Check out all the great new photos dating back to Christmas time. http://esalas.org/?page_id=8

Or click on the photo link to the right of this site listed under ‘Pages’.

We have pictures of our family with elephants, the girls swimming, body painting, the Komba spelling workshop, Nathan visiting villages and more.

Praise God for the encouraging response of the Komba as vision is shared and “captured.”

Praise God for keeping all our translation team healthy and safe as they’ve traveled during this harmattan season when the dust can often carry with it sickness and create “foggy” conditions that make it difficult to see when traveling.

Praise God for the safe arrival and smooth transition of Christina Riddle. We’re getting along well and are being blessed in many ways through her talents, patience, and assistance.

Give praise that through your financial support our ministry was fully funded in 2007.

Pray for our translation and literacy team (Samson, Emmanuel, Elijah, and John) as they seek to make good progress in their work during this dry season when demands of farming aren’t pressing on them.

Pray for the Komba and other people in this area as they stretch their limited food supply to meet their needs. Pray that the church can be a bold witness in the midst of this challenging time.

Pray for Sarah as she looks to connect with women in the community now that some time has been freed up because of Christina’s help teaching.

Pray that God will guard our hearts, minds, and bodies as Satan tries to attack the work of God being done here by attacking us. Pray that we will cast our cares upon Jesus, who cares for us and sustains us.

Thank you for your prayers; we usually experience more spiritual warfare when the work seems to be going particularly well, which lately it has. As Satan sifts, may we be found clinging tenaciously to Christ, our rock and redeemer.

For the most part in Africa, Nathan and I have assumed different roles from one another. We generally don’t step into the other’s role without guidance or permission from that person. This has mostly developed out of necessity.

First, we’ve had to learn how to do everyday things with the twist of living in an African context. For instance, through experience I’ve gained from experimentation and accident, I’ve learned tricks to make fruits and veggies stay edible for longer. Otherwise, the African heat with lack of fridge space would make them spoil in just a couple days. Long life of veggies is important since we buy the majority of them in Tamale or Ouagadougou and won’t be able to get more very easily until the next month when we go to the cityagain. The catch is that, different fruits and veggies need different handling to make them last. To explain all of this for someone else is difficult. There are just so many nuances. Nathan knows the basics like bleaching them before consumption, but he may not employ the little tricks that I’ve discovered like reviving wilted lettuce or carrots by soaking them in filtered water or not washing green peppers until they need to be used since often the water leaks inside if there’s a crack and causes early spoilage. I could go on and on. I’ve become a sort of fruit and veggie specialist.:) Anyway, my point in all this is that there is an accumulation of specialized knowledge for just normal activities of daily living. It’s much easier to just have our “assigned tasks.”

Secondly, we have more time constraints. After all, most things we do take longer to accomplish and often there are other jobs that need to be done at the same time. For example, we drive 1 hour every week to do our e-mail. Usually, the internet is slow or there are server issues and it takes time, patience and fenaggling to do something as simple as e-mail. Usually the kids go to play with there friends and do special school activities (art music and science are done with another family). Someone’s got to watch the kids and feed them snacks and lunch. I often teach for part of the time. Then there’s mail to get and small purchases to track down. It can be done with only one of us, but it’s less stressful for everyone if there are 2 of us, each operating in the areas we’ve “mastered.”

This brings me to stretching. Our family has been in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso for Karissa’s school program without Nathan for the past week. I have been forced to do things Nathan usually does on top of my normal life. I’m feeling pretty good about myself. I’ve now crossed the Ghana-Burkina border successfully and filled out visa paperwork (in French!) and actually received visas. I’ve set up a skype account on the computer and figure out how to get credit to make calls. I’ve found an ATM machine to withdraw money from so we have the correct currency to buy food (it took attemps at 4 machines). I’ve downloaded sermons off the internet. These are all firsts for me. Now for all of you who are unimpressed because you live in the modern world, you just need to keep in mind how technologically and linguistically challenged I am to really appreciate my success. Plus, I fed my family on top of all this.

I’ve been stretched,and by God’s grace, I have not broken.

Now, I can’t wait for Nathan to join us at the end of the week. Yes, I have managed but it’s not the best way. I kind of like the dependency even if I know I can do it on my own…not to mention that I just miss Nate.

It has been nearly two months since Christina Riddle arrived in Ghana to help the Esala family with homeschooling. We didn’t know if our family would mesh with her or not. It’s a big question mark (or riddle (sorry for the pun again)) to put people together for nearly a year in an isolated environment. I don’t think we are exaggerating too much to say that we are thrilled with her. As far as teaching Karissa goes, Christina is not a trained teacher, but she is a psychology major and is very good at thinking about what motivates an eight year old. She has found giving Karissa stars for little behaviors and successes has been a good motivator to encourage academic, attitudinal and behavior changes. She has a thousand little strategies that are fun for Karissa. It was not an easy start as Karissa was a tough nut to crack, but she has cracked and is learning more everyday. She loves her teacher to boot. She is improving on her spelling and writing and many other things. What else does Christina do? Read the rest of this entry »