STAYING HEALTHY - USUALLY.....................................

Africa has long been known as a continent of contagious and deadly diseases.  West Africa would not be listed as the top ten healthiest places to live in the world.  For years smallpox and meningitis  were yearly plagues across these countries.  World Health and African governments have done much to vaccinate against these deadly diseases which can kill thousand of childen in any given year.  On the other hand, cancer has not been so prevelant. In all the years Dad did medicine, he only had one severe case of cancer in a young boy.  I think nurses see more of it now, however.

Malaria is still a killer among children and adults alike. Health personnel are now giving out sleeping nets to protect people from the malarial mosquito.  Some people take regular anti-malarial drugs as well.  The last time we went back to Africa, we took a doxycilline pill every day and still had a couple of attacks.  Actually, I can remember being sick a lot with malaria as a young child in Africa, but I must have built up my immunity because in my adult years I seldom had a malarial attack even though I did not take prophylactic.  But Dad and all of you children suffered malarial attack from time to time.

Dad was way up in Kawe doing evangelism one time. He had ridden his motorcycle up and had decided to swim across the creek on his way back to cool off, sending his moto over in a canoe.  Soon after he reached him, he began to shake with chills and burn with fever. He ached in every joint - all symptoms of malaria.  Dad was so seldom ill that the news spread like wildfire - it even got back up to Kawe. Poor Dad lying on his miserable sick bed was surrounded the whole time with the village chief, the village elders, pastors, a group of men from Kawe who bicycled down when they heard he was ill.  Our bedroom looked like a men's palaver house in the village. People prayed for him and some just sat silently.  You would never die alone in Africa!  Everyone was so worried. Once the malaria had run its course, Dad was a little weak but up and about -  all his visitors went home....and we had a little peace in our house again! 

Many missionaries have had hepatitis - I wrote earlier of my weeks of severe hepatitis when I had to lie flat so as not to ruin my liver.  That was not fun!  Dysentery is another prevalent disease in West Africa, and we always kept medication on hand for that - especially when we lived in the bush. Because of the prevalence of snakes, snakebite is always a possibility. We never would go out of the house after dark without a flashlight to light our way.  Pesky pinworms were another uncomfortable infection, and again we kept medication on hand for that as you kids had them from time to time. Markie, you were often sick as a baby and up to about the age of two or three, but it can't have hurt you - look at you now! 

I was travelling in Central Africa to do TEE seminars in Gabon and Congo.  When I got home at last, Dad met me at the plane on crutches!  He had had a spill on his bike and landed on one leg and got a hematoma on the upper part of his leg. It was very sore and he could not walk without crutches until it healed.  It was an interesting thing how he had those crutches.  When we had been on furlough as MIR at Nyack, Dad turned fifty that year and we had a surprise party for him and asked people to bring gag gifts for an old person.  Neal Clarke, a pastor friend, brough a pair of crutches!  As we were packing up our crates to return to Burkina, Dad decided to throw those crutches in a crate, thinking he might use them some day for his medical work. And guess what?  They came in handy for his own medical need!   But over all, our family was a happy, healthy bunch!

Just one funny story, which you have heard before. Each time we landed in the U.S. on furlough, we had to follow the mission rule of the whole family going to Dr. Frame's office (the Alliance doctor) for a general physical exam. When we arrived at our furlough house, the little cups were waiting for us to fill (two each for each member of the family) and to take to New York City on our visit to Dr. Frame.  John, you were our youngest and Markie was not yet born.  So we had four children and the two of us - two cups full apiece! - and Dad made sure he put the lids on tight. (At least he thought he had!)  To get to Dr. Frames office (which was located on the southern tip of Manhattan) we had to drive to the GW bridge, park our car, then take a subway down to the doctor's office. A long trip with four children!  As we were riding in the subway,  we began to smell this foul smell, and I asked Dad what on earth it was. He was standing in the swaying subway, hanging on to a strap, bag of cups in hand, and he motioned to me to not say anything. You girls began to smell the smell too... one of the caps had come off our little cups and the odor was overwhelming!  We finally got off that subway and Dad adjusted the lids again, and we climbed up to Dr. Frames office!  What an ordeal.  Debbi, you took after me in your aversion to doctor's exams, and we had to insist you take your clothes off for the doctor - as you clung to your blouse and skirt!  We were always glad when the doctor's visit was over for another five years!   The only other visit we dreaded was getting a furlough picture for a prayer card. You, Elin, were the shy one, and would always duck your head  or not smile!  Those days were not fun when they happened, but they are funny now.  And we have passed the doctor's visits on to the rest of you with your children.

OUAGADOUGOU.......................................

Paul said to his spiritual son, Timothy: "Godliness with contentment is great gain." And that is a good thing to remember as a missionary. Yes, we are godly for we belong to God who has called us.  But we need to also choose contentment in what God asks us to do. The godliness part comes from God and our surrender to Him; the contentment comes from within us and our choice to follow the path God has chosen for us.

I was so content in working among the Bobos and living in Santidougou and then Bobo. This became home to me, and I had to make a calculated decision to be content with a big move when we felt God wanted us to begin the work in Ouagadougou.  But I am glad we made that choice, as it was an outstanding year of ministry for us.

Ouagadougou is such an interesting city - pulsating with life, growing every day; it is where the action happens, and we sure saw plenty of action during that year of our ministry in Ouaga!  Tim was leaving for the U.S. for his father's wedding, leaving Ruthie, who was pregnant with Michael.  So we took her with us to Ouaga. Dad drove the big truck and all of our baggage plus Markie and I drove the little Toyota with Ruthie beside me and the car packed tight.  The Luthers were new language students and welcomed us when we got to Ouaga.  We were to live in the Colmans' rented house, which was quite spacious and had a small enclosed front yard.  We sure put that house to good use that year.

The Colmans had kindly left their video player and a small TV for us to use, and you, Markie, enjoyed having that to take up your time when you were home from ICA.  You also enjoyed the American embassy rec center in the city, which had a nice pool, and you even  played on the Center's volleyball team as well. 

Our house was always full of students, many of them Christians from our Alliance churches, attending University in Ouaga.  We had good neighbors as well, so we were well situated there and soon began to feel at home - content! It was a year of growth in the new little Alliance church. The meeting place for our church was our front yard where a hangar had been erected to ward off the very hot Ouaga sun. There was a little storeroom outside in our yard and that became a SS classoom on Sundays and a place for prayer meeting on Wednesday.  Our meals were very erratic - we ate when we could find time to do so, often having students join us.

We did have a cook. (Yusufu had stayed in Bobo and worked for someone else during that year.) We also had a young man, originally from Bobo, working for us as house helper. He was very soft spoken and a good worker. I spent all my spare time in my office, typing away on a new PEDIM course I was writing. Fako moved silently as he worked in the house and sometimes he would come to my office while I was working to ask a question. Instead of calling me by name, he would turn the light switch on and off again so as not to disturb me with his voice!  He was a good worker and a big help to me. And today he works at CREDO in Ouagadougou.

The cook was another story - he cooked well and could speak French (he was Mossi) and it was a help to have someone fix out meals. He made beautiful salads. But he had a habit of almost always coming to work late and occasionally missing a day of work without letting us know.  We did not know what his problem was until Christmas time that year. I was having ten people for a big Christmas dinner and expected him to be there at seven. Eight o'clock and nine o'clock passed and he still was not there, so Dad went to his yard to find him. He was dead drunk and stumbled out of his room!  He was in no shape to work and so I hurriedly adjusted my menu and got everything ready myself.  Dad had to fire him when we realized he was an alcoholic and thus not dependable.  He was so mad he took Dad to the hiring office and the judge made Dad give him some money for us to get rid of him.  Other than this man, we always had excellent house help and were thankful for each one.

Ouagadougou is the center of action for much of what goes on in Burkina. In contrast, Bobo was like a sleepy little town. Starting a new church was also exciting for us. We enjoyed the business people and the university students who were part of our beginning group. At first our church people were mainly Christians who had moved there from our part of the country, but soon we had Mossi people join us as well.  Many of them were new converts and it was a joy to help disciple them. To this day we still hear from some of them and have many good memories of our year there.

In Ouagadougou I had the interesting privilege of leading an old lady to Christ through interpretation. A friend asked me if I would be willing to go and pray with this old Mossi lady who lived near us and was ill.  It was the dark of night and the old lady was lying out on her verandah; there was a flickering kerosene lamp lit near her.  We sat and talked - through French to my friend, Georgette, and then she in Mossi to the old lady.  I prayed for her illness but also asked her if she knew Jesus. She said she had never met him but would like to, and I explained salvation through interpretation and finally she prayed with me for salvation.  I had a good ministry of prayer in our home during that year. Several times I had people come to the gate, asking if this was the place where you could be prayed for. Some came with sickness, or other needs. And it was a privilege to have this ministry during that year! 

Planting the first Alliance church in Ouaga was a delight that year - we worked hard. It soon became evident that we would need a church building as the group was growing. We had been granted a plot of land for building and then the Muslims came along and took that choice property. Dad and the church elders tried to talk to the Muslims but to no avail.  It became known to the land officials in the city that we had been tricked out of our original property and so they decided to give us a good plot of land - right off the big roundabout road that encircles the city!  That was a miracle of God. And in the years afterwards a beautiful mother church (octagonal) was build on that large property. It is in view of everyone that travels that circular boulevard around the city!  The mother church continues to grow even today and there are numerous other Alliance churches, plus a large Alliance high school complex in that city!  This had always been an Assemblies city but we, the Baptists and many others have joined the evangelical community there and Ouagadougou today is full of good churches. 

Living in Ouaga was an interesting experience. It is a vibrant city, the center of much that goes on in Burkina Faso.  We enjoyed the American Rec Center for an occasional meal or swim. All three of us appeared on Burkina TV that year:  Dad was caught as he was coming out of the big fair in Ouaga, stopped by a reporter who asked him what he thought of the goods for sale. Dad answered he thought things were a bit expensive! Mark was on TV when he played with the American volleyball team at the Rec Center, and I was in the way of the roving camera during a seminar I attended at the University! 

