Moving Day Eve
As my siblings and I used to say as children, “one more sleep!”. Tomorrow we move out of our apartment and into the NTM guesthouse. We have our apartment until the end of the month but we wanted time to do some repairs not to mention that there are rumors of demonstrations around town at the end of the week so we really wanted to move before the action starts. It feels good to not have to do all this work at the last minute, but at the moment it’s still a lot to deal with. We look forward to getting this out of the way so that we can spend time with friends saying goodbye before we leave. Pay for us as we say goodbye to our home in Senegal!
Quick Trip to Conakry
Late Tuesday night I returned home from a four day trip to Conakry, Guinea. It was very important to us that before our return to Canada I had the chance to get down there and greet our close friend Pastor Samuel Kondano and his church which hosted us during our time there.
After a short 50 minute flight and wading through the murky waters of West African customs I was greeted by Pastor Samuel and his two brothers whom we also know very well. I had no agenda, I simply wanted to spend some time with them.
We had a great time together visiting people in the neighbourhood, praying for the sick from the congregation, and checking out some of the church’s new outreach programs. Pastor Samuel’s wife Charlotte has opened up a small shop where she teaches women who have no skills how to sew, cut hair etc. This will help them learn how to support themselves but more importantly she will have opportunities to share the Word of God with them. During the Sunday service I shared with them what God is doing in our lives and was greatly encouraged by their perspective on what I had to say.
Another important part of the trip was to meet Samuel and Charlottes daughter, Maël. They adopted Maël when she was only a few weeks old. Adoption is a courageous act in West Africa. Those who can’t have children naturally are often looked down upon, adoption doesn’t change people’s view. Nevertheless, Samuel and Charlotte felt God leading them in this area and they went ahead in faith. She has been warmly received by the church family who definitely spoil her!
Another interesting part of the trip was staying in our old home. After we left, the church took it over and has been using it along with our power backup system as a studio where they create Christian videos that are shown on the only public TV channel! It’s a real blessing, even two and a half years later, to see how God is still using our time there.
We again thank you for your prayers and support for this trip! It was an important and impacting trip for us and also for our Guinean brothers and sisters in Conakry.
Dakar ✈ Conakry
This past week was officially my last week working at the NTM office in Dakar. I had a lot of projects to finish and with all the busyness I failed to mention on our blog that I’m taking a trip down to Conakry, Guinea! As most of you know, we started our African journey with a move to Conakry, which was interrupted by severe political unrest that the Lord used to redirect us to Senegal. During our time in Conakry we became very close friends with our host, Samuel Kondano. We have kept in close contact during the years since but until now we have never had the chance to see him and his family. After we felt the Lord leading us way from Seegal a few months ago due to health problems we knew that at least I needed to get down to Conakry to visit Pastor Samuel. We prayed about this trip and God has provided the means to make it a reality. So here I am, sitting in the airport waiting for my flight. It won’t be easy saying goodbye for a second time to our dear friend Samuel and his family but it will be an encouraging time for myself and also for him and our other Guinean friends. Many of our friends and family back in North America have come to know Pastor Samuel through us and this will be a great way to continue this relationship and partnership. I believe that it’s a huge blessing for our North American churches to get to know brothers and sisters in Christ from different parts of the world.
Pray for me as I travel that the trip will be a blessing to those I meet with and above all glorifying to our Lord. Pray also for Deb and the boys as they await my return.
Thank so much for your prayers, encouragement and support that God has used to get me down to Conakry.
32 days!
Thirty two! 32! Trente-deux! XXXII! Yep thats right! 32 days until we board a plane to Canada. I am having a little bit of writers block even trying to describe how we feel about that. Pretty much every possible thing! Stressed, too much to do, excited, relieved, sad, happy, scared, thrilled, and “Is this really happening?”
There really is no way to describe such a huge life change. We have never really even considered a life in North America. We never even processed what it would be life to raise our boys in North America. Its such a huge change. Well like it or not! Its happening! And we leave Africa for… maybe forever (hopefully not!).
The next thirty two days will be intensely crazy! We have a lot to do. A lot of people to say goodbye to, a lot of suitcases to pack, weigh, repack, weigh, repack again… A lot of little details to take care of, a lot of things still that need to be sold, a lot of emotional processing, preparing for our “new life” in Canada.
Please pray for us as we go through this time. Its one that is not easy to describe. We are starting to get anxious… just wanting to get it all over with.
We read a pretty neat verse in Proverbs today. It really meant a lot to me.
Proverbs 20:24 The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?
