Wednesdays

Tile Work

Tile Work

I wanted to share some photos with all of you of the process of tiling our roof and veranda.

Some Fun

Around Saint Louis

This turned out to be our favorite evening hot spot. They played great music each night even giving me recommendations and cd's to purchase.

This is actually a high school on the island


Which way did he go?

Don't play around with me kids.

Saint Louis: Parc National des Oiseaux du Djoudj

This park is about 60 km north or Saint Louis. This park is one of the first watering spots south of the Sahara, makes it attractive to over 300 species of birds who migrate here every year and making it the third most important bird sanctuary world wide. It was magnificent!! The birds were performing for us with all of their God given wonders in the air and the water. I loved watching the synchronized swimming of the pelicans in the water.

This is the nose of a crocodile we found among the marshes.

In french they call this "facoshare." In english it's wild pig.






This was the leader of our band of merry men from the hostel. His whole job is taking groups to the three parks around Saint Louis. If I wasn't me I think I would want to be him. He was extremely knowledgeable of all the different species we saw around us.

Did you know that baby pelican's are brown until they are three? It's true.

Ok Tom took the previous two photos. Amazing!

Saint Louis: Day Number Two

Arrival in Saint Louis was wonderful and we found our hotel to be an amazing youth hostel. Tom and Lorrie had a corner room with three beds, two wrought iron bunk beds with the mosquito netting hanging from the top. We had two beautiful doors to the balcony. The hostel had breakfast each morning and helped us to arrange our excursion to the bird sanctuary.

Across this small dividing river is another neighborhood of Saint Louis which is a predominantly Muslim neighborhood and home to many fishermen.

We found this amazing diner type coffee shop that we went to every afternoon. Fabulous cafe au lait with donuts and cream cakes and pastries and croissants. Yummy!


These are some of the typical architecture we saw every where in Saint Louis

Saint Louis: Our Journey

Ah yes a voyage to the French capital of West Africa. It was stunningly beautiful in a thousand different ways, but for me also a reminder of the colonialists who were taking from West Africa for hundreds of years. The city was founded in 1659 and is in many ways, the same. We did find that the island that was once the hub of French West African business, is now mostly for the tourists and all of the friendly Senegalese that we met, live mostly on the main land.

Our trip began January 2nd from Oussouye to Ziguinchor. We caught a ride with a passing truck and made friends with some Senegalese who live in Cap Skirring. We had a fantastic dinner with Ouffie and Olga Bolie in Ziguinchor and stayed the night at the Mission House.

1/3 we were off to the city of Kaolack the half way point on the journey north. Day number two we passed through the Gambia, yes you are actually in another country and arrived in Kaolack around 4 p.m. We had a crazy driver who the other passengers said "Had hot young blood." We found the city of Kaolack to be, well, rather dirty, fly ridden and FULL of mosquitos. But they do claim to have the second largest covered market in West Africa. We did not try to verify this fact.

My Utmost for His Highest

January 11, 2010
This is from an online version of My Utmost for His Highest, devotional by Oswald Chambers

What My Obedience to God Costs Other People

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As they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon . . . , and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus —Luke 23:26

If we obey God, it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the pain begins. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything— it is a delight. But to those who do not love Him, our obedience does cost a great deal. If we obey God, it will mean that other people’s plans are upset. They will ridicule us as if to say, "You call this Christianity?" We could prevent the suffering, but not if we are obedient to God. We must let the cost be paid.

When our obedience begins to cost others, our human pride entrenches itself and we say, "I will never accept anything from anyone." But we must, or disobey God. We have no right to think that the type of relationships we have with others should be any different from those the Lord Himself had (see Luke 8:1-3).

A lack of progress in our spiritual life results when we try to bear all the costs ourselves. And actually, we cannot. Because we are so involved in the universal purposes of God, others are immediately affected by our obedience to Him. Will we remain faithful in our obedience to God and be willing to suffer the humiliation of refusing to be independent? Or will we do just the opposite and say, "I will not cause other people to suffer"? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but it will grieve our Lord. If, however, we obey God, He will care for those who have suffered the consequences of our obedience. We must simply obey and leave all the consequences with Him.

Beware of the inclination to dictate to God what consequences you would allow as a condition of your obedience to Him