You people are amazing, or rather, our God is amazing. Last week we asked you to pray that we would find an apartment after 2 months of searching. The very next evening the key to a 2-bedroom apartment was placed in our hands. This apartment is in the same building as 5 other ICA staff families, so we are looking forward to good times of fellowship.
Although we packed up our belongings Friday evening, we haven’t moved in yet since the very next day we were given a sudden opportunity to return to ICA, with French escort, to pack up a few more things as well as pack up the computer and network equipment for safer storage. I’m writing this e-mail from ICA. There are 10 of us here, and we are working hard! It seems that a lot of our (ICA) stuff has been ‘borrowed’, so some of our time has been spent looking all around campus for what belongs to us. Fortunately, we are all finding most of our things. Of course, smaller things of value that can easily be hidden in backpacks have grown legs and walked away.
It’s been special being here, not only to check out our houses, but also to see some of our workers again. Antoine and Bob have spent quite a lot of time together. They’re sitting out back talking now as I’m writing this update.
Our return trip to Dakar is scheduled for Sunday, but that will depend on when we can get a French escort out of Bouake. Just to get from ICA to the other side of Bouake involves about 20 stops at various checkpoints. Our 1 1/4 hour trip from Yamo to Bouake on Monday took about 4 hours because of all the checkpoints along the way – and that’s with a French escort! We won’t be taking much back with us because we are limited to 35 kilos each, and because we hope to return to ICA to minister in the future.
So, dear people of prayer, we ask you to pray for our safety. We believe the Lord has given us this ‘window of peace’ for our encouragement and to remind us that He cares about ICA and MK education in West Africa. We also ask you to pray for the peace talks that are going on in Paris this week. Progress is being made, but the parties are still very far from reaching an agreement. As you know, African countries are not known for settling things peacefully, but France is spending a lot of time and money on trying to bring about a peaceful resolution to this conflict.
Thanking you for your prayers.