Sankara's death happened while we were in Ouaga that year. That was a sad time and a time of unrest for the nation.  There were shots in town, people running, traffic stopped and the TV went black. News travels fast in Burkina and we soon heard that the shooting meant a coup.  Sankara was shot dead as he left his office, dressed for his daily "sports"!  Our dear friend, Anne-Berthe, was his private secretary and someone secreted her out of his office and told her to stay hidden for weeks.  All of Sankara's twelve loyal men were also shot. Sankara and his men were buried about a block behind our home, in a run down burial ground there. The burials were at night. They were buried in a row.  The pro-Sankara people had special material made in various colors - called "tears for Sankara"-  and everyone had skirts and robes and dresses made of that material.  The masses loved Sankara.  Dad went with some local young guys to visit the graves - which were a stone's throw from our house - the morning after the burial, and they found a bloody tennis shoe on the ground.  Many youth mourned Sanakara's violent death and it took the country a while to recover from it.

When TV came back on, there was a Catholic priest speaking and a Russian hymn that was first played.  Because of the music, and the way things had been done in the coup, there was speculation that Russia was involved - but that never became a reality. Campaoré sleepily stated to the nation that he had been asleep when his friend was killed. Everyone knew that was far from the truth! We all wondered what would happen. The American Embassy only told us to prepare a suitcase and head for the nearest border if things got worse. But we stayed. Our house was constantly full of young people talking about all that was happeding in our country and city.  Things got back to normal finally.

Campaoré called for a march of "soutien"  for the govenment on a certain day. They were to march out to the gravesite of Sankara and his twelve men.  The people marched all right, but the crowds wore clothing made of the Sankara material and the march became a march against Campaoré.  The throng marched right down our street! Those were interesting days to live in that city. 

Sankara's wife was a cousin of a young woman in our church.  She was engaged to a young Alliance man studying at the University, learning to be a medical doctor.  They got married that year and we asked to use the big chapel at the Assemblies college as our yard was too small and not adequate.  Dr. Adama asled Dad to officiate and asked me to prepare a reception in our yard. So Dad prepared to marry them and I made plans for a big reception on our front verandah and in the front yard.  I used all my best silver and dishes and tablecloths for the long head table. It had to be special as Sankara's wife was going to be there!  I made all kinds of fancy dishes and salads and pretty decorations to prepare the wedding party table on our long front verandah. Madame Sankara would also be seated there. The rest of the yard was filled with chairs and benches for the crowd that was expected!  The women of the church had  made big pots of food to feed the masses and I made and decorated a special wedding cake plus extra cakes for the mob. 

Everything was in readiness at the house and yard and we left Fako to take care of things while we dressed up and went to the wedding ceremony across town.  That was held in a large Assemblies church at their College and was a lovely ceremony. There were also hundreds of people there! And someone got up and invited everyone who could go to attend the reception at our house!  I couldn't believe it and was a nervous wreck wondering if we would have enough food. I left the ceremony before the crowd and drove across town to our home to get ready for the mob.  It all worked out OK - everyone did not attend - and those who did seemed to have a great time, including Mariame Sankara! 

In 2006 when we visited Ouagadougou once again, Debbi and Steve had a lovely reception for us and invited all those old friends who had been involved in that original church planting.  What a delight to talk with them all and reminisce about the beginnings of the church in Ouaga and to hear the news of the many churches which had been planted since that time.   I had taught a TEE class at that first small church building every Sunday afternoon when we were in Ouaga that year, and what joy to see my former students in places of leadership in the church. 

God gave me great contentment - and even great joy - as we spent that year of church planting in Ouagadougou.  Recently Pastor Thomas from Ouaga spent a week with us and we reminisced a lot about those early days of the Alliance church in Ouaga. Together we thanked God for His faithfulness in establishing the Alliance church there. And, Steve and Debbi,  you have continued that great work started so many years ago now!  Praise God!

Expanding ministry...............................

Much of the ministry in which Dad and I were involved required travel. How thankful we are for God's protection as we travelled many miles by road and by plane to fulfil the ministries in which we were involved.  Our lives were certainly never boring. As I read about the ministries you girls are having oveseas and the travel involved for many of you, I live again vicariously those days when I was on the road - or in the air - a lot in order to teach and encourage the church in Africa. 

CPE was the francophone Africa publishing house and both Uncle Dave and I were on that board for some time. Being on an inter-church board like that gave me the gift of meeting African brothers and sisters from many nations.  We had annual meetings at which top level decisions were made.  CPE published some French TEE texts, which were used by several of our Alliance fields, so I had to be familiar with those. The Conservatice Baptist mission was the one who organized several of these inter-country ministries.

CEFCA was the brainchild of Marge Shelley, a Conservative Baptist missionary who had come to West Africa from Congo during the crisis down there. She was such a wonderful lady to work with. Her vision was to have a kind of graduate program for francophone Africans where they could do continuing studies and keep them fresh in ministry in their countries.  She asked me if I would be professor for the school in the areas of Christian Education and TEE. What an honor and how it expanded my view of the church in Africa.  We all lived together in the same large building bought by CEFCA, sleeping there, eating together and studying together.  It was a very family atmosphere. 

During our last couple of terms in Burkina, the new Alliance graduate program, FATEAC was established by Tite Tiénou, being supported by the various Alliance churches and missions.  Another Alliance missionary and I were asked to be members of the board which met about every quarter at first, so I was in on the joy and planning - and sometimes pain - of those early days of our West Africa Seminary. One day there was a lot of disciussion by the committee about some issue, and the other missionary on the committee was opposed to the idea, but I voted with the African contingent. After the meeting he said to me, "" Why do you always side with the Africans when we vote on an issue?" And my answer was: "I thought that was why we are here - to help the African church realize their vision, not ours."  We remained friends but did not have the same view of mission and church.

 Tite was the director, and I loved working with him. I even had to fly back to Abidjan for a board meeting while I was on tour in the States on home assignment. I just missed a week of tour and flew to Abidjan for one week before returning to the States to finish up tour.  Dad and I were back in Africa - at San Pedro for a year - when our new Seminary buildings were finished and ready to be dedicated.  What a delight. I was even asked to pray during the ceremony - what an honor.  Our Africa regional director at that time gave the message, and I complimented him afterwards on his good presentation. His answer: "Compliment your daughter, Debbi, she is the one who polished up my French for me!"  What a beacon for Christian professional training the FATEAC has been. The last I heard, they had students from sixteen nations and several denominations studying there. 

Back home in Burkina, I had the privilege - and fun - of being a representative of our mission (along with a church rep) to the bi-annual Burkina Literacy association. We met in the university meeting hall, several hundreds of us from all over the country of Burkina.  This was happening during the Sankara years when everyone was called "Camarade". We got to know each other during breaks and it was a very helpful meeting to attend for contacts and information. Dad and I usually attended together.  They were wanting to set up a steering committee for the organization and people were sharing names from the audience, which were then seconded. One of the University profs had been talking to me and he proposed my name for the comittee.  He did not know exactly how to present my name, and finally came up with Madame Carmarade Pasteur Nancy Pierce!  That is the most flowery introduction I ever had anywhere!  Needless to say, I declined the nomination - it would have been interesting but I did not have time for it.

The Same university prof tried to get me to do some teaching in linguiistics for them at the University. I declined on the basis of not having a maitrise, even though I have some masters credits to my count. He said they would work it out with what I had if I would come and teach. I appreciated the honor but there was no way I could do that.  Just before we retired - when I was deep in finishing our translation project - I got a call asking if I would join a group of educational professionals in Ouaga for a week of meetings to decide about putting a translation major in the univesity. This was being sponsored by the Dutch goverenment. Dad encouraged me to accept. We stayed with Clousers so had fun family time and I spent each day contributing what I could to the colloque.  I was one of three "translators"- the other two were Burkinabe. As you can see, I had lots of variety in my life.

That same year, as I was working against time to finish our translation, we had another call - this time from local educators. The University of Paris was funding and sending people to an all day seminar on various historical subjects.  They asked Dad if I would be willing to present a paper on how the Protestant church began in Burkina. A paper in French - presented to a group of highly educated people - Burkinabe and French! What a challenge and my first reaction was to say "No".  But Dad thought I should do it, so I took time to prepare the paper and was accompanied by Dad and Bamiky and Prosper and Robert Sanou in a public building in Bobo where the conference was being held. I read my paper and it was really an interesting experience for me. I sat on the platform, along with all Burkiabe, most of whom I had known through the years. They were most encouraging in their support of me when I had to answer some hard questions after the paper was read.  When asked a question about the conflict of animism and Christianity, I referred the question to Pastor Bamiky who answered for me.  Another interesting experience in a long life of variety of ministry in Burkina Faso and other countries in Africa.  I was indeed blessed!

EXPANDING MINISTRY..............................

Dad and I did many things together in ministry in Burkina.  We worked at planting churches together, we taught in short term schools together, when he was director, I helped by entertaining hordes of people, our paths often converged in our ministries.

At the same time, there were many ministries that we were involved in separately. Dad was a church planter and started many new churches among the Bobo people. He started the radio ministry in Bobo.  He was also a builder: several of the Maranatha Institute buildings, the downtown Bobo church, the Ouezzinville Sud church and many church buildings (big and small) throughout our district were constructed by him and his building crew.  Early in his building career, he hired on Yakuba, a terific Muslim mason. Other missionaries also used this man. He was a staunch Muslim, had his allowed quota of wives, heard the Gospel many times, both from individuals and in church service.  But to our knowledge he never turned to Christ.  I wonder if he is still living.

My gifts and aptitudes were more in the realm of teaching of all kinds, writing textbooks in a couple different languages, translation and language work, entertaining and witnessing through friendships with local people.  My teaching took me to many countries of West Africa. I often served on committees and boards of international organizations - all of this was a terrific education. I learned much through my contacts with Africans of various nationalities and through contacts with missionaries of many missions.  I had many opportunities of being an encourager to African leaders in various countries where I taught and/or served on committees.

One of Dad's challenges for about seven years was to be the Alliance representative, appointed by Colorado Springs, to the country of Nigeria.  What an interesting and challenging assignment!  He was to visit the Nigerian Alliance church leaders at least twice a year. He also accompanied Alliance leadership there to see the work.

