A test, an architect, a snake, and a birthday.

Wow! It’s been a while.  Between keeping busy, forgetting to post, and no electricity, I apologize for how little I’ve posted.  Things are going well here! I’ve kind of slipped into the norm so to speak.  Life here is simple and moves at a relatively easy pace.  I guess I do have a lot to catch up, but bear with me!  I hope to keep you at least slightly entertained :)

A camel at Market Day

In the last few weeks since I’ve written nothing outlandish has happened, well nothing that wouldn’t be considered abnormal in Africa.  I did get a chance to go to Market Day for the first time a week ago.  Every Wednesday in Galmi and in other towns across Niger, merchants all gather together to sell their goods.  The prospects of finding something you actually want to spend money on are slim however.  When I went with Deb, Grace, and Will, the majority of things I saw were of no use to me and nothing appealing for the sake of a souvenir.  Market day serves more to provide essentials for people here like cooking spices and food, every type of car/engine/random mechanical parts you can think of, flashlights (they last 2 days..maybe..), plastic buckets, giant clay pots.  The list goes on and on.  I’ve been told that on my trip back through Niamey I can find things there.  It was indeed a good cultural experience though :)
    Back on the compound we had another young man join us.  There are now 4 of us here.  Michael, the medical student, Will, the fellow undergraduate pre-med, and now another Michael, who happens to be best friends with will and is studying architecture at Georgia Tech.  I was reminded the other day about how incredibly blessed I am to have these guys.  They have been great for fellowship and community.  We all live right next to each other so we’ll eat lunch and sometimes dinner together as well.  I try to imagine what a completely different experience this would have been without them.  I think it would have probably been a bit harder, but it certainly would’ve been a good kind of different.  All I can say is that the Lord certainly has blessed us by giving us each other!
   

Lots of crutches!

At work, I am continuing to help make crutches.  Praise God because we have good wood this time!  The first batch I made with Abraham was awful.  The wood supplier here will give you 5 large boards for a sample and they are all wonderful pieces of wood, but when you order it on the other hand... Abraham and I sorted through 15 pieces  of 12 foot pieces of wood and found only 2 that were adequate.  I say all that to help you understand how awesome it is to have some good wood haha
   

One of the drawings, the final product :)

