Fall Update

Fall has been busy . . . lots of IBTM projects, "still unpacking boxes" projects, and a few craft projects.  

In addition to the day-to-day work of the online study program I have been trying to finish the hard-copy version of the correspondence courses to get them to the printer.  I also made an extra push to get more unpacking done in the house and finally feel like three of the rooms are finished.  

The little old man playing an instrument on my coffee table is perhaps my
favorite piece that Jimmie brought home from Africa.

The taro leaf on the dining room wall was a gift from a couple we studied with in Samoa.

I seldom drink Coke, but I love to decorate with the memorabilia.

Unfortunately, my guest room wasn't one of these and my first out-of-town guests were coming for Thanksgiving.  It was a rush to get it habitable but thankfully my son-in-law and daughter were a great help with that.  To finish the other rooms, though, I first need a few more pieces of furniture - especially a desk. I had both Jimmie's and mine hauled to the dump before the move because they were in such sad shape, so I have been working off a table in my office. It's time to get serious about finding another.

I tried my hand at chalk painting for the first time, and now have several other pieces on my to do list.  I enjoy refinishing furniture but all the sanding and stripping are a pain.  This was so much easier - and I love the look!  I bought an old table for my foyer that I plan to paint, hopefully soon.

Cole and I did one project together.  The Arts Council asked for folks to be part of their kazoo band walking float in the Christmas parade, and Cole eagerly joined.  We decorated his bicycle and I took him to kazoo practice to learn the New Orleans version of Jingle Bells. 

 The parade was yesterday and was a lot of fun - despite the fact that it was only 30 degrees and breezy.  But Cole had many layers of clothing under his Santa hat - and I had hot cocoa ready for him at the end.

Jasper was snug-as-a-bug before the parade, but quickly decided he had to get into the candy action when those in the parade began throwing it at the viewers.  He discovered lollipops recently and they are his new favorite thing.

Of course, I have also helped with the IBTM newsletter, The Seeker.  You can read the latest issue by clicking here.

Furnace

Do refrigerators and furnaces only breakdown on weekends when you can't get a repairman - or does it just seem that way?  This summer the frig that came with the house died suddenly, something I didn't notice until all the food got warm and had to be tossed.  Then this morning my furnace quit heating, something I noticed right away as I shivered getting ready for Bible class.  I'm hoping this will be an easy fix but I had no luck calling someone today.  I guess Sunday afternoon in the country they just turned their phones off.  So tonight, I'm back to shivering.

But today was actually a good day.  The sun was shining on a gorgeous fall day and I figured out how to light the gas wall heaters that I had never touched before, no mean feat considering that the gas was turned off on the first one I struggled with but finally conquered.  The confidence boost led me to break out the hammer and nails for some other moving-in chores I needed done.

Cole asked me a few days ago if I had gotten used to living alone.  I'm really not sure what I told him because I'm really not sure if I have.  But I got a few things accomplished today that were totally out of my usual realm, so that was a step in the right direction.

Samoa

Still in a South Pacific kind of mood, and looking at a few pictures from our last campaign.

Pacific Island

I heard a report on mission work in the Pacific Islands tonight - an instant recipe for nostalgia.  I thoroughly enjoyed living there and still delight my grandson, Cole, with stories about Samoa.  I tell him about the men wearing skirts, tatoos made with a shark's tooth, and houses that had no walls.  I've described the men cooking in the underground umus on Sunday mornings so that the whole island seemed to be filled with a smoky haze.  I've talked about drinking coconuts fresh from the trees, his Grandad eating octopus straight from the ocean., and another octopus that my sister, Carolyn, won't soon forget.  It sat whole in a bowl, cooked in its own ink and coconut milk so it appeared to be swimming in grey gunk each time the dining table was jiggled.  It swam quite a while beside my sister's plate before she got enough courage to sample a tentacle - an absolute must since the dish had been made by our Samoan friends especially for her.

Cole has heard about Hurricane Ofa that hammered us with horrific wind and rain for 3 days and left us without power or water for long after that.  I've shown him pictures of the Flying Foxes, the world's biggest bats, and told him about the giant centipedes that were terrifying when they got in our house.  I think I have even told him about how in the beginning I repeatedly got lost driving on the island even though there was only one road that went from end to end.  (Palm trees all look alike.  I would just forget which way to turn on that one road when I came back out of where ever I was.)

This week there was a new story as I unpacked yet another box to discover 2 starfish.  Julie had played with those starfish when she was younger than Cole on a day when the beach seemed to be filled with them.  It was the day that we first walked on the coral reef and discovered how awesome that can be with hundreds of brilliantly colored tropical fish swimming around your feet.  Still, we lived in Amerika Samoa for 5 years, so there are more stories to come.

Yet when I think about the island of Tutuila it feels like an incredibly long time since I've been there.  It came as a bit of a shock this evening when it suddenly occurred to me that it has been only slightly more than two years.  Jimmie and I were on Tutuila in May of 2011, our last campaign together.  So much has happened since then.

But, the place I'm living now has a few perks as well and no doubt stories for the future.  I especially like losing the heavy traffic jams.  After living in the Atlanta area for 14 years not being stuck in constant traffic either inching along or screaming down the interstate at 80 mph is wonderful.  And I like this quaint, old-fashioned town filled with homes from another era and open friendliness that I had forgotten existed.  And, of course, having Julie & gang so close is a wonderful perk all by itself.

