Quick – the power’s on – write a blog entry!

We have been plagued over the past few months with frequent power cuts, but this weekend things have gone from bad to worse… I think we have been without power more than we have had it.  It is making us all very weary.  It’s difficult to sleep without fans, to do homework without the computer, and to keep the food from going bad without the refrigerator.  Also, the boys miss the Wii!    We know that once the cooler weather comes, the power cuts will go away almost completely – but that is still three months away.  (The weather begins to cool down around the middle of November.)  Please pray for us as we try and remain patient and kind with each other when we are so hot and uncomfortable.

I’m grabbing this “power on” moment to report on the picnic we hosted this past week for the officers of the English Club at the university.  Bill and Bruce and their colleagues have wanted to do this for some time, and finally we were able to arrange a date that worked for all of us.  In case you’re not familiar with the English Club – this is the group that Bill and Bruce discovered not long into the academic year began last fall.  There are around 8,000 students at the university who are enrolled in the English program there, and the English Club is a campus organization run by some of these students.  Throughout the year, the guys attended meetings and helped out in any way they could, establishing relationships with the club members as well as the professors that sponsor it.  They have been warmly welcomed and the club has thanked them repeatedly for their help.  One of the students even wrote a poem about the guys that was published in the school paper!  Here is an excerpt from that poem…

For You All

We just are grateful

Of you all.

Being with you had been fruitful

Our whole family, this way

Thank you their way

Words now mean much

More to us because we have never seen such

Good guys like you. ( Jéré nguènn Jèf) 

(Wolof for “thank you.”)

As I hear (Naka nguèèn dèff)

(Wolof for “I hear you.”)

I suddenly think of Geoff

As Bill burst into laugh

I feel joy surrounding my heart

You’ve given us a new start

I can read Bruce’s

Mind and say he is open-hearted

We just are grateful

To you. You deserve it after all

On the wall of my heart your pictures shall

Be stuck as long as I live.

- BASSIROU THIAM

Now that the university exams are finally over, the students are getting ready to return to their villages until December, when they will come back for new classes.  So we invited them to come to a picnic before they headed out of town.   Bill and Bruce and their colleagues wanted to tell the students how much they appreciated getting to know them, and how much they enjoyed working with them.  They also wanted to tell the officers that by the time they return for the new school year, that we hoped to have a place off campus where we would be hosting events for the students.

It happens to be Ramadan right now, which makes hosting a meal a bit difficult, but we worked with it.  12 out of the  13 student officers that attended were fasting, so we weren’t able to eat right away.  We picked them up and brought them here but started out by just hanging out in the side yard.  We all introduced ourselves – Julie and I had never met the students, and there is a new couple that we hope will be joining the university team that the students had yet to meet.  Sometime after 7 PM, when it was time to break the fast, we offered the traditional food used for that: dates, bread and coffee.  We also provided prayer mats, water, and head coverings for their ritual washing and prayer.  (I didn’t know we were going to need to provide head coverings for the women.  I don’t have any scarves, so as we looked quickly for something else that would work, we came up with tablecloths.  So Janice, if you read this, thanks again for the taupe/button tablecloth – it came in handy, along with one other!)

Once the fast was broken, Bill and Bruce got to work cooking the hamburgers.  We wanted to do an American style picnic, so along with the hamburgers we had chips, potato salad, baked beans, carrot sticks, and soda.  Later on in the evening we had a surprise dessert supplied by one of our colleagues – ice cream floats!  There isn’t any root beer in Senegal, so he used orange Fanta instead.  That made for an interesting concoction – kind of tasted like an orange creamsicle!

We all really enjoyed the students.  They were fun, friendly, and talkative.  Everything went very smoothly and they seemed to really enjoy themselves.  After dinner we all sat around in a big circle and talked.  Bruce did a great job explaining to the students why he and Bill and the others do what they do.  He told them that they not only loved the English language and working with university students, but that they loved God above all else.  He spoke about how it was important to them to help the students not only with their studies and their plans for the future – getting a good job, etc. – but with their relationship with God as well.  This was well-received by the students, who nodded their heads in agreement throughout his talk, and at the end asked if they could pray for us.

How glad we are that God has worked it out for us to work with these students and the group that they represent.  Please pray that they will have good vacations with their families, and for our friendship with them to grow.  Please also pray for the English Resource Center that is not yet in existence – that God will use it for His glory.  I’m attaching a few shots of the evening – the faces are blurry as a safety precaution.

PS – this blog entry was written in several sittings – due to – you guessed it – multiple power cuts!