Wow, I can't believe it has been two months since I have written anything on our blog. Let me catch you up with going on with us.
We left the States September 15th to head back to Kenya. It is always hard to say bye to family especially not knowing for sure when you will see them again! We traveled well and after being in Kenya for a few days we were reunited with Hannah again for the weekend and then a couple of weeks later she came home for her midterm break. She is doing well in school. It's hard to believe that she is a junior!
While we were in Kenya we tried to spend time with personnel serving in East Africa and get caught up with their lives and ministry. Suzie was able to go out into a slum area with her friend Milicent to teach kids at a local school.
This picture shows cows walking down the street in front of a mall. Strange occurrence? Not in Kenya!
Then Oct. 13th, we left Kenya to travel to Tanzania. We are staying here for several months to study Kiswahili. We are students once again! It's been 30 years since I (Suzie) was in school. So this has been quite the adjustment. We go to school Monday-Friday from 9:00-12:00ish.
Then our afternoons are spent
doing homework, studying, and going out to practice. In our first 3 weeks we learned greetings, tenses, our numbers up to one million, how to tell
time(and yes it is quite different-we have to subtract 6 hours each time and
say it all in Kiswahili), how to say things in the negative, about 400
vocabulary words, how to bargain, how to ask questions, days of the week, and
object infix. This week we read a short story, answered questions about
it, and then retold the story. It sure is hard to believe that we can do
all of that at the end of just 3 weeks! We are thankful for this school
and our teacher who is very patient with us. Kevin made a friend at one
of our local churches and has met with him several times. I have made
some friends in a market where I go to practice. Learning another
language is tough. So, as you can imagine we have good days and bad
days. We are learning our way around this big city and have been able to
visit different churches while here.
This is a picture taken at the market that I go to several times each week to practice.
This is one of the ladies who I chat with at the market.
Pray for the women that Suzie is spending time with in
the market. They are not all believers and one of them is Muslim.
Pray for Suzie to build good relationships with these ladies so that when she
can share the gospel with them they will listen to what she has to say because
of their friendship.
Pray
that we would be able to retain everything we learn and that we would get quicker
with speaking it.
Learning language is very humbling! God is teaching me a lot
through this. Pray I will remember who I am in Christ and not listen to
the lies of the enemy.
On
the 22nd, we will travel back to Kenya to be there for Hannah’s school
break. We will celebrate Kevin’s birthday on the 23rd! Pray
that the Lord would fill him with all wisdom and knowledge through His Spirit.
Pray that he would continually seek the LORD and be found in His Presence. “For
this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for
you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through
all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.” Colossians 1:9
Now you are pretty much caught up. I'll try to do better about updating our blog.
