First Term Updates – Cote d’Ivoire/Senegal

We’ve been so busy, I didn’t realize it was Wednesday already, so this will be a hurried note.

We’ve been out of school for 2 1/2 weeks, and school starts again in 2 1/2 weeks – not much of a summer vacation. Since most people are still trying to accomplish the same things they do in other summer breaks which have been longer, we’re really feeling the crunch. In addition, we had quite a number of short-term staff leave this year, so there’s less people to accomplish the work.

But, we get to have fun next week when Gina and Brian are here with us. Please pray for their safety as they fly out, and our safety as we travel 4 hours to Abidjan to pick them up. They will be with us for 2 weeks.

Also please continue to pray for teachers for this coming year – needed in just 2 1/2 weeks. We especially need elementary teachers. If you know of anyone considering a short-term missionary teaching assignment but hesitating only because of raising the support, please have them contact us discoverica@ica.ed.ci. ICA has some funds available to work with to help bring out short-term teachers.

Thank you for praying for us.

It seems that the elections here in Cote d’Ivoire were conducted peacefully on Sunday, and no demonstrations of a violent nature followed the results. It’s possible that the readiness of the military helped to keep things calm. We believe God used your prayers to move the hearts of men.

One thing we here at ICA have noticed is the affect of current world politics on the value of our American dollar – we’re sure you’re noticing it, too!. Within the past month, we’re getting about 8.5% less on the dollar than previously (about 14.6% less since we arrived last July). We thank God that because of our faithful supporters, we’re not really noticing the crunch yet. But it is possible that other missionaries in other places are facing the same thing or even worse. We’re mentioning it so you can remember this area of concern for all of us.

Other than our efforts to accomplish ‘projects’ while the students are gone, this is a beautiful, peaceful time of year. The campus is green with cooler breezes on most days. We are reminded again of how much we love it here even though we miss so much about America – mainly our family and friends. We’re thankful for this peace from God, even when our hearts long to see some of you. (Our daughter and her husband will be here in 11 days – yeah!)

Thank you so much for your prayers this past weekend and for the encouraging e- mails you sent our way.

…the students – and now teachers get a break, right? Wrong! We have just 5 short weeks until school starts again since we are making the transition from the trimester to the semester system this year. It gives us very little time to complete all our projects for the coming school year.

But we have help on the way! Our daughter Gina and her husband Brian will be here in just 2 1/2 weeks, and we have plans for them – at least for the first week. After that, we’ll take a break and show them some of Cote d’Ivoire.

Bob is fixing up his classroom, painting it and building a science lab cabinet. He hopes to add a sink to this cabinet if the money from a gift we received will go that far. He wants to be able to do more experiments etc. in middle school science next year. 

My work doesn’t change, although I am trying to inventory all the campus computers so I can make plans for the future. I want to make sure that teachers who really use the computers have the best ones. Some of our old ones can be used in places where all they do is e-mail. As well as a few improvements to our servers, those are
my summer plans.

This Sunday, July 7th, is election day again in Cote d’Ivoire. One of the candidates is the same candidate whose supporters caused so much disruption twice before when he didn’t win. Please pray for a peaceful election, regardless of who wins. Just last week, some of his followers burned a village market not far from here, killing 15 people. The military is already beginning to make itself felt around town, which is not always an improvement. Just remember us in your prayers as you always do.