Training leaders, Senegalese and American

I was out of commission for much of the week between my own illness and Jonathan’s. Things at the Phare have been calm.

ITES has met each night, training church leaders in courses. This week I think they are still doing the Hebrew short-course and perhaps Stefan's course on Islam. The partnering missions and churches also had their General Assembly to officially establish ITES as a separate organization. For the last 10 years it has been a simple partnership among them without formal status with the government. They decided that it would be better to set themselves up legally. So Wednesday, the dozen groups involved sent representatives and voted on a constitution and all that. Rodney led the meeting. He was very kind. I got called in briefly only when they thought they might be short on a quorum because José spent the morning stuck in traffic trying to get back to Dakar. (They moved to Thiès recently.)

We also have had various guests staying for a night or two. IMB ran short on guest house space at their place, so we had the Colemans for a few days that turned into a week when they got ill. We knew their son Jacob at DA many years back. They are now back in Senegal working with Moses Mivedor and his wife out in Matam.

Just after I wrote that sentence, Moses and Beth came by. They are in the city for the birth of child number 2 and are right now just down the road in the Ouakam IMB guest house. They’ve been struggling to get their Vonage phone to work since they got it. We plugged in here for the second time in a week, but just now figured out the problem and they are up and running and already talked to someone in the US!

A group was here from DA today. All the student leaders (16) and the staff and parent sponsors (an equal number or so) came for some leadership training. I wasn’t involved personally, but overheard Dan Mulay and Ann Marklund doing some general stuff. They also split into specialty groups (presidents, secretaries, treasurers, even sponsors) to discuss specific issues of their various jobs. I was pleased for the students and it fit the theme for the week.

It is green here, as I’ve said. The lighthouse hill is lovely. But the bougainvillea hedges are already in need of a trim again! Funny. That's never an issue in April.

I walked around this afternoon to take a few photos for you all. I found Pierre Marie still working for the ITES (Evangelical Theological Institute of Senegal) folks. He finished the library furniture. Today he started on the offices. Don't you just love his workshop!

Pierre Marie is a good worker and easy going. He's still learning what "nice" looks like, but he's open to learning.

He made a profession of faith once. He sought me out, as a matter of fact. But he had a crisis of fear, fear of death. He slipped away from us and back into the family ways. He clammed up about spiritual things, but we're being patient. Dad and Mom are believers. But his older brother has a lot of influence, I think. Please pray for him.

Just behind Pierre in the picture is the open door to the little electric room. I was in there today during a power outage. I got out of the office and worked with my hands. Now that may look like a mess of spaghetti, but it is a working stage one of an upgrade / solution. Someone in the past had bypassed our cutoff switch, so that half the property didn't go through it. The power company electricians were pretty peeved the other day when they came to fix a problem. They could have been hurt badly, not knowing that our switch didn't protect them. So, today I finally got around to correcting that problem. But I wanted to make sure it was right before I spent a lot of time with hiding wire behind the panel. I'll go out and get some wire of the right size and fix it all up nice the next time the power is out and I need the excuse to escape from the office.

When I went to take photos, it was also at that point the folks coming in for the Pulaar Christian Association were starting to arrive. I took a shot from farther away to preserve their anonymity. They come from fairly sensitive areas.

Our colleague, Jim Bowers, is in from Kayes (Mali) for this conference. He got in last night with several pastors from up his way after a 12 hour bush-taxi ride. A number of folks have come like that from other surrounding countries.

Viking Dietrich., who is organizing it, is a former Lutheran missionary, now a NGO guy. He’s been a colleague with us here in Senegal for more than 10 years, perhaps since we came in ’93.

About 8 I went out to work with Hervé to get the generator going. ITES were having their class upstairs and the Pulaar folks wanted to have a first, get-to-know-you session. Of course, doing one or the other wouldn’t be that complicated. Doing both meant finding a screwdriver and working by flashlight to rig things up. We got it going pretty quickly, though the Pulaar group decided to meet outside in the fresh air! At least the kitchen had lights for their meal afterwards. We left it on until 10:30. Power finally came on at midnight. At this time of year, the fans are important for sleeping. So, this was a real blessing.

We've actually been researching a generator for the whole site. We are looking at a 50 KVA unit that will cost over 10.000.000 CFA. That's a lot of money. But as I saw tonight, it's tough for the guests to meet or sleep without electricity! We have one man in the US who is interested in this and has been pushing us to do the research. We'll see how he reacts now that the price is known! May the Lord guide him and us.

Our gas bottle ran out on Sunday morning. I did as always. I put on my sandals and went outside to switch to the back up, before coming in to relight the pilot lights. Only there wasn't any backup bottle. I went to the room where the full bottles are kept. But there weren't any full bottles. Only empties. So I "borrowed" the bottle from the main kitchen and began working on breakfast.

Later that day, I took an empty and drove over to the neighborhood across the street to at least buy one for the main kitchen. I thought a group was coming in the morning. But no go. The store didn't have any and the man there said there were none anywhere.

I took that with a grain of salt, but Monday I heard that in fact there was no gas to be had in the city. Hervé and I just confirmed that. We went to the nearest gas station with 5 empty bottles to swap for charged ones. We came back with the same 5 and the attendant’s advice to "sit tight."

