gecko) and treading on Wolof, highly Islamic territory, but somehow I think many of us had still been lulled into a false sense of security from our past experiences with the docile, hospitable Serer villages which had welcomed us with open arms.

Not so much this time around. While there wasn’t any extreme violence, there was certainly aggression and some minor physical opposition. The VBS team experienced possibly the most frustrations of the group. Villagers used rocks and sticks to force them out of two different locations and the tracts that they passed out to the younger kids were snatched up by older siblings and torn up defiantly in their faces. Some of the high-school girls in the VBS group noted that they recall one of their fellow team mates saying under her breath to them, “Just keep smiling. This is what these kids will remember: that we kept smiling and didn’t get upset, despite how we were treated.”

That was a profound statement about the joy of the Lord, despite religious intolerance and harassment, and many of us hope that those young children will recall that in years to come-- that they will have that memory of those foreigners who came to share something with them, who played with them and doled out attention and love and who were chased away and antagonized for their efforts. Perhaps that will leave an imprint on their lives and drive them to find out more about this “Jesus” that they once heard about.

The VBS team did see a few glimpses of hope. One high-school boy reported that a little girl approached him quietly and, keeping her hand low to her side, secretly slipped a tract into her pocket. She then snagged a friend of hers and snuck away to talk it over. It was such a blessing for this young man to see this and to come to the conclusion that even at that young age, God instills in us a desire to seek and know him.

Also, one staff member who was a VBS coordinator made the comment that even though the tracts were torn up, now “the word of God is blowing all over the outback of Senegal, and when God’s word goes out, it never returns void.” Perhaps a stranger will stumble across a verse or a snippet of a verse that will peak their curiosity and inspire them to find out more. Who knows what can happen?

Other groups encountered harassment as well. The drama team was chased out of several different villages as was a construction crew who was laying the foundation for a church. This building team, after taking a short lunch break, returned to their site where a group of marabous (Muslim religious leaders) and other disgruntled townsmen were waiting to run off them out, despite the fact that the land had been purchased, a building permit acquired and permission was given from the town mayor to build there. One high-school boy, who was being cussed out and given the finger by one angry individual, grabbed the man’s hand and shook it vigorously, smiling and greeting him. The man was so taken back, that he just looked at the young man and walked away speechless. Once again, it was a testimony to the joy and the strength of the Lord amidst trial and opposition.

In fact, in spite of all these difficult circumstances, many of us that went on this outreach trip are very encouraged. During our evening evangelistic campaigns, even amidst fire crackers that were thrown into our choir and an unruly, disruptive crowd, (it was an Islamic holiday called Tamxarit (pronounced Tom-hareet), which is a like a combination of New Year's and Halloween), a dozen or so people made a commitment to follow Christ. One man in particular stands out in my mind. I was gazing over the crowd as Pastor Felix, a national pastor here in Senegal, preached and I noticed a man in a red shirt. I noticed this man because on either side of him were wild, rowdy people, but he just stood there, seemingly transfixed on what Pastor Felix was saying. When Pastor Felix asked if anyone wanted to make a commitment to Jesus Christ, BOTH of this man’s hands shot up in the air, without any hesitance whatsoever. Even now, I am so overwhelmed by this man’s response to the gospel that even if he had been the only convert the whole weekend, I believe all of our efforts would have been worth it.

Please pray for this man and for all the others that made this difficult commitment. It’s obvious by all the opposition that we faced that this is Satan’s territory and that he’s fighting to remain in control of it. So we are encouraged that God is moving in N’Guekokh BECAUSE of the difficulties that we faced. We will continue to pray that the seeds that we planted will one day blossom, whether it be weeks, months or years from now. The gospel has been told, churches have been built, and people, however few, have accepted Christ’s amazing gift of salvation and hope. There’s no telling what God has in store for the town of N’Guekokh.

Mindee wields a pickaxe as she helps dig a foundation.

Mike helps dig the hole for a septic tank.

One more outreach event

2008-01-18T02:04:00.000-08:00

Dear friends and family,

The first thing we would like to say is a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have been supporting us for this time. It means so much to us to know that you care about what we are doing. We were STUNNED by the outpouring of generosity in giving during the Christmas season, especially from those at UEFC as well as some dear friends from other parts of the country. Thank you SO much. We were speechless when we saw how much you gave. May God richly bless each of you for your extreme generosity.

So you know, the way our support is set up through UEFC, we are unable to know who specifically supports us financially through the weekly offering unless you actually TELL us. So if you would like to let us know of your support so we can interact more personally, and so we can support you by praying for you, please send us an email.

We also wanted to let you know of an outreach event we are going on this weekend. We are headed to some towns about 2 hours outside of Dakar. We will dig out, then pour the foundations for two small start-up churches, along with making benches, running a VBS, medical outreach, drama, and evening evangelism campaigns Friday and Saturday nights. The evening campaigns combine singing, drama, speaking and film to reach several hundred people each night. We are working in collaboration with local believers.

Please pray for safety in travel and throughout the weekend, and pray that God will work in the hearts of those who hear the message we bring.

We will return to Dakar on Sunday. I’ll try to give a report on the weekend soon after.

Until then,

Mike and Mindee

Back From Sass

2007-12-25T02:14:00.001-08:00

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking on this blog. We went for 3 days and worked on 3 different churches. The first, below, we whitewashed, then painted the exterior.