Nigeria is not a country - it is an experience!  And what an experience. Dad took me with him on two trips and I saw and learned a lot.  The first time we went, Dad took me to the beautiful Sheraton Hotel in Lagos, and we were housed there.  The place was clean, the food abundant and American, it was like being in a high class hotel in the U.S.  But we did not stay in Lagos, that was just a stopping off place. The Alliance churches are on the other side of the country, so we had to board another plane to get to Alliance territory.  Boarding a plane in inland Nigeria is a life changing experience in itself!  The terminal looks modern, there are even boarding cards, that look just like those in American airports.  The men were dressed in beautiful business suits and the women all wore flowing Nigerian robes and beautiful high heeled shoes.  As boarding time drew near (the terminal was full by then), Dad said "Now get ready to run when they call our plane so that we can get a seat." I indicated to him that we already had seats assigned - right there they were on our boarding passes.  "Oh no," said Dad, "that has nothing to do with a seat on the plane - you run to the plane (quite a distance out on the field) and grab the first empty seat inside." If there were no seats left, I guess you just waited for the next flight!  And so we ran - and got seats and were off for the interior.

The return flight to Abidjan  was even funnier. We got on the plane and got seats but the aisles were full of unseated women passengers.  Most of them had all kinds of cloth and other items for sale under their clothes to take to Abidjan to sell, so their clothes were voluminous.  The airline personnel got most of them seated, but it was a circus watching the purser physically pushing one lady (on her well padded seat with both his hands!) out of the plane and down the stairs as there was no seat for her.  There is only one Nigeria in the world and it is a good thing!  We enjoyed most of our time there.

We always kept our papers with us (passports, etc.) and one days we were physically stopped on the street by some tough looking police who took us into an office to search us and take our papers. They had some reason, they thought, to stop us, but did not tell us what it was. There was a very important government chief associated with our Alliance church in Nigeria and we invoked his name, Chief Okeke.  When we told them he was our friend, their demeanor changed and they let us go. But it was not a fun few minutes to be detained in a strange country! 

One evening the church leaders had prepared a beautiful meal in one member's home. As we sat at the table, they wanted to ask us questions about Burkina - as if it were on another planet! They asked if we could sing a song and wanted us to quote John 3:16 in our languages.  They got a kick our of our answers, and it almost felt like being on tour in the States, with the questions they asked!  We enjoyed the people of Nigeria, but were also glad to go back home to our own people in Burkina!

We were both in Nigeria to meet the Schaeffer family when they arrived, with the children and her folks all in tow!  Plus a huge cartload of baggage.  We went to the airport, Dad had to pay his way through  ( as Nigerian custom demanded) and we got them all through and into a big van loaned to us by some Baptist missionaries in Lagos.  Dad had been looking for a place for all of us to stay the night they arrived, and he chose a rundown hotel where he and Ben deJesus from Phillipines had stayed one night. So we signed in there for a night of trial before the Schaeffer crowd arrived.  I have never had an experience like that in my life.  The bed was narrow and lumpy and had brown wrinkled sheets on it - you wondered how many other people had used those sheets before you!  The water was just a tiny trickle in the rusted out bathtub. The prostitutes ran the halls all night, knocking on doors and calling out their wares. Outside the open windows it was chaos on the streets!  Wow - what a night. My verdict in the morning was that the Schaeffers would turn right around and go back to the USA if we took them to that hotel.

So we looked for another place and came across an old SIM mission station, now occupied by the church. They gave us a large mission house which we could rent, where there were some chairs and tables and also beds, as well as the basics of dishes, cookware and silverware.  There was a Baptist couple also living on the compound who offered us their van to pick up our family from the airport and take us later on to the smaller airport for the up country flight!  It seemed like a gift from Heaven and we were grateful.  Ah yes, Nigeria!  Dad made many trips there - sleeping in a saggy double bed with Bob Fetherlin one time, with Ben DeJesus another, and with me in a barely three quarters size bed another time - another place where the prostitutes shrieked in the halls at night. Dad's head was at the top and mine at the bottom and we sort of fit ourselves together like that to get a night's sleep! 

Life was never boring for us and if variety is the spice of life, our lives were pretty spicy.  Dad also flew to Nairobi for inter-mission meetings.  And another time I was flown to Nairobi for an educational conference which Bamiky and I attended together. No wonder we had some boring days when we returned to settle in Toccoa, Georgia, which in the meantime, has become home to us.  And wherever we have lived, we have always found work to do for God.

Increasing ministries................................

We were involved in so many church and mission ministries in Burkina, all of which we loved doing.  And often God increased our fields of ministry, in Burkina and also in other West African countries.  The West African grapevine works very well among churches and missions, and soon I found myself invited to teach principles of TEE for the Baptists, the Mennonites, the SIM - in Burkina and also in Niger, Mali, Ivory Coast and Bénin. This sometimes meant travel by road and by plane. 

In more recent years, the government has gotten involved in teaching literacy in the local languages, something we missionaries had been doing for years. The National Agricultural association prepared literacy materials and published books on farming for local populations. This was something we needed among our churches, and I organized a several days seminar in Bobo, where the government literacy man taught us in the new Jula orthography. We invited our Poundou professors (educated at Ntorosso years ago) to attend and be trained in the current spelling system. A number of our missionaries also took that training.

For many years there was no new missionary orientation to speak of in our West African fields, and so while Dad was field director I started a program of organizing monthly seminars in Bobo-Dioulasso, where our new missionaries could gather together for cultural learning, adaptation to the West African way of thinking, learning about their own actions and reactions in a new culture.  We had gathered a series of very good missions books that we asked them to take home and read. And of course it was also a time for good fellowship, questions and the exchange of ideas.  When Dad and I were sent to Mali for a year in 2004-2005, we had thirteen brand new missionaries who arrived on that field that year. Again we used the training program we had developed for Mali, and these times together were very profitable for all. 

Teams from the States and Canada have become in vogue at this period of missions history.  We helped out in some of these teams when the idea was just starting to catch on.  After our year as MIR at Nyack College, the missions department arranged a tour of about twenty students to come for a three week stay with us in Santidougou. Wow, that was a challenge.  They all slept and ate with us at Santidougou. Elin, you worked hard to make that team a success, helping Yusufu with the food and generally making those weeks a great experience for those students!

Dave Rambo thought that trip was such a success that he arranged to have another team come the next year. Wow! What a difference. Ralph Ellenberger came with them and there were only a handful of students who came. Dad was fulltime in mission committee meetings and other office responsabilities, so John was there to help me host that gang. This group was much less enthusiastic, they missed their spouses, they counted the days until they could leave from the time they arrived.  Dad was in excom meetings and so you and I, John, took the group on a trip up country to Clousers' town of Safane. You remember their house - strictly bush, mat ceilings, no electricity, bugs and snakes around. We got their in the afternoon and I had taken along an alfresco meal to serve that evening. I spread out the food - sandwich makings (I had even bought expensive sliced ham!) and we had lettuce and there were hard boiled eggs and chips Yusufu had made. It looked pretty good to all of us and some of our guests also ate the food. One girl would not touch anything - she "didn't care for deli meats" so I offered her some boiled eggs and chips, but she "wasn't into boiled eggs"!  John, you were getting madder by the moment and finally exploded, "My mother fixed this good food for all of you and I want to see every one of you eat what she prepared!" And that was the end of complaining!  When we left the next morning to go on to Ouarkoye, one of the girls rolled her eyes as she shook hands with Clousers,  and said, "God bless!" I guess she figured they needed God's blessing in that forsaken spot!

So we drove on to Ouarkoye and stopped in the downtown village to greet Daniel Bonzi, the church president.  He greeted us all and set out some small stools and logs for all of us to sit down and talk.  As we were talking, a man came in from the fields - it was planting season - and he carried a stick out in front of him with an enormous cobra (dead and a bit bloody) hanging fom it!  He had killed the snake in his field and was thanking God he had not been bitten!  All of a sudden, one of the girls began to topple off her low seat - her face white as a sheet!  She had never seen a snake that close and was terified.  The winds were blowing hard that day and the church president said to me, "It's our wind blowing so hard today that makes your young person sick - you don't have these winds in your country!" He never tumbled that it was the snake that made two of the girls start to faint. John came to the rescue and got them to stand up and get some color back in their face.  Soon we asked for the road and went up to the empty mission house on the hill, where we were going to have lunch, tuna sandwiches which I had prepared and brought from Clousers'.  You can turn over almost any stone on that hill and find a small viper or a scorpion, there were no trees so the dry winds were blowing. Someone said eagerly, "What's for lunch?" And I opened the cold chest and said "Tuna sandwiches, chips and fruit." One guy said, "Sorry I don't eat tune fish!" (Mc Donald's was not nearby so what to do)  Trust John who gave a loud lecture to all - "My mother fixed good tuna sandwiches for our lunch today and we are ALL eating tune sandwiches!" End of words, and we all ate and went on our way back to the city of Bobo.

Ah yes, teams...they can be both a blessing and a curse!  One more team experience and I won't bore you with any more.  We were living in Santidougou and Bob Niklaus brought a team out from the States, five people I think. We were in Bobo to meet them and we sat around in the living room in the main house talking. Dad saw that the one lady was sitting alone so he went over to sit beside her and make her feel at home. She about drove him crazy with her remarks, and we found out later she was driving them all crazy.  Afterwards Bob Niklaus asked us if we could take the one couple to our station just to get them away from this lady, and we readily agreed. The couple was from Long Hill Chapel, so that was a good connection for us.  Our van was in the shop and so we borrowed Dave Shady's old truck which happened to have several basic things wrong with it, but we had learned to make it work. Coming back into town from Santidougou we enlisted the help of our guests to get us back to the city. The pickup was bright yellow. It looked pretty good but nothing much worked. Dad sat and drove with one hand and blew into a tube the whole time to make the gas come through as it should. The man rode in the back of the truck, holding on for dear life (it was on that old dirt road!), I sat in the middle and shifted with one hand and put my other arm behind the lady's back (who was sitting in front with us) to keep her door shut, as the catch was broken. And thus we bounced into town!   These people were horrified that this was our transportation and we explained to them that we had a van that was in the garage right then. Well, these people did not appreciate our mode of transportation!  So much so that a couple of months later when you, Cheryl, came back for summer vacation to Santidougou, along with Baba Etienne who had been at a US conference, the first thing you told us was that Long Hill Chapel had sent a check for ten thousand dollars to buy us a new car!!  What a welcome surprise! 

