Interesting Times…

That’s the best way I know to describe the past few weeks…”interesting.”  Lots of things have happened in the past few week.  After the River Oak/Missouri Medical Team left, we had exactly one day to prepare for the next adventure in our lives.  What was that adventure?  Teresa and the girls headed to Kenya for a homeschool conference.  They were able to connect with friends from the past, as well as make a few new ones.  Folks at the conference assessed where are girls are educationally…some by testing, some by writing, and some by observing.  The girls did very well!  What did I do while they were gone? I took a few days vacation and went hunting.  SInce I have not posted any pictures, you can gues that I did not kill anything on this trip.  It was a nice 4 days in the South African bush anyway, though.  The sky was beautiful at night, and evey morning and evening I could hear lions raoring in the distance. I did see things to shoot, but passed them up…always looking for something that did not come.

What else has been happening?  When Teresa returned with the girls from the conference, we got a call from the wife of one of the pastors.  Bees had taken up residence in their wall, and had gotten into the house, stinging the kids and the adults.  Missionaries to the rescue!  I put on all my Goretex raingear, my big gloves, and a couple of face masks, armed myself with 3 cans of Doom, and went to work.  It took a while, but by dark I think I got them all.  Hopefully I got the queen, and that should take care of the problem.  By the way, all of you who just laughed at what I put on….I did not get stung…not even once!

Teresa then returned to Kenya for a Community Transformation Conference…kind of how to use medical stuff to enhance your ministry.  While she was there, I tried to catch the girls up on homeschool.  When she returned, we spent a couple of days in Johannesburg, catching up with some old friends from a previous church who now serve in a different country.  I actually baptized both of them many years ago before they were married.

We returned to the mountains to rain, which has had some adverse affect on our ministries this year. the rain has been good, but it has caused us some “issues” this year.  We have, however seen the Lord give a harvest.  We had 2 more commit their lives to Christ this month, in very limited time in the villages.  I was back in the village today, where Rebekah shared the story of the woman at the well meeting Jesus.  I taught from the story following her sharing of the story.  I came home and was preparing some end of the month paperwork, when Teresa yelled at me.  She said the dogs were after something.  After a little inspection I found a snake in between 2 pieces of tin that lines the base of the fence around out house.  After “a little coaxing,” I got it to come out and killed it.  It was a puff adder…you can Google it…or see it here, but this one is dead.

All in all, a pretty good month: 2 salvations, dealing with African bees and not getting stung, and dealing with a puff adder, and not getting bitten.  God is good!

Until ALL have heard, Jim