Yesterday was filled with more catching up and following through. The dorm painting continues at a good pace. Mbaye’s crew is working steadily and Patrice and Ndiaga are emptying rooms ahead of them. Jean’s guys have almost finished the patio. I got out a drill and some hand tools and screwed the Ethernet boxes to the wall here in the office and down in the little cubbyhole we’re turning into a cyber-spot.
We also had a nice long conversation with Paul by Skype. They’re in the US this summer. Cleveland, I think it was yesterday. Anyway, they’ll be traveling back at the end of the month with a team, so we were trying to iron out some details and make sure our communication was clear. It was great to hear his voice. The Internet is so wonderful!
Jane had that team over in the morning. While the Cedarville students helped her with the talibé, I gave Larry, their WorldVenture guide, a tour of the property and had another good conversation with him about missiological stuff.
By the end of the day, though, I was dragging my tail in the dust. I got down to the house around 6 and simply fell asleep. I couldn’t help it. An hour later I woke up and within minutes the power went out. Jane was on her way out to take a talibé with a deep gash in his leg to get stitches. I had promised Jonathan that I’d take him over to DA so he could join the nightly soccer match on the Petits Poteaux (literally, “little goals” in French, but it’s court soccer). I figured I’d work on my sermon for Sunday for a couple hours.
Well, Jane took a taxi and Jonathan and I had some leftover pizza before heading out. The sun was on its way down, but we had enough light to find keys and shoes and all. As we went over it looked like rain, with a lot of wind and dark clouds. But the weather held. Unfortunately, no one else was there at school. Jonathan had called ahead to double check, but as we drove, the kids called the game off. We didn’t know at first and learned how to turn on the court lights (after I set off the emergency siren!). We also kicked the ball around a while, but eventually Jonathan had to go off and find out where everyone was and got the bad news. It was quite disappointing for him. He was really looking forward to it. The players are an older crowd and it is exciting for him to be stretched in his skills and accepted by the high school guys.
What was unexpected for me was a chance to have father – son time. I’ve been so busy, Jonathan and I haven’t been hanging much. So we had the car time. And then we stopped for a Coke on the way home. In Ouakam in the end. We just sat on a bench outside the little store and watched the traffic and I bored him with recollections of when I was 11. (The first lunar landing was in ’69 when I was 11! And I told him how my grandfather Hampton used to share my room when he visited and snore so loud I was in awe.) It was a lovely cool night with a strong wind to keep the mosquitoes away.
We got home to complete darkness. The power was still out. We lit candles and continued a conversation about Genghis Khan. Jonathan has been learning history through the computer game “Age of Empires.” We tried to look him up in an old history textbook that I picked up from Gene Toombs.
It was one of those precious times of relaxing together that God gives if we’re not so preoccupied that we miss them.
Yesterday was filled with more catching up and following through. The dorm painting continues at a good pace. Mbaye’s crew is working steadily and Patrice and Ndiaga are emptying rooms ahead of them. Jean’s guys have almost finished the patio. I got out a drill and some hand tools and screwed the Ethernet boxes to the wall here in the office and down in the little cubbyhole we’re turning into a cyber-spot.
We got home to complete darkness. The power was still out. We lit candles and continued a conversation about Genghis Khan. Jonathan has been learning history through the computer game “Age of Empires.” We tried to look him up in an old history textbook that I picked up from 
