Day 2528. My alarm was set for 9 am this morning but Emmy was up first today, about half an hour before that, which meant I was awake as well. However, I only got up once my alarm went off; Randy and the kids had already gone downstairs to have breakfast where I then joined them. I ate, then sat down at my computer in the other room to teach from 10 to 11 am. The kids were really loud, playing hard. After I was done teaching, I did some more work at the computer.
At noon we left the house and drove to church where we had a meeting with the new senior pastor at 12:30 pm. I've known him since I first started coming to Life Center 18 years ago but had never talked to him. We waited at the reception for the missions guy to come out but it was the kids' minister who came out first, the one we had talked to on Sunday. We had a great time talking with him again and took a picture. Then the missions guy came, and we went to the pastor's office to have lunch and talk. They had been so kind to order food for us so we sat down at the table, and I distributed the food to all the kids and started talking. I told lots of stories of what God is doing in Mali and was talking so much that I didn't get to eat. Then Randy started talking which gave me a chance to take a few bites. Before we left, we took a picture together, then we said good-bye. We'd had a great time with the pastor, and he seemed to have enjoyed everything he'd heard.
I was very sad that the previous senior pastor had had to cancel his meeting with us but it allowed us to meet with other friends that had finally responded to my message. We left church at 2 pm to meet with them at the icecream place they had suggested.
It was a cute, little family-owned icecream place. We chose what we wanted, then sat down outside at stone tables with stone benches. It was great to see our friends again, and we had a good time talking with each other. After a while the husband had to leave but his wife was able to stay longer. We were talking when it suddenly started raining hard, and there was thunder and lightning that scared the kids. We continued talking until it was really time to get going. Thankfully the rain was letting up a bit at that point. We said good-bye and started our 20-minute drive to the grocery store.
There was quite a bit of water on the roads in some places. While Randy was in the store to quickly buy some much-needed water, I actually fell asleep in the car because I was so tired. We then drove just a few more minutes to get back at the house where I lay down right away for a short nap that was interrupted frequently by the kids.
At 6 pm one of our two good friends we'd seen every day these past few days arrived, and a little later our other friend. We had lots of food left over that needed to be eaten so we went to the kitchen and warmed up everything and had a great time of fellowship with each other. They had also brought more gifts for the kids that they enjoyed playing with. In fact, they had so much fun that they started behaving the way they normally only act around us. And Sammy got to call his new friend he'd made these past few days. We had a great time, but at one point it's time to say good-bye. It was close to 8:30 pm by the time they left us.
We then headed to our room that was not quite as hot as before thanks to cooler weather today and the thunderstorm. After a shower, it was finally bedtime for them. Tammy said she wasn't tired while Sammy fell asleep pretty quickly. It was after 9 pm before Tammy and Emmy fell asleep. As for me, I worked on the pictures and my report and other things. Now it's nearly 1 am, and tomorrow I have to get up an hour earlier than today and yesterday.