This is something that we have truly been coming to learn and understand. God is so amazing and has everything so perfectly under control. Why do we waste so much time trying to figure every little thing out instead of just trusting and being at peace! When we can just lean back and trust God we can truly come to have a peaceful life!
Thank you everyone for your prayers and love! We are so excited to join the New Tribes Mission of Canada headquarters team. We can truly see God preparing the way for us. We are getting very excited!
Please be patient if we lack in posts over the next little while. We are super busy trying to get things done and process everything. We do however tend to keep our Facebooks, Twitter accounts, and instagram accounts buzzing with new photos and day to day stuff. So keep up with us there. We hope to keep up here too… but I can’t promise anything… We have not posted since Christmas Day! TERRIBLE!
Have a wonderful day trusting in our Savior and having PEACE!
PS We posted all of our Christmas trip photos to flickr. Please check them out! We had a great time! Check them out HERE!
A Strange Christmas
This year things are a bit different for us. We are preparing to move out of our apartment and even more than that we are preparing to move back to Canada. Its been a true emotional roller coaster for us and we decided that this year we would celebrate a little differently than a typical traditional Christmas… since we just don’t feel “normal” this year. We sold our Christmas tree and all of our decorations, except for a few special ones we kept.
This year we are taking off to the beach! Yep! Tomorrow we are headed to a nice little rental house on the beach and we are going to take a few needed days of solitude! (Thanks to a sweet Christmas gift donation and wonderfully low Senegalese prices!!) We are so so so excited. We are so ready for a bit of a breather and for things to slow down for a couple of days.
This year we will be:
-Reading about Jesus’ birth
-Decorating shortbread Christmas cookies
-Opening presents that our families sent us in the mail
-Introducing the boys to the classic “Little Drummer Boy” claymation movie.
-Watching movies
-Playing on the beach, swimming in the pool
-Flying kites
-Listening to Christmas music
-Reading books
-Drinking yummy homemade peppermint hot chocolates and peppermint mochas!
We are pretty excited about taking it easy this year. We have had a long few months and have been super busy and really worn out. So this is the best Christmas present we could get! TIME AWAY! =)
Here are a few photos of our Christmas celebrations so far:
Our fake, fake Christmas tree!
We hope you have a wonderful Christmas, whether it be a busy crazy one or a calm relaxed one! Enjoy and PLEASE do not forget Jesus is the reason for the season. Without Him we are lost and nothing!
Decorating contest
A few days ago we were invited to be a part of a jury to judge the kids classrooms at school. They had a Christmas decorating contest. They all worked very hard to decorate their classrooms as well as they could. We were very honored to be asked to come be a part of the jury. There were about 15 of us, including the local mayor and some other parents. It was fun touring around the school and checking out the classrooms. I think the judging and jury part of it was really just to get the kids excited about decorating. I don’t know if they even chose a winning class. We did not get too many pictures the kids did great. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.
Emmaus’ class singing songs to us.
At the end they brought us, the “jury,” into one of the back rooms and had a very nice spread of Senegalese appetizers. They thanked us for coming and the mayor spoke and thanked us as well. Very official and Senegalese like. We had a great time. Merry Christmas!
Vente!
So sorry the posts have been few and far between lately! But we have been kinda busy… apparently preparing for a huge life change takes a lot of time. Haha. We have been preparing ourselves mentally as well as physically. We have a lot of things to do before we leave Senegal. We have started out “Senegal Bucket List” of all the things we want to do before we head back to Canada. One thing this bucket list takes is a lot of time. So in order to do all that we have planned we need to start selling our stuff and packing up as early as possible. Thats what has been keeping us busy this year. We participated in a big garage sale. Around here every now and then someone decides its time for a garage sale. Someone picks a place, advertise to all the missionaries, and a bunch of missionaries participate. The one we just participated in was public right out on a road. Which means a lot of Senegalese people will come buy a lot of stuff to sell. They can really be very pushy… but at least a lot of stuff gets sold! It was extremely physically challenging and very emotionally challenging as well. I am so glad its over… for now.
Take a look at some of our pictures. We also did a pre-sale at our house for our fellow NTM co-workers. It really helps to have less to haul around town!
Canaan helping me sort out the toys. We ended up keeping about 10% of our toys. Not including legos and k’nex. No way we will give those up!
Before organizing and pricing.
Thanks to several of my friends, Sharon, Andi and Chantal for helping me organize and mark the prices! It would have been impossible without them! And of course Norm who has been my backbone and shoulder to cry on through the whole thing!
Nicely displayed!
