A Very Special Project

Our internet is finally working! So now we can share an abundance of pictures of our time with my dad! Here’s a few of the first day that he arrived! My mom sent us a great supply of goodies! We are so grateful God protected all of his suitcases!! Now we are enjoying chips and salsa, candy, corn tortillas, and so much more! Who knew such things would become so precious to us!? Living overseas, we have learned to not take things such as chips and salsa for granted! Even Choveque got a new jacket from my dad! He keeps joking my dad that he wants to work for him so my dad got him a jacket and put his name on it. We have never seen him so happy in our entire lives! He just kept clapping and laughing! It was funny!

A couple of months ago, we found out that our friend Choveque was going to build a new house before the rainy season started. When my parents were here, they built a great relationship with Choveque. When we told my dad Choveque was going to build a new house and that we wanted to help him build it, my dad thought it would be fun to come and help with such a big project! Well after many hoops to jump through, including a huge leap of faith, he followed God’s call to come back and minister to Choveque’s family. It's been a real blessing to see God working in my dad's life! We are so happy he's here!

Choveque was so excited to learn of my dad coming to help build his new home. However, it’s been a hard thing for him. Choveque is used to serving “the foreigners” and it has been really hard for him to be the “boss” and tell us what to do! He keeps telling all of us that we need to rest. Finally, after all of us were frustrated with resting so much, we told Choveque we want to work hard…so that’s what we are doing now. Watching us working hard for them is a huge breakthrough for their culture. They think that the “white man” is better than them and that we shouldn’t be working, but they are experiencing the love of Christ every time we pick up a cement brick or each drop of sweat that we have! It’s very hot here!!! Nonetheless, we want to show them how much we care and how much we love them! Choveque says there aren’t enough words to describe the gratitude he feels in his heart! It’s been a very special time.

Every day we eat African food with them and they love to see us eating their food. I was so proud of my dad…he has done everything without complaining. A perfect example of this: one day we went out to the village where Choveque had grown up. We drove over 4 hours on bad roads. On the way back from the village Choveque had picked up a pigeon. We thought it would be for his dinner. We thought we were off the hook since we have only been eating lunch with them….WRONG!! The next morning we saw a bunch of feathers and a pot with some bloody pigeon. So at 9 am we had pigeon and shima. They of course saved us all the good parts such as the heart, liver, and neck. They just love watching us eat their food. I just love watching my dad making their day…and not even complaining about it, but laughing! It’s been pretty funny! You can see in one picture Choveque holding the pigeon...and then the next picture is the pigeon on our plates. Corey's holding the heart in his hand...it "accidently" slipped out of his hands, and "secretly" covered by my dad's foot...nobody noticed!

Hopefully by the pictures you can see the progress we are making. As of now, the walls are up and we will be putting the roof on soon. We feel like it is WORLD CHANGERS AFRICA style!! We are having a blast! Please keep this project in your prayers. Many of Choveque’s family are from a different religion and we hope that by the end of our time we will have built some great relationships and they can see the love of Jesus through our serving and we would have a great opportunity to share with them the Good News! Also please be praying for safety and stamina to do the work in the hot Africa sun! It can be pretty intense.

We will keep you posted with more pictures next week!