Michael and Nancy Dore Tribal Church Planting in West Africa Adventures in French
Hello all! We hope you had an enjoyable time celebrating the Resurrection!
Days of Rest
We’ve been blessed with a few days off lately—not because of sickness this time—and have taken advantage of them to catch up on family time, visiting with neighbors, and taking a few day trips. One day we enjoyed a local beach—the kids had a blast!
Then a few days later we headed to an island just off the mainland. Senegal has some great surfing areas and this island is one of the places to go!
We had a wonderful time with friends.
We even had a new experience: sea urchin. It was fresh from the ocean (still trying to crawl away in fact) when they threw it in the charcoal burner. The guys got 7 for about $1!
Adventures in French!
Life for us has been busy lately! We have been in French classes for 2 months now. We leave our house at 8am and get back between 1:30 and 2pm. Then we try to find time for homeschool, household tasks, spending time with the kids, visiting friends, and reviewing French.
I remember one of our instructors during the training reminding us that when God does something He does it to completion, so when He messed up the languages at the Tower of Babel, He did it VERY WELL! We are finding that to be true as we try to wrap our brains around another language.
One thing that can be strange is the way French uses specifying words. Most specifiers are put after the noun, but not all! We are still not sure if there is a rule for this, or if you just get to know how each one is used. For example, you would say “the big piece of paper red”, or “the glass of water half full”; but “the old book”. Another thing foreign to English speakers is the need to specify the gender of every word! This gets pretty important: ’la personne’ means ‘a person’ while just ‘personne’ means ‘nobody’! English speakers typically have a hard time distinguishing between the different nasal vowels in French, and hearing the difference between two very close ‘u’ sounds! Nancy had a hard time with the French for ‘on’ (sur) and ‘under’ (sous). When they are said fast, the main difference is that they have different ‘u’ sounds! We’re just not used to discerning between them! After about two hours of listening over and over, she was getting a handle on it.
Speaking of Nancy, she likes to talk! (You may have noticed.) Well, the other day while we were heading home from class on the public transport, we sat by a lady with a newborn baby. She motioned if she could hold the baby. Once she had the baby in her arms she wondered how old it was and, using the only number phrase she knew, asked “C’est combien?” Michael quickly spoke up, talking to the lady in French for a while. He said the baby was less than a month. Later he explained that Nancy asked how much her baby cost not how old it was! Yikes!
Prayer Requests
- Pray that we would be able to time manage, some days it seems like the list never ends.
- Pray for Nancy—sometime soon we will be splitting our class up into two groups, and the two of us will be in different groups.
- Pray that the kids would finish the school year well, they only have a few subjects left!
- Pray for Guinea, they have elections coming up in May.
- Pray for us as we work on planning for our move down there (most likely sometime in the summer or fall).
- Praise we continue to adjust to culture. We have been taking the public transportation (instead of taxis) for the last month. This is new to us, and a bit confusing; but we have been figuring it out! There is a major price difference, so that definitely helps! We take a ‘car rapide’ every day to class. The price for a week of transport cost less than a one way trip in the taxi!
- Praise that Nancy is noticing her French is growing, even though she is nowhere near proficient, her comprehension is growing!
- Praise that Michael’s French is coming back to him.
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers,
Michael & Nancy Dore
(with Titus, Emma, Micah, and Isaac!)
PDF Life in Senegal 3 of 3
Greetings from Senegal! In case you have missed it, we have been doing a three part series, if you want to read those you can read “Things We Miss”, “Things That Are the Same, But Different”, and a few behind the scenes posts—just follow the links!
Today we are going to focus on “Things We Like Better Here in Africa”. This list may be little shorter, but we are still learning all about our new home and I am sure we will find many more in the weeks to come!
Things That Are Better!
BAKERIES ON EVERY CORNER: OK, so maybe not every corner, but we have three bakeries within a five minute walk of our home. We can get 3 of these loaves at every bakery for about $1. We eat a LOT of sandwiches! (Bonus! They wrap the bread in big pieces of paper and the kids take turns drawing a big picture each time.) Each bakery has its own pastries that we have been happy to sample. Some of our favorites are the croissant types with a sweet filling and the ones with grated coconut (think Mounds Bar without the chocolate).
FRESH LEMONADE: Nancy has always loved fresh lemonade and for about $.50 we can make 1.5 liters of lemonade!
LOCAL MARKET: It is very nice to run out and get those fresh fruits and veggies right across the road!
WARM WEATHER: Don’t be jealous! Right now we are in the mid 60s at night and get up around 80° during the day. We have been warned that this is ‘winter’ after all and it will be getting MUCH warmer!
GOD’S JUICE BOXES: We have only gotten these once, but I am sure once it warms up we will get these often. Around here we don’t eat our oranges, we drink them. You will see people with piles of oranges on the sidewalk, they have taken just the outside of the peel off and left the pith on, when you want one they cut off the top and you head on your way, squeeze and suck, squeeze and suck! About 20¢!
