Church member in horrific car accident

Today we heard the news that Papa Hodé had been involved in a terrible car accident. We don't have much information but we know that three people died including the driver and Papa Hodé is at a hospital in N'dali with a fractured skull and a broken foot. He's able to speak but he's not aware of where he is. His brother is currently there with him and is keeping us updated.

Three of his children (Suzel - 15, Muriel - 13 and Kaleb - 10) are alone in Kandi as their mother went to Cotonou over a year ago and never came back. His youngest daughter (Ruth - 4) is living in France with relatives.

Please keep every member of this family in your prayers as well as the families of the people who didn't survive. Thank you.

Recent events

Sorry for our absence from the blog! We've both been ill (again) and that knocked out all of our energy, hence the lack of communication...

Anyway, we're back on our feet now and wanted to share a few little things that happened in the last couple of weeks.

Last Friday, Denise and Maman Jean came round to make the unleavened bread for our Communion service. It was the first time they had made it on their own (Elmire taught them how to do it once a few weeks earlier) and it took several attempts to get it right. Cooking bread on a charcoal fire is not straight forward! They persevered for a few hours and finally produced the goods (which I forgot to take a picture of!).

Here they are in action :



And their mischievous helper, petit Jean :



In the evening, we had an unusual sky... It felt somehow bigger than usual and clearer... As we were on the bike going to church, I tried to describe to Etienne how it seemed different, more UK-like, and he suggested that the dust that usually fills the air seemed to have disappeared. It's amazing how accustomed we have become to a dust-filled environment! If we keep going on about how clean the air seems when we return, please forgive us! Here's the beautiful Friday sunset:



After church, everyone stayed behind so we could phone Pastor Badé in America. There was a real party atmosphere - everyone was so excited to be reconnecting with Pastor and they especially enjoyed making jokes about the 'cold' weather over there ;-)



On Sunday, Etienne woke up still feeling unwell (he'd had really bad diarrhoea since Thursday), and we were in the middle of a conversation when suddenly he jumped out of bed and vomited all over the corridor floor... I can't begin to explain what the smell was like, but I thank God for two things: 1) that He gave me the strength to clean it up, and 2) that the floors here are covered in tiles rather than carpet!! Poor Etienne then dragged himself to the toilet where he hurled several more times. It was straight to the clinic after that, one week after we'd been there for my sickness. They'd given me antibiotics for a chest infection and iron tablets for my anaemia (no wonder I was feeling so exhausted). With Etienne's symptoms, they assumed that he had an intestinal infection, so gave him a couple of injections as well as some antibiotics and something else (not sure what!). So here's what our breakfasts looked like over the past week:



Life in this country is really hard sometimes! But mangoes never fail to cheer us up :-)

This week has seen some serious progression of the church building, including the re-building of the wall that fell!









It's a shame we won't be here to see the building to completion but we can always come back and visit in the future.

Exactly four weeks from today, we will be landing at Heathrow airport!!! :-D :-D :-D

The ups and downs of this week...

Ahh... We reach the end of another week and we now have just 4 weeks left in Kandi.

Here are some pics from this week.



Denise and her son Kevin have insisted on helping us with housework a few times a week - they are our heroes!! On Monday, we finished our cleaning session by doing a puzzle of France that Etienne's parents gave us to share with the kids here. What a lot of departments there are in that country! It was good fun sharing with them where our family and friends live and describing some of the places we've visited there.



An evening shot of the new church building. The work was progressing well. (Note the appearance of the 'walkway' on the left side of the main building...)



The sole ATM at the sole bank in Kandi broke over a week ago. Somebody has been spending time trying to repair it but it seems like there are still problems. Please pray it gets fixed soon as we need it to access funds to continue the building work!



Er... Yeah... That walkway... The wall fell on Wednesday evening. That was just a little bit stressful to say the least. Fortunately we were able to have a meeting with our excellent builder on Friday morning, where he explained what had happened, why it happened and what we need to do next. Within a week, the wall should be all sorted!



On Thursday night, we arrived at Raoul and Denise's courtyard for our weekly prayer meeting with a lot of stress, but our lively worship time and soul-nourishing prayer time soon banished all that :-) Thank God for our brothers and sisters in Christ who encourage us when life is hard!



Possibly our favourite moment of the week! Friday night meal of nutroast (thank you Mummy for sending us a dry mix !) with pasta, avocado, tomato, pea and onion salad. Mmm mmmm mmmmmm!!

A Happy Sabbath indeed :-D

An early morning farewell

On Sunday, a small crowd gathered at church at around 7am to pray with the Badé family and wish them all the best for their 4-month furlough (fundraising trip/recuperation time) in the States. This was the last time we would see them on Beninese soil since we will be in the UK by the time they get back...



Little Alfazania (right at the front in the middle) turned up to the farewell meeting with her refugee bag full of clothes. I thought that perhaps she'd decided to donate some of her unwanted items to the kids that Eliora and Elie will meet in the States. It turns out she was told she could go with the Badés to America... Please parents: Don't lie to your children! She was absolutely devasted and sobbed uncontrollably when she realised that her trip was not going to be happening :-(

When we got back from church, it was time to move house. Since we didn't have a kitchen in our flat, we decided it would be best for us to move into the Badés' house.

Here's our new bedroom with en-suite shower room:





After spending Sunday afternoon with the youth and then playing a game of football, I felt positively rough and have been in bed ever since with a snotty cold!

I am really praising God for my wonderful husband this week! He hasn't slept much since we moved here (small bed, saggy mattress, power cuts...) but has tidied and cleaned the house (with some much-appreciated help from Soeur Denise), taken excellent care of me, kept an eye on the building site and cooked some delicious meals, like this one:



Yum yum!!

I think we'll be eating a lot of spaghetti over the next seven weeks! No doubt the Badés will be enjoying some burgers and fries with ketchup soon! :-D

Michée, Elmire, Marina, Eliora and Elie-Dana, thanks for everything you did for us. Have a safe and enjoyable trip and we pray that all your fundraising will be done sooner than you think!