One more team story. The year we moved to Bobo to the director's job, a group of twenty Alliance women came to Burkina for a tour.  We got ready for them and planned meals and sleeping arrangements, etc.  Their train came in from Abidjan at about midnight. And those were the days of the curfew at sundown. So Dad got special permission from the police and they sent an armed soldier down to sit beside Dad in the Rapide and accompany him to the train station to meet the midnight train. He sat there with his rifle standing up in front of him - and these ladies had the ride of their life sitting on those hard Rapide seats, with Dad driving and the soldier guarding them through the darkened streets. They had their bags searched and it was a never to be forgotten trip for those ladies!  They were great guests, loved the people, the work they saw, the food (Yusufu turned out mountains of food each day!)  and to this day I still meet people who took that trip to Burkina and experienced what a coup looks like on the ground! 

Adjustment of ministry..........................

When we lived in Santidougou, I had plenty to do. I had small children then. We were working among a people who had no written language, so it was a big job giving the Bobo Madare language a written form. There was a Sunday School to start and mentor the teachers, producing SS lessons in Bobo each month for them. I worked with the ladies. We taught short term schools, with people coming from several villages to study with us at Santidougou. Dad had district work, preached somewhere every Sunday. He had a big medical ministry as well.  He served on mission committees, which took a lot of time as welll. And he physically built churches in the new villages as well. He spent hours in counselling pastor and young men.

While we still lived in Santidougou, I was asked to come to Bobo one day each week to teach at Maranatha Bible Institute. I would go directly to the school in the morning, then come back to Kennedys' at the mission for lunch and a noon rest, then back to teach another course at the Bible School in the afternoon - and home again to Santidougou. That was my weekly Wednesday schedule.

But once we moved to the city, my ministries branched out. When Dad was director, I was mission hostess and in charge of the guest house, plus serving many meals. I also increased my teaching at Maranatha. What a privilege to teach young men and women from Burkina, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire, and then to follow them as they went out in ministry in these three countries. Our lives were enriched by them.

We had planned a city-wide evangelism crusade in Bobo-Dioulasso, and worked hard to set up everything - for church meetings and street meetings.  I entertained the Zaire trio and Jim Sawatsky who travelled with them and came for our musical ministry.  I was also asked to plan to do a follow up program for the new people we expected would come to Christ.  So we planned and prepared. The trio and Jim Sawatsky, plus Isaac Keita (our evangelist) stayed in our guest house and ate their meals with us. They all arrived as planned, and our first meeting was Sunday morning in the Alliance church.  It was a great service and a good response to the invitation to receive Christ.

But we had an unexpected surprise - our first Burkina coup (followed by several others in the following years) started that night!  This meant very strict rules for everyone: curfew at dark each afternoon, no driving in the city at night, armed police and soldiers driving around to make sure everyone stayed inside, no crowds could gather anywhere in the city streets - there went our planned outdoor meetings.  And it meant that we had a houseful of people staying with us. We got to know each other very well during that time. They had to stay until their flight would take off later in the week. And we enjoyed each other so much.  We did have some meetings in the afternoons in our yard, and from those meetings we also had some fruit - people who received Christ as Saviour.

So after the team left us, I started my followup classes ever Monday night. There were several highly educated people who had come to Christ and they all came to the class. One of those people was Emmanuel Bamiki.  He was a school teacher and had never had any contact with church or Christians.  I remember during one evening class, he asked, "How do those people get up in church and close their eyes and talk to God?  How do they know what to say and can I learn that too??" It was a delight to help an educated young person to learn to pray and give testimony and to see him blossom in his faith. He went on to Bible School and kept studying to a high theological level in a couple of schools.  Today he is a pastor in the church and a professor at Maranatha as well as a national church leader.  Those are the kinds of investments we remember from our many years in West Africa. And today we are able to communicate with many of them on SKYPE or Facebook!  How the world has changed! 

During those years we also had a TEE expert from Australia come and give us a seminar on the value of theological education by extension.  This really caught hold with me and I began to draw up a program for people in our area and their felt needs. We organized and started to write and/or translate books. We formed a committee of pastors and missionaries. I headed up that program until we retired from Burkina Faso. Many students went through the whole program and some parts of the church still use the materials.  I used to travel to other missions in Burkina and to Mali and Ivory Coast to give seminars on how to get started in TEE.

Ouézzinville Sud was our church when we were in town, and I enjoyed heading up a Christian Ed program for that church, training teachers, suggesting cirriculum, etc.  One year when I was working day and night in the Bobo translation, I decided I needed a change of language on Sunday. The Bobo district church was trying to start a church in Sarafaralao in the yard of a church elder. So I worked with that church on Sunday and  attended there and encouraged them and also started a SS for children. I worked in Jula on Sundays and that gave me a change of being steeped in Bobo Madare. I also had to learn to ride a motor bike then as Dad took our van every Sunday to the bush!

I was often asked to speak at national and local women's conferences. When we returned to Burkina in 2006, I had been asked to speak to a large group of women in the Bobo Central church one Sunday, so I agreed. I prepared in French, thinking someone would translate me, but no one was there who could do that. So I just switched to Jula and was delighted to see that I had no problems doing that.  My languages are something I miss badly, living in this anglophone country! I was alwaus asked to preach at different churches for women's Sunday each year in Bobo.

A funny incident occured one day - a student pastor, André, was pastoring a new church group not far out of Bobo. He came to me one day and asked if I would come to preach in his church the next week!  I said you mean you want Papa to preach?  "No", he said,  "I want you to preach. I want our women to understand that women can also teach and preach God's Word.  I already asked Papa if he would be your chauffeur!"  I was his prof in Bible School and I guess he knew I could preach, but was not sure if I could drive in the bush!  That was the only time Dad had to sit in a little mud chapel and listen to my sermon!

My years of ministry in Burkina were rich indeed. It is also a delight to me to see you three girls continuing on in ministry in Africa and the Middle East.  You will never be sorry for the time you have invested in others, through teaching, leading people to Christ, through friendships and just being an example of living the Christian lifeGod bless you!

WHATEVER YOUR HANDS FIND TO DO........DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT!

Back now to life in Burkina.  We had lived and worked in Santidougou for many years, but God was preparing us during that time for a larger sphere of ministry. While in Santidougou we learned to appreciate the hard working, great Burkinabe.  We also learned to live happily as we worked among the Burkinabe.  We learned language skills and how to mish. After some years of this, we were asked to move to Bobo-Dioulasso and never returned to Santidougou except for visits and celebrations.  When we moved into the city ministry in Bobo-Dioulasso, I never dreamed how my horizons would be stretched and how my ministries would be multiplied among many different people groups, including, of course, the Bobos. I loved the verse in Colossians that tells us that whatever our hands find to do, do it with all your might. And that is how I spent my years of ministry in West Africa, working with all my might!

I just returned from a women's retreat in North Carolina where Ann Hemminger spoke - another retired missionary and also an MK.  As she spoke it took me back once again to how difficult it had been for me to adjust to life in the United States. She spoke of how she was almost in depression when she realized that she was now anchored here in the United States and no longer had the exciting evangelism and teaching ministries she had had in Brazil and Argentina.  I related to all of this perfectly, and it helped me to analyze my own feelings and reactions better. 

I squeezed into American life and separated from African life slowly. We retired, were duly fêted by all of our colleagues - both African and missionaries - given gifts, said goodbyes and returned for furlough - and retirement.  We spent that year on tour in various areas, sharing our lives in missions with many people here.  Then we were asked if we would be willing to go back to Côte d'Ivoire for a year to take care of the Alliance Guest House there while the personnel went on home assignment.  We readily accepted. We had bought a house here in Toccoa, but the Strongs needed a place to stay and so they rented our house and we happily went back to a new ministry - but in the continent we loved.

Then we came back to try retirement again.  We got involved in mentoring and substitute teaching in the schools, served on church committees and boards, continued to speak in churches concerning missions.   America seemed so boring, there was not enough to do, we longed for our people and work in Africa. I missed my languages. Four years later we had a telephone call one day. I answered and Bob Fetherlin was on the line. He asked if Milt was there and told me to call him to the phone so we could both listen to what he was asking. We had not the faintest clue what the call was about. He asked us if we would be willing to go to Mali for one year and serve as field director couple!  Wow - were we ever surprised!! We said we would talk together and phone him our answer.  It did not take long and then we were back in the swirl of packing, travelling and adjusting to living in the Mali capital city of Bamako!  God loves to surprise us! 

Then we came back here to Toccoa and we were reasonably content.  But to this day I miss the people and work in West Africa.  And sometimes it comes over me in a wave and I feel so useless here, especially after being sick for so long. I get so bored sometimes.  But Anne's words at this retreat spoke to me and made me take stock of my present life.

The first thing I need to do is to be still.  Stop longing for what won't happen, Stop fussing!  Meditate quietly on how fortunate I have been in my life. Pray more.  Be still!

Another principle for my life is to remember that God chooses the colors of our lives, not us.  Some seasons are bright primary colors, others may be pastels and still others may be somber colors.  But God ordains all of that and we need to accept and be content.  Even happy!

I need also to come to the place where I can say with the Psalmist,  "My soul finds rest in God alone!" Not in travel and excitement, but in what God sends my way each day. I need to be grateful for what God allowed me to do in the past and to be content with what I am given to do now.  Like ministering each week to the women in jail. Like mentoring younger women. Like serving on missions committees in my church to facilitate the world program of missions.  No, not as exciting, but restful once I accept what my place is now.

Ann ended with the example of the lighthouse which blinks out a message to ships at sea - in order that they will avoid danger. And the message is "Alter your course!"  And that is what retirement is about. Oh we are still working with and for God, but we need to alter our course, our focus. 

The list is long of ministries I used to be involved in:  witnessing to people, following up new converts, teaching literacy, doing translation, preparing books, speaking to women and children, new converts' classes, working with national literacy, teaching at Maranatha Bible School, doing seminars, writing courses for TEE (PEDIM) and training facilitators for this program as well as teaching myself, mentoring new missionaries and working with them both in Burkina and Mali, as well as in Côte d'Ivoire, preaching at women's conferences, church planting, being hostess and chauffeur to teams coming out from the States. Being involved in literature and teaching programs for all of Africa - like CPE, CEFCA and FATEAC.  I served on committees in these organizations and often taught, did seminars on TEE in numerous African countries.  I guess that is enough....

