Over Easter weekend we went on a trip with our church to a town about 80 km (2-3 hours) away from Dakar for Easter Camp.  We were blessed to be able to borrow a Toyota Land Cruiser for the trip. This allowed us not only to get there and back easily, but also to bring along quite a few friends from church: 13 on the way out and 15 on the way back.

Land Cruiser with those who rode with us (plus 2 extra people who just wanted to be in the picture! )

Jonathan helped out coordinating activities for the youth group while our kids enjoyed time with the others their age and I spent most of the weekend sick and resting on my mat.

)

One of the youth meetings during the weekend

Jonathan and the other leaders planned a few fun games for the youth group!

Water Relay Game - use a drinking cup to fill a 10 liter bottle with water from the ocean

Winners of the water relay game

Competing in a High Jump Competition

Participating in a Popular Sport: Senegalese Wrestling

Youth Hanging out at Easter Camp

Jonathan and Emmanuel packing up to return home

Our Kids Hanging out with Friends

While Jonathan and I felt out of our element and inadequate, our kids had the time of their lives and begged to stay “just a couple more days”!

I will post a few pictures from the workshop below, I promise I won’t feel bad if you skip the reading and go right for the pictures.

We recently had the privilege of going through the CUTE workshop here with fellow missionaries who are in the language learning process with us. The principles we learned are part of the Growing Participator Approach by Greg Thompson. The idea is that as we learning language and culture we are growing in our participation as well as our ability to participate in our new community (Senegal). The goal of the workshop was to help us better understand the method we are using for learning French, both the theory behind it and the the practical steps in order to accomplish our goals in language learning. In the mornings we were reviewing, learning and understanding the concepts and practical steps. In the afternoons we were with our nurturer (person who is helping us learn language and culture) putting the new tools into practice. The format was wonderful, in the morning you think you understand it clearly, until you try to actually follow the steps with your nurturer in the afternoon. It really helped solidify the principles and methods so that we will be able to put them to work.

So why CUTE and can these principles get CUTER?
C – Communing – Becoming a real, interesting, valued person in a growing number of host lives
U – Understanding – Becoming someone who host people can talk to and share their burdens with
T – Talking – Becoming someone host people can listen to and interact with
E – Evolving – Is an overarching principle of the first 3 meaning we seek to grow and keep changing as our ability to do the first 3 increases
R – Redemption – How God is at work in our “language learning” to draw people to Himself and change their hearts.

Please pray with us as we go through this process of changing, learning and growing into servants of the church here in Senegal.

From Cute Language Learning Workshop 2012, posted by Jonathan-Jenny Roundy on 1/24/2012 (4 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

Waly and I at Thanksgiving

I want to share a fun story from our experience of learning culture (way of living or doing life) here in Senegal. I must admit that too often I think of the things that are different from home and that I am having difficulty adjusting to.  When I do this, I miss out on so much that is positive about the culture here in our new home, Senegal.

One of the things that takes up a considerable part of our days here in Senegal is getting our kids to and from school.  We have experimented with different ways of getting this accomplished.  Taking the city bus, taking taxis, taking the bus one way and a taxi the other way, getting a taxi for the round trip etc.  After all of this experimenting,  we were beginning to think about trying to find a taxi driver and make an agreement for him to do the round trip every morning and afternoon for an agreed upon taxi fare.  An aspect of culture here is that you have to barter with the taxi driver for the fare EVERY time.  Each taxi driver may or may not be willing to adjust there fare, so you may have to wait for several taxis to go by.

One evening I was down visiting our friend Waly at the boutique (corner store).  Waly’s friend and neighbor, Mbarick came into the store and was sitting watching TV.  Mbarick then said something to Waly in a local language (Wolof).  Waly then relayed to me that if  I was outside at the bus stop with the kids a few minutes before 7AM that Mbarick would take me and the kids to school each day on his way to work.  Waly noticed that where our kids go to school is on Mbarick’s way to work, and he had asked Mbarick if he would be willing to drop us off at school each morning. (Right now the kids are riding to school with Sharon, who also takes her daughter to the same school each morning, but we wanted to share this story with you to get a window into our world of adjustments.)

This story fits into some of what we have observed here in Senegal which is that people just help each other.  All of the time, not just close friends, but even people they don’t know.  Another example, on our way back from French class we can spend a considerable amount of time at a bus stop.  We started noticing partially full taxis stopping and filling up with people from the bus stop.  We also noticed personal vehicles and even company vehicles stopping and people piling in for a free ride.  We asked our language and culture helper about this and she shared with us that this is common here.  People understand that transportation is hard, especially in our neighborhood, so they pick up those waiting for the bus and take them to the round-a-bout in the neighborhood, which gets them well on their way to where they need to go.

