After an absence of nearly more than a year from blogging, we find
ourselves back in Macenta, and thankfully, back in the throes of mango season,
which we had left last year. Mercifully, the tree in front of our house seems
to bear fruit every two years so we've had no neighbourhood
politics to deal with over how we choose to distribute the mangoes. As many of
you know now, we are back as three – now with our son Gabriel, who arrived last
September, five weeks earlier than expected. And because of his low birth
weight and subsequent steady weight gain to have the 6kg necessary to start
taking antimalarials, we’ve had to take a bit of time to return to our home and
ministry here in Guinea. We are delighted to be back, as are all the
neighbours, colleagues and friends who are especially excited to see Gabriel! We
are thankful to God for his protection during the long journeys between the UK
and Guinea, then from Guinea via Senegal to South Africa for the BMS Africa retreat
and from Conakry to Macenta – for those of you who are interested, we’ve covered
a total of 12,545 miles by air and nearly 500 miles by road!
So, for the last
month, we’ve been trying to find a new rhythm living/working with Gabriel and
vice-versa. We are blessed to have a good housekeeper, Mama Mariam, who’s been
mentioned in earlier blogs, who Gabriel has received with open arms. To be
honest, he has a smile for most people and is relatively easy-going and at ease
in his new surroundings. Mariam looks after him during our team meetings on
Thursday afternoons.
Since we left, our expatriate team has changed quite a bit. Our Swiss neighbours, David and Drusilla have had another child, Joshua, who’s 10 months. David’s sister and Drusilla’s brother, who are married to each other, have also been called to Guinea and are here with their two young children, Keren and Ruben. The head of the car workshop, Mike and his family have since returned to Switzerland after over three years’ service in Macenta. So Gabriel is the youngest in the team for the moment. Our living environment is a great one for children – organised lawns with lots of fruit trees and wandering cats, cockerels and chickens, and as the school holidays have already begun for certain pupils because of planned government elections at the end of June, there’s no shortage of children available to play with Gabriel.