What a busy life, what a great life!  And it was hard to give it all up.  But again, now it is time to alter my course and do what God has for me to do now.  To find my rest in God, not in busyness. And to allow God to choose the colors of my life at this stage. I have had a long, blessed and full life.....and God continues to find ministry for me to do!

DONNA.......................

She was my baby sister, I was a serrogate mother at a certain time of our lives, she became a partner in ministry later on,  and she was always a wonderful friend... and I lost her too soon.  I have never really gotten over her early death. I lost part of my life with her death. The memory of how she looked lives on in Susan and in  her daughter, and I love her grandchildren and know she would have been a caring mother and a super grandmother to them, had she lived.

People who knew her when she was an adult never realize that she had a very stubborn streak, which our mother tried to punish out of her. If she felt she was right, she stuck to that against all odds and persuasions - and that was even as a little child!  The first time I saw her was when she was about a week old. In those days small children were not allowed in hospitals and birthing mothers had to stay in hospital for a couple weeks. And I wanted to see my new twin babies. So my Dad wheedled the night nurse into letting him sneak me in the hospital and up to the nursery window, where she rolled the two babies close so that I could see them!  I can still remember how happy I was - and that was seventy one years ago! 

When they finally came home with our mother, the two babies were in one carrying basket, one at either end.  I was allowed to hold them, one by one, and I was so proud. There was enough difference in our ages, that we were never in competition. Donna was a letter writer.  A couple years ago, a friend of Donna's in Western PA sent me a packet of letters that Donna had writen to her so many years ago.  She always wrote to me too - averaging at least once every two weeks and sometimes once a week. So we stayed in contact that way until she and Uncle Jim were married. At that time she wrote to me of how our mother did not want her to marry Jim - they thought she was too young, and he didn't have any money and neither did she. She was not a happy camper during those months, and she poured out her heart to me in her letters.  They did get married and managed fine and were very happy. I have written before in my blog of our visit to them in Maine and our cross country trip together during our first furlough. Dad and Uncle Jim also hit it off well and are still friends, living in the same town in retiral.

I have already written about the fun times we had on the field: at the Guinguette, at field conferences, at ICA on vacation,  at Sanekui, in Koutiala.  We had been on vacation together that year at the Guinguette, and they returned to Mali so as to get the kids ready for school.  It was not long afterwards that a terrible tagedy happened for our family. Donna had a terminal illness!

Contacts between Mali and Burkina were not so good in those days so we seldom wrote letters back and forth.  Dad and I were in youth camp one Sunday morning and the service was going on. He was on the other side of the auditorium from me ( in good African fashion!) and I saw a motor bike come in and someone gave him a message. He came around the building to where I was sitting and called me out. Jim and Donna had just driven in from Koutiala. Donna was brought in lying on a mattress as she was too weak to walk or to sit up. They came right to our house in Bobo, and wanted us to come immediately.  What a change in a person! She was weak and wan, had lost weight, she was very, very sick.  We got her comfortable in our big bed and I stayed with her while Dad went into town to call an American doctor to come. He was a Christian and there in Bobo for a year or so to work at the Centre Muraz, which was a special diseases center in town and known throughout West Africa. He had been friendly to us and the mission, even regularly donated money for the church.

He came with his doctor's bag and immediately examined her.  He was pretty sure what she had because of a certain test he did on her arm, but he did not tell us then that she had aplastic anemia - a diease very difficult to cure, and no possibility to cure right there in the middle of Africa!  Uncle Dave and Aunt Margot were also there and of course the whole Albright family. We were told by the nurses from Koutiala that Donna had been violently sick and the drug of choice they gave her was what the French called typhomacine (sp?).  Unfortunately, she was one who was hypo-allergic to this drug and it dragged her down to this blood disease. The best thing to do was to send her to the States as soon as possible to get a sure diagnosis and get her on the right medication.
Things went into gear quickly after that - the Baptists flew their small plane down from Ouaga to pick up Jim and Donna and take them to the plane in Ouaga to fly to Pittsburgh.  The school age children stayed with us and we got them ready for ICA. It was a traumatic time for us all. 

Soon the diagnosis came back: it was aplastic anemia and she needed a bone marrow transplant. We and Kennedys were at Bouake when we got that word, and it was arranged to have Dave and me fly to Pittsburgh and be typed to see if we could give her what she needed to stop the disease and get her better.  I think we must have taken the boys with us on that trip. Anyhow, we got to the States, and the next morning we went to the university hospital and blood was taken for tissue typing of our systems. We came out a perfect match for each other and neither of us could help out our poor sister.  She was in the hospital and I sat by her many hours. She thought she might die immediately and she was making plans for Uncle Jim and her children.  I cried till I wondered that I had more tears. She even gave instruction on who she thought Uncle Jim should marry!!  Aunt Donna was a great planner - just like me!

The good thing abour being there for three weeks (that was the cheapest ticket we could get) was that we were able to be there with Uncle Jim when he rented a house and we helped move in furniture donated by churches there, and I could cook for the family. I also cooked some food ahead to freeze to help out Uncle Jim when he would be alone.  And Uncle Dave and I went back to Burkina again. While we were in Pittsburgh, I was able to spend some time with Clousers and held my beautiful first grandson, Daniel for the first time. He learned to crawl while I was with them too.

Donna got to the place where she was not really well, but she could function. with getting a transfusion of blood every Friday.  They were sent to California to Simpson College to be missionaries in residence there.  Dad and I and you, Mark, went out there to visit them. Dad and I drove across the country - a beautiful trip! - and you flew, Mark.  Your school was glad to give you time off school because of the education you would get in travel!

After that year, Uncle Jim and Aunt Donna asked to go to Paris and work there, so the Mission sent them and they had a very profitable time in Paris.  Returning from a trip to the French doctor in Paris, where she got another weekly blood transfusion, Aunt Donna had a massive hemmoraghe and Uncle Jim could not revive her.  And there she was buried in the city of Paris, where we went to see her gravestone some years later.  And so my dear, beautiful baby sister went to live with Jesus, leaving her large extensive family grieving her death and remembering the beautiful life she lived!

SOME SCARY OCCASIONS...............................

Our family always thinks of Africa as home.  It is hard for me even after all these years to say I'm from Georgia, even though we have finally settled here and found ourselves a life.  Because Africa is home, we think of happenings there as being normal and laugh about some of the incidents and inconveniences.  There is so much to balance on the other side.  But we have gone through some very situations which most of you will remember.......

Nazinga, a name that brings pictures of elephant grass and woods and ponds and rustic living to our minds when we hear it.  It used to also be a difficult place to get to until the government improved the road in order to attract the tourist trade.  An MK from a sister mission in Burkina Faso was the one who started it as a small game park with various kinds of interesting wild animals, as well as quaint little huts and houses for tourists to live in when visiting.  Nazinga Park is south of Ouaga a few hours' drive.  We went there as a family one time - not sure who all was with us besides Clousers. Mark was still in high school so he was there too.

One afternoon we all went out in our private cars to try and spot some animals. There was no guide with us.  Our party separated.  Dad and some of the group went one direction upstream and Mark I stayed near the widening in the stream where the animals came to drink in the early evening before dark. I stayed up on the little rise and Mark ambled down nearer the pool where the animals were drinking. Suddenly, someone upstream made a noise which frightened the beasts and they got restless and one elephant started right in our direction. Mark ran hollering for me to get in the nearby car, and he came pounding after me and got in too. I guess the elephant lost our scent when we got in the car and ambled off the other way. Lessons learned: don't mess with an elephant, they're HUGE and they're scary!

During that same trip, the others in the group decided to go out in the Nazinga jeep and look for animals - lions, monkeys, elephants.  I decided to stay at the guest house and relax. The houses there were built of pressed mud bricks with straw roofs. They had very large glass windows, low to the floor. This way you could look out and see any game that might be near the houses. I was sitting there quietly, relaxing, and all of a sudden a whole troup of elephants marched by, swinging their tails and their trunks - even little baby ones. I had a front seat view and there was no scariness involved - there was plate glass between me and the big beasts!  The laugh was when the others got back from an afternoon of "viewing" the ranch, looking for beasts, and nary saw a single one. I was the only one who enjoyed the animals that day!

Many times our homes were broken into - sometimes when we were absent but also when we were sleeping.  When that happens, you feel very violated and check all the locks.  Beggar children on the streets also love to filch things from cars in the city, so you have to be alert. I always made friends of the poor, ragged children on the streets and was somewhat protected by them. I also pitied the little "galiboud boys" who were sent out by their Muslim teachers to beg for money. They often came to my car when I parked by the bakery in Bobo. I would always talk to them and even tell them their way was wrong and tell them about Jesus.  I would not give them money to give to their owners, but I always went into the bakery and bought a couple loaves of bread for them to share as they were hungry, and had been sent out to find their own food and get money.

I was thankful for all my little beggar and thief friends on one occasion. Dad was leaving on the plane the next day to go to Nairobi for mission meetings. He had just received his visa in his passport and had put the passpor in the glove compartment of our car. We went to the Eau Vive for the evening meal and left his papers in the glove compartment. Never thought of thieves. When we came out of the restaurant, the passport was gone as well as some money.  I went to one of my little thief friends and explained to them what we had lost. A few hours later they brought back the passport to us and got a reward and much thankfulness from us.  I also had my purse stolen out of my car while I was buying vegetables beside the street there in Bobo. Again one of my little thief boys found it, intact with passport and other papers, but missing the money from my wallet! 

Dad and I were visiting you, Mark, at Bouaké and had taken you out to the mission for supper. You had a friend with you. I was standing at the sink doing up the dishes and Dad and you guys were in the other room. There was a small rug in front of the sink that I was standing on. I felt something hit at my ankle as I washed the dishes and kept flicking it away with my other foot, thinking it was a mosquito. Then I looked down and saw that it was the tail of a deadly viper!  I screamed for Dad - who was a little slow coming as I also screamed for roaches!  (And there were lots of them in that guest house!)  But he realized I was serious and came running - the guys chased that fast little viper our towards the door and I think he escaped to strike again!  Scary experience!