Evan, D'Evan, Ted and Tiece, Mindee, Amber and Mike. It was a family affair.

Sunday morning, putting the finishing touches to the church sign for the second church-- the one we roofed and white washed the interior

We finished hanging the sign right "before" church started. (Being a typical African service, it was scheduled to start at 10:00 -- we started at 10:45, but no one seemed to mind at all).

We were invited to sing during the service.
We sang "Angels We Have Heard on High."

The finished product

The church and The Church

The third church was a simple paint job of the interior. I didn't get pics of it.

Here are a couple of scenic pics I took over the weekend as well:

Thanks for all your prayer and support. It was a wonderful way to spend the weekend before Christmas. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we will be having one more outreach this year, coming in only a few more weeks.

I Had Christmas Down in Africa

2007-12-24T08:35:00.000-08:00

It's very important that you watch THIS VIDEO on YouTube. It's awesome. Merry Christmas.

Mike and Mindee

Even more Sass

2007-12-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

This will be short, but I wanted to inform you that we are going back to Sass tomorrow for another weekend building outreach.

Christmas break is, of course, in full swing, but there are some DA staffers who are headed back out to Sass with their families to hopefully finish what we started last month. The walls are up on the church we dug the foundation for so we will roof that church, build more benches for the inside, make a sign so the whole world (or at least all of Sass) knows that this is a church, whitewash the walls and paint two other churches in neighboring villages. We hope to get it all done in two days, with Sunday being another joint worship service with fellow believers (this time INSIDE the newly completed church building).

I'll report more when we get back, along with more pictures, but I hoped you would pray for us this weekend-- for safety in travel and on the building site, and for further impact in the community of Sass.

I'll write more soon. Merry Christmas.

Mike

I haven't even happened yet.

2007-12-13T22:59:00.001-08:00

Weird. I posted that last blog at 6:57 a.m. on Friday morning. The blogger page, however, thinks I'm in America, so it time stamped it 10:57 p.m. Thursday night.

I haven't even happened yet.

...I need to go think things over for a little bit.

Last Day of School! WooHoo!

2007-12-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

.

WOOHOOOOO!

.

A glimpse of heaven

2007-12-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

[From Mindee]

The land was parched and cracked, the air rippling with dust that filled my nostrils and mouth with every breath. Sweat glistened on my sun baked arms and streamed down my nose to form salty droplets at the tip.

I lifted up my long, dirt caked skirt at the base, hoping to find some relief from the stiflingly morbid heat. But none came. Only the dust wafting through the stagnant, still air. I gave up the attempt and resumed my task, wielding my shovel with pride as I struck the hard, ashened ground blow by blow, forcing it to cave in and be uprooted from its place.

A young man from the village spotted me and drew near. I eyed him as he came closer, taking in his flare jeans and slightly torn jersey with large, puffy orange and blue letters spelling “Broncos” blazoned across his chest. He had pulled out what was assuredly his “American wardrobe” for today.

Holding out his hand, he motioned for my shovel. Having already forfeited my pick ax earlier that day to another well intentioned national, I flashed him a grin, thanked him in French whilst I shook my head no and then continued to dig. I meant no offense, but I was a woman with a purposeful task – bent on completing it not by brute strength or boundless energy, but by sheer will and supernatural endurance.

Click. Click. Click. Wiping the perspiration off my forehead with the back of my gloved hand, I glanced up to see my husband, his face hidden behind his newest toy, a Canon Rebel XTi digital camera (thanks, Neighborhood Church of Redding). He was the official photographer for this Outreach trip, putting him in charge of covering photos and video of over 130 people branched into teams ranging from medical to VBS to drama to painting to construction and then back together for evangelism campaigns in the evenings. Even the construction site consisted of many branches, including brick making, bench building, roofing and digging. This was a big job, but we were a big crew, and we stood out like the mass number of toubabs (white people) that we were, scurrying around like ants in the remote village of Sass.

At last, a breeze floated in from the north, strong enough to rustle the pods dangling from the branches of the enormous baobab trees. I shielded my eyes from the glaring, mid-day sun and welcomed the cool gust of wind. Hard work though it may be, there was no place I would have rather been. Surrounded by fields of millet, bleating goats and straw thatched huts, I felt a sense of peace and tranquility, the kind only brought about by a slow paced, serene African village such as Sass.

Resting my chin against the handle of my shovel, I soaked in the site of my comrades working side by side with the villagers of Sass to advance the kingdom of God through this cement walled, tin roofed church. It was a picturesque site – the salt and pepper speckled crowd mingling amongst each other, covered in dust and sweat, so different in the way we think and act and look, but uncaring to this fact as we focused on the goal before us. It was beautiful, like a glimpse of heaven right there in the middle of the sandy, sun-drenched village of Sass.

Now as I look back over the weekend, just as I looked over that site that late Friday morning, I am filled with delight and awe. Over the two day event our medical team, which consisted of an EMT, two missionary nurses and a handful of students, treated 157 people, a new outreach medical team record. The drama team was able to share the gospel with 1200 people (adults and children alike) in THIRTEEN different villages through music, skits, mime and puppets. The VBS team was able to minister to over 800 children. The construction team roofed the pastor's home, laid the foundation for the new church in Sass, painted another church in an outlying village (along with two houses beside it… they had some left-over paint), dug a 1.5 meter deep hole for the septic system, built 14 benches, repaired 5 more and fashioned a beautiful pulpit from the remaining wood scraps.

