Sunday, April 29, 2007
More of Our Favorite People...
The last posting was the Gombo family...meet Eustache, Mamie and Steven Ilunga... Are you wondering what they have in common? Eustache was one of the Assitants to the President when we arrived in DR Congo... and he was the best we could ever imagine... supportive patient, and totally dependable. Papy Gombo was one of the Assistants when we left...we love them both. Eustache stayed on at the Mission office when his mission was finished...and was such a wonderful resource man, driver, and was willing to do anything that we needed from him. He is still easing each new Mission President into their new responsibilities , we hope. We feel certain that he is a great husband and father... but we suspect that maybe Steven is the boss!!!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Another of our African Missionary Families
This Is Papy Gombo and his family. He was one of our very fine missionaries in the DR Congo. With him is his wife Maureen (who served a mission in South Africa) and their two beautiful little girls named Chelsea...age 3 and her little sister, Charne, who is 16 months of age.They live in Johannesburg South Africa. Papy went to South Africa for university...and found much more!!! He is also very fluent in English now...we would love to be closer...so we could parlez un peu en Anglais !!!.jpg)
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FLAT TIFFANI CAME TO VISIT
How excited we were to open a big brown envelope and discover that our Grand-daughter - Tiffani had come to visit Grandpa and Grandma here in Tema. The project is one that the Grade 2 class at Boise Idaho do each year to let the students learn more about other areas of the world. They lay down and someone traces all around them, then they add a little "personality and details" and send them off to visit some one far away. I'm not sure whether Tiff won the prize for having travelled the fartherest, but she did make some goo friends while she was here. Here she is having a meal with two of our Sister Missionaries - Grandma told her she'd have to learn to like rice and beans and fufu - and eat it with her hands instead of forks. She was lucky she had hit a day when the menu was cole slaw, fries and fish.
She also became good friends with Vero - another Grade two student here in Tema, Ghana. She is the younger sister to Sister Mensah and just happened to stop in one afternoon to deliver a package to Sister Mensah, along with her mother - so she and Flat Tiff were able to play all afternoon and Tiff learned some new African games. There sure is a difference in the two girls - blonde hair and long, compared to dark hair - braided - but that didn't make any difference at all - they had a good time (and so did Grandpa and Grandma as they took her to many places and sent pictures and the story back home to Tiff to show in her class.
April 13 Arrivals - Another Group, Another Blessing!
Eighteen missionaries - but not all arrived on time (which is not unusual - one was delayed going through Ethiopia - Airlines didn't dare land in Addis-Ababa on the scheduled day) - the other was one of our 3 Tongans who somehow missed his plane and was delayed two days. Once he got here we actually had four out of the eighteen that were Tongans (Elder Maumau has moved to New Zealand, but is still proud to be Tongan). The definitely added a little different flavor to the group as their ways, habits and language are not the same as west Africans. As well coming in from the area outside West Africa we had one from Uganda, Then our West Africans were from Nigeria and Ghana. The group is highlighted by the second visit of Sister Mensah (seated next to Sister Nielson) who came last fall to help us with just one English speaking sister so she'd have a companion. As it happens, she came one group early this time also to help us with exactly the same problem, but this time as a full time missionary and not a fill in. Sister Nielson was so unhappy that she had to wait so long for her call - she thought the papers had been lost, displaced, etc...., but as it turned out, she didn't turn 21 until about two weeks ago. Monday, April 16, 2007
A MEAL ON "WHEELS"
The other morning I went out to put the volley ball poles back up - the ward always takes them down for their Saturday morning football fun, so as I was out by our generator the one guard and two other brothers (I guess, I didn't know them) we peeking through the fence at the generator obviously excited about something they had seen in the enclosure. They told me there was a xxxxxxx and I didn't understand the word - it was probably in Twi, but I could understand their intent - they needed to hunt the lizard out - said it looked like he had crawled into the generator - could they have a key to get into the compound. Well, we had an exciting chase - you can tell it might be a distant cousin of a crocodile, but without the large snout. He was about 3 and 1/2 feet long - and moved pretty fast when he decided he was going to move. Not sure where he came from because our compound is entirely walled in - perhaps up and through some of the storm sewers we have for drainage - Barb had seen him or his brother earlier in the year - time she got her camera it was gone, but this one won't be wondering where he shouldn't be again - we had three very happy men because this represent a meal with meat for them - and they were very very excited to have caught it.Our productive Pal
This is about as close as we can get to our constant friend - but we don't know what to call it - but when we arrived, he lived in one of the ventilation shafts and on warm days would go for a walk on the warm pavement blocks - we'd try for a picture, but the minute he saw movement anywhere he would take off for safe quarters - however, we now have living in the vegetation you see in the picture about four of these critters - this one probably is not the original, but we haven't been able to catch them and tag their ears, but it isn't a warm walk they are taking any more, there are dozens or young females - not at all colorful, but obviously attractive to these males, and we many have a regular lizard colony here time we leave to come home. I thought Amber and Carolyn both would be interested in this lizard - he is probably about a foot long, and does change hues slightly when in shade and sun.March 23 group
They came with only a two day break between sessions, but how very welcome they were. Our large groups are great, but you just don't get to know them well - so when these 20 came, they were a welcome relief from the overwhelming 37 of the previous group. Three firsts were evident with this group: 1) We had the first sister coming from Tongo while we have been here - Sister Fakatou - she will be serving in the Cape Coast Mission (along with the other three sisters in this group. 2) This is the first missionary we've had who will be returning to serve in his home country of Madagascar - he came here because he will be teaching to the French speaking population - he is the first, but a sister will be coming with the next french group for the same purpose. 3) This is the group that helped us start our 19 day program - they were very cooperative and obedient, and we even threatened once to keep them full time here rather than take our chances on future groups who may not be as great as they are. Countries represented in this group are Madagascar, Tonga, South Africa, Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria. One little challenge we faced was the sending of the missionaries going to Port Harcourt - due to political and election unrest, we sent two missionaries at a time - needing four days to send all seven - it was a very different farewell devotional with a third of our missionaries already gone - hopefully that won't be necessary too often.