Fall in Chad

Happy fall to one and all! No really, it is fall here too. Certain types of trees are losing all their leaves slowly, so as we walk down the road there are piles of leaves, some burned partially and others not. It is almost like home, except we don’t get the blazing colors. The leaves might turn yellow before brown but that is about all the color we get.  Along with fall comes a slightly cooler temperature, though on humid days it is still quite warm (by cooler I mean around 80 degrees). Recently however, I have had no electricity in my room, making sleeping slightly difficult since I don’t have my fan keeping me cool. Luckily the main house has only part of the electricity out, so the refrigerator can still be plugged in, and the lights are working. We think that maybe the power shortage may be caused by the piles of dirt that are being dumped on our street. They don’t exactly look before they dump. Poor Simba (the dog) goes out the gate to do his business (quite the handy routine), but due to the loud trucks and dumping of sand, he becomes quite frightened.

Papaya season has started! We have lots of papaya trees in our compound and have been eating a slice of papaya about twice a day. A breakfast of homemade yogurt and papaya is the perfect way to get the day rolling.

This past Sunday we went to the park that is a block away to play with the kids. We brought a whiffle ball and bat, rugby (foot ball), and a football (soccer ball). We started playing for just a few minutes and more and more neighborhood kids appeared to watch. Then we started to get them to play as well. I spent the afternoon pitching the whiffle ball for kids to try and hit. Some of the kids were hitting the ball quite far.  It was fun to just watch them make contact, especially the littlest kids.  It was a lot of fun though quite warm.

So here is a little bit about the ministry that is happening here in Sarh. Moses, when asked, preaches at different churches in the area.  The YWAM group is in the process of making bricks to build a new campus on which they will be able to run their discipleship schools.  Eventually there will be places for students to live, classrooms, offices, and a place for employees to live. They are hoping that by next year they will have the buildings necessary to run a discipleship school. There are also teams of people who have gone through the YWAM program who are going out to share the gospel at surrounding villages.

Another ministry in town, aside from YWAM and the Baptist mission that has a pharmacy, is a home for girls who they are helping to escape from villages. The girls are escaping the ritual circumcision that is quite common. The girls are taken care of here, are able to get an education, are taught about the Christian faith, and they are one of the choirs that performs at one of the local churches. This is a ministry run by Chadians. It is not easy to be in charge of a house full of teenage girls, however it is an important task. There is quite a lot happening here in little Sarh.

Book update (sorry I forgot last week) Poisonwood Bible, Little Pear, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and Hatchet. I am trying to get a nice mixture of adult literature (which is sort of depressing in some places) and good old children’s literature, which there is a lot of in this house.  Night Walkers, Mountain Born, Understood Betsy.

On a different note, I will no longer be able to enjoy the singing of crickets. Yesterday I awoke to an invasion of crickets (not little ones but the average is an inch long). Basically my shower was alive with a big black moving blob. I decided to skip brushing my teeth until after breakfast and went and got Zack to assist me in disposing of them. He and I killed a total of 24 crickets throughout the day in my house. That was simply the number in my bedroom and bathroom. An estimation of cricket deaths in the main house was over 50. It was quite the adventure!  Luckily my electricity was on so I could see where I was stepping.