In the evening evangelism campaigns which took place in three different villages simultaneously, there was a combined total of around 1200 people who heard the gospel. And the most exciting statistic of all is that between 180-200 people prayed for salvation, a number unheard of in this predominantly Muslim country! Our continuing prayer is that follow up and discipleship will be provided for those who made this crucial and significant choice.

Our last day in Sass, we gathered together to worship with the small community of believers from the village. It didn’t look like anything spectacular – since the church building isn’t finished, it was just a simple canopy of tarp strung tight on the sides by thick tree limbs under which sat plain, backless wooden benches. And yet there was something exquisite about the unity and joy expressed in our worship.

After a powerful sermon intended for the new converts in the crowd, the national pastor asked our group to surround the local believers and pray for them. I prayed for a young girl with a headful of braids and large brown-black eyes staring back at me, a face that has forever been imprinted in my memory. It was a poignant moment, reminding myself and others that while our work there may have left a lasting impression on Sass, it is the believers there that will play the vital role of sharing the gospel with their neighbors and building God’s kingdom in that area.

If the walls are up by the end of December, Mike and I will join a team of DA staff and their families to finish roofing the church in Sass.

I’m also looking forward to the next Outreach weekend, approaching in January. Please continue to pray for us as we attempt to reach the people of Senegal with Christ’s superb and incredibly wonderful message of hope and salvation.

Mindee digging a big hole.

Mindee shoveling gravel to mix cement

Mike trying to look like he's doing something productive

Mike helping pour cement for the foundation

The DA team, ECA team and Sass believers after church on Sunday
standing in what will soon be a completed church building

What a difference a day makes

2007-11-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

Seems like just yesterday I was sitting in my classroom, sweating through my clothes, lamenting the fact that it was so humid.

Not everything is bad about humidity. I hate to iron. I HATE IT! It's the worst thing EVER. I get up in the morning and all is well until I look at my wrinkly pants. At that point my whole day falls apart.

In the humidity, though, I don't have to iron. I put on those wrinkled pants and that shirt, head out the door, and by the time I've walked to school, my clothes are crease free, all the wrinkles steamed right out.

That was yesterday. Today, the wind has up and changed direction. Yesterday it came in from the ocean. Today it comes from the east. Geography lesson time: What's that thing just to the east of Senegal? Some desert? The SAHARA? Oh yeah.

Goodbye humidity. Hello iron. The harmatan winds are here. They blow in from the Sahara and dry everything right up. Everything gets covered in dust, virtually right after you dust it. (Which begs the question, why dust in the first place, right?)

The good news about the change in seasons is that the heat is supposed to abate soon.

Abate, I say, ABATE!

We haven't reported much in the past month. I hope you noticed. I hope you missed us. I hope you haven't forgotten about us. We've both been incredibly busy, but not with much that's all that noteworthy. October is usually one of the hardest months of teaching for one reason or another. We've been pretty much honed in on doing our "jobs" this past month.

There IS a major event coming up that we want you to know about. In two days, 29 members of ECA, an MK school from Spain, will be coming down to join us here at DA. They will hang out for a week and help out with this and that, then we will be going on an evangelism campaign in a nearby town called Sass. It will be the biggest campaign D.A. (or ICA for that matter) has ever done. Roughly 130 staff and students will go for three days and engage in this massive outreach.

We will have a team laying the foundation to a new church, another building 1600 bricks for the walls, another building all the benches for inside the church, another roofing a parsonage, another painting, another digging a septic tank (I have aptly dubbed this team... nevermind)... another holding a VBS, another doing medical outreach... I may be leaving some out... We will all come together each night and do singing and drama. We've learned several songs in the French, Wolof and Serer languages so people ought to understand what we're doing there. (And in case you noticed that the chuch has no roof, you're right. The locals will build up the walls and we plan on returning to this area in about a month to finish putting on the roof--just a few days before Christmas).

We will leave at 5:00 a.m. Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving, arrive around 8:30 a.m., and work until midnight. Saturday will be at least a 16 hour work day. On Sunday we will worship with the national believers, then head back to DA around noon. Sunday night we will debrief with ECA and send them off as they fly back home that night...

... and Monday, school starts again.

Sound fun? Believe me, it is.

So as you gather together this Thanksgiving, please think of us and pray for us. I've mentioned in the past the air of anticipation people have sensed in this place. This could be it-- the beginning of something amazing. You can help.

Thank you for your support and partnership!

Sunscreen: who needs it?

2007-10-03T12:43:00.000-07:00

I used to scoff at the persistent chiding of my mother to lather on the sunscreen whenever we went to the pool or the beach. I have dark enough skin, I would think. I don't need sunscreen. I don't burn.

Well, yesterday I had that same mentality as I joined Mike, my aunt and two other staff women on an outing to a new pool that recently opened up. Despite the algae glistening on the teal stained tiles of the pool and the oily feel of the water, it was a fairly pleasant day. The pool was located by the ocean which shimmered an aqua blue, a cool breeze wafted over us throughout the day and the sun was blazing high overhead in a brilliantly blue, cloudless sky.

