Hello everyone and Merry Christmas! It has been a long time since I’ve written and I’m sorry for that. I tried some new headache medicine and it gave me terrible side effects, to the point I had no desire to write whatsoever and hence didn’t. We waited for a number of weeks to see if the side effects would clear up and there would be a positive influence on the number of migraines but neither was working in our favour so we have let that idea go and my body is now slowly re-normalising.
How was your Christmas? Whilst it is completely unavoidable everywhere you turn in Australia for many weeks in advance, here you would never know it existed! Even on the day everywhere functioned as normal, the street filled with people going about their days like any other. The extremely small percentage of Christians celebrate with singing, performing songs for each other and sometimes dances, getting new clothes and hairdos and eating big meals together. Presents are rare and if done, it is only for the children. For us, we spent Christmas Eve with some other missionary families we know, sang and played games and ate. Christmas day, we had presents from home to open that were sent by mail, and the kids whizzed about on the new scooters I managed to find in town. (Not easy since with sand for streets it is not a common toy) We had phonecalls from Australia and then Andy set to work preparing food for a big pot lunch the church was having after the service. We drove to church with our Nigerien friends crammed in the back and a more normal service was had – since the singing and dancing is all on Christmas Eve. The ladies gathered around to try the tuna patties I’d made and were all bewildered by the different taste – though I used all local ingredients they never put those things together. Afterwards we had a quiet afternoon, a visit from our Imam friend wishing us a ‘Bon Fete’, and that was our Christmas. We decided not to invite the world around for a big meal or anything, though it had earlier crossed my mind. Capacity has been very low and we needed to keep it simple. Our friends at the orphanage will soon have their belated Christmas feast and we look forward to joining them, after joyfully being able to provide the majority of the food for them (thanks to the funds you support us with!!) We owe you many an update and it will come in time, I thought to start the ball rolling you’d be interested how our first Niger Christmas was spent.
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AuthorWe are Brad, Andy, Hunter and Belle. Hoping to keep you connected! Archives
May 2019
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