We just got word that my grandma - my dad's mother- passed away this evening. Obviously, we are sad, but we can't be too sad because she has been waiting for the Lord to allow her to go to heaven for some time now. My grandparents, as some of you know, were missionaries in Nigeria for 43 years and my grandfather passed away about 2 years ago. She has been growing steadily weaker ever since that time and has been wishing to go to join her husband and her Heavenly Father. Well, she got her wish today. I can't help but wish that I could be there to see the resulting party. I am fairly sure that there is some serious Nigerian worship going on right now in the presence of God. What joy she must be having, hearing the words "Well done, good and faithful servant" and meeting all of the people who are in heaven because of her work and her witness! I just can't stay sad for very long when I think about it. The kids were tearful, but then we started to talk about the party that was going on in heaven. Later that night, as we were going to bed, lightening was flashing on the horizon. Abby said to me, "Look mom, the party in heaven is still going on, those are disco lights". Abby has never been to a disco, and I would be willing to bet that neither has grandma, but the idea of the joy of heaven is great to think about. The temporary here and now WILL someday be worth it all - let's take as many people along as possible. After all, it may "only take two to party" but "the more the merrier"- and heavens parties are beyond our wildest dreams.
Grandma (Gladys Marie Reifel), we love you, we miss you, you meant more to us than we can ever express, and... save me a place, I would be honored to sit next to you in worship in the Holy of Holies. Until then I will do my best to carry on your legacy, in His strength.

Just a quick note-
Roy just walked in from doing outreach in Bendugu (a village about 3.5 miles away). He is soaked to the skin and walking about 2 feet off the ground. He is soaked because it is rainy season and he got caught in a storm. He is walking 2 feet off the ground because in the course of the service tonight, the emam (muslim teacher) asked us to come and help build a church in their town. WHAT AN AMAZING THING!

Many of you may wonder what life is like here - so here is a way that you can experience it for yourselves... First, turn off the electrical main to your house and turn off the gas line. Cover over all of your mirrors (the only one we have is six inches in diameter but most people don't have one at all). Fill several buckets with water, then turn off the water main. The water in the buckets can be used for flushing the toilet, washing the dishes, etc. Now hire about 15 neighbor kids to camp out on your front porch without any other adults present. Assign each of your own children an imaginary minor ailment of some kind and then force yourself to treat it using only what you already have in the house. Plan on treating at least 10 ailments of various kinds for the kids that have now occupied the front porch. Next, plan all of your meals without using potatoes, cheese, meat, vegetables, or eggs and nothing from the fridge or freezer - oh, and cook it all outside over a fire and three stones. Each time you start a task, if one of the kids doesn't call you, interrupt yourself in 3 to 5 minute intervals. Now you have a taste.
Before you start thinking that it is impossible, think of the plus side. In order to have a full taste of what my life is like everyday, surround yourself with at least 20 different types of birds and have them singing all day long.Imagine tropical scenery out of each window. Buy a few fresh pineapple and mangoes to eat. Each and every time that you take care of an interruption or tend a wound, imagine yourself profusely thanked. Imagine each of the 15 kids on your porch as cute enough to be on a poster somewhere and most of them are smiling. All of the sudden it doesn't seem half bad, does it? In addition to that, you are NEVER bored. :)
Remember this to0... what I have just described to you is plush living compared to everyone else here. We have it really good - so we share what we can, give jobs where we can, and give as much Jesus to everyone as we can. That part of my life is part of yours too!
P.S. For those of you who may have been just brave enough to try this, even for one hour, kudos to you!!! I hope you had fun! I do!