HOSPITALITY: If you are visiting someone, or just walking by and they are eating or about to eat, they will invite you in to share with them. When we visit someone, to just say ‘Hi’ we plan on staying for a few hours!
ANIMATED INTERACTION: It seems like every time we get to visit with our new friends something comes up that gets people excited. If they think something is funny they may leave the room in laughter, or yell in excitement, stand in agreement or trying to get a point across. We have had fun just sitting back and watching! Hopefully soon we will be more part of the excitement ourselves.
WILLING TO MAKE THE CUSTOMER HAPPY: We are still trying to get our bearings of which little store will carry which things. While we have been in this process people will go look for us to find out which store has what! We just stand and wait or go with to figure out for the next time.
We get 10,000 or 5,000CFA bills to use, the problem is most things in the market only cost 100 or 200CFA. Change is a precious commodity! Sometimes they will head off with our money trying to get change or if they are a little short they may just throw in an extra piece of fruit.
Life is always better with FLIP-FLOPS!
WE ARE RIGHT WHERE GOD WANTS US TO BE! This one may be a given to some, but the BEST things about being here in West Africa is we are right where the LORD wants us! Even if the going gets rough (we started French this week, 5 hours of class time and homework along with normal life things) we need to rest in the fact that HE has brought us here. We are very excited to see where this road leads us!
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers,
Michael & Nancy Dore
(with Titus, Emma, Micah, and Isaac!)
Life in Senegal 2 of 3
Greetings from Senegal!
This is part two of a three part series. If you haven’t yet, read part one, “Things We Miss”. Today we will focus on:
Things That Are the Same
(Or Maybe Just a Little Different)
SPORTS FANS: A lot of people around the world have been glued to the TV lately watching football. Our friends in America were watching the Super Bowl…
BUT: Here anywhere we have gone over the past few weeks, if they had a TV it was tuned in a different kind of football (soccer to Americans). The Africa Cup just finished up and no matter where we went, the fruit guy, the corner store, your friends’ house they all were watching. We always knew when a game ended, you could here a cheer come up from all the neighbors! The other night when a semi-final match ended cheering went on until midnight!
SMELLS: Some things smell bad, like ‘fertilizer’ getting spread on fields (we lived in the country, after all), dirty diapers, sewage. Some things smell good, like freshly mowed grass, your neighbor BBQ, bacon!
BUT: Here things that smell bad are the meat/fish seller stalls (no refrigeration…), garbage heaps, the alley walls. Other things smell REALLY good like, fresh bread from the bakery (we found a new bakery the other day by following the smell) or our neighbor cooking a meal.
CHURCH: At our home church we share prayer request then we all take turns praying. The pastor preaches in English and we all understand it.
BUT: at our church here we share prayer request and then we all pray at the same time OUT LOUD (that takes a little getting used to!). One of the elders preaches in French, then another elder translates that in Jola (right now, another missionary has been translating into English for us).
Side Note: You may be thinking “Why are they there if there is already an established church?”
Well, Senegal’s population is about 13 million; with about 1% of that being Evangelical Christian—most of these are in the bigger cities.
We are trying to build relationships with the churches that are here in the cities so that we can partner with them in reaching the many areas that have little no Gospel presence.
FAST FOOD: I think we all know about fast food in the States! McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, the list goes on!
BUT: Here we CAN get a few options for fast food:
Schawarma — think of it as a Middle Eastern taco, it has meat, fries, tahini, and veggies inside a pita. Also available, many other Middle Eastern fast foods.
Hamburger — these come on a BIG bun. They put on the patty, fries, a sauce that tastes a little like BBQ—and then they hollow out the top of the bun and put a hard boiled egg inside!
A Plate of Whatever is on the Menu — often there are little restaurants or stands that make traditional rice and sauces and you get a serving of whatever is cooked up for the day.
(Check out our blog for a few more fast food pictures and descriptions and a peek behind the scenes!)
BILL PAYING: We all pay bills—in the states the bill comes in the mail. You can pay online or (the really time consuming way) write out a check and send it through the mail.
BUT: Here we wait for the guy from the electric company to knock on our door (I don’t know what happens if you are not there when he comes), then we make sure we have enough cash on hand (typically we only deal with cash here, no credit cards or checks), then we need take our bill with us to the local bill pay office and pay in person.
Check in here for a glimpse at how buying things is different.
Stay tuned next week for the final part of the series, Things we like BETTER in West Africa!
Prayer Requests
- Praise for continued health!
- Pray for our classes starting on Friday—things are about to get a lot busier!
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers,
Michael & Nancy Dore
(with Titus, Emma, Micah, and Isaac!)
Life in Senegal 2 of 3 [Extra!]
Here is a little extra info on something that is “The Same, But Different”. Our main update was getting a bit long, so we decided to separate this one out for you really dedicated people!
