Back on line!

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.