This is everything compacted after the pre-sale. This is what we took to the garage sale. It ended up being 2 car loads and a van load. We sold about 75% of it or more. We ended up having only 6 boxes or so of stuff left over. Praise God! Looks like we have a nice amount of stuff left for one more garage sale and it will be done.
The garage sale was so hectic I didn’t end up getting any pictures. We were strung along the sidewalk… our spot was very long. We had a lot to sell! I had moments where it was ok and other moments where it took every fiber in me to not just start bawling my eyes out. Its very hard to sell your precious belongings to people who are being very rude to you. But either way God sold what he wanted to sell and he helped us make what he wanted us to make from it. All that to say… I am so glad its over! And I am so thankful to have such an empty house now. Its going to make our bucket list adventuring much easier!
Reflections from the kitchen sink…
This evening I realized that I had a huge pile of dishes that needed to be washed. So after dinner I cleaned up the kitchen and got started on the looming pile. While I worked away at the dishes Norm gave the kids a bath, put them to bed, cleaned up the dining room and did some general clean up of the house. THANK YOU BABE!
My brain has been in hyperdrive lately. I have been processing so much lately. We have a huge life change coming and there are so many facets to it. Leaving Africa, living in Canada, the trip, packing, selling our belongings, buying new belongings and setting up a new home in Canada… and those are just the obvious things. Anyway, while I was washing the dishes my brain was hard at work. Here is a small peek into my thoughts as I washed away…
~Wow that is extremely loud music out there. Some of it is not that bad. Every now and then I hear a song in English. Its not that often we hear music in English. Although listening to the same songs blaring all day for the past four days is getting old!
~There are A LOT of dishes. How is it possible to use this many dishes in 2 days? I guess making those delicious baked apple donut muffins this morning didn’t help anything! But they were soooooo good. Definitely going to have to keep that recipe on hand.
~ I wonder which cookbooks I should keep and which ones I should leave here?
~ Washing these dishes with these rubber gloves on is HORRIBLE. If it wasn’t for this nasty cut on my finger I would NOT be wearing them. Its exhausting… I have no grip and zero sense of feeling… is it greasy? is it still soapy? Definitely not using these again.
~Speaking of the cut on my finger… I am so sad my blender broke this morning. I love my blender… or loved it. Its been one of my best friends here in Senegal. Lots of blended coffees, smoothies and all sorts of wonders came from there. I will miss it. I guess I will have to survive the next few months without one. =’(
~ Oh my… there are so many dishes!
~ A 3 year old boy + discovering mommy’s razor = blood and tears.
~ My husband is my HERO! He is the most caring, loving, selfless human being in the whole world. And he is MINE! I am so lucky.
~ Man am I going to miss Africa. I love it here. I guess I really have a love hate relationship with Africa. I love the adventure of it. But I hate how much I am missing out on my kids lives from being so sick.
~God’s promises are so comforting. I am so glad He gave us so many and that they are 100% reliable.
~ I am so very thankful for our friends who have been bringing us meals during this difficult time. How would I survive without them?!?
~ Oh boy… so many dishes… A dishwasher would be great right now. Dishwashers are wonderful!
~ Speaking of wonderful, my husband is WONDERFUL!
~ I am going to miss hearing the call to prayer every day. I have such an emotional attachment to that sound now. It reminds me throughout the day to submit my every thought, action and word to Him. What a great reminder.
~ I am so glad there is power right now to do these dishes. Doing the dishes in the dark is hard and sometimes creepy. You just never know what creepy crawlies are lurking around in the dark!
~ I am so thankful for the Peppermint Mocha CoffeeMate powder my little sister bought me. Its so yummy. The next best thing to Starbucks Peppermint Mochas… at least here in Senegal. ;) They sure make me feel more Christmasy.
~ Did I mention my husband? Oh how I love him!
~Voila! Done! Finished! Finally! Now… collapse.
I guess the pile wasn’t THAT big! Haha! But I have been so weary in body lately that by the time the evening comes I am so exhausted and in so much pain that standing there for 30 minutes was quite the feat! Thank you to all of our friends who are loving us, praying for us, writing us with words of encouragement. You are all so amazing and making a huge impact! Keep it up!
Happy 3rd Birthday Emmaus!
Happy birthday to our sweet energizer bunny who always wants to snuggle! You entertain us every day! You wear your heart on your sleeve… or maybe your many wacky face expressions. We have truly loved the last three years with you and so look forward to the many more ahead. We love you so much Charles Emmaus!
Welcome to the Copeland Ramblings. Explore our site to learn more about us and our ministry with NTM in West Africa