BUYING THINGS: We all have to buy things. You go in find what you want, pay for it and have maybe a little bit of small talk with the cashier, but more than likely not…
BUT: Here things work a little differently! The other day we found a ‘tourist’ shop around the corner from us. This is how our buying went:
We went in and greeted the man, “Hello, how are you?”
“Good, and you?”
“Good, and your family?”
“Good, and your family?” (Not a typo—there is a lot of repetition in the greetings here.)
We would do this with everyone in the room while shaking hands; good thing there was only one man this time! Then we proceeded to look around, to see what would strike our interest. Of course, the shop owner was also trying to get us interested in things!
“Sit down!”, he says. So, we sit, on his couch. “What are your names, the names of the kids?”
We start talking about Michael growing up in Guinea, so then of course he wants to know where, how long, does he speak any other languages from Guinea? Why are we in Senegal, how long will we be here, where do we live, where are we from? (Note: For safety reasons, we generally try to give pretty vague answers to some of these questions.) As you can imagine, quite a bit of time has passed by this point.
Now, onto business, how much does this cost, or this, or this…
”Boy, that seems expensive!” (Even if you don’t think so, it is important in the negotiating process to seem like you do! People here generally give you a higher rate, then we talk them down, until we can meet somewhere in the middle.)
Some more talking about life. Then we focus on what we want right then. We wanted to get 3 outfits for the boys, he told us a starting price of 11,000 CFA (about $22). So Michael offers 8,000CFA. He acts like, “How could you even ask such a small number!”
He says, “I already gave you a good price, you are from Guinea! How about 10,000CFA?”
Think about it some more, don’t make it too easy! It is all part of the process!
“OK, 10,000CFA.” Some more talk, he makes sure we don’t want anything else.
“It is all good, I gave you a good price. Are you sure you don’t want to get that for your wife, or an outfit for your girl?”
We start to leave. “Good bye! Thank you!”
He says, “Come back anytime, just to visit, I am here all the time. We could have tea.”
So now, not only do we know where to buy artifacts, we also are possibly on the way to making a friend.
Senegalese Fast Food
Behind the Scenes
So when you are about to write an update talking about fast food options in Senegal and you find out that you have NO pictures of anything you are writing about, what do you do?
Well, I don’t know what you would do, but we buckled down, went the extra mile for you folks—and got some fast food. Just to take pictures of it, you understand. Well, of course we did have to eat it in the end—we can’t be wasteful now, can we? And well, yes, we did get a couple of soft drinks to go with it, now that you mention it…
Let’s just keep focused on the main thing, OK? We are here working hard to keep you informed in whatever ways we can! And French classes are starting on Friday, so we will have considerably less update time in our schedule, so it had to be soon!
Being still relatively new to our neighborhood, we started out by trying to track down a relatively good option for the fast food we were looking for. We tried a few, but they seemed a bit deserted or lacking in options, so we ended up trying a place just an alley away from us. We can even see it from our rooftop! So we walked in and started talking with the guys there. Turns out one of them was from Guinea! We had a good time chatting about that for a bit. (See our post on “Buying Things” .)
Well, in the interests of science and documentation, we ordered several different options that were available to us.
The Schawarma — a Middle Eastern pita wrap sandwich with meat, fries, tahini sauce, and parsley (your fillings may vary from place to place—we are still looking for one that adds pickle). This is one of our favorites here in West Africa, and Nancy says that the ones we got last night were her favorites (so far) here in Dakar. [Cost: $2.00]
The Hamburger — complete with meat patty, fries, shredded swiss cheese, and a fried egg all piled between the buns. Surprisingly good! Last night’s was also one of the best that we have had since being here in Dakar. (OK, so it was only the second one we have had, so that may not hold much weight.) [Cost: $2.50]
The Norvegienne — another common offering here — all we knew going in was that it was supposed to be some type of hotdog/sausage thing…but we were brave! Turns out, it was a very red hotdog like thing, sliced lengthwise, fried, wrapped with a fried egg and shredded cheese, packed with french fries and wrapped in a pita. Also surprisingly good! (The actual sausage thing was a tad bland.) [Cost: $2.25]
The Fataya — a fried meat pie re-heated, cut open, and packed with…wait for it…fries and a fried egg! Also pretty good. [Cost: $1.00]
We found out that they have a printed menu there, and we can call and have our order delivered for about 60¢! (Do we need to do an update for you on that? Cause I think we would be willing to investigate this further….Plus, look at all those menu items we haven’t tried yet!)
The one thing about fast food here is, well, it isn’t really very fast. We waited probably 20–30 minutes for every thing to be cooked, and by that time it was pretty dark. People eat later here than we are used to in the US, so it was probably 7:30 or 8 when we got back to our house. And we got everything set out on the table to take some lovely informative pictures when…
The power went out.
So we did our best to take pictures anyway! Titus held a battery powered LED light-strip and we snapped away. Learning flexibility and how to make do is a big part of adjusting to living here. We hope you enjoy seeing