Thank you for your prayers on our behalf. We don’t want to get too excited, but it looks like we may have our container by the first of next week – in time for our 25th anniversary! The latest news this morning was that they will have a final money figure for us tomorrow, and once that is paid they will release our container (it’s been in dock since August 7) to be loaded on the truck Monday and started on its way to Bouake. Please pray that this does happen, and that the money figure they give to us isn’t outrageous. We’ve already been told that the required % of estimated value to be paid has again risen from 2% (it was 1%) to 7% just this week!

We also have a very promising offer on our house, and our son David will be working with our realtor to hopefully process this sale within the next couple of weeks. Also pray that this will go through, or that God will provide another buyer.

Retailers use a term called “just-in-time” inventory, meaning that they sell their merchandise as soon as it comes in – just in time to sell. We feel e-mail has given us the privilege of having “just-in-time” prayer support, and we are delighted to keep you posted in this way. Maybe by our next update, we will be able to share that God has answered your prayers, and that our container has arrived here in Bouake.

Things certainly have picked up around here now that school actually started today. For me, there’s the setting up and assignment of 200 accounts and passwords for e-mail use. And then there’s user support for all those who can’t figure it out, or whose stuff just doesn’t work. (And there’s far too much of that!) I’m also monitoring 2 classes as they take Online Courses from Northstar Academy, an ACSI-accredited online high school. These students are taking courses that we don’t presently have the teachers to teach. Bob had his first class in 6, 7, 8 Science and 7, 8 History. He even gave homework on the first day! Since most all the other teachers did too, he wasn’t the only ogre.

It looks like Bob will be going to Abidjan tomorrow to try and work out the final details for the delivery of our container. The business manager from the school is also going to start the paperwork for the school’s container which should be in port soon. Since he’s done this many times before, we have high hopes that we’ll actually accomplish something. 

Please pray that God will go before us and work for the release of our container. 

We received a very special visit from Jim and Rosie Johnson the other day. It made us feel a little more welcome to have someone we actually know from the states stop in to see us. They’ve invited us to spend part of the 6-week Christmas holidays with them at their station about 5 hours from here. I’m sure at Christmastime we’ll be glad for something to take our minds away from the fact that we’re not with family, although Dave and his cousin Ryan may be coming out in December. With the Johnsons were the Abernethys, missionaries here in Bouake who are supported by Gina and Brian’s church in Mount Vernon. What a small world we live in! They have 2 daughters here at the school. We had dinner with them Saturday night and will probably be attending their English-speaking service from time to time. 

Thanks for your prayers on our behalf. We’ll try to make this Wednesday update a regular happening for those of you with e-mail.

As we start Staff Orientation today, the yellow flag of caution is flying outside the main office here at ICA. In addition to today being a national holiday so that workers are idle, the US Embassy has asked that all Americans stay at home until the response to a TV broadcast last night can be known. The broadcast was very critical of both the past government officials and the present government and showed graphic details about the massacres of last October. Most here are not even sure how the broadcast got past the censors to be put on TV.

Being in a country where from day to day, we don’t know the political and/or social climate makes us appreciate America all the more. But we don’t feel threatened or ready to come home. We are where we’ve wanted to be for a long time in spite of all those we’ve left behind.

The two families involved in last weeks hostage and robbery situation, Thompsons and Niehlsons, are letting God heal their hearts and give them peace. Amy Niehlson, the hostage, was to have spoken this morning during our devotion time, but followed the embassy order to stay home in Bouake. She called and shared verses from II Cor. 1:21 and I Cor. 2:5, and how that in the midst of evil men where at times her continued life was questionable, she remembered the verses she had been planning to share. She said the time was almost sacred and that God has used it in her life to draw her closer to him.

We’re on the front lines where the missionary stories are happening to people we know and work with. It certainly changes one’s prayer life!