Dave in Chad, Rachael has some time on her hands

Dave has gone to Chad to get our team leader and his family who've just come back from a short visit to the US. That's kind of a simple way of putting it. But we are glad they are coming back and excited to see them again.

In the mean time Ben and I are staying at the hospital compound so we won't be out in the village all by ourselves. we might stay out there is we had a car, but we don't, and therefore its best to be near other people. Especially since I've been having a lot of dizzy spells and tiredness lately. Ive had everything you could check checked. My Blood pressure is normal, My blood sugar is normal, I was checked for malaria yesterday. I'm not dehydrated. I just get so tired I have to lay down and can't get up to do anything or else I see spots or my head spins around. Last night I started to feel better when the air cooled down. I was doing great today until the air heated back up, at about 7:30:)

So here we are. Ben is playing with the compound's kitchen set and putting couch protectors over his head, pretending he is wearing a head covering like I do. Its hot but thankfully we have the fans and cold water. About a week ago the electricity went out for four days and we didn't have fans or cold water. It was a very hard time for me. I admit I could have handled the situation better. But I learned a lot, including to decide to have a good attitude when things like that happen, because you have to DECIDE to have a good attitude. You aren't going to just have one. Its too crummy of a situation:)

Here is a video of Ben helping with dinner. its kind of long but worth it. If you would like to see a video of him in the car on the way down to Cameroon check out Margit Moody's blog. the link is on the left side of my page.

living in Cameroon

So, its been a long time again since i've written on here. I moved to Cameroon. A country right next to Chad. We are just four hours south of Chad's capital, N'djamena. So far so good! I feel quite blessed actually. There is a hospital mission here in this village called Meskine. They are renting our team houses until we can get into Chad. The houses are great and much better than anything we could have hoped for (in my opinion). Plus the hospital "people" arranged for us to have house help when we arrived. With out the house help this would have been a totally dificult transition, so I can't complain.

Ben helping our house helper with the

laundry.

There is still a lot of work to do of course. I bake all the bread we eat. There isn't a lot of food avalible here in the village so we have to go to a near by larger city for it. When we go there its kind of a stressfull setting. You go through stands in 100 + degrees, hoping to find what you are looking for. With a slightly stressful situation like that its not suprising that in the three weeks we've been here we've had to keep going back. I feel like I've got a ton of stuff when we leave, but turns out thats just because it felt like a ton of stuff. Really I only had like three meals worth! I'm getting better at it though. I also don't have a concept of how much I need of certain things. turns out that when you make everything from scratch you go through a lot more salt, sugar, flour and oil than normal. I think I've gone through a gallon of oil in the last three weeks. In France I went through a gallon of oil a year, maybe less. I never realized you had to use it in bread, in your bread pan, to cook all your veggies, for meat (since the meat dosn't really have much fat in it) etc.

I'll attach a couple picts and call this good. I hope I can come up with something a little more interesting for my next blog! sorry everyone. I think that stress is hampering my creativity!

Ben playing with the kids who share the same yard as us.

for the staff at 1300

I know that there is an office full of people who wait to see Ben do fun stuff. So this post is for you.

When my mom came to visit in February we went to Lyon for the day. One of our favorite things to do in Lyon is eat at Subway because we don't have one in Chambery. After finishing his supper Ben tried to run it off in La Place de Terraux.

Since the last time

It's been a good while since the last time I wrote on this blog. For anyone who reads this on a regular basis I'm really sorry. To bring you up to date, this is what's happened since February...



I went to school full time in January and part of February. I was supposed to be in school only until the end of the second week of February, but a coup in Chad changed that a little bit. Yes, there was a coup d'etat in Chad, and our team mates, the McKenzies, were evacuated from the capital. After they came back to France our area leader came for a week to discuss the future with us. Once that was over I went back to school for a week and then took a french test. I'm happy to report I passed my test and I finished school with a B2. I know that means almost nothing to most people, sorry. The important thing is that it was my goal and I reached it.



If you'd like to learn more about what happened to the Mckenzies in Chad you should check out Steve and Kirsen's blogs.

Now what? well now we wait. Originally we planed to leave for Chad at the end of March, but we are still here and are not in the process of packing. Right now we are waiting to hear from our leadership to see if we can move into Chad. As that looks less and less likely we are wondering what the other options might be. Our apartment has been promised to another couple coming to learn French, and so we will be leaving here soon. We don't know where we are going however. It could be the States, it could be Cameroon and it could be Chad.

We've been in a lot of up in the air situations, but I've never been in a situation like this before. I know that any day we are going to move, and we don't know where too. This is very strange. But I have a great sence of peace about it. That could be because of all the times we've moved, and all the times we've moved with uncertainty. Its becoming more and more normal to me.

