the good, the bad, and the ugly - or something like that.

As many of you know, life here in West Africa has been hard.  Very hard.  Of course we were aware that life here would be no walk in the park.  But it has been so much harder than we ever expected.

In the six months we have lived here, our family of three has experienced five cases of malaria; we've had one friend die of malaria, and had two friends come close to dying from it.  Micah has personally had malaria three times, numerous colds and infections, popped out seven teeth, had diarrhea for weeks on end, extensive heat rash that is very itchy making him sometimes inconsolable, been rushed to emergency with a possible concussion after blacking out in my arms, and woken multiple times a night for the first four months we lived here.  Myself, I had malaria once, small kidney stones, a worrying lump in my neck, a root canal, have had an unfilled cavity for months now (just can't bring myself to go to the dentist again after the horrendous experience I had with my root canal), have extremely itchy, dry, cracked skin on my hands from the weather here, weaned Micah, and am now pregnant again (which of course is also a blessing, but it does make me very hot, tired, moody, and sleeping poorly!).  We have all lived in hot weather (current daily average: forty degrees) in a house that is barely cooler than outside, despite our many fans.  We deal with excessive amounts of dust - constantly making our house, and clothes, and bodies dirty.  (We're not talking a little dust here; if we drip water on the floor, we have mud.)  We've cooked most of our food from scratch, because convenience foods just aren't available here.  All the foreigners in our city have faced increased security concerns based on warnings from our embassies.  All that, on top of great difficulty communicating with the general population (I really don't speak French or Bambara and people here don't speak English), feeling like we have no friends in our stage of life, or with little ones, me being unable to drive here (or communicate well with a taxi driver), us often not having a vehicle of our own for Stew to drive, frequent power outages, terrible water pressure and occasional water cuts.

We've faced a lot.  Life is pretty overwhelming for me some days.  Many days.  Okay, maybe most days.

As Stewart and I sat and recounted our many woes last night, he reminded me that we have also seen the faithfulness of God in it all.  He's right, and it is a fact that I all too often forget.  In fact, I was having a hard time coming up with a list, but thankfully he had a long list to remind me.  So now, let me recount some of the ways we've seen and experienced the faithfulness of God:

When we had been here only two weeks and all three of us had malaria, Jesus came and slept on our couch.  (Jesus, through our friend Becky, who slept over to care for Micah in the night, so we could get as much sleep as possible.)  Our friends here all brought us meals while we were sick.  God blessed us with the friendship of Lisa, who was here for six months and became part of our family, even spending Christmas with us.  It may be stinkin' hot here, but God provided a pool on our compound, so we have a fun way to cool off!  In January we were blessed by a two-week visit from my parents, who are some of my best friends in the whole world!  Although there were warnings of security concerns for Westerners, none of them came to fruition, and the warnings are no longer in effect.  The Lord kept us safe.  We have had five cases of malaria, and by the grace of God have recovered each time without complication.  Those kidney stones I had?  After our friends prayed about them, they stopped hurting and I haven't felt them since.  The same goes for my early-pregnancy nausea... it "disappeared" after we prayed about it with friends.  Despite Micah's poor track-record of sleeping, he now sleeps like a champion, from 7pm-6am.  And my root canal?  Well the whole dentist situation was a nightmare, but God provided the money to pay for the procedure, since we couldn't afford it.  We often haven't had a vehicle of our own to drive, but often God has provided a vehicle for us to drive, somehow.  When we rushed him to the doctor for his possible concussion, Micah turned out to be just fine.  Praise God!  Our doctor-friend here checked out the lump in my neck and deemed it not worrisome.  It seems that our house is always dirty - but God has provided a very good house-worker to help us keep it clean (even if she sometimes drives me nuts!).  And He gave Stew the ability to fix our swamp cooler just yesterday, so our house is actually cooler than outside now!  Cooking food from scratch has been time-consuming and tiring, but also delicious!  It's true that for the most part we haven't had friends with little ones here, but God just blessed us with getting to know Andy and Sara and their daughter Aravis, even though they were only here for a few weeks... it was so refreshing to spend time with their family.  And to top it all off, God is blessing our family with the addition of a new little one!!

So there you have it.  Life here is extremely hard, but God is faithful.  And just a glance up the page makes it clear that the list of "the bad and the ugly" is shorter than the list of "the good".  And I'm guessing that the list of all our woes will help you understand us and our life here a little better.  And just why it is that we are feeling worn down.

In talking with some wise people in our lives, we have decided to take a vacation in April.  We had been planning something for May, but decided it would be best to bump it sooner.  So we are heading away to a hotel just far enough away from our home to be a real break from the stresses of life here.  I am really looking forward to five days of not cooking, not washing diapers, not doing laundry, playing games in air conditioning, playing with my boys in the pool, watching movies with my man after the little man is in bed, and being refreshed in the Word together.

So if you've ever wondered how to pray for us, be inspired.  This post should give you some ideas.  :)