Besides crutches I was recently asked to design a carpentry test.  I continue to find it hilarious and a bit terrifying that I am considered the resident “expert carpenter”.  I was also asked to judge the work of each man.  Essentially, a large part of their decision rested on my opinion.  I wasn’t too found of this idea but they insisted.  I ended up deciding to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.  Grace, who is in charge of compound projects, asked me to build 3 large cabinets with locking doors for one of the buildings here.  Fortunately, there happened to be 3 men vying for this new carpenter position.  So I drew up some plans with measurements in inches, shaded and penned them in, and then handed them over to the head of the shop Daniel.  I’ve included what the final outside view looks like, but if you were to remove the front panel with the door, that is what I ended up judging.  I found it so funny that all they completely disregarded my clear, obvious instructions for a certain part of the cabinet.  Instead of attaching the back wall between the bottom and top panel, it was just slapped on the back.  A much easier way of doing it and a way that didn’t hurt the overall function of the cabinet, but it still amused me that all 3 of them blatantly disregarded instructrions.. Also if you happen to be in an country but the United States, DON’T use inches.  That was a struggle for them as well ( I ended up converting the measurements). 
    In the end all the cabinets turned out fairly good, but I had one in mind that I liked.  I was surprised that I decided to take a day and pray about it.  Usually I tend to do things with my own wisdom, but I was glad I did.  The pressure of deciding of who to hire included how would the unchosen men take it? Would the one I chose be a blessing and a great help to the shop?  Would the one I chose be the same one the head carpenter liked?  If I chose poorly would it give the shop workers a reason to distrust the white missionaries in the future? I think these doubts are what motivated me to pray.  God answered and as usual, amazed me.  Not only was my choice consistent with the current head carpenter at the shop, also if any of the other shop workers had an opinion, they chose the same one I did.  The vote was unanimous!  That was a great relief :)
    If I don’t learn anything in the coming weeks, I know that I will at least return home with the growing passion and excitement about the gift of prayer.  Soren Kierkegaard once said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”  Starting my day with it has allowed me to “live by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16) and be filled with hope, patience, and the absolute joy that comes with trusting God with EVERYTHING.  I recommend prayer not for me but for yourselves.  It’s a life changer.  My next challenge is to change my attitude towards reading Scripture.  Like with prayer, I hope to have a change of heart, so that no worldly time limits or degree of weariness will stifle my passion for reading and knowing Scripture.  This is also for your sake so that I can encourage you, my beloved friends and family. 
    In other news, there was a snake in my house a couple days ago.  The bad news is that it got in. The good news is that it is the first creepy critter among the many here to be found in my house and also that it is now dead.  I’m beginning to think that either I’m really lucky or that the scorpions, giant camel spiders, and other snakes have just generally been really good at hiding...  Will, Michael (the architect), and I scared the snake out of the house, but much to our frustration it immediately retreated INTO the leg of a metal chair on our porch.  After much banging, shaking, and even telling the other, confused Michael that the chair had an evil spirit,  we decided to flush it out with the hose.  At first it wasn’t working, but eventually the snake had to come out for air.  He would poke his head out and breath, and it wasn’t until Will snuck up on him and whipped him out with a knife that he was out of the chair.  We pinned him down and proceeded to cut off his head.  I learned that the dismembered head of a snake can still bit you an inject venom.  Kinda creepy...I watched the little head squirm around and bite the knife.  We couldn’t decide whether it was a baby mamba or a garden snake.  There is quite a difference let me assure you.  All that matters though is that it is now dead and its remains (several parts) rest safely in my garden.  Michael (the med student) took several pictures that I’ll have to get from him later.
   

The men.  Michael, Michael and Will

Ah...Meat.

Veronica with her cake and candles :)

Last but not least, Veronica’s birthday was yesterday!  She had been so kind to me and to others that I insisted that we host a birthday party of sorts for her.  I didn’t realize that doing so quickly put me in charge of the whole thing haha.  I helped pull everyone together to help with dinner.  All the guys, including myself, were in charge of making chili to put on rice.  I’ve trimmed meat before and I’m glad that I can enjoy doing it while listening to music because it took me at least 3 hours to beat through this stuff.  In the end it was so delicious though!  Pressure cookers a great help tenderizing the stuff , even though rumors float around that they tend to explode... I was reassured that this rarely happens but it is a little scary to sit staring at a giant metal pressurized pot as it whistles at you.  One of the ladies made an ice cake, which by far was one of the best deserts I've had so far here.  The fellowship was great and thanks to everyone’s effort it definitely made Veronica’s day :)

    It’s so excellent to have friends here, yet it saddens me to think I may never see them again on this earth.  I can’t believe that I only have 2 more full weeks here.  Time has flown by and is always seems to do.  Will said something a while back that really encouraged me.  As an MK (Missionary Kid), he has moved numerous times in his life often every year or every other year.  As you can imagine, it’s not easy opening up to people and keeping close, intimate friendships.  He said for himself that he finds it encouraging to think of heaven and eternity.  There in eternity, we have no limit on our time and energy to invest in others.  He often thinks to himself when he leaves a new friend that is also a believer, that he doesn’t have to upset because one day he will have all the time he could ever need to get to know this person more intimately than we could ever hope to here on earth. 
    This place has been a blessing to me and it’s sad that I’ll be leaving soon, yet I am so ready to return and hit the ground running.  Watching surgeries has been excellent and it has inspired and excited me about getting back to school and studying hard.  I’m just glad it hasn’t produced the opposite in me.  More exciting than that is the prospect of being able to see you all and fellowship with you once again :)
    Thank you for your prayers and for the time you took to read this.  I hope you all are having a wonderful summer!  I hope to see you soon, but until then I also hope to post again haha

Many blessings,
Josh