Abidjan was also a great city for thieves, and because of our translation project and also several mission schools I was involved in, we visited there fairly often.  One day Aunt Kathy Solvig and I were peacefull strolling down a busy commercial street, crossing a street, when a young man flew out of the crowd, grabbed the pretty pendant on my neck and tore it right off, cutting my skin -  he took off with his trophy through the busy crowd!  I felt particularly bad about that theft because it was a pretty rose necklace that you had given me, Elin.

Abidjan was a dangerous - as well as a beautiful - city, as we found out one night. Again, Mark, you were with us at the mission guest house and you went along with a gang of ICA kids for an evening at the Hotel Ivoire. Always a fun place with skating and bowling and ice cream and a beautiful hotel!  We had just drivem a long ways that day, Dad had a huge stack of money to make purchases for missionaries in Burkina and for us, and he was very tired. So he stashed his wad under the mattress - in case of thieves - and went sound asleep.  As was always my habit, I could never go to sleep until my children were all in, so I waited up for you, Mark, down on the open front porch. I was there by myself as the family living there had small children and had gone in to put them to bed.  I saw a car stop - your friends letting you off, and as you came up the darkened driveway I called out to say "Hi" and ask if you had had fun. They had no dog and no guard at that compound.  (But got both the next day!) You did not answer me and had a funny look on your face and when you got into the light, I saw there was a tall man right behind you, he had a gun stuck in your back!  I felt like fainting but persuaded myself that would solve nothing.  Another thief jumped over the wall, also with a gun in his hand.  They saw the light in the family's apartment, and herded us up against their door, with the guns in our backs!  Wow, talk about scary!  The family had their door locked and would not open up, but we persuaded them that they had to. The wife and children hid way in the back of the building but the man was there and did open the door for the four of us to go in.  They asked for the safe - "Le coffre!" So Paul led them with us into the bedroom where the safe was. There was some church money in there and also some money a missionary had left with the family before travelling to the States.  So the thieves at least got a bit of a haul!  They also rummaged through drawers and found a bit more cash. Then we were herded into one bedroom - as the neighborhoos whistles began to blow, an alert for a thief in the area. They also picked up some electronic equipment on their way out! 

Of course the theft was reported but nothing came of it. I was just thankful that those guys didn't shoot us as they were really hyped and angry!  God delivered us is the only answer!  Someone ran up to alert Dad, who came sleepily down to see what was going on!  I had a hard time sleeping that night.  The next morning I was to begin to teach my classes in the pastoral graduate school, CEFCA, where I had a classroom of great pastors from all over West Africa to teach.  I felt a bit shaky as I began, but was able to make it through and again God helped me and took away my fear so that I could teach. Debs and Steve, you arrived from France at that time also. What an introduction to Africa!

Probably the scariest event of our many years in Africa happened just the year before we were to retire. We had been working day and night to finish the Bible translation. As in most translation projects, there were "many adversaries"!  And we felt a lot of pressure in trying to get this work done.  We had to make a trip to Abdidjan for checking our manuscript, so we left early in the morning.  Dad had driven away and then I offered to drive, as we drove down that paved road on the Burkina side of the border - destination, Abidjan, where our checking was to take place! I was at the wheel and we were going through a stetch of road where the village had been divided by the highway. It was very early morning, not many people around, when suddenly a little naked boy, about three years old, streaked out to cross the highway. He hit our car hard enough to make a mark on the car and of course the child was thrown and fell, seemingly dead, on the road!  There were black marks on the highway where I had slammed on my brakes to stop, but too late to avoid the child. A trucker driving a big truck was right behind us, and kindly stopped to help us. By then the villagers rushed out of the village.  The child's grandfather grabbed my by the arm and pulled me toward the village to beat me for killing their child, and I was terrified and crying. Dad and the truck driver were trying to talk to the people but they were all screaming and starting to mourn the death of their child.  Of course inside we were praying, and finally that little body made a move to show us he was still alive, though hurt!  What a miracle!  We were a little ways from a town where there was a small hospital, so we took the grandfather and mother with the child to the hospital. We also had to stop and declare all this to the police - the truck driver stayed right with us for a witness.  Before long, the Conkles and another missionary couple came down the same road on their way to Bouaké, and they also stopped to help us.  We went through the dispensary processed, paid all the bills, and sent the family, with a hurting - but alive! - child back to their village. The police exonerated me, for which I was thankful!  But what a scary incident!  Strange things happened to me when I was finishing the Bible - the devil does not want God's word published for people, and we become the victim of his tactics sometimes.

FAMILY SOLIDARITY............................................

     As I have been mentally researching past events and relationships, I am struck with the great solidarity we enjoy in our extended family.  Even though we live in different countries, we keep in contact with each other. Of course FB and  emails and cheap phone systems help in these days, but this has always been the case.  When one of us suffers, we all want to help.  This is a comfortable way to live. I hurt when people talk to me about their broken family relationships, and just praise the Lord for such a great bunch as you all are!

Another thing which has impressed me is the way we reach out to help each other and others who are hurting.  Opening our hearts and homes (be they ever so humble!) to others comes back as a blessing in our own lives. So keep it up!  When I was a pre-schooler, we lived in the States for some time waiting for the War to stop so we could get back to Africa. My Dad pastored a church in New England, and in that church was a very sad family situation:  the man was drunk most of the time, they were very poor and the woman had some severe mental problems.  So my folks offered to take in young twins from that family to live with us.  I was much younger than they, and I can remember my mom scolding me when I kept asking them if they weren't homesick! I had never known anything but the love of my own home and felt sorry for these displaced kids. This was not an easy thing for my parents, but they lived with us for some time until they could be settled as a family elsewhere.  Many years later I met the girl and she was a student at Nyack College. I was so happy to think that our family had had a part in the big change in her sad life.

In our family, when one hurts, we all hurt and do what we can to help.  I just mention a few of the situations that come to mind........

-  When we were first married, we took in Uncle Dave and Aunt Donna as they had no home in the U.S.  We loved that time as I have written elsewhere.
-  One time Grandma and Grandpa took John in to their home in Florida when he had no place to go.
-  Uncle Dave and Aunt Margot took John in to live with them when they lived in Nyack and he needed a home.
-  Joel and Elin invited John and Jennie to live with them in Coudersport for a time.
-  Mark took in Tawni and Susan when they needed a place to stay.
-  John and Jennie also had Tawni living with them for a time.
-  We had Ruthie living with us in Ouaga while Tim went to his Dad's wedding.
-  We were happy to have Michael come and live with us for a while when he needed a place.
-  Mark and Katy took in John and Jennie when they first came back from Puerto Rico and converted their basement into a little apartment for them.
- Then when John and Jennie had their own place again, they had Daniel living with them for a while.
I have no doubt forgotten some events, but it is so comforting as a family member to know that you are lovingly covered by your other family members.  Thanks to all of you who have opened your homes and your hearts and continue to do so.

A good job for Daniel, a car for Elizabeth, air fare trips for us, the list goes on....... you are gracious people and we love you all!  Keep up the good work!

THOSE WONDERFUL GRANDCHILDREN......................

All of you wonderful children have given us the best treasures we could ever have - grandchildren!  And now one of those grandchildren has also given us a beautiful greatgrandchild, Levi.  How wealthy we are to be grandparents and great grandparents to such a special bunch of humanity!  Just a word about each of you:

Daniel, great cook, deep thinker, loves the guitar....We will never forget your lovely wedding in that beautiful back yard, and your surprise for your bride, singing to her with your guitar - wow!!  Jodi is the perfect mate for you and we pray that you may know God's blessings in abundance.

Sarah, pretty and petite, a gifted teacher and mother, married to Jordan, just the man for you. You have given us our first great grandbaby, a wonderful gift from you and Jordan - and from GOD!

Elizabeth, multitalented, top notch student, attended French school as a child and then international school - you never had to go to boarding school. It has been a gift to have you here at Toccoa Falls College.  You are steady and a good friend and we look forward to how God leads you in the future.

Nathan, your traumatic birth in a Beirut hospital in the midst of bombs falling on that city must have been a sign of the life you would leave. In and out of countries at war, speaking only Arabic as a child, a gift that gave you a good job as you got older.  You are fun and affectionate and it is always a treat to visit with you!

Glenn, another Arab, clever, artistic, a good phographer.  You have a tough exterior and a soft heart.  It is always fun to be with you!

Rachel, organized, thoughtful, a good wife (with a great husband, Josh), a student, loves children.  I will never forget when we were visiting your family in Sidon, you took money from your savings and went down to the corner flower shop and brought me back a beautiful rose for our trip back to Africa!  I smelled it all the way, as the cigarette smoke was so awful in that cabin!

Josiah, bi-lingual, a good student, a deep thinker, you get fluent in conversations taking place after ten pm.  I have always loved our long conversation - whether in French or English!  You have a great future....

Angèle, tall and pretty, a bubbly personality, outgoing, a good student, friends, friends, friends! We were there in Abidjan when you were born!

Nadia, thoughtful, shy smile and piercing, beautiful eyes that look right through you. I love your freckles - do you still have them??

Carey (who joined our family recently!), a student, pretty, sweet personality, thoughtful. So happy for you to be part of our family!

Alex, pretty, precocious, loves cats, thoughtful, a reader. You will go far!

Michael, mischievous, affectionate, LEGO man, a mechanical genius, a great future!

Jacob, shy, handsome, beautiful eyes, like your Dad when he was your age!

Audrey,  our baby, pretty, bubbling with life, affectionate, a delight!

____________________________________

Levi, a beautiful, cuddly baby, the darling of us all, Debbi's first grandchild and our first great-grandchild!   May your tribe increase!

Mark (cont'd......................................

(I somehow exited my blog Mark and cannot get it to the place where I can add to it, so am making another file to finish up your story, Mark!  I need Katy to get me out of my mess...)

As I was saying, - During our stops at Ferké we saw the cutest little girl, Asian features, playing with other kids on the hospital grounds.  I often admired her.  When I asked who she was, I was told that was Kathleen Macomber!  We could not then have known the future and that she would one day be your wife, as well as our much loved daughter-in-law and the mother of four beautiful grandchildren for us!  God's ways are amazing!!