No cooking gas in the city. Imagine. We're wondering if the oil and gas importers are trying to make the government look bad, or something. I hope this doesn't go on for long, or we'll all be burning charcoal or wood! Jane, at least, won't be baking tonight.

A Quiet Monday, too

Sorry, no photo today. I meant to go up and photograph the ITES class, but my camera batteries were dead. The ITES folks are running classes each weekday evening this month. Right now they are doing Hebrew. They are using the upstairs classroom. It is much better for catching breezes and is well-lit. It's 7:45PM as I write this and I can hear the cars pulling out of the parking lot.

There are a couple apartments full. The pastor and church leader from PA are back from their visit inland. They went out to Gorée Island today, I believe. There is an African family up in the Mali apartment. But really, it is quite quiet today.

Patrice trimmed the flowering bush by the main gate way back. Other than that, I'm not sure what he got done today!

Myself, while the power was out for a couple hours this afternoon, I abandoned my office and worked on the main panel board, removing some unneeded wiring. Also, as I contemplated once again how to clean up the mess of wires that has evolved there, I had a brainstorm for an interim solution to the biggest (meaning most dangerous to the electrician!) problem. I had just started on implementing that idea when the power came back on and I went back to my computer and typing up minutes for a committee meeting. :(

Hervé had an interesting request. A fellow wanted to house some of the 100 Pakistanis who were arrested here last week. At least I think those were the ones the fellow was talking about. If so, according to the paper, these men were apparently trying to get to Europe to get work. They paid somebody $1000 each to get from Pakistan to Spain. There was a Ghanian involved somewhere in the deal and their Pakistani guide. What do they call them, mules? Anyway, they were next going to sneak into Mauritania and then take small boats across to the Canary Islands, a province of Spain. And, ta-da. You’re in Europe. And you thought the only illegal immigration problem was in the Southwest US!

Actually, this is a very hot topic here. Last week’s newspaper, on the same page as the article about the 100 Pakistanis, explained about 150 Senegalese who were in court after being rounded up and returned here from the Canary Islands. Many have died on those little canoes, those pirogues, which they take across open waters for hundreds of miles.

And, no, we won’t take the 100 Pakistanis. Or even some of them. That is not what the Phare is for.

A Day of Rest

And some days nothing happens here. Like today. Besides the morning crowd of talibés, no one was here all day. Albert, the mason's assistant, subbed as day guard. And Ndiaga, the night guard, tells me someone will be staying in the Mali apartment tonight. If they are here, though, we haven't seen them. Even Hervé and Patricia and little Albert must be out. It's just plain quiet. A quiet Sunday.

Saturday and the place is hopping

It is a Saturday, but life is full at the Phare. Jane was out with the talibés this morning, doing a little first-aid. Most of the young men were there to do laundry and take showers. When I went out to take a photo, there were perhaps 20 guys there, mostly teens.

Alex de Sylvio, our UWM teammate, came by to pick up the two gentlemen from Philadelphia who flew in last night. Their church is involved with MIS and they were in Morocco visiting someone there, so they decided to slip down and get a first-hand view. The one on the right is the pastor of the church (Calvary something in Downingtown, PA). They are heading out to Thiès now and will return on Monday. Just passing through.

The Baptist church of Dakar is here today, also. I slipped in the back of the conference room to snap this shot. They are having a day outing here, with some worship time to start. The ping-pong table is set up and the volleyball net. Every few months they come like this on a Saturday.

Pierre Marie is here today, too. He is finishing up putting the ITES furniture back together after 18 months in storage. Now they’ll be able to put the books on the shelves and perhaps set up their computers and their office. They started holding classes two weeks ago in the evenings. They are doing week long intensives. Both weeks saw perhaps 10 students in class. I’ll try to get a shot this week.

Trimming back the green

To keep this blog going, I'll have to keep things daily and perhaps a bit mundane. Hopefully the result over time, though, will be a reasonably complete picture of what's happening here.

This is the rainiest month of the year. So, the lighthouse hill next to us has transformed from a brown, dusty height into a lush green refreshment for the eyes.

But that beautiful color doesn't come from soft blades of grass covering the slopes. What you see are weeds. Short pokey ones. Tall waving ones. And everything in between. And those same plants were threatening to take over here.

So, Herve hired a crew of guys to come and clear out the weeds before we were overwhelmed. They've been hard at work all week. And they have made amazing progress. Or, at least, I'm amazed, since I had a go at weeds a number of times over the last month. I know how hot that sun beats down and how uncooperative the weeds can be with thorns and burrs and all that.

It’s also been a week of clearing out and trimming back. The bananas got a cleaning out in spite of Mbaye’s reluctance. The lemon / lime tree next to them finally came down, too. I trimmed the tree line along the entranceway. Those wispy pine-like trees (filao) make good hedges, so I limited them to chest height. I hope they bush out a bit now. You might notice in the photo that Mbaye’s replacement shade tree by the guard booth didn’t survive the week. It was just in a bad location, blocking the guard’s view of the entranceway and our visitors’ view of the ocean.

Welcome to a new blog

This is a test for a blog giving ongoing updates on life at the Phare de l'Esperance in Dakar, Senegal. It is meant to keep in touch with those that visit us here, with our friends and supporters. The goal is to have lots of photos and just a little commentary.

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