Still, few places can compete with a South Pacific island for beauty.

Zambia Campaign

It sounds like the IBTM campaign team to Zambia had a wonderful trip this year.  You can read the report by clicking on The Seeker here.

Ronald Gilbert's wife, Carolyn, took some wonderful pictures of the trip and several of them are in  the newsletter, but I couldn't fit nearly enough.  Creating a photo album for these is definitely on my To Do List, but that list is pretty crowded so it may take a while.  In the meantime I want to share a few that intrigued me when I saw them.

   

One of many mobile libraries set up by IBTM. 

The most unusual chicken coop I've ever seen.

Each hen has her own little condo.

Men cooking . . . I always love pictures of men cooking.
 But when you are cooking for that many folks at once, it's hard work.

When we lived in Samoa the umu (underground oven) was considered
 men's work.  Jimmie used to get teased by the brethren for not making
one for me, but he always declared, "The microwave is the palagi's umu.

Closet space.

The new brush arbor at Siamafumba.

Complete with pews.

Searching for a cell phone signal.

Taping a television segment at the game park.
Notice the elephants in the background.

Taking home the roller meal.

Beach

I haven't bragged on my grandsons in a while so I must remedy that.  

Cole is 7 now and growing fast.  He is ready to start 2nd grade but already reading far beyond his age level.  

Jasper is 1 and absolutely delighted with just about everything.

The only thing Cole had wanted for his birthday a few months ago was to see the ocean, but the trip had been postponed due to severe weather that weekend.  He finally got his wish this past weekend and I am so glad that I got to be there to see both boys discover the beach for the first time. Being surrounded by their laughter made this first anniversary of Jimmie's death much easier.

Siamafumba

The first two Gospel meetings in the 2013 campaign to Zambia have been completed, and the news is great.  42 have been baptized and 132 erring brethren have been restored!  The meeting in Msika had an attendance high of 911, but that number was surpassed at Siamafumba where 1,152 gathered to hear the Gospel.  Considering that Siamafumba isn't a town or even a small village makes that attendance even more remarkable because Siamafumba is just a place where many footpaths cross.

I remember Jimmie going to Siamafumba with Ronald D. Gilbert when there was absolutely nothing there. No buildings of any kind, and no water.  He talked about the women walking to the nearest water hole some distance away and returning with the huge jugs on top of their heads.  Later trips I think they managed to bring it by vehicle.  But the preaching was done each year in the brush arbor the men constructed when they got there, the cooking for the whole crowd was done by the women in a makeshift open kitchen, and everyone slept on the ground at night.  Baptisms were back at that water hole and everyone walked, usually several times a day.

Jimmie took our camping tent with him the second year he went to Siamafumba so he didn't have to worry about snakes slithering into his sleeping bag while he slept.  He left it with the brethren there and I'm not sure how many years it got used. But since then with IBTM's help a school of preaching has been established at this crossroads.  Now the speakers get to sleep in the building on the concrete floor at night.  That never really sounded any more comfortable to me and Jimmie always said that it did nothing to alleviate the danger from snakes. You see, the corn for the enshima is stored in the building so the mice come for the corn, and the snakes come for the mice.

The stories Jimmie used to tell.  I wish I could remember them in detail now.  But I do recall how amazed Jimmie was at people who would walk for days to get there.  The first few years the attendance was typically between 2,000 and 3,000 and Jimmie spoke about what a strange feeling it was to be preaching at night to such a crowd with only a single lantern to light his notes while everyone else sat in total darkness.  The attendance has been lower in recent years but that is probably because they now hold Gospel meetings in several locations so brethren don't have to walk as far.

Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of  Jimmie's death so I've been thinking about Siamafumba a lot.  I don't know now how many trips Jimmie made there but I do know that his heart had been in Africa since our first campaign to Ghana in 1983. He loved the people and their openness to the Gospel.  He loved preaching and teaching there.  He loved haggling with the vendors and laughing with the kids.  He loved telling the stories that both terrified (like throwing rocks at a crocodile or being charged by a bull elephant) and delighted us (such as watching baby lions playing in the road or the giraffe that startled Jimmie when it bent its head over a tree to take a closer look at him).  Jimmie had wanted us to live in Africa and we made plans to move more than once, only to have them fail.  So we ended up first on a tiny island in the South Pacific and later working with international correspondence missions instead.  There were times when the fever to live in a foreign mission field again would burn hot, but each time Jimmie concluded that we could actually reach more souls with the correspondence work.  So we stayed.

The day Jimmie was diagnosed with stage 4 renal cancer the doctor was obviously startled when the first question out of Jimmie's mouth was "Can you get me well enough to go back to Africa?" - but it did not surprise me.  For several months last year we thought the doctor had managed it and Jimmie was really looking forward to working there again.  Sadly, that didn't happen.  But Julie and I both wanted Jimmie's wish to come true on whatever level was possible, so Ronald Gilbert took some of Jimmie's ashes with him on this year's campaign to Zambia.  Siamafumba is the place I requested that he take them.