The Boring Middle Of It

“It is difficult to recall, much less recapture, the excitement of an adventure’s beginning when you find yourself in the boring middle of it.”  Donald Miller – Through Painted Deserts (p. 89)

Since the last couple blogs have been about projects or ministry things we are doing or trying to do, we thought it about time to give an update about how we are doing.  Life is very normal and can be boring now that we have been in Cote d’Ivoire for 7 months and in our host family for 4.  Just because life is normal doesn’t mean we have everything figured out or we don’t have difficulty language experiences anymore, it just means that we are accustomed to it and we still have to work on it.  I have said this to a couple of friends, life is just life after a while.  No matter where you are or who you are surrounded by, life is just life and  we struggle with wanting to please people or loving people for who they are and not who we want them to be.

What is even funnier is that even though life has settled down to the point where one might say occasionally that it is boring, the desire for excitement and change is no longer there.  Because the things that are exciting and make great stories are the same things that are uncomfortable if not painful to go through and being in Africa usually involve staying up all night, sleeping on a bus 1hr between the two places you call home and have wonderful beds, or getting exotic illnesses which surprisingly is comfortingly similar because you get to have sick days of laying in bed, reading, and watching movies J. 

So this is where we are, the boring middle of our adventure in Africa.  It is really not all that bad, it says we are past the point where every little thing is extremely difficult and communicating the smallest thing takes tons of work, and that we have somewhat adapted to the culture, living situation, and foods.  Another upside of things being boring is that it is great for relationships.  With not much going on we are able to spend plenty of time with our family, with people from church, exploring our town and all the wonderful foods, and in God’s Word personally and as a couple.

Just the other day Jess and I were talking about how things have settled down and it kind of feels like we are in the eye of the hurricane because we look around and it seems nothing is happening, but we remember we have just come through and know it will get crazy again.  Jess then mentioned a verse she read the day before and how appropriate it was for our situation.

I Samuel 12:16  “Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes!”  24 “But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you.”

So as we are in the boring middle of our adventure in Africa we look forward to the great things God is going to do and reflect on everything he has done for us.  I don’t think there is much more God wants than for us to be open to what he wants, and to praise him for what he has done in our lives.

Our First Project

We started our first project for the church of Niakara.  To explain a little - about 1/3 of the money that God gave us (through you guys!) goes to church projects - projects that the church needs, but may not be able to do financially on it's own. 



The "before" picture

We just started tearing down the building I call the barn (very traditional building made with dirt bricks and between the bricks holding them together topped off with a patchy thatched roof, it’s an older structure - see picture on the right) and rebuilding it with a proper cement brick and cement between bricks foundation then with dirt bricks and cement holding them together and hopefully more stucco finish, a nice metal roof and even a cement porch area with roof, it will look nice when it is done. 

After the first day

After working one day, we had torn down the old building salvaging quite a bit.  We saved most of the thatch roof (beams, bamboo support and hay) for an Hapatam (think low pole structure with thatch roof used for getting out of the sun and rain and to cook), since the dirt bricks weren’t cemented we used the dull side of a machete to separate the bricks and pile them up for use in the new building and we saved the wooden doors, windows, and frames for potential use in the new building.  It took the morning to do all that and dig trenches where the new walls would be placed.  The afternoon was devoted to mixing cement for the foundation of cement bricks which were made earlier in the week.  It was interesting to learn about masonry and get to help where I could.

The second day of work (two weeks later) was mostly building up the "house" with bricks.  We used some that were newly made and some that were from the old building.  By the end of the second day, it was mostly built, minus the windows, doors and roof.  We need to make some more bricks before we can finish off the building. 

Pastor asked me if I could do the wiring for the electricity in the building and I told him I could, so that will be something that I will be working on soon.  They also asked if I knew how to put the roofing on.  I'm not sure I completely know, but think I'll find out soon.



End of the second day



The church in Niakara really needed more space – space for Sunday School rooms, a place for visiting pastors, a place people can stay when there are conferences, weddings, festivals, and storage for instruments and things so that they’re not at risk of getting stolen or wet,  so that's what this building is going to be.  Believe it or not, about 50 women (plus children) stayed in this building during the womens conference.  Since it's now bigger (4 rooms instead of five), we'll be able to have places for more people when they come for conferences and other events.

We'll send out some pictures when the project is finished!