You worked your way through college, always supporting yourself through jobs in the Atlanta area where you lived with a bunch of other guys in various and assorted houses and apartments. You worked your way up in one company from the warehouse tohaving your own office - we visited you in both places. You and John must get your business acumen from your Grandfather Pierce whom none of us ever knew as he died at a young age.  He was a shrewd businessman.

You talked more and more of Kathleen in your letters and finally got engaged. We were there for your beautiful wedding, staying at John and Jennie's home. Hrandma and Grandpa Kennedy also came for the wedding and everyone else seemed to also congregate there. Jennie helped Katy with her dress and hair.  It was all a fun family time for us. Dad also got his one eye operated on and had a partially black eye just before the ceremony!  I don't think many people saw the discolored eye area when he did the ceremony! Your wedding was so beautiful, held at your church near Atlanta (which has since closed).  Katy was gorgeous in her beautiful gown and veil. The bridesmaids were all dressed in back and everyone carried red roses.  John did the reception which was done so beautifully. The church was full of family, friends, MK's, retired missionaries - it was a joyous occasion!

By the time we retired, you had bought a lovely home in Bethlehem, GA.  You urged us, Mark, to buy a home in your neighborhood where there were several for sale. We did not do that - first because we only had so much money to spend and those were a higher price, and we also figured that you were young and had a long life ahead and wouldn't be living there forever.  And we were right.  John and Jennie lived with you during their rough time, returning from their hotel fiasco, and that was a blessing for them. We often had fun times and even babysat our darling grandchildren there at that house.

You also drove up to Toccoa to look at a house for us. We had gotten an ex-missionary agent to show us homes, and had specified several things we wanted, within a certain price range.  We drove up here together, Mark, to look at the homes she had to show us - about seven of them. This house was the fourth one we saw, and we liked it. But we went on to see the others as well. Dad finally said, "Let's go back and see that other house - we liked that so let's just take it!"  Which we did!!  You were bowled over - said no one EVER buys a house that fast - but we did. And we have never been sorry. We have made a number of improvements to the house and property, but it is home to us after these twelve years. 

We were an hour from you so could enjoy our four grandchildren, being born and growing up. John and Jennie were near also.  Debbi and Steve's kids we saw  grow up because we lived in the same country. Darrell and Cheryl's three we seldom saw as they were in the Middle East. And Elin and Joel's we saw off and on as they lived south of us in Ivory Coast.  So now we had your four little ones. It was always fun to see them born and grow, to babysit them occasionally when you wanted us, to have them and you all here for meals and parties and even overnight sometimes.  You lived in our house during our year in Mali and we came back and joined you in this house, until your new beautiful home was ready! Fun times, all of them!  That house in Buford is a beauty and we have MANY wonderful memories from there: babysitting while you went out for a special occasion, just stopping to chat, spectacular meals served, Christmases and Thanksgivings with as many family members as could come.  Those too were good years for us.

And then, your promotion and moving to Connecticut - where your dad started his life! What a thunderbolt that was.  So now here we are in Georgia - after twelve years we do feel at home here - and John has fled to Ohio and your family to Connecticut!  We are proud of you all and your accomplishments and we have plenty to keep us busy right here.  While at the same time missing y'all!

We admire both you and Katy for being such hands on parents, for homeschooling your children, for giving them a good Christian foundation to their lives, for making so many fun times for them, for sending us almost daily pictures of them and your new home area.  Your positive attitudes and your devotion to God and family are a delight to see!  We love you all!

MARK.........................................

Mark Amasa, the last but not the least of the PIERCE offspring!!  We called you the child of "our old age" and that was years ago, so what does that made us now??  You and your lovely family have given us much joy in our lives and continue to do so.  I have already written about your rather unusual birth at Ferké hospital.  Your sister, Cheryl, was home from ICA at that time, and so you were "her" baby. Your big brother, John, had not yet gone to ICA and he was fascinated with this new little charater that had come to live with us. We had to watch it that he did not try to feed you part of his cookie or poke his fingers in the wrong place and unknowingly hurt you.

You came home with us to Santidougou, and lived there a while, but most of your childhood in Burkina was spent in Bobo-Dioulasso, whichwas your hometown. Mamou was your babysitter (she was - and is - a gem!) and your best friend in Bobo was Benjamin Tessugué, the pastor's son. He was a little older than you and you two were bosom buddies. We saw him in Mali in 2005, now a grown man with a family like you, and we recalled the good days you two had together as children. His mother declared you knew and understand Dogoso, as that was the only language they spoke in their home and you always understood.  Mamou talked to you in Dafing so you understood that. We talked French and English, Jula and Bobo Madare in our house and you understood all of those. So you actually grew up in your pre-school years knowing something of six languages.

Your big brother, John, was brown, robust and knew no strangers. You in contrast had a pale complexion, wispy blond hair and were timid.  You, Michael and Tawni were all born the same year and remained friends through to your growup years. The year you all were born, they housed our three families in that center (Kauffman) house for field conference. We would get up in the morning seeing Uncle Dave, sitting in shorts (only) and sleepily feeding little baby Michael in his arms.  The three of you grew up together for the most part. Albrights lived in Koutiala, Mali, and I remember a Christmas when we and Kennedys went to Mali and celebrated an early Christmas with the Albrights. You kids were a little older then, and the big boys got the idea to have a show for us parents.  You were hystereical, taking off on all our foibles! I remember one line where Jonathan (Uncle Dave) yelled out, "Margot hurry up in that shower - Milt and Nancy are going to be mad if we are late again!    We lived close enough to Bobo at Santidougou to have fun visits back and forth with Kennedys. And we even occasionaly braved the Burkina-Mali (non paved roads to visit Albrights in Sanekui.  We were so fortunate, and we also tried consciously to include others (in the mission)  in our relationships, who were not so fortunate as we and missed their families.  The Royles were also family with us as we lived together so many years, both in Santidougou and Bobo. 

You seemed to get every disease that came along when you were a toddler.  I remember one year at Santidougou when the town was full of meningitis, a deadly disease in Burkina. You and our yardman's little son were sitting together on our front terrace and sharing a tall plastic glass of ice tea!  You would take a sip and offer it to him and he would take a sip and thus back and forth.  The next day he started symptoms of meningitis and ended uphaving a fairly severe case, but survived.  I watched you carefully during the incubation time but you never developed meningitis and we were thankful to God for sparing us that. 

John always had a pack of friends, and you in contrast enjoyed having one good friend instead.  You were so different in temperament but got along well. And it is a delight to us to see the two of you as adults enjoying each other. We are so proud of you!

You did well at ICA.  You had complaints about the school, as most kids did, but you resrerved them to air to us when we got together. And thus you pretty much stayed out of trouble. I remember that one set of dormparents you had, she was persnickety and he was boisterous and told you cop stories.  When I stopped there once, without Dad, for one of my Abidjan trips, I had bought a bag full of apples at Monoprix as you loved them and did not get them at school. I put them in the house frig in their bag - the houseparents were away on a long weekend and so there was no one to ask about using the frig.  There were still some apples left in the bag when the dormparents came back from their time away.  She demanded of me, "Are you the one who put apples in the frig without asking me?" And I assured her that I had, and she said it was a dorm rule that no one could put anything in that frig unless they asked her so she could also tell her husband because he would open the door and just eat whatever he thought would make a good snack! . So I suggested that it was impossible to tell her since she was several hundred kilometers away.  I thought her logic a bit faulty when she told me that if her husband had been there, he would have eaten my apples!  Wow, I felt sorry having to live with THAT lady, but I think you said the man's cop stories were fun and you just sort of ignored her as much as you could! 

Sometime during your grade school years Grandma and Grandpa Kennedy lived there in Bouaé to replace some on furlough who did the youth work in the city. They regularly had all you kids out to eat at their apartment at the Bouaké mission.  They loved those visits and so did all you kids - Pierces, Kennedys and Albrights. 

You were president of your senior class (what happened to that shy little boy??) and by all reports did a great job. This was a forerunner of the great leader you have become as a geown man. 

During those trips to Bouaké during those years, we usually stopped for a rest stop at the Ferké hospital.  There I observed one of the cutest little girls

JOHN.......................

John, you have always been one of those "bigger than life" people!  Before you were born, we probably had a girl's name picked out, but we didn't need it - we finally had our JOHN MILTON!   I wrote in another chapter of your birth in the guest house at the Bobo mission, with Marg Robers and a French doctor delivering you. 

As soon as we got to the village, everyone had to come and greet for our baby. Even the old men from the village came into the nursery to give their Bobo blessings! From young childhood you had an investigative, upbeat personality. You were funny, outgoing, generous, inquisitive, a leader, empathetic, loving - the list could go on. We saw these qualities developing in you even as a child, qualities you still have as a grown man.

There was one quality we needed to curb - your anger. One day you were playing a game with the village boys, with those pointed iron things - your friend won and you were mad and without stopping to think you threw the iron at him - and fortunately did not hit him, as you could have killed him. So I took you into the bedroom and had a long talk with you about holding you temper. You were just a little guy but you seemed to understand.  Another time you and Madu were arm wrestling and you being so much stronger  broke a bone in his arm!  Dad splinted it up - and Madu wore that bandage as a badge of honor until the arm healed! 

You sure gave Sini a run for his money - I can still see him running after you yelling, "Zan! Zan" as he tried to catch you. We could tell you were not emotionally ready to leave us and the village, and so we waited to send you to ICA until you were almost seven.  They did not want first graders at ICA who were not yet six by the end of September - you turned six October 1st that year - so we did not ask special permission to send you as you were not emotionally ready to leave us. That meant you and Jonathan were in school together and graduated together from ICA. 

You and Jon went to ICA together, and by then I had baby Mark in my arms to stay home and comfort me!  That was the one big hardship for me as a missionary,  being separated from you kids.  You had many friends at ICA - lots of them. But your close friends were Jon Kennedy and Rollo Royle, and you had them year round as we all lived in Bobo for some years. I was so glad when we finally got all of you graduated from ICA. We found the houseparents who had spent years on the field and then filled in at ICA were the easiest to deal with. They knew what it was like from the parents' side, as well as the ICA staff.

