This morning I am sitting in a coffee shop waiting on Noel to finish his flight so we can have our Saturday. Noel doesn’t usually fly on Saturdays but sometimes a flight just needs to be done. It is a fun treat for me to sit here, read, and blog as I wait even if I did have to get up early on a Saturday morning.
November has been a month of inspections, settling in a new family, air strip construction, and Thanksgiving. The month started off with Noel and a mechanic from the states doing the caravan inspection. During the inspection, they found out that the landing gear needed to be replaced which meant they had to ground the airplane until the gears could be ordered and sent. In the meantime, our new mechanic and his family arrived from Congo. We are blessed to have them as a part of our team here. The new mechanic, David, has experience working with Caravans and is willing and eager to learn more about fixing the helicopter. He was able to step right in and lead getting the new landing gear installed when it came. Noel is thankful that he can now focus more on other things but would still loves to get his hands dirty working on the airplane when needed.
This month there has also been a team of guys in Foya (north of us) working on repairing an airstrip. The project has had challenges but should be finished this weekend. Noel says already it is much improved. Working with SP, we see a lot of people who have jobs that are flexible enough for them to come do work here whether at the hospital or in this case at the airstrip. Next week, we have a helicopter mechanic that is coming to help with the inspection. If the volunteers are working with the aviation portion, it means my guest rooms are usually full. It has been fun having guests this month whether it has been for a week or just a night.
Liberia Thanksgiving was the first week of November which meant a day off. Our team waited though until American Thanksgiving to celebrate. That evening the team gathered at our house for turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin cheese cake and many other foods that go with Thanksgiving. Everyone worked together on bringing the different dishes. We had almost 40 at our gathering. We cleared the living room enough to add two long tables. The evening was full of good conversations and laughter as Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, and a Serbian gal celebrated together.
My school is going well. I added a new 9th grader when the Mechanic family came this month. The other student did an excellent job of welcoming him, and you wouldn’t know now that he is the new guy on the block. My 10th grade girl had a project where she needed to show how to treat sports injuries. She decided to do a video on treating surfing/beach injuries. Here are some pictures from that afternoon. I thought you might like to see how authentic the injuries looked. Don’t worry his injury is just salsa and mayonnaise.
This is a picture of my students and I minus my 2nd grader. Aren’t they a great bunch? They make me smile everyday. Of course they are teenagers so somedays my patience does get a workout.
Here is my second grader, Oscarito.
He is working on using manipulatives to practice regrouping for his subtraction problems. Oscarito (which means little Oscar) loves math so often I bribe him with more math to get other things done. Crazy, don’t you think? He can’t wait to take Algebra and Calculus. Wish my older kids were that excited about math. Sadly Oscarito’s family will be gone for a few months. I will miss him, but it will be good to have some more concentrated time helping the older students with a few things.
Well that is it for November. Hopefully I won’t wait so long to post next time. Thank you all for your prayers as we work here. We appreciate your support. Tomorrow our Cleft lip project starts where Samaritan’s purse is bringing in around 50 patients from all over Liberia for corrective surgery for cliff lip or palette. The patients range in age from little ones to 50 years old. Pray for Noel and Justin as they fly these patients. Pray for the team of doctors and other medical personnel as they do the surgeries. Pray that God’s love will be evident and opportunities to share the gospel will abound. I am excited that my students will have a chance to interact with some of the kids this week by playing and hanging out with them.
Many blessings this holiday season, Teresa
Very cool stuff you are doing. Must be a nice break from Kabul! Poor Kabul. How everyone is suffering there these days…xx J
Praying for Noel, Justin, patients, doctors and medical personnel as they accomplish this project in the Lord’s name. Praying for you and your whole family this season as we celebrate the birth of our King. I thank God for all you and Noel do as His servants. I am blessed reading your blogs and want to thank you for your tireless efforts to keep us updated on your adventures for our Lord.