Late night

7.2

It's actually 2:06 in the morning where I am right now on July 2. I felt compelled to write to you and to pray for you. So I have been thinking about and praying for several of you tonight. Your prayers have been a great help to me and my team, and I have even felt them today and tonight.

Funny story:
My friend and I were walking down the street and were greeted in French by a guy about our age (a common thing - French is the national language for many of the countries in West Africa, and they assume that the white people know French). So we greeted him back in French. Then we surprised him and greeted him in his own language, the one we've been learning. He smiled really big and spoke back to us in his language. Then, in a thick accent he shouted back at us, "How are you?!"

Haha, 3 languages in under a minute! I got a kick out of that. And I've been thinking about it since. It seems like a weird thing to me, to speak to the same person in different languages. But I have realized that only in America do you get away with speaking only one language. I know an 11 year old boy who can read, write, understand, and speak in 3 languages. And he hasn't graduated the 3rd grade! It is such a luxury we have to live in a culture that doesn't require us to speak different languages. For a person here, he grows up speaking one language (his mother tongue). Then he has to learn French just in order to get around town (perhaps not the town he lives in, but if he travels his own country at all he will need French). And then if he desires to be truly educated, even the local university stipulates that he needs to learn English. You see, we have it all. We have been blessed. And now we have a responsibility.

To give you an update on things that are happening here:
We have had formal language learning sessions the past two weeks with nationals and with one of the missionaries. This morning concluded those formal lessons (though language learning is always and all the time while we are here).
This weekend should be pretty relaxed. We have some board games to occupy or Saturday with (day of rest), and I believe I heard mention of a party on Sunday evening :)
Early this next week we are going out to live in a village (mud huts, grass roofs). I am so excited! I'm not sure what it looks like; but I do know that we will fetch our own water, we will get our own firewood, and we will bathe by way of bucket.
I have learned/been reminded of one very important truth as of recently... God is my strength. It is by Him that I am able to live life every day, and it is because of Him that I have come to this place. I was worried about missing my friends and family, but I have realized in a new light that God is the One who protects us all. And if that is true, and if He really does love His people, what can I worry about? I have trusted Him with my life, and so I trust Him just the same with my fiancée's life as she travels across the planet, and with my mother's life as she handles matters at home, and with my friends' lives as they live in Joplin (a city devastated about a month ago). He knows all things, and in all things He is good.

Well thanks for reading! I love you people :) if you would pray for one thing, I ask that it would be this - pray that God would bring about His will in this place. The people here deserve everything good that we have. Pray that the Lord will accomplish His work here.

I'll talk to you again soon! Awa, i ni ke! Ambe kofe.