COLLEAGUES IN MINISTRY

I could write long lists of the wonderful African colleagues we have had through the years.  Many of them keep in contact with us even now. Our friend, Elie Sanou, has SKYPE and so calls us occasionally to give  us all the news.  Recently, Yusufu called early one morning and we talked for a while. He had not heard that we are going out there in February and was so excited!  Another friend called the other day through Elie's SKYPE, a fellow who caused us grief for many years, but Dad stuck with him. And he is now following the Lord and sorry for the past. 

We have also had many visits from African friends - some have stayed a couple days, some as long as a week.   Dad and I were counting up the West Africans we have had visit us here and it is up to twenty people or more.  They come over for various reasons - to speak at a Missions conference, to attend a seminar, to attend College of prayer. And they all try to find their way to our place so that we can visit together again!   We usually involve them in the Toccoa Falls College and our local church while they are here, as well as showing them the sights in the Georgia mountains.  How blessed we are to have these cross-cultural friends even now!

Friends - through Darrell and Cheryl - from the Middle East have also come to visit and they are a blessing as well.  Each one enriches our lives.  Having lived overseas so many years, we are cross-cultural people, and we sometimes get bored with knowing only Americans now! 

It was a real blessing - both for the church and also for us as family - to have Prosper here for Jennie's funeral.  You know how important funerals are for West Africans, and the Lord worked it out so that Prosper was speaking with Andrew Schaeffer here in the States at that time, and he spent some days with us.  This coincided with Jennie's Homegoing and the beautiful memorial service.  This meant a lot to the church over there, that one of our own from that side of the ocean could be here to represent them at this important family occasion.  And he was able to relay the news to our Bobo people.

Email and Facebook have also been tools for keeping in touch with colleagues all over the world.  We hear from many international workers but we also hear from many people of other countries whom we have worked with through the years.  We have emails and FB messages in English, French, Bobo, Jula and even Arabic (which we cannot read!).  Communication in other languages is something we miss living fulltime here in the States, and this gives us a little taste of our former life when English was not a major language for us. 

So many memories - so many dear friends and colleagues.  Next I will write about missionary colleagues and what many of them have meant to us.