April's almost over!

It's been a long time since I've posted on here, so I figure it's about time to get people updated (just in case anyone's still checking back here!).

I find myself losing track of time pretty easily. Back in the fall/early winter when my parents said they'd be coming to visit me at the end of March, I thought that seemed like quite a ways away. Now it's come and gone, and I've already started to wonder if I was just imagining my parents being here. Although, there's some good evidence of it -- my refrigerator is still organized (thanks mom!), I've got iced tea around (thanks for the idea, dad!), and my parents have a blog of their time here (http://hillguineatrip.blogspot.com/).

Those of you who get my newsletter will get to read all about the tortilla business that's been launched from my front porch. It started probably 4-5 weeks ago, and every Tuesday, about 100 tortillas are made. If for some reason you're reading this and don't get my newsletter (but want to), let me know, and I'll send you a copy, so you can read more about it.

School is 3 weeks away from ending. Can you believe it?! I have a hard time with it myself. Only three weeks left of teaching science, computers, PE, and photography before my students are FREE for the summer. Many of them are heading back to the States or their respective home countries for home assignment, so it's soon going to be quite a bit quieter around the mission center.

I've been learning a lot recently about the importance of community and the importance of time alone with God. You'd think those 2 things would clash, but if things are working right, I think it can actually be beautiful.

One thing that I've really appreciated during my time here in Guinea has been the community of missionaries surrounding me. This is the first time since I started college (just a few years ago, right?) that I've really felt like I've been in community with people older and younger than me. Let's face it, in college you're generally surrounded by people your age +/- a couple years. I even managed to plug into a church there that was primarily college students.

Then in Midland, I found another group of people my age. The church has people of all ages, of course, but I tended to maintain my little bubble of familiarity with the people in my age category.

Here, I didn't have that "luxury." In fact, since my roommate left at the end of December, I've been left as the only one in my age category. In some ways I miss the fellowship of other people my age, but in other ways, I *love* the fellowship of people older and younger than me. There's a lot of wisdom shared among the missionaries who have been here for any length of time. There's a lot of childlike faith shared among the kids. The older kids look out for the younger ones and each other and even random teachers who aren't their age at all.

A couple prayer requests:
* A smooth end to the school year and a good transition for those who are heading home. For most of the kids here, Guinea is their life and their "home" country is a bit of a strange place. Pray that they are able to feel at home there, too.
* My wrist. In one of my fellowshipping moments with the high schoolers (i.e. playing soccer), I managed to fall on my hand and mildly sprain my wrist. I'm not very good at taking care of it, either, so pray that I am reminded to give it some rest and let it heal.
* My friend Muffy who just had surgery to remove her gall bladder. She's up in Dakar (Senegal) right now, hanging out for the beginning of the recovery process. Pray that recovery continues to go well and that she and her husband Ev have safe travel on their way back here.

Thanks! :) Let me know how I can be praying for you.

January update

Greetings from Guinea! Hope you're doing well wherever you are reading this blog.

School's in full swing here at the mission school; we're on week three of the new semester, and it's keeping me busy, trying to prepare for my classes. I'm currently teaching a middle school life science class, a high school elective: Photography & Digital Media (co-teaching), elementary & 7-12 Phys Ed. They're all very different classes, and I'm finding that I probably spend more time getting ready for each class than actually teaching it, except maybe in the case of PE. For the middle/high school group, I get to teach volleyball for six weeks, so that's been fun since it's one of my favorite sports. I've been trying to dredge my memory for some of the drills we did back in my high school volleyball days.

The Photography and Digital Media class is probably my favorite, mostly because we get to play around with pictures on the computer. So far, I've had the students learning a program called Gimp or Gimpshop, which is similar to Photoshop but is open-source and therefore free to use. We've been working on learning the selection tools, so the first project was a virtual Mr. Potato Head, where the students practiced cutting out eyes, ears, mouths, etc, and pasting them onto a potato. That's resulted in some very interesting (kind of scary) potatoes as finished products.

Since my classes range from the morning hours (life science) to about 5:15pm (for PE), it's been harder for me to find time to get away from the mission center as much, so my primary interaction with Guineans has come through people stopping by my porch. There are two girls that I've probably mentioned before who like to come by to sit and talk or drink tea or eat dinner together. We've also been playing cards -- mostly Go Fish since that's all my limited French (and their limited card-playing skills) can handle right now. A couple weeks ago, one of the other missionaries went through a brief discussion of the gospel with them in French, and they seemed to be interested and listening, but I'm not sure how much of it completely sunk in, since French isn't their first language, and they don't usually sit still for long. You can pray for my interactions with them, that I am able to show them Christ's love for them even though I can't really speak their language.

That's a quick update of what's been happening here. Write me a message or comment on the post or whatever to let me know what you've been up to lately! God bless!