If You want me to--a new year

Most days its cloudy in Chambery...like today. On a cloudy day you can walk around and see little bitty mountains. But when the sun comes out you can see the big ones. The "White Beauties," as Dave calls them. I was out today trying to clear my head. For me the best way to clear my head is to stick head phones in my ears and blast something good from the ipod, mp3 player, or whatever I happen to have with me. I was sitting under an overhang on our building because it was raining, and I was listening to some new music. After a half hour or so I thought to walk around and find some pretty mountains instead of looking at the ugly cheep apartment building that faces mine.

I headed to the river and walked towards town. When I crossed a bridge and turned back towards home I was facing one of our snow capped foot hills. Funny how its big but small at the same time. I think life is mainly filled with cloudy days--or years as the case might be. I don't mean in the traditional sense of clouds--depression, sadness, etc. I mean cloudy days that keep us from seeing the big mountains. (the big mountains are the Swiss Alps by the way).

For me life seems to continue to be broken up into sections like it was when I was in school. There was elementary school, then junior high, then high school (oh the horror), and then college. But after college came four years of growing. wow, it went fast. Lord please let it be over. For the last four years I've been in the clouds.

Four years ago this week, or maybe next, I said good bye to the life I had, and started to get ready for the life that I was going to have. I didn't know that at the time of course. I though I'd arrived at the big adventure, moving to Amman, Jordan. WRONG.

My parents and brother and sister brought me to Detroit, the international terminal. We passed men on prayer rugs in the corner of the terminal praying towards Mecca and mobs of women dressed in black from head to toe. I checked in. They came with me to the bottom of an escalator that they couldn't come up because they weren't passengers. I got on the escalator, turned around, and watched them get smaller and smaller as I was carried up to security. It was dramatic to say the least. And the fact that my plane was delayed and I went back down a half hour later really ruined the climax of my departure. (they didn't leave till I took off, Detroit is kind of far away from Grand Rapids if the plane was canceled and I had to go back home).

The next six months were probably the most difficult I'd had up to that point. Its all well recorded in the e-mails my mom printed off and put in a binder. But I'll never read them...especially since I married someone I'm not sure I thought much of at that time. Who knows what kind of terrible things I might have said! Things got better, and I learned to follow God without knowing where we were going. I started dating David Carter--and was pretty sure I was going to marry him after praying very seriously that God would lead me to break up with this man who being in a relationship with made me very vulnerable and nervous. (its scary to date in the middle east without your friends or family to comfort you in the event of a break up). But God didn't lead me to break up with him. So there you have it. logically I married him. I also fell in love with him. And since Dave is the type of person who likes to be really sure of something before he moves on it--once he decided he was going to marry me, things went very fast. One day we were walking around after a weekly dinner together (dating in the middle east is difficult. we didn't see each other much. the first time we were ever alone together was about four weeks before we were engaged.) and he told me he loved me. we moved back to the states about a month later, and he proposed a month after that.

I went back to the states, found a job as an assistant in a law office (how strange is that), surprise! got pregnant, had a baby, moved to France (with a two month old baby--good thing I can't have a redo on that move), learned french. Listing the events hardly does justice to the vitess of the roller coaster. At times I could hardly breath. And now? Now here we are at the real thing. we are looking at bags and scrambling for visas--we are moving to Chad. This is the real adventure. I hope.

So what is the break? what makes this section of my life a new begining instead of just a continuation of what was before?

I had a "theme song" of sorts before I left..Ginny Owens, "If you want me to"

The path way is broken and the signs are unclear
and I don't know the reason why you brought me here
but just because you love me the way that you do
I'm going to walk through the valley if you want me to

cuz I'm not who I was when I took my first step
and I'm clinging to the promise, you're not through with me yet
so if all of these trials bring me closer to you
I will go through the fire if you want me to.

It might not be the way I would have chosen
when you lead me through a world that's not my home
but you never said it would be easy
you only said I'd never go alone

so when the whole world turns against me
and I'm all by my self
and I can't hear you answer my cries for help
I will remember the suffering your love put you through
and I will go through the valley if you want me to.

I was so willing to do anything--no matter how dangerous it might be. Now I find myself saying, all the time, that the dangers wouldn't bother me if it was just me. Four years ago I had nothing. Now I have everything. I have a wonderful husband, and a great son. I've lost my willingness to go through the valley. I'm at step 4587 out of 1,000,001 of learning to follow God when we don't know where we are going: give him everything that is precious, since its his anyway--and keep moving.

I have always been good at being alone. my worst qualities include not opening up to others (I dont really think I have anything to say most of the time) and not working well with others (i don't like to "run things by" other people. I'd much rather just do what I think is a good thing to do). But now I find myself needing the people around me, and putting them dangerously close to the head of my list of priorities.

