Jonathan and Naomi are preparing to serve in a church-planting work in West Africa. Your prayers are a huge encouragement to them. Thank you for holding the ropes.
As a family they are enduring the hottest month – daily temperatures are above 30°C but the humidity is making it feel in the 40s. This is their first experiencing of what it is like to be exhausted by heat and the struggle to do one activity in the day, let alone several. But God is so faithful and He brings along encouragement in His Word and through people, e-mails and letters just when they need them.
Jonathan has started phase 4 of 6 in French study (which is harder and longer). Please pray for perseverance, discipline and good pronunciation.
Naomi has started learning Wolof twice a week. She longs to be able use this as a door for relationship building.
The boys are (mostly!) enjoying school, which they attend in the mornings. The children have experienced some sickness of late. Pray for them particularly as Naomi’s parents are due to visit them next week.
Please keep praying for good friendships in their local community and at church. Also pray for their relationship with their host family. Jonathan would love to find an older, wise man that he could get to know. Pray that the Lord would provide.
Recently Jonathan happened to be at somebody’s house for one of his language sessions and in West African style, they were invited to go and eat with them when their meal was served. A short time into eating his language helper got up and left to sit in another room. He did not excuse himself and did not come back. Later Jonathan asked him about it, and he said he got up because he was not hungry and did not want to eat anymore. Here it is ok just to get up halfway through a meal and sit on a chair near the meal table or somewhere else. It is hard to imagine this happening in England without causing offence! In Bible school, they learnt an expression: “it’s not wrong, it’s just different.”
They have so much to learn and are so thankful to the Lord and yourselves for journeying with them.