Mike and I immediately made our way down the slick tiled steps of the pool and into the refreshingly cool water where we amused ourselves for a significant chunk of time with a discarded floatie and a partially pumped up volleyball. Over two hours later, my skin was feeling slightly sensitive and I moved myself to the cool confines of the shade. Laying stretched out on a poolside mat with a book parked in my lap, I faded in and out of consciousness before drowsily piling into a school truck to head home.

It wasn't until later that night, after a long, hot shower that I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and saw the inflamed, cherry red face looking back at me. Thank God for Aloe vera!

One of my fellow staff members, a very tongue in cheek kind of fellow, facetiously asked me today after one glance how the pool was. Another, kinder, you could say, person commented that I looked merely "rosy cheeked."

Let's just say that I won't be going to the pool again until... well... next weekend. But at least then I'll be armed with sunscreen and a baseball cap.

Now that's a TON (or two) of rice!

2007-10-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

On a more serious, yet exciting note, there's been a lot of exhilarating events that have been transpiring here in Dakar. Recently, the school has been collecting as much rice and beans as possible from the staff and students to aid in supplying the northeast region of Djourbel with much needed food. This year the crops have not been sufficient enough to feed the communities in this region, and children and adults alike are considered fortunate if they have even one meal a day.

At the end of last week, we tallied up the total amount of rice and beans that we had collected, which amounted to over 2 and ½ tons. More specifically, for you non-math whizzes (we should be friends), that's about 5500 pounds or 2450 kilos. Other missions also contributed money on top of this amount of food.

So last Saturday, the school overloaded three trucks with sprawling burlap sacks of rice and beans and sent out 9 staff and students (which incorporated the student body president and student representatives from elementary, middle school and high school as well as staff representatives from each). They traveled a couple hours north to drop off food supplies at various churches spread throughout the region. This is the most efficient way to distribute the rice and beans because the churches know the particular community needs better than we do, and will properly allocate the food.

According to my World Venture missionary source, about 20 kilos of rice can feed a ten person family for one month. So, if I calculate that right, the 2450 kilos can feed 122.5 families of ten (or 1225 people) for a time span of about a month. If one person hoards all the rice, this amount will feed him for approximately 100 years.

A little rice seems like such a small gesture, but we at DA feel priveleged to have made such a big impact in that community. It's a start.

Mike's class posing in front of the 2 and 1/2
ton mound of rice bags!

What if?

2007-09-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Mike here. Last week Mindee mentioned in her blog entry that I have not really been experiencing the Senegal that I had been "warned" about. I was told it was dry, yet it has been raining almost daily. I was told there are constant power cuts and water cuts. We've had about three in 6 weeks and only one power cut has lasted more than 30 minutes. I was told that the Senegalese people can be very aggressive. I have met nothing but politeness (even when I yelled at them to get out of line--see my previous blog for details on that).

To this point, much of my experience in Senegal has been nothing like I had expected. What's even more interesting, however, is that it has been unlike what ANYONE has expected. Career missionaries say it has NEVER been this green and lush in all the time they've been here, some as long as 20 years. Never has the power been so consistent.

There is a stirring here, an anticipation, that these peculiarities are the least of the changes coming to Senegal and I wanted to share with you the excitement that is beginning to build.

You have heard us say in the past that Senegal is somewhere between 80-98% Muslim and that it has been very resistant to the message of the gospel. Some missionaries have spent their lives here and only seen a few people come to faith. Right now, however, many of those same people are sharing that they feel that the resistance is weakening, that the walls may soon begin to crumble. One missionary said that the last time he was in Senegal, just in getting off the plane he felt a spiritual oppression so strong that he couldn’t wait to get out of the country; this time in arriving he felt entirely different—he felt hope. Another missionary, upon entering the D.A. campus after a few months in the states said that he felt an overpowering sense of God's blessing upon the school.

Last Wednesday night, the high school students met together for youth group. They have been watching a video series called “Transformations” which documents communities around the world which have gone from the most Godless places you can imagine to thriving Christian communities. They are really very inspiring. These videos, along with the messages presented by Evan and Jewel, and the “stirrings” felt by the missionary community have led the students to wonder… “What if Dakar, Senegal, is on God’s radar to undergo a transformation? What if we get to witness it? What if it begins with D.A.?” The students have really latched on to this idea and it led to a time of prayer, worship, and confession so intense that it went on well beyond the scheduled ending time. Some people are calling it a revival. EVERYONE is very excited.

The challenge now is to direct the energy of the student body into opportunities to reach and impact the community.

Today, Saturday, 50 students gave up several hours of their morning cleaning a building that will be used for a school for the deaf and a center for street children, advancing the start-up date for those two ministries by nearly a month.
This week, the entire campus is involved in a food drive where we are donating rice and beans to go to a nearby village in which people are quite literally starving to death. (The rains have come, but they are late this year so the crops are not yet ready for harvest, yet the supply from last year’s harvest has run out).
Students from middle school through high school have committed to meeting each morning before school to pray for the school, the country, and the world.
They (the students!) have organized a prayer vigil for next Saturday night.
In November, around 100 of our students and staff will be joining forces with a school coming down from Spain to go on a massive outreach campaign which will include building a church, doing evangelism, drama, music, medical services and more.

As you can see, there is more going on here than just operating a school. The students are involved in (and oftentimes initiating) many different activities focused on TRANSFORMING Senegal.

They are fully embracing the idea that none of this will be successful without bathing D.A., Dakar, and Senegal in prayer.

We would love it if you would join us to that end. Pray for Senegal. Pray for these students and their passion to see God do great things here. Pray for transformation.

