Meeting Recap & New Neighbors

(view from our hotel window in Dakar)

Sorry for the longer than usual silence on the blog. We have returned from our meeting in Senegal and are slowly trying to transition from the chaos of meetings back into "normal" life.

It was a busy week! We had some fun times:
- ropes course on baobab trees
- Guesstures and other silly games
- make-your-own-ice-cream-sundae night
- visits with old and new friends
- bonding times with young MKs (missionary kids)
- freebies! (Oreos, candy, jump drives, T-shirts, and other goodies donated by our very generous volunteer team)
- silly hat day
- talent show
- words of wisdom and encouragement from experienced missionaries who have walked this path much longer than we have
- meaningful prayer times with teammates

There were also some busy times:
- meeting with other teams to discuss websites, training materials, and other resources our media team can help develop
- leading sessions on "maintaining margin" and child safety
- finishing up the student recruitment brochure (praise God, it's finished!)
- recording as many video interviews as we could, to capture prayer requests and testimonies of God at work around the region

Glad to Be Home ... But Still Pretty Busy
We are glad to be back home in Abidjan! We are both fighting pretty vicious colds (due to a combination of exhaustion and hotel air conditioning), so we're trying to rest as much as possible this week. But we still have a lot of work to do -- this week we've got to help develop a website to accompany the student recruitment brochure -- so we'd appreciate prayers for continued energy and wisdom!

New Neighbors!
We also have fun news: our mission family in Abidjan is growing! Our friends Greg, Laura, and baby Noah, who we met in Niger in January, have moved to our city. They'll be heading up this new student mobilization project. We are very excited to have them here. Deron is especially happy to have some guys around, since for the past year he's mostly had to hang out with women-folk. He's happy to have some men around for Playstation2 and other manly bonding activities.