We are so thankful for those that are praying for us as we continue this process of understanding our new context here in Senegal and adapting to the culture here.  It is all so new and different.  We continue to be reminded that we are in a new culture now for just over four months.  This means that, in a lot of senses, we are like four month-olds here in Senegal i.e. we have a TON to learn and we do not know very much.

It’s hard to believe it’s been two months already! God has brought us this far! Sometimes we are spinning with the many changes He’s brought our way and He’s brought us through! Yet, He’s also surrounded us with support through prayer and compassionate care.

These few photos should give you a peek into our first 2 months:

Jenny & Eliane Headed out to Market

Meeting and getting to know Eliane has been an important highlight of our start here in Senegal. Eliane comes to our home every weekday helping me keep the house clean (it’s an endless battle against the dust which is reportedly tame this time of year!), keeping our crowd fed, and offering valuable perspective on life in Senegal. Eliane is a dear sister in Christ and fast becoming a dear friend! We are blessed by her!

Roundys with Jerome and Vildene

Our new church family at L’Eglise Presbytérienne de Hann Maristes has also been a blessing to us. Our pastor and his wife, Jerome and Vildene, have taken care to help us get to know our new city and to get to know life in a new way here. We greatly appreciate their friendship, their patience with us, and their care for us!

James and Jada Supervising the Filling of the Waterbed

Getting settled into our new home has been a team effort, and that’s a team that includes more than just our very cute children! We’re so grateful to our mission team members who worked so hard before and since our arrival to set up our house!

During our first month here we were able to meet many of the NTM missionaries ministering here in Dakar. They welcomed us warmly: after we shared our testimony with the team, the kids enjoyed a sleepover while we got down to business, a game of Settlers!

All Dressed up to Attend the Wedding

The Bride and her Brother Wally

What an honor to attend our neighbor’s wedding! We were invited to celebrate the marriage of our friend Wally’s sister. Our neighbors really know how to have a party–with good food, finely dressed guests and music and dancing long into the night! We really enjoyed being a part of the celebration and getting to meet more of our neighbors!

Emmanuel and Elena Start School at Dakar Academy

James and Jada Start School at L'Ecole ABC

Also in the past 2 months we’ve all started classes. So far Emmanuel and Elena are thriving in their new school! This is an answer to prayer in a huge way! They were very nervous about the new school and it was a bit of an adjustment, but it hasn’t been a rough one. On the contrary, it’s been amazing to hear their accounts of their school day told with such joy! Their school is an American school and all their classes (except for French class) are in English.

James and Jada completed a “vacation course” at their school and the main school year commences this next Monday. They are going to a small school that is held in our church. Their classes are all in French. We have already seen an improvement in their French speaking at home! Thank you for your prayers on behalf of our kiddos!

Jonathan & I have also started classes–French language classes. We meet 2 hours every morning with our French language instructor. Our vocabulary is stretching and expanding daily! We’d appreciate your prayers during this time of intense language and culture acquisition. We will be focusing on this for the next year in order to reach a language level at which we can communicate well with those we minister alongside.

God has brought us many blessings during this difficult time of transition. We are thankful to Him for your prayers and for His presence through the last months and going forward! We look forward to what He will bring us through in the next months!

We arrived in Senegal just about on schedule.  We had the immigration paperwork mailed to us ahead of time in order to have it all filled out, but alas, amid all the other things we had going on, we neglected to fill out the paperwork before landing.  So…there we were in the airport, tired and ready for sleep trying to fill out immigration paperwork.  I, Jonathan, ended up having to leave the rest of he family behind and walk out through the security and customs to get a physical address for our paperwork.  I got the info and gave it to the immigration officer who put in the official stamps in our passports that we had ARRIVED!

When we arrived at the luggage carrousel there were really no other travelers there anymore.  We figured out that a bag that we had gate checked was missing….oops!  I had to go back into a back part of the airport and report our lost bag, which took quite a bit of time.  One of the airport workers sat down with Emmanuel and was drawing a picture for him in his notebook when I arrived back from the bagage loss claim department.  After that we walked through customs and then out to meet the folks that had arisen early,  we loaded up our bags and headed to our new apartment here in Senegal.

We live on the second floor, so we worked together to carry all of the bags upstairs and put them in our place.  We found out that in trying to fill the waterbed to prepare for us, it had overflowed and flooded the house. (not like feet of water or anything, but definitely flooded from what we understand.)   The folks greeting us had already had it all cleaned up so we wouldn’t have known except for the absence of the waterbed.

We got a little tour of our new digs, and there was food in the fridge, which was nice.  We tried to go to the boutique (small corner store) for some bread for breakfast, but due to Ramadan hours they were not open.  Daniel drove us down to the Brioche Doree to get some bread and we stopped at a “superette” not a grocery store, but bigger than the corner store.  We got corn flakes and some jelly to go with the bread we had purchased (baguettes).