When you were home, you had such fun riding your motor bike and hunting small game in the busy. We were on a mission picnic one night and it was after dark before we were ready to leave. Just at that moment you started to scream - you had been bitten by a scorpion. (the only one in our family who ever had a scorpion bite and they are very painful.)  We put you in the van and rushed you to the hospital where they gave you shots to dull the pain and by the next day you were over it.

You started dating Brenda at ICA and she lived in Ghana on vacation.  You and Rollo David rode your motor bikes down to Ghana to get a car drivers license, you could get one easily there.  So that was your first license.  Another time you went to southern Burkina to visit another MK - I think maybe Rollo was with you then too - and you found a cave where there were big constrictor snakes.  I was glad I didn't know about that time until it was over.  Maybe that was the time you found a large python, probably twelve feet long and brought him home with great pride in a burlap sack on the back of your moto!  I was horrified.  Dad calmly made a place inside the old water tower out back of our Santidougou house and put the pythan (or boa) in there. Of course all your friends were excited about this.  The next morning you went out at dawn and came running in to tell us (in bed) that your snake had escaped!  All the village kids went looking for it - they said they could find it easily as it was not a "here snake"!  But search as they could it was never found. I must say I did not shed any tears about that!!

When you were in eighth grade we were on furlough and  you went to Nyack public schools, in the junior high department. They had a class play and you were the lead actor and did a fantastic job. The drama teacher was so excited about your performance and sad when she heard you were leaving to go back to Africa again. We, of course, went to see your play and you were a natural!  Hollywood lost an actor to the African bush! 

Brenda had gone with her folks on furlough and we went on furlough then too. That was right after your graduation.  You and Tim lived in the basement of our house that year in Nyack.  When we first got back to the US we went down to the New Jersey shore for a short vacation. Brenda had come up to see you and so you asked if she could go along. The older girls were so disgusted because she was always wanting to do things alone with you apart from the family.  She went home and you started classes at Nyack.  Your heart was not in your studies, you had Brenda on your mind. She came to visit again. I basically liked her but she was used to having the best of everything and you were not in any financial condition to have that kind of girlfriend or fiancé. You decided early on that fall that you were going to move to Florida to be near Brenda and get a job. Which you did. I had always tried to not make negative comments about any of the girls or guys you kids liked or dated. But I do remember telling you that she would be a hard girlfriend to support as she was used to having the best of everything.

You came up to Nyack for a couple weeks in June before we left for Africa again. It was so good to have you around and you were your normal self. You did not open up and talk too much about Brenda.  One evening there was a phone call from her and you talked for ages on the phone, but never said anything about the call to us. After we were back on the field we had a long handwritten letter from you, telling us that you and Brenda had broken it off, you had not wanted to bother us with that when we were getting ready to travel.  And we breathed a sigh of relief, she was not for you. You stayed with Grandma and Grandpa for a little bit and then went to live with Uncle Dave and Aunt Margot and their boys.  We so appreciated their taking you in.

You were back in Nyack again and working and took some classes. It was there you met Jennie, our beautiful Jennie, who later became your wife.  You and Jonathan roomed together and worked in some hotels together as well. You kind of learned food management on your own through hands on work.  You also dated another girl - before Jennie I think - and her name was Sheryl. She was with you in the car when you had a car accident. And she left Nyack and went elsewhere to school.  Jennie and you started dating and got serious and planned to get married. You were going to be married in the summer and we were going to be there.

I had been sent by the mission to help out new missionaries (Several of them) in Guinea and was gone a week or ten days.  When I got off the plane back in Ouaga, Dad met me with the news that you and Jennie were getting married in December.  It was at a time when we could not get away and that was sad for us.  You were so good about doing a film and sending that and lots of pictures so that we could see  your beautiful wedding and Puerto Rican reception!  We loved Jennie's family and bonded with them quickly, great people!

That meant you had been married several months before we met Jennie. She told me later of what a nervous wreck she was going to the airport in Ft. Myers to meet us. She changed her clothes and her hair style several times until she settled on what she wanted to wear to go and meet our plane at midnight. Mark was with us too.  That was a good year for us to bond.  You were working at Shell Point in the kitchen and she did not have a job, so she would come to our house at Shell Point and sit and talk or watch TV for hours.  It was a good family year for us. Mark started college at Edison that year. I got acquainted with my lovely new daughter-in-law.  And we had lots of family times.

You and Mark both worked in the kitchen and dining rooms at Shell Point, and you left a mark there. Years later when we visited Shell Point - and again this year - people came to our table in the Crystal Dining Room to talk to us from the kitchen and waitressing staff and asked if we were your parents. And they told us how much they liked and appreciated you there. One waitress told us of how it was Mark who had told her the Gospel and she was saved and still following the Lord.  That really meant a lot to us.  How fortunate we are to have five children and their spouses, people of integrity and witnessing lives - we are indeed blessed. 

You and Jennie came out to Burkina to visit and your siblings were there too. We travelled and had a lot of fun there in Bobo as a family.  That next furlough when we came to the States you had gone to Puerto Rico to manage that hotel. Hotel Parador La Familia.  We stayed there at the hotel and went on tourist trips with you. enjoyed the pool at the hotel, etc.  The hotel did not go well and finally you had to come back to the States, feeling like a failure as you had not succeeded with the hotel. I remember your coming to our house and staying with us a little while.  And we all worked at reassuring you that this too would pass and you came back to your normal self again. 

Mark and Katy invited you to move into their house and fixed a little basement pad for the two of you. You stayed there until you were able to get a good management job and rent a nice apartment. You also took Daniel in to live with you there for a while! Dad and I were so happy to have both of you sons and wives and a new little Alex plus Daniel all living just about an hour from us.  You all, after all, were why we had moved to Georgia in the first place!  We had lots of fun family times.

You bought the house in Buford and when Mark built his place in Flowery Branch, you were fifteen minutes from each other. And we lived an hour north. Life was good.  And then Jennie began to be sick a lot.  She saw doctors and even had an exray and nothing could be found. (You found out later the exray had been misread by the doctor!)  But you and Jennie decided to paint our house.  Ours was a sixties house in pale colors and you wanted to bring us up to date. It would have cost us more than we could afford to hire someone, and so you and Jennie came and papered and painted. What a gift to us. Jennie would come up and work on the painting when you were on a business trip and spend the night. But we could tell she was not well.

And then the dreaded verdict came, Jennie had cancer.  You did everything possible, and our hopes would go up, only to come crashing down again.  You had to travel and so we spent a lot of time with Jennie at your house. She would go up and down. Sometimes she could not get out of bed, other times she would rest a lot but come downstairs every day.  We sat with you in two different hospitals for two different operations. We waited for good news but it did not often come. When you were gone on business, we would go down and stay with Jennie.  Sometimes when she was in great pain, she would lie on the couch in your bedroom, resting in my arms and say, "Sing to me, Mom".  Or "Mom, tell me about when John was a little boy". So choking through my tears I would try to tell stories and sing old hymns to her. One day she decided she needed to go to the store for new pajamas and bras and wanted me to go with her. She drove like her old self, shopped for her clothes and seemed her normal self. But then it would be back to bed, exhausted. We talked for hours.  When she could not come downstairs, I would fix her light meals and take them up to her, trying
 to tempt her. She loved strawberries and whipped cream and Dad went to the store to keep us supplied with whatever she craved.  I learned a lot of new TV watching with Jennie - Dancing with the Stars, fixing up old houses, old movies - she just needed someone there with her.

Those were rough days for us - and much rougher for you - to see your sweet, funny wife wasting away.  Those last days of Jennie's life her whole family came, including her doctor cousin (who stayed with her through to her passing on to heaven).  How my heart ached for her parents, as well as ached for ourselves.  The praise team from the church came to sing for Jennie and she loved that. We were a huge gang with all Jennie's family from Puerto plus her doctor cousin,  our family and also Prosper Sanou from Burkina. We knew the end was near one evening and Mark stayed there at the house. We were wakened by the phone at one thirty in the morning at Mark's where we were sleeping. Jennie had gone to join the hosts of heaven and join in the singing of the heavenly choir with her lovely voice.   It was two am and we were a crowd of family all sitting around the living room at your place. The lovely lady from Hospice came in and the men came  to take care of formalities. They rolled out her body, which was so sad, but her spirit was alive and living in a place where there is no sorrow or tears, jusy joy and peace and being with Jesus. I cry as I write this, but I am assured that she is in a better place.

Was there ever a more well planned or beautiful funeral service. Many people were there - relatives, your partners in business, all our family, Prosper from Burkina, retired missionaries from Toccoa.  It was a beautiful ceremony, Mark and Katy's little ones sat through it all also. (What were they thinking, I wondered?)  The service ended with Jennie's voice singing a lovely song, by way of a tape she had given me years ago. I always loved heer voice. Mark had prepared a beautiful feast at his home and there were about seventy people invited - just family and close friends.  Before we went there the ladies of the Lilburn church had also prepared a finger foods buffet and this gave opportunities for greetings.

John, you lived in that big house by yourself and you continued your travelling with your Business after Jennie was gone. Mark and Katy were such a blessing to you then and the kids loved having Uncle John come to their house so often. Dad and I tried to get down to your place as often as we could. I was just coming out of my brain surgery problems. One day we were there at your house and sitting out back talking with you when a phone call came for you - nothing unusual - but you talked for a long time. And finally came back and told us about how you and Sheryl had started talking to each other on the phone. You had known each other in College and now you had both lost your spouses.   God had this beautiful gift all pre-planned for both of you in the sorrow of losing your spouses. And you even got a lovely sweet daughter in the bargain. 

You were officially married earlier in the year but our family all came to Westerville in June (?) to celebrate this new marriage.  That little chapel was so pretty and the ceremony beautiful. The grandchildren and Carey and Dad all participated. That evening we had that  beautifully served reception meal in a lovely restaurant, as we all rejoiced in God's goodness to you both! 

Christmas was fun too with Phenicies and us staying in your gorgeous new home to celebrate with you and your new family.  We look forward to lots more times together as a family, one of those visits right around the corner, this Easter!   We are proud of you, our first son, and a lifelong delight to us!