Siesta

Hello everyone. I sincerely hope that you are doing as well as humanly possible. We are doing pretty well here. Today was our first full day as a two-part team. It was fine. I received an email from Travis today...although I believe he sent it last night...and I received another a little while ago. But, before I get to that, I will update you on our activities here in Northern Senegal. Today, we arose at about 8:30 or so. We had some donuts and chocolate and bread type pastries for breakfast. They were tasty. Soon after we ate, we had a closing worship time with the people from our mini-retreat. Then, we all left. As we left, we were planning on not coming back to the Grand Yoff Center during our stay in Senegal. We expected that we would be staying at the guest house in Ouakam once we return from Mbour and Sedhiou. However, our plans were changed slightly, and now, we will be returning to the Grand Yoff Center Guest House instead. This is a good thing, it is much bigger, and has much better facilities. We are quite happy to be returning to Grand Yoff. Anyways, back to our day.... Brea, Chelsea, Erin, Kesha, and I left the guest house with David, Cheryl, Papa, and the young boy from Malika. We first took him back...and then we continued on to Mbour. Papa is staying here with us for the week. We arrived in Mbour about 1:15 or so. Soon thereafter, we had tuna and/or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. After lunch, some of us watched the live video stream from First Baptist Church of Woodstock in Woodstock, GA. It was a very good service. The pastor spoke with authority and conviction. After the service was over...we napped. I don't really know why...but we were all quite exhausted. We napped for a good hour or two. We ended up starting dinner around 6:20. Between our naps and then...and between then and now...we've just been sitting around and reading...studying Wolof...checking email, etc.... It has been a very, very uneventul day. But, as Chelsea mentioned, it has been quite nice. We have been doing a lot since arriving here...it was good to just recouperate for a while. Tomorrow, Chelsea, Kesha, Papa, and I will head off to the Lehar villages (probably Terokh, where Papa and I went last year). Brea and Erin will go with David and Cheryl (or maybe just Cheryl) to Ngaparou. It is another village somewhere around here that they are hoping to start working in more regularly. Tuesday we will switch...Brea and Erin will accompany Papa and I, and Chelsea and Kesha will go with Cheryl. Wednesday and Thursday are kind of up in the air...depending on how the next couple of days go. Ok, now...about those crazy toubabs in Sedhiou. According to Travis' updates, they arrived in Ziguinchour yesterday with no problems. They flew down there in a twin propeller plane. The airport in Zig isn't even big enough for the jets. They actually had to get their luggage out of the plane before they walked off the runway. They were also scammed out of a few dollars by a man with their name...I'm assuming he had a sign or something...they believed him to be their driver...he was not. They paid him a couple of dollars and he ended up just carrying their bags about 20 feet. However, they did find their real driver without any additional problems. They then drove to Sedhiou in a 12 passenger van. It evidently took them 2 and 1/2 hours or so to drive there. I'm not completely sure how they are able to access the internet, but somehow, it has been possible on at least 2 occasions thus far. Yesterday, Rachel and Chris were not feeling very well. When I told David about this today as I was reading the update, he said that one-day sicknesses were very common here...especially among visitors. The most recent update tells us that they are feeling much better today. This morning they all attended a church service at the only existing Christian Mandyakou (which is evidently the more correct way to spell Mandyak) Church. Travis said that the service was great...but that it lasted over 2 hours. Evidently they had several people get up and share messages...which had to be translated from English into Mandinka (which is what they speak down there) and vice versa. At any rate, they seem to be doing very well down there and are excited about the rest of the week. Please continue to pray for us all as we really hit the ground running tomorrow. We will dive in to the Lehar and Travis' group will dive headfirst into the Mandyakou. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. Oh, and I will not be able to upload any pictures during our time in Mbour. There is no router here, so my laptop (where all of the pictures are located) is just a glorified jukebox. Maybe I will give a bonus serving of pictures with my first post once we return to Dakar...we will see. Ba beneen yoon.