That same morning Eliane came to our house to meet us and prepare our first lunch here in Senegal.  We had cheb yep (not sure on the spelling, but rice and meat) for lunch.

We were kind of spinning that first day to be sure, trying to figure out whether to sleep, or try and stay up.  Thanks for your prayers, the jet lag was not too bad, although we do not have a lot to compare it with.

Getting ready for departure

We wanted to be at the airport at around 6 :30 AM in order to get all of our luggage into the airport and checked in with plenty of time.  My parents (in from South America), my Brother (in from Maine), my Sister (in from the Philippines),  and Misty and Andy (in from Hartland, WI) were able to spend the night in a hotel in Chicago.  Casey, Jenny, Levi and Tigue (read Ty) joined us for the evening and we ordered in Pizza from Giordannos to enjoy one last time before leaving.

In the morning we all went to the airport together and spent our last hours together before our departure.  We shed our share of tears as we headed through security and waved good-bye to our families who were there to send us off.  God allowed us to go through the security rather quickly, so that was a real blessing.  Our first flight was delayed by about an hour.  It was nice that we had 4 hours scheduled for our layover in Dulles, so the delay did not affect our connecting flight to Senegal.  We had planned on going out through security to see Jenny’s Uncle who came to the airport at our layover, but after arriving late, we got nervous about going out and getting back in through security with enough time.

The flight was rather uneventful, which is generally a good thing!  We did not all sleep, but some of us were able to sleep, so that was good.  Thank you so much for praying for us, we are so blessed to have a team of people praying for us.

We were so blessed to be able to have time with our families before departing for Africa.  We spend some precious time with the our family, Jenny’s side, in North Carolina after leaving Quebec.  We enjoyed so much being together and it was incredibly difficult to leave.

Picking Blackberries on...then off to cool down in the lake in North Carolina

Enjoying the lake with family in the smokies

Celebrating the 4th in North Carolina with Jenny's Family

God allowed us to coordinate a reunion with the Roundy side of our family in northern Wisconsin from 3 different continents (including the us in the US of course).  It was so great to be together as family and catch up before our departure for Africa.  We all enjoyed driving the ATV’s, swimming in the lake and just plain being together as family.   The Jones were kind enough to let us stay in their place in Northern Wisconsin.

Grilling out is serious business!

A pic of us all together up north, my brother came later

Last trip to Ching Hwa was a must. This is the whole crew after my brother arrived

Jenny and Misty

Jonathan, Cynthia and Curtis first time together in a long time! So much fun!

We had the privilege of going to a kids club with our family at one of the churches here in the area. Thought you might enjoy some pictures of the kids enjoying kids club here in Senegal!  The kids broke up into three groups.  Two of the groups were taught in Wolof, a language of wider communication that kids know before going to school and learning French.

Some of our kids enjoying the game wit the parachute

A game where a kid goes under the parachute and crawls and touches someone's feet. That person in turn does the same thing.

Yup! They all went underneath and stretched the parachute behind them.

Praise time singing songs together. They broke up into groups

Candy at the end for all those willing to dance a jig

James, Jada and Mom at the Hospital

As we get closer and closer to our departure date, we are making our most valiant attempt at crossing all of our T’s and dotting all of our I’s.  One of the items on the list is to get properly vaccinated against whatever diseases may await our family upon arrival in Senegal.  One of the “biggies” in Africa to be concerned about is Yellow Fever. In fact, depending on what country it is in Africa, if you arrive at the port of entry and do not have your Yellow Fever Vaccination Certification card showing you have been vaccinated, you may be ushered into a vaccination area and receive the vaccine on the spot.

We started by making lots of phone calls to find out the best way and the most economical way for our family to receive our vaccinations for Africa.  We spent an afternoon at the Travel Clinic here in Sherbrooke in order to get our typhoid vaccine and other vaccinations needed.  During our time there, the nurse brought up the Yellow Fever Vaccine, which was not news to us, except that this vaccinations has a lot of EGG in it compared with other vaccines that contain egg.  Oops, James and Jada are allergic to eggs, but they need the vaccine.  The Dr. called an allergist at the local hospital and setup an appointment for the twins to receive their Yellow Fever vaccine at the hospital under the supervision of an allergist, with and IV in place and ICU on alert.  This would take place over the period of 1/2 a day.  The only catch is that this is free for Canadians, but…we are not Canadians.  So we launched into the research phase.  Do we HAVE to have this vaccination?  How much would it cost to take care of this at the Public Hospital where normally everything is covered, but not for us?  Could we find a Dr. in the United States who would do this for us, maybe while we are in Wisconsin this summer?  Is the hospital and Dr. in network for our insurance?  By the way, how do those deductibles work anyhow?  What is the real risk of contracting yellow fever in Senegal?  If you get Yellow Fever, what is the mortality rate, (i.e. what are the chances you will die) ?  Can we find anyone in Wisconsin willing to administer the shot, or does everyone want to write and exception for us?  If it is not a required vaccine for Senegal, why did one of our missionary friends get ushered into the “vaccination room” when entering Senegal without their yellow fever card in hand?