Here's one for all of you who just need a good laugh today! Okay, first - two seemingly unrelated questions which I promise will make sense by the end of this.
#1 - Do you ever wonder what a recording artist imagines his or her hearers will be doing while listening to their music?
#2- Are you ever going about your business when suddenly you get a glimpse of what you may look like to others if they were watching?
Now, before you think I've eaten one too many bananas...let me explain. Yesterday I was in the duldrums, just a little. So, I put on my MP3 player and listened to some music while I went about my work. I was dancing away to Amy Grant's House of Love CD, singing out loud, and probably off-key as I am not generally guilty of perfect pitch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that I was being watched... by a genet (Jeepy) and three cameleons (who will eventually be his lunch -and let me tell you, you haven't been eyeballed until you have been eyeballed by a cameleon) - when I got one of those glimpses... there I was, in my tie-dye dress, with my self-inflicted haircut, putting peanuts through a hand-crank meat-grinder in order to make peanutbutter (even PB&J isn't easy here - BUT it IS organic!) - but every few cranks I had to stop and make a grab for my underwear - which have started to fall down (you know that you have lost weight when your underwear don't stay up!) Suddenly, I thought about Amy Grant and that she probably never imagined that anyone would be in the middle of West Africa, singing her songs for three cameleons and a genet while making peanut butter and holding up their underwear- and suddenly it was all very funny. Right then, my music switched to Michael Card singing - God loves you...
THAT is my thought for the day - for YOU! God LOVES you! In fact, He loves YOU! Even in the funny moments that you would never publish on a blog if you were sane - He loves you and is delighted with you!
HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Well, Roy made it back just fine and we are now looking for new ways to minister. God is so cool! We have a pair of swallows who have made their nest on our porch. It was a big process to get them there as most of the people here knock down the nests. We, however, wanted them there as they eat mosquitos - a big bonus! Well, their young have hatched and yesterday we got to witness their first flight out of the nest. They were doing very well until it came time to reenter the nest which has a tunnel doorway up in the corner of the porch. I could almost hear their little voices, "This flying stuff is great! I think I'm getting the hang of this! WAIT! How do you land this thing...! The mother bird repeatedly flew out and then reentered with great patience trying to show her offspring that it really could be done. They eventually made it. The kids and I had a great time watching this, and then in the quiet of my heart the Lord said, "I have not forgotten you - I will keep showing you the way. Don't forget what my word says about the birds of the air and how they don't have to worry." What a visual lesson! God is good! Roy and I have started reviewing the picture bibles with a small group of guys and tomorrow Roy is going with a few of them to ask some nearby towns if we can start holding weekly services with them. In addition to that, I am going to start offering a health and wellness class to any of the area women who would like to come. Please pray for us as we look for the best ways we can serve God and help those around us.
So many people have said to me, "I could never do what you are doing". Well, I want to set the record straight. We are all fledgling birds out for our first trial flight - just trying to make it count and not completely crash and burn. For each of us God is there, quietly demonstrating the way it should be done, letting us know that he is there and will not desert us! I still worry what to fix for dinner ( esp without any beef, potatoes, cheese, or vegetables) and I still just live everyday the best I can obeying Him just for today - isn't that what we are ALL doing? Okay, so your noon is my evening and I wear less sweatshirts than you do - but other than that we are all the same. Well, there is one significant difference. I have gotten accustomed to having to search for pieces and parts of cameleons around my house and coming across tails, heads, whatever in the middle of my living room floor. (Jeepy eats cameleons and like any wild animal, he stashes some for later- so I have had to learn to find them before they stink) I think it's safe to guess that is NOT one of your daily obstacles - but he is just so COOL! :)
P.S.
To explain the new picture: Seth and his buddies were playing soccer one evening. Rain here can come up very quickly and with great gusto -so the game was unexpectedly rained out. They all ran to our porch and innovatively came up with a new game while they were waiting for the rain to stop. They each climbed in an empty rice bag and then hopped around like a potato sack race but playing soccer. It was a lot of fun to watch. On a side note, we put out two five gallon buckets under the edge of the roof (no eaves troughs) and within half an hour they were full.

Yesterday Dad and Clare left to return to the good ol' USA. Roy took them to the airport, so he will be back sometime today, if God gree... (That is a statement in Krio that is used whenever plans are discussed. I find the straight forward acknowledgement of God's plan to be so cool) Anyway, the kids are doing better than I thought, but it has still been a little of a sad day. We are not sure when they will be back, or if they will be back. However, we have to learn to be missionaries all by ourselves now. Roy and I had thought that we would be in the middle of teaching the next semesters classes right now, but as that plan has changed, we are looking at walking out to some nearby villages a couple of nights a week to some evangelism. Please pray for us that we will have God's leading in this. The rainy season makes this a little hard to plan as it tends to rain in the evenings and people are on their farms during the day. Abby has been going to help her friend Esther on their family farm. She really enjoys it and comes back so covered in dirt that you would think she was an African. She is a hard worker and is building some really good friendships. Seth's rash is improving, although he is still itchy about once a day. However, he does not seem to breaking out with any more. Caleb is doing well adjusting to things as well and he and Seth are thoroughly enjoying the abundance of mangoes this season. In fact, I often have to pull them up short on the consumption thereof - as diarrhea can be a direct result. ( But Mom, I've only had five and it's already lunch time... I'll still eat my supper, I promise...) I have been so blessed by my friendships here and the way that so many of the people here have stopped in to check on me and make sure that the kids and I don't need anything. Such kindness!

Good news! Mr. Y.Y. and Kumba had a healthy, beautiful baby girl! They are grinning from ear to ear and doing very well. Everyone here at the Bible School is so excited that you would think each person here had given birth themselves! It is such a wonderful thing and such a testimony to the miracle of God's hand. They have been married for 9 years and have been unable to have any children. That is very unusual in this culture. Mom and baby are both doing VERY well.
We just had the privelege of having our missions director, Gregg Verbuff come and visit us for just a few days. I am telling you, he is just such an encouragement and so spiritually grounded. He was like a breath of fresh air and yet solid in his view on God's word and on missions. We praise God for his visit and couldn't say enough good about him. God made sure that he got to see some fun things while he was here too, such as monkeys in the wild and a hammock bridge.
Seth has a really bad rash all over his neck, trunk, and arms. He has been miserably itchy and it started about 2 weeks ago. Please pray. We were able to go and see a British doctor in Freetown, but he said that he had not seen anything like it before. He gave us several medicines and they seem to be helping somewhat, but it is not completely going away. Please pray with us that the rash will resolve quickly.
Avacados are ripe now, so we are enjoying homemade guacamole and have discovered a way to make our own chips. It has been very enjoyable. Pineapple is also ripe now and you haven't had pineapple until you have had one that actually ripened in the tropics. We'll enjoy 2 or 3 on your behalf. We miss you all! Have a great day!