Habakkuk 1:5 "Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

Thank you for praying for us.

Lines? We don't need no stinkin' lines!

2007-09-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

So last weekend Mindee, Evan and I, along with about 30 other D.A. staff and students went to watch Senegal's national soccer team take on Burkina Faso in a qualifying match for next year's African Cup of Nations. In case you didn't already know this, soccer is kind of a big deal here. The Africa Cup is about the BIGGEST deal here. Dakar has a really nice soccer stadium which seats probably 40-60,000 people, maybe more. Unfortunately, they do NOT have the organizational skills to manage that kind of crowd.

Tickets were sold in two sections -- the 1000 cfa tickets ($2) were general seating, bleacher style (no seat backs, etc). The 5000 cfa ($10) tickets were for mid-field with seat backs. We "splurged" on the more expensive tickets, knowing that $10 was an excellent price to pay to watch a world-class soccer match.

We arrived at the stadium two hours early to make sure we could get good seats. Traffic had been bad by American standards, but we were pleased to have made it in the time we did. As we approached the stadium we saw many people milling about, but one distinctive line which had formed along the outer wall of the stadium. We dutifully got at the end of the line and sent a few people forward to see if this was in fact where we were supposed to be. A quick check up front (some 100 meters ahead) confirmed that, yes, we were in the correct place. We gladly waited, anticipating the excitement that accompanies any major sports stadium, united with fellow soccer fans, buying cheap souvenirs and concessions from the roaming vendors... and yet there was something that didn't seem quite right about the whole situation.

It wasn't immediately apparent what the problem was, but after about 10-15 minutes of not moving in our line, we realized what it was. While we were there in line, literally THOUSANDS of African soccer fans were walking right past us to the front of the line. Our initial assumption was that they would arrive at the front, realize there was a line, turn around, and go to the end. None of them came back. Maybe they were continuing on to a different entrance to the stadium, getting into a different line? After all, there was security at the front of the line, keeping things in order (if, by security, you mean ONE guy on a horse riding around doing who knows what).

After about an hour and half, during which we had moved all of ten feet, we became certain of what was happening. Even if people were being told to go to the end of the line by the lone horseman, they merely retreated a few yards, then merged into the line as if they had been there all along. We realized that we were at a point in the line where ALL the mergers were taking place in front of us, so that while SOME people were, in fact, advancing, none of it was happening as far back as where we were.

Clearly we were getting rather frustrated, but being missionaries, and being extremely conspicuous as such (not to mention our predominantly pale complexions) there was no way we could justify risking "losing our testimonies" by jumping on that bandwagon. After all, we were in the company of hundreds of Africans who were equally frustrated by their fellow countrymen and women who were not "respecting the line".

Turns out the Senegalese are a very polite people. When standing in line and someone comes up and starts a conversation, they tend to honor that person and don't object when they stay along until getting through the gates. PEACE is important to Senegal. They avoid confrontation.

Turns out, as well, that all that PEACE stuff goes out the window when you've been standing in line for two hours and you hear the roar of the crowd inside the stadium indicating that the game is about to start. It was time to bust a few heads, and we missionaries were in FULL agreement. When the game started and we had moved all of 15 feet in two hours, something happened in that line and we all (finally) united in spirit and purpose. Every person locked in to their place in line and every person who tried to impose on that line was sent out on their ear. It was enormously therapeutic to yell at any person I saw try to sneak into line in front of me, knowing full well that I had the support of everyone else in that line at my back. Fortunately, there was no violence. Only a lot of yelling, and a lot of people FINALLY being forced to the end of the line. It took 2 hours to move 15 feet. It took 2 minutes to move the remaining 100 meters to get through the front gates.

Beyond that we had a few other issues at the game, namely, all the 5000 cfa seats were filled, which meant that we had to go sit in general seating. This also means, if my calculations are correct, that roughly 59,000 people took cuts into our line! It worked out tho, because the end of the stadium where we were seated is the end where five of the six goals were scored. Senegal won 5-1. It turned out to be a great game.

Also, we had been warned about the pervasiveness of pick pockets so we were told to keep any money we bring balled tightly in our fists. Our friend John tore his ticket into pieces after the game and put some in each pocket. By the time he got back out to the car, his pockets were empty. We've discussed the merit of going to soccer games with evangelical tracts in our pockets (or, conversely, with used napkins--or worse-- in our pockets). Haven't landed on a decision on that one yet.

All in all, it was a true "African experience." We feel blessed to have been safe that whole time, and are glad the frustration didn't turn to violence, as it would certainly have in other, less peaceful locations. I know it's a small thing, but we said "thank you, Lord, for your favor" as we ended up with the best seats in the house, even if we did pay 5 times the price for them.

...and we got to see the power of unity, even if only to get through a line.

Adjustments

2007-09-02T10:56:00.001-07:00

Mindee here. The past few blogs have been written by Mike, and I thought it was high time I took a stab at it. So here goes…

The past few weeks have been quite the adjustment, not so much culturally because I had been fairly prepared through my missionary upbringing as well as several previous visits to Senegal. Rather, the adjustments have been in regard to my job. I am currently working part time in the library and part time with the kindergarten class. The library is cool, quiet and orderly where as working with the kindergarteners, it's warm, noisy and exhausting. They are a sweet group of kids, but seeing that this is their first year of school ever, social rules aren't exactly commonplace with them. I think we’re going to have a good year together, though.