We are blessed to have a couple in French Language Study with us, Grace and Dale, who are both Doctors.  They were a great help to us in even knowing what questions to ask when making the decision.  We were calling all over the place and getting no real answers, just blank stares.  Can you get a blank stare when speaking to someone on a phone?  Apparently the type of Dr. to speak with is a Pediatric Infectious Disease doctor.   We launched an email to the prayer team to pray with us for wisdom in making this BIG decision.  God has truly blessed us with a wonderful group of  people who pray with us in during challenging times like this.

We came to the decision that the risks of the disease and the mortality rate, chance you will die if you get it, lead us to the decision that James and Jada in deed needed to receive the vaccination.  The next question was where?  Wisconsin or Quebec? We tried very hard to find someone in Wisconsin who could administer the vaccination before our departure for Africa.  Froedert Travel Clinic and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin both referred us to the same allergist.  When we started figuring out dates, we were arriving in Wisconsin on July 11th and he was leaving town from July 14th – August 1st.  Oops, that’s a pretty tight schedule, but there was an opening for July 12th.  He did some research into what the protocol would look like and also spent some time hearing James and Jada’s egg allergy history.  We were praying for clear direction in the decision.  Having the vaccination in Wisconsin would be free or closed to free whereas being vaccinated here in Quebec was looking like 2 to 3 thousand dollars if all went well.  ICU is $7,993 per night if we ended up needing that.  Another hurdle was that the hospital where everything was setup for was out of network. (NOT GOOD)  Through many phone calls we found out that because there are NO IN NETWORK hospitals in our town, insurance would put the expenses as IN NETWORK.  We continued to pray and ask for prayer.  The last time I prayed about it before we made our decision I asked God for clarity.  Within the hour I received a phone call from the allergist in WI saying that he felt like our schedule in Wisconsin had NO margin for error and that it would be wise to come up with another plan.  How about that for an answer to prayer!

All ready for the hospital...magic cream applied... check, tagoderm applied...check

We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 8 AM for our appointment. We needed to get our hospital card, prepay the society of doctors and pay a bill in hospital accounting.   Well, the only place open before 8 AM was the place to get the hospital card.  I thought I would get ahead of the game and do all of this the day before.  After spending the afternoon at the hospital, I found out that I would not be able to have my hospital card until the day of my appointment.  I also would not be able to pay any of the other bills until I had my hospital card.  The lady in the doctors society office told me that she could help me and allow me to pay early, but that I would need to return the next day to have a number changed on my receipt.  There were two charges, one for James and one for Jada.  After running the first charge, Jenny received a phone call at home to confirm that it was us making the charge and release a hold they had put, or intended to put on our bank card.  Meanwhile, I was at the hospital totally unaware of what had transpired with the bank. God is in the details! This could have been a very difficult situation if I had waited until the next day and nobody was home to take the call from our bank.  God also blessed us with a wonderful gentleman, Jean-Claude De Courcy from AXE21 (our church here) to go with us to the hospital to help with language barriers in case things we “wrong”.

James and Jada received their vaccinations with very little complication! The doctor and nursing staff were wonderful and compassionate during the whole process. James and Jada both needed IVs installed  as well as 4 shots each over the course of the morning.  The numbing gel they used for Jada caused her veins to collapse and so they had to try 4 times to get the IV in and finally installed it in her arm instead of her hand.  This lead to many tears from both Jada and mommy, who was with her during this process.  After receiving the vaccination there was a possibility of reaction for up to 24 hours.  We praise the Lord that there was no major reaction. Jada had a large local reaction, but this was remedied by children’s Tylenol over the next few days.  Praise the Lord for allowing us to come through this process all in one piece and for being in the details all along the journey.

Our French language study program includes many different parts that all work together to improve our ability to communicate in French.  One example is reading the Bible with a French speaking student from the Word of Life Bible School who we were paired with at the beginning of our first semester.  We meet three times per week to read and discuss the Bible for 20 minutes.  They are both a great help to us and so very patient.  I wonder if the most difficult part for them is to not burst out laughing listening to a full grown adult struggle to decipher the simplest of words.   The other weekend we were also able to invite Louis-Philippe and Stephanie over to eat and play games together.  They are so gracious and helpful to us.

Jonathan and Louis-Philippe

Jenny and Stephanie