Dear Friends and Family,

Several Different Stories

I still get shocked by the things I see in Chad.  This is a country so poor that it is evident everywhere I look.  Some of the things that I see people do I can't accept and get use to, these are things I think need to change.  The sickness is so much more because of the conditions and the people are suffering all around me.   Once in a while we do get to help people and get to see how we are making a difference in the lives of people.

One Monday I was walking threw the market place.  I was crossing through a big open lot and noticed a couple ladies sitting in the dirt.  My mind could not understand at first what they were doing sitting there in the middle of this big open space.  As I began to get closer I could see that they were scooping up the dirt in places where rice had fallen during the busy Saturday market.  Naomi was with me and she explained to me that they were sifting the sand out and trying to get what rice they could for their families.  I quickly got out my iPod and took a picture inconspicuously so they could not tell that it was a camera.  I just knew that this was something that I needed to show others, not to make fun but to open people's eyes and help others to be grateful for what you do have.

One sabbath morning our whole family was walking together to go to church.  The church is just a couple hundred yards outside our compound.  Half way to the church, in an open field, right in our pathway, a young girl got up from squatting and left her business right there in the middle of everyone.  I was so shocked.  The Adventist School public bathrooms were right there in sight yet it is excepted here that what she did is perfectly ok. 

Last week was a sad week because a friend of mine died of Aids.  I don't have many friends here but I always considered her one.  Her name was Dina and she worked in the hospital at the pharmacy.  A very kind lady to everyone and she was always one I enjoyed talking to.  She was only really sick in the hospital for a couple of weeks.  I went to visit several times and helped the family, that didn't want to leave their dying sister's side, with food.  I would also pray with the family almost every visit and they were so respectful and appreciative.  This last sabbath morning Jamie and I got woke up by the loud wailing coming from the hospital and we just knew that her suffering was over.  Jamie made her casket sabbath morning and we attended her funeral.  She was loved by so many,  I am guessing that there must have been three hundred or more people.   The drama of funerals here are so different from what we are use to in the states.  There is loud wailing and drumming and singing and dancing.  Everyone stays there with the family and the body all threw the night and the drumming never stops.  The men all sit together and all the women sit together.  If someone new comes walking in it is heard by everyone that is there because of the loud crying that almost sounds like screams.  This can continue for a week, day and night.  Jamie took the van with Dina and the family to the burial sight the next morning.  I didn't get to go because I had an infection on one of my feet from some kind of a bug bite.  (which I am on an antibiotic and it is much better)  But my thoughts were with her and I will miss her.

I wanted to give an update with a picture of the boy that fell in the well.  He is doing really good and his eye is great.  He is quite the character but brings so much sunshine to my house every Friday.  This is a picture of him and his brother, on his last visit here.  Someone donated the clothes the little boy is wearing.  The little jacket he has is actually for a girl but he was so happy with it to be able to have something to keep him warm in the next months to come in the evenings.  They just don't care about things like that here.   We have also been able to help his brother with some of his own medical problems that he has just been living with for some time because they just didn't have the money to get help.  He has had stomach problems with blood in his stool, which is diarrhea.   With medication he too should be fine.  I think that it is situations like this that we can use to become friends with them and develop trust to be able to help them to learn more about what Jesus is preparing for them.

We have been here over two years and I am still trying to get use to my environment.  I guess the day I am okay with things here is the day I should move.  God is really teaching our family more than we realize just by being in a place like this.  I want to thank everyone for all the donations that flow to allow us to be the "hands that help".  It is not always a fun place to live but I love my job and love so many of the people that I come in contact with.  It is a risk to love them because I never know if I am going to loose them but to never love is to never live. 

Love and blessings,
Tammy