Also, I’ve joined the worship team, and aside from adjusting to a new group of musicians, I’ve gone through two keyboards, each one having taken it’s turn to malfunction on me. I think it’s some sort of cruel initiation. (No, not really.) Actually, I am currently using an old school keyboard with the classicly large knobs and dials. Gotta love it. =) Home sweet home!

Mike made the comment this morning about how his preconceptions about Senegal haven't really panned out for him. For one, he thought it would be dry and desolate, and since we came out during rainy season, it's actually fairly wet and green (which I have never witnessed during any of my previous three visits.) It makes for some gruesome heat, but it does look unusually tropical. There's even some green fuzz out on the soccer field, which, from far away, looks like grass. But I'm not deceived. It's weeds. Still, the fuzzy thin layer of mangled weeds far exceeds the dry patch of powdered dust.

In fact, I've come to the conclusion that aside from the ghastly heat, the lush greenery and the turquoise ocean does make Senegal a beautiful place to live this time of year.

Mindee

What's wrong with this picture?

2007-08-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, Sherlock,

If you can correctly describe what happened in this picture, we will buy you dinner. Just click the "comments" link below this entry and share your theories. I will check in from time to time and let you know if you're on the right track. FYI: I took this picture at our house here in Dakar. The photo was not manipulated in any way.

Good luck!

PS-- a bit of a clarification... IF you solve the mystery, we will buy you dinner at a restaurant of your choice... here in Dakar. You just have to come out and claim it. Go to it, detective!

Treasure Hunt

2007-08-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, just for fun, go to Google Earth (a program you can download from Google--it's free and it's awesome! Trust me, you'll love it). Type in Dakar, Senegal. Find the airport and head east towards the opposite side of the peninsula-- to the only point where there is actual coast line that is running north/south. As you zoom in you will see a large dark spot on the map--that's a park. Go towards the northwest edge of the park. As you move the mouse cursor over the map, you should see longitude/latitude coordinates ever-changing at the bottom-left of the screen. Search around until you find these coordinates (you may want to write this down):

14 degrees, 43'49.20" North Latitude
17 degrees, 26'10.50" West Longitude

Did you find it? You're pointing to Mike's classroom.

Now head a bit south to:

14 degrees, 43'41.48" N
17 degrees, 26'19.43" W

That's our house.

Pretty cool, huh?

BTW, this picture was apparently taken about two years ago. Now there's an entire extra building on campus, plus a huge security wall around where most of the trees are. That big brown square to the west of Mike's classroom is the soccer field.

Now go find where YOU live and work. It'll be fun!

Welcome to Africa

2007-08-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

We arrived on Tuesday last week, a day late but none the worse for wear. Paris was a pleasant surprise. Normally, the airport in Paris is a pretty terrible place to layover. We had five hours there. We found these giant cushiony chairs and slept the whole time. We lucked out because there were only about 10 in the whole airport but we each got one.

At the airport in Senegal, our luggage arrived in tact. One was "smooshed" like an accordion, but everything inside was fine. One bag took 45 minutes longer than the others to unload, so we were a little nervous, but it all came!

When we got here it was raining. Weird.

Mindee’s parents arrived that morning so they had already been to the house to set it up some. (Did I mention we are living with my in-laws? That might sound like a nightmare to some of you, but if you know Evan and Jewel, you probably wouldn’t think so).

We live in a pretty nice, spacious house, two stories, cinder block walls. (Remember a major component of cement is sand, so clearly everything here is made of it). We have some electricity and water issues to get used to here. Namely, the power can go out at any given time either due to the city cutting it or the fact that the ENTIRE house is all on one circuit so too many appliances running at once will throw the breaker. Also, the water pressure comes and goes—our bathroom upstairs sometimes has no water at all.

Another adjustment is the amount of dirt. The floors are swept and mopped 3 times a week, yet you can’t walk through the house bare-foot without getting the soles of your feet dirty. Dirt, dust, and sand are everywhere.

This is all just a part of the deal here. The house we live in is immaculately cleaned. Jewel and Mindee would have it no other way, but some things you just can’t avoid.

The school is about two blocks away from our house. We walk down a sandy road to get there. It is a walled-in compound, very safe. Mindee and I have been getting our classrooms set up and attending some orientation meetings as well as getting to know our coworkers.

Mindee has finally been given her assignment. She will be part-time librarian, part-time classroom aide for a 1^st grade/kindergarten class. She continues to be patient about the specifics of her assignment, as those instructions are contingent on other people figuring out what they are doing first. It’s a little frustrating at times, but I think it will all come together in good time.

The Senegalese are very friendly. Relationships are very important, so even though we don’t speak much French or any Wolof, we greet each person as we pass by, especially those we see regularly. They are very polite and patient with us as we struggle through the language.

After a little over a week of being here we are very comfortable (aside from the weather) with our location and feel like we will do very well here. For me, after a 5 year absence from Africa, it feels very good to be back. For Mindee, while this is not home, there are many similarities with Cote d’Ivoire so she is very happy to be here as well. This will be a good home for us for the next two years. Beyond that... who knows?

Thank you for your continued interest and support. Please keep in touch.

Here's our house. All houses are surrounded by a wall for security. We have a nice balcony off our bedroom (front left corner). There is also a roof-top patio in the back left corner of the house where we will spend time once it cools off.

