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Kabiye Team News
April 6, 2000
Dear Family and Friends,
Hello to one and all! We pray that each of you are abiding in the
fullness of the love that God has for you and that you are noticing Him
in all things! These last two weeks have been good ones for us. We have
our final exams for the "premier" trimester starting Saturday and ending
Friday. We have been reviewing everything we've learned since we've been
here this last week and it has helped to solidify some things in our
minds that we didn't really understand or even catch the first time
around. (There are of course some things that still haven't planted
themselves in our long term memory, but we are told they will come
eventually so we have complete faith that this is so! :-))
I will try not to make this an email completely about Hannah although I
know some of you, especially some grandparents out there, wouldn't mind
an email devoted only to the daily happenings of Hannah Ruth. Hannah
really has had a growing time these past 2 weeks and I wanted to share
some tidbits with you. "Independence!" has been the silent cry pouring
forth from every ounce of Hannah's person these last two weeks. She is
enjoying her time in the school nursery more than ever and dives out of
our arms without even looking back on school mornings, anxious to play
with all of her friends. Even though she hasn't mastered the task of
crawling to this day, she has learned to "crawl" up onto one of the
chairs in our living room and even under the kitchen table to get
something she has dropped. Up to this point she has squatted and walked
under the table to get a lost object but couldn't repeat the same action
in a backwards motion and would cry out for help from us!
Her other "big girl" accomplishment is that she can walk all the way
home from school holding onto one of our hands and wants to climb every
one of the wooden stairs on our spiral staircase up to our third floor
apartment. She has so much energy she would do it three times in a row
if we would let her!! She didn't get to walk home from school today
because we had forgotten to bring her tennis shoes and she still had her
slippers on from the nursery and she threw a pretty angry fit the whole
walk home because she couldn't get down and walk. For all of you who
know her, she still has a very strong mind of her own! She also woke up
saying "bebe" (French for baby) yesterday with a better French accent
than David or I will ever have! We are so thankful that she is getting
the experience of being able to learn French and English at such a young
age when she will be completely without an accent! What a blessing to
grow up knowing 3 languages and what an opportunity she will have to be
able to spread the good news of Jesus in 3 different tongues! She is a
precious blessing in our lives and we thank God for her daily.
Our team is still in the process of discussing different logistical
preparations for our arrival in Togo in just 4 short months! We are
trying to find the cheapest way to get the few things we brought to
France on to Togo with us. We recently found out that on flights from
Europe to Togo one is only allowed one check-through bag and one
carry-on bag per person. Any extra bags we must pay big money for, so we
are looking into shipping our extra bags air cargo, which charges a
smaller price per kilogram. We are also discussing the process of
finding housing and vehicles upon our arrival in Togo and how that will
be done with 5 couples. Please pray for these logistics things as we
want to make Godly and Spirit-led decisions, not ones based solely on
our own desires and opinions. Also, please pray for David as he is
giving his first "devotional thought" in French this coming Tuesday
morning! I'm excited to hear him and know he will do well!
The only other interesting experience I can think to tell you all about
is our visit last week to a doctor in Chambery. (A town about an hour's
train ride from here.) To reside in France, one must have a legal
document called a "Carte de Sejour". We have temporary ones at the
moment but the last thing on a long list of government "must haves" is a
chest x-ray and a doctor's exam. For some reason, unbeknownst to us, (we
just do what they tell us to!), we had to go to Chambery to do all of
this. Our appointments were at 1:00 and 2:30 in the afternoon. Since
this is right in the middle of Hannah's nap time, we let her stay here
with her good friend Abby and her Mom and Dad. We were glad we made this
decision because it was a cold and rainy day and we spent a little bit
of time wandering around this strange city before we found where we were
supposed to go. Anyhow, we got our chest x-rays and then walked to the
other building where the doctor practiced who was to perform our
physical. The visit was over within 2 minutes. He asked us 10 questions
about our health and then gave us the "okay". We just shook our heads
wondering why we had traveled an hour by train for such an almost
non-existent doctor's visit. We did have a good time with our teammates
Bryan and Tracey and another nice couple we have met here at the
language school who will be missionaries in Lyon, France and we found
out that our lungs are healthy. Anyhow, it would be nice if all doctor's
visits were so nonchalant, eh? For those of you who speak a bit of
French I will leave you with a French expression that I learned this
week: "Ce n'est pas tes onions!" [suh-nay-pah-tays-own-yowns] :-)
(translated literally: "It's not your onions!" or by meaning: "It's none
of your business!") Whenever you get fed up with someone this week just
use this phrase and see how it works:-)
We love and pray for all of you and give God all praise and glory for
the blessing you are in our lives! We miss you!
In His Love,
David, Becky, and Hannah
Jude vs. 24, "To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present
you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-to the
only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."
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