Giving away things can be complex in our context. Sometimes things aren’t really that useful to the way things are done in this culture. Other times it’s tough to be fair because giving to some people also means others are excluded and this can cause tensions which we usually don’t find out about until later. I miss the days of dropping off items at Good Will or having a garage sale with friends.

So what do I do with my stuff? I keep a box of things to give away (mostly extra book and outgrown clothing/shoes).  And then when that box has grown to 4 or 5 boxes and it’s in my way, I divide it out and give it away, knowing that it won’t be fair but it has to go. I’ve seriously been thinking about bagging it up and leaving it along the roadside. It would be a jackpot for someone to find. However, something even better has come up this time.

Our church is collecting clothing to replace some of what was destroyed in the fighting in the town nearby where houses were burned (straw roofs were lit, people ran for their lives as these roofs quickly burned and collapsed, and their possessions were destroyed). This excites me. First of all, the Komba church is taking action regarding a real need in our area. They’re doing this by collecting clothing. Secondly, it has reduced my 4 boxes of give-aways to just 1. Most of it is shoes and clothing, but I wish I could see the face of the person who receives the purple hippo backpack that we’re no longer using.

We’ve been studying the human body this year in science. One activity was studying the muscle, ligament, bones and joints on a pig leg (the meat I ordered from market, the kind that comes with the skin and foot attached). A bonus was that we could also clearly see blood in a vein (or was it an artery?) and move it along its route. We recently received a pig liver as a gift for greeting at a funeral. I’ve never made liver before, but we examined it before I attempted to cook it into something edible. My kids really didn’t have any prejudice against it going into the experience, but they made comments like, “It’s spongy” and “It’s chewy like bone marrow” (they aren’t ones to waste good bone marrow). Overall it was a unique experience.

For Annaka and Aili, I made life-size paper dolls by tracing around them. Now we’ve attached organs underneath their clothing as we studied them. They’re hanging in the living room and really add a nice touch to the decor.

Now you might think that Isaac is a bit young to get into the action, but he chose his own area of interest. I found him chewing on a spleen. No, not the kind that comes from the butcher. He had a spleen from a foam puzzle of the human body. I heard myself saying, “Isaac, take that spleen out of your mouth.” Then I had to laugh. It’s not something you say everyday or any day at that.

Presently our days are FULL. That’s how it is here. But add the fact that we are now preparing for furlough (contacting churches and groups for speaking, collecting photos and video for our DVD presentation, packing up things in our house for a 6 mo. absence, deciding what to take back, planning presentations…) AND Nathan is overseeing the rooms that are being renovated in Gbintiri for an apartment AND planning ahead for the work that the translators will do in his absence–we’re practically having heart pains. At the same time we are wild with excitement to get to the U.S. Please keep us in your prayers in this final month of preparation before we leave our village home. We feel like we’re cramming elephant size activities into a tuna can.