Here is a view of the road from our balcony. You can see our wall in the foreground as well as a Senegalese woman with her baby on her back. (This picture makes Senegal look much greener than it actually is, although recent rain HAS helped promote some growth lately).
I took this picture from our roof. It gives a good sense of what the houses look like, as well as the landscape of Dakar. Again, the green in the background is somewhat unusual, I'm told.

Oh well, change of plans

2007-07-30T06:01:00.000-07:00

A cardinal rule in the life of a missionary is this-- Never expect things to go as planned. They rarely do. I don't know if it's a version of Murphy's Law or a lesson in humility which forces one to rely solely on God. I prefer to think it's the latter. This rule was played out to the fullest in the lives of the SIM missionary family the Zoolkoskis last week when Helene, wife and mother, did finally succumb to a cancer she had been battling for over a year. That was not in their plans. When I think of that family, I think of the sacrifices they made to continue serving in Africa. They've known about this illness for over a year, yet they, as a family, committed to continue on with their work, even to the very end. And even though their term did not go as planned, Helene's life, and death, serve as a profound testament to their cause. The Zoolkoskis served God UNCONDITIONALLY.

I will try to learn from them--how to respond when things don't go as planned.

Now as Helene has finished her race, and finished strong, we are just beginning this part of ours. It's not going as planned so far. Nothing big, nothing to worry about-- we're just spending a day in Atlanta that we hadn't anticipated. Our flight from Pensacola was delayed and we missed our connection.

Oh well, change of plans. (I have a hunch that phrase might become one of my mantras for this term). We're spending the day with a good friend, then (maybe?) flying out tonight instead. So the PLAN is the same, just 24 hours later than we originally thought.

As always, we'll keep you posted. Thanks for your continued support. I hope that the plans you have made for today go as scheduled. But if not... "Oh well."

Mike

T-minus 15 hours

2007-07-28T20:51:00.001-07:00

(What's "T" stand for? Time? Test? The theories abound.)

Twas the night before leaving,
And all through the house,
Bags were all ready
For Mike and his spouse

The trunks were all packed with the utmost of care
In hopes that the baggage claim folks would be fair
The tickets and passports were set out in order
I think we might soon make a run for the border

...That's all the silliness I can muster for now.

We leave tomorrow and I wanted to give you all the details of our flights so that some of you might remember to pray for us as we finally embark on this adventure. I think most of our supporters are on the west coast, so I will add the time for the Pacific Time Zone in parenthesis after each local time. You'll have to do the math if you are in a different part of the world.

Sunday, 3:00 p.m. Central (1:00 p.m.) -- Depart Pensacola to Atlanta
Sunday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern (6:00 p.m.) -- Depart Atlanta to Paris
Monday, 11:00 a.m. GMT+1 (2:00 a.m.) -- Arrive Paris
Monday, 4:30 p.m. GMT+1 (7:30 a.m.) -- Depart Paris to Dakar
Monday, 8:15 p.m. GMT-1 (1:15 p.m.) -- Arrive Dakar

The parts I am actually MOST nervous about are the beginning and end--the beginning because if there is a problem with the Pensacola-Atlanta leg of our flight, there is a strong chance we could lose our luggage, the end because customs is always a little scary. So it would be especially appreciated if people are praying at those times for an UNEVENTFUL experience. That's 1:00 p.m. Sunday and 1:15 p.m. Monday. Easy. Pray for us during lunch.

Thanks!

I had mentioned luggage concerns in the past. It looks like we are in good shape as far as weight and amount. As long as it doesn't get lost or damaged, we should be okay.

We will update you all upon our arrival.

Until then... Bon voyage (for us).

Preparation?

2007-07-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

We are now in Florida. It wasn't easy. Lately we have been noticing that there have been occasional "inconveniences" which Mindee has deemed "preparation" for our upcoming term-- a power outage, a misplaced hotel reservation (their fault, not ours), and travel delays to name a few.

The biggest "preparation" we encountered was with our flight from Chicago to Pensacola on Thursday. I was so pleased to have found a direct flight for a very reasonable price when I purchased the tickets in April. The weather was sunny and clear in Chicago, sunny and clear in Pensacola. All was well, we thought. Sadly, the sun was nowhere to be seen in southern Illinois, and after 2 hours on the plane on the tarmac awaiting instruction, the flight was ultimately canceled along with all other flights headed south from O'Hare. Apparently our little plane couldn't fly over nor around the bad weather.

I never understand how they can possibly expect all those people on all those planes to get to where they are going. We, along with about 100 other people from our plane, scrambled to reschedule our flights. By the time I got through to a ticket agent, our options were: A) take the next available flight to Pensacola (which leaves two days later), B) Stay one more night in Chicago, then fly to MOBILE, AL via St. Louis AND Dallas, or C) try to fly standby to Pensacola via any flight that has room. We chose plan C.

But first we prayed. We thanked God for His protection over unknown dangers. We thanked Him that, no matter where we slept that night, be it Chicago, Dallas, or Pensacola, we had friends and family at each place with whom we could stay. We asked for His guidance, and for patience with one another as we dealt with upcoming frustrations.

It really helped our attitudes and ultimately, our travel success.

