First Term Updates – Cote d’Ivoire/Senegal

This past week has been uneventful as we continue settling in; we’re still in our ‘temporary’ housing and probably will be throughout November.  At that point we hope to move into an apartment building where 5 other staff families from ICA are living.  Dakar Academy is glad to get ‘control’ of this building as it is close to the school and will make excellent staff housing for next year.

Some have asked for our new e-mail address.  You can continue to use the same e-mail address, lgillespie@ica.ed.ci, or use the one on the bottom of our prayer card, bobnloisgillespie@hotmail.com.  We get your e-mails either way. 

Last week we asked you to pray about the need to move our car from where it was being stored in Abidjan.  We received news today that our ‘escape pod’ has been moved to another location.  We also asked you to pray that the UN would establish headquarters on our ICA campus in Bouake.  Six UN workers are living there now, although the main group has not relocated to ICA.  As the French will be leaving by the middle of December (they want to be home for Christmas), we would like to see these details worked out.  Please continue to pray for this.

Thanks again for your prayers.

Tonight Bob and I will have been here for one week, although it feels longer than that.  We’ve jumped right in; Bob is teaching his classes this week and I’m substituting for the computer teacher all week as she finishes last year’s yearbook.

We find that the house we’ve moved into is just temporary as the school wants to get rid of it – too noisy and dirty (being so close to the major highway).  All the car exhaust leaves black gritty dust everywhere. As Dakar Academy hasn’t been able to locate anything else yet, we’re not sure how long this ‘temporary’ housing will last.  We’ve decided to settle in anyhow since we don’t like living out of our rubbermaid containers.

A few of our ICA men were able to return to the ICA campus last week and found that our ‘stuff’ is still there.  Our ICA director is in the process of trying to get the UN people stationed in the Ivory Coast to move to our campus when the French leave (imminent).  This will continue the protection that the French have given our campus so far.  Please pray that this can be worked out.

We’ve also received news that we need to move our car from where it’s sitting in Abidjan.  That’s kind of difficult for us to manage from here; we’re trying to work through our field director and people who are still in Abidjan to accomplish this.  Please pray that we find another safe place for our ‘escape pod’.

We thank you for your prayers and value them even more now that we’ve seen what you can accomplish at the throne.  We’ll be thinking of you tonight.

We arrived in Dakar last night around 9:30 after a relatively uneventful trip. Our only complications involved the Cleveland airport: we had to repack some of our luggage at the airport; they were insisting that Senegal required us to buy a return trip ticket to prove we could financially leave the country; we had to make a mad dash across the Chicago airport to make our Paris connection since we were 1 1/2 late out of Cleveland – they were closing the doors as we arrived.  From that point on, we had a smooth trip. Arriving in Dakar was a pleasant experience (compared to Abidjan) as all 5 bags arrived and no one searched our bags!

Our new house is also rather a pleasant surprise.  It’s supposedly the one no one wants to live in since it’s so close to the ‘highway’ – nothing separates us but a wall, so it tends to be rather noisy.  But it’s twice the size of our little house at ICA and was more furnished than we expected.  We will have another ICAer (a sweet single lady) living with us who arrives tonight.  We don’t see any problems with this, other than the lack of privacy; but as she is 25+, it’ll be like having Gina back home.  We spent some time unpacking last night and, in spite of the noise, we slept great!

Today, we’re just ‘hanging out’, getting familiar with the school and reuniting with the ICA staff and students who are here.  Bob actually had one student tell him she really missed him in science class since her new teacher is weird (meaning Bob wasn’t?) – he’ll mark this day down.

Getting connected to the internet was easier than I expected it to be; in fact, I think that my responsibilities will be a lot lighter than at ICA. They will definitely be different, and I’m OK with that.  Bob will probably be teaching 2 Bible classes and 2 science classes, a class load he is happy with. Tomorrow we will be running around some with my co-worker so we can ‘learn the ropes’ a bit.  Our fellow-ICAers are saying they will never drive in Dakar (these are people who drive all over Abidjan), so I guess we’re in for an experience – again.  We officially start with our responsibilities on Monday.

You can reach us at the same e-mail address as before; we’ll let you know if and when that changes. Thanks for all your love and care of us while we were home.  We’re really proud of our family and feel like we’re not in this alone, but that all of you are a part of what we’re doing.  That’s a pretty special feeling.