I've got a new theme song, although I reserve the right to change it by the end of 2008.

How many roads did I travel
Before I walked down one that led me to You?
How many dream did unravel
Before I believed in a hope that was true?
How long? How far?
What was meant to fulfill only emptied me still
And all You ever wanted…
Only me on my knees
Singing holy, holy
And somehow
All that matters now is
You are holy, holy
How many deaths did I die
Before I was awakened to new life again?
How many half truths did bear witness to
‘Til the proof was disproved in the end?
How long? How far?
What was meant to illuminate shadowed me still
And all You ever wanted…

Its a great one to blast in your head phones.

Christmas! Its over

Wow it has been awhile since even I have looked at this blog. Christmas slowed me down a bit, but now that the main festivities are over I should write a little about what has happened in the recent past.

I did a lot of "traditions" this year. And since I have a one and a half year old, and no dish washer, and I'm a full time student--I was tired at the end. I felt motivated to do and make everything Christmas-y that I could think of because I don't know if we will be in Chad or where next Christmas, or the Christmas after that, or the Christmas after that. It could be a long time before I have jello (for Christmas jello and jigglers shaped like pine trees) and Crisco (for the special icing on my mom's traditional advent cake) or candles (again for the advent cake and also the advent wreath) or brown sugar and powdered sugar (for the whole made cinnamon roles that are now "traditionally" Dave's Birthday cake on Christmas morning, because his birthday is on the 25th), or chocolate and peanut butter (for my mom's famous holiday cookies), or cream cheese and crab (for my Aunt's crab dip).

It wasn't so bad, it just took a long time. and of course Ben added to the excitement. After my 4th failed attempt to make these cinnamon roles for Dave (I am new with yeast baking) Dave had to take Ben outside to play so I could try one last time. The ended up at the laundromat watching someones clothes dry. Fascinating field trip. I finally figured out that the reason my bread wouldn't rise was because our house was too cold. (don't worry--our house is not that cold. I just have picky bread I guess). So I stuck the dough in the oven after I baked something and that stuff rose triple! Then I burnt the edges on Christmas morning. But Dave didn't seem to mind.

Thanks to a couple of you, who sent me sociable crackers and wheat thins, we had something to eat the crab dip with. I was attempting to make my own crackers when Ben reached up onto the counter (he has recently gotten tall enough to grab almost anything he wants, and since I let him play with my measuring cups sometimes he thinks they are his) and pulled a cup of beat eggs onto himself. --Suddenly making crackers included a bath and change of close, moping the floor. and then finally rolling out the dough and cutting out little crackers. I think its understandable that I forgot to "prick" the crackers all over, and then therefore ended up with little star shaped biscuits instead of crackers. Again, thanks Andrea and Mom. I love store bought crackers!

I mentioned earlier that we don't know where we will be in the Christmases to come. I think I ought to explain that for anyone who might be confused. Because of having children (which no one can plan) and visas, we don't know exactly when we will arrive in Chad or when we will leave. I'm not totally up to date on the situation but I do know that we are waiting to find out when we will be able to enter the country. We thought we knew how we were going to get out visa, but (something normal for all missionaries) we don't know anymore. So within the next few weeks we should find out. I'm pretty comfortable with not knowing. I figure that we will get there--sooner or later. Those who are dealing with the problem might not be quite as at ease with it as I am however, and I'm sure they would love your prayers--for wisdom, and for God to keep Satan's hand from preventing us to enter the country.

I suppose I feel relaxed about the visa problem because I like to focus my energy on other problems. Like, for example, the fact that Dave keeps running out of socks before I do the laundry. This is a big problem, for him, for me, and for all those people in the room when he takes his shoes off. Another one of my major problems is that, lately, I can't seem to remember to make sure I know what we are going to eat in time to produce it before 7:30pm. You can pray for me too.

Eating Snow

I posted these picts awhile ago, because I didn't have time to add an explination. Now I'm on Christmas break from school and I'd love to tell the story.

Once a month all upper level students get the chance to give a presentation on anything they want to present. I chose to use my mom's advent cake tradion to present the redemption story and the reason that Jeasus came to earth to my class. It was a lot of work--not only to make the three layer cake with lots of crazy decorations; but also to translate the story that goes along with it and present advent all in French. So, after my presentation was over on Thursday morning--I asked Dave if we could ditch language study for the afternoon and "head for the hills." For anyone who didn't know, we live in the foot hills of the French Alps. So off we went, to the top of one of our hills. (these are hills, not mountains. the mountains are just a few miles further--in my opinion.)

It was beautiful. Benjamin had a blast. Since then we've bought him a red sled and had another adventure with some of our other missionary friends. As soon as someone sends me pictures of that trip I'll post him with his sled.