We ultimately were able to board a flight to Dallas later the same night. Our hopes weren't high--we were standby #s 46 and 47, yet most of the earlier numbers had apparently made other plans or given up. We were the last two on the flight. My uncle Jim picked us up in Dallas and we stayed at his house. After four hours of sleep we returned to the airport and were easily granted standby seats on the first flight to Pensacola that morning. Our luggage didn't travel with us-- it was checked through from Chicago. Thankfully, it all arrived a mere 12 hours after us in Pensacola and was delivered to our doorstep.

The whole experience reminded me how important it is to keep a little perspective. We COULD have thought about how a flight that should have taken 2 hours took closer to 20. We COULD have thought about all the time we missed out on with family, or the discomfort of having to spend 2 days in the same clothes, with no toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc. We could have taken our frustrations out on each other.

Instead, we took advantage of the time together. We took it as a nice hiatus from all the people we've been around and all the people we were soon to join (all of whom we love, but breaks are nice!). We remembered that we will face MANY more inconveniences when we leave this country in just a few more days.

Ahh, perspective.

Off to Africa in 8 days. Will we be adequately prepared? We'll see.

Prayer Card

2007-06-28T10:56:00.001-07:00

It occurs to me that I should make our Prayer Card available here for any who prefer digital versions over hard copies OR in case you haven't received one yet. If you would like a hard copy of this picture for your fridge, Bible, etc., email us with your mailing address (our email address is on the prayer card) and we'll get one off to you. Otherwise, just download this picture, take it to Walmart, and do it yourself. You have our permission.

Goodbye, Redding

2007-06-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

We moved.

(Whew.)

You never really realize how much STUFF you can accumulate in a matter of a couple of years until you try to cram it all into a U-Haul. We started with a 14-footer, but the day before the move, I looked at all we had and wisely upgraded to a 17-footer.

Good thing, too, as we filled it to the brim.

We made the trek up to Klamath Falls, and promptly filled my parents' garage with all of our possessions. We will have a garage sale this Saturday and hopefully sell off most of it.

The last few weeks in Redding were a mix of frantic last minute details and quality last chance encounters with friends. We feel we had closure. We will definitely miss our friends in Redding.

We are grateful to Neighborhood Church of Redding for allowing us a few chances to share our plans with them. They gave us a good send off.

This coming Sunday we will present at UEFC in Klamath Falls to catch them up with what we're doing.

Prayer requests:

Pray that our presentation will go well Sunday, July 1, and that we will build a strong support base in Klamath Falls.

Pray that we will remember those minute (wee) details we still need to take care of stateside.

Pray that we will figure out how to get all that we need out to Africa, as luggage restrictions only allow us each 2 bags at 50 lbs. and we already have more than that which we had hoped to bring.

If you actually read all of this, thank you for your commitment to us. I'll try to include more entertaining anecdotes in future postings.

As they say in France, "Ciao." (...Wait, I don't think that's right... I'd better check on that before we leave.)

Mike

One step at a time

2007-04-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

In the category of keeping you posted of our progress, here's the latest.

We got our plane tickets. (You could have gathered that from the last post...) That means that our summer timetable is fairly concrete. We'll be leaving Redding in late June as soon as I (Mike) finish with my obligations at Redding Christian School and we pack up our house. We'll be in Klamath Falls, Oregon, until July 12. Then we'll fly to Chicago to see some of my Wheaton friends, then Pensacola on July 18 where we'll catch up with Mindee's family for about a week, stock up on final supplies, and relax just a bit. We officially leave for Senegal on July 29.

We got our passports back. They really meant it when they said it would take up to 10 weeks to process. I think it was 10 weeks to the day.

Now we're waiting on word of Mindee's position. It looks like she won't be teaching P.E. Maybe library instead. We don't really know. Turns out schools like this have to do a lot of juggling, sometimes even up to the very last minute, to fill all the positions. We're trying to be patient...

Thank you, Lord, for your favor!

2007-04-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

This title is a commonly used phrase in the Evans' family. They (we) say it when we feel like God has left a discernable impression on a given situation-- a "fingerprint," if you will. We felt that way this Easter Sunday. Mindee and I were up in Klamath Falls at the tail end of our Spring break. I had been working for several weeks prior at securing our plane tickets out to Africa and had finally come to a decision and made the multi-thousand dollar committment. All that was left to do was to fax our travel agency the credit card authorization form so they could charge my card the amount for the tickets. I brought that form to church that morning, knowing it had a fax machine I could utilize after the service. I had the form filled out including the total amount for the tickets, ready to send.

One of the first people we saw when we arrived at church that morning was Charlene, the church secretary who has graciously been coordinating our incoming support and reporting to us from time to time. This morning she caught us and gave us a statement which noted the amount of support which had come in as of that morning.

The amount? You guessed it... THE SAME amount as the plane tickets.

Coincidence? I think not!

Thanks to those of you who were responsible for that initial income. Thanks to those of you who continue to give. ...after all, those tickets were one way. We'll still need to get home.

And thanks, Lord, for your favor.

Testing, testing...

2007-04-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

My sister told me that before Mindee and I go to Africa, I have to set up a blog so people can keep track of us while we're gone. Sounds simple enough, so here we go. Hopefully, this will be a way for those of you who are interested to keep up with our progress as we gear up for and head off to Dakar, Senegal, for our two-year term at Dakar Academy. Below I've included a crude copy of our support letter. It should enlarge enough for you to read it. If you want a better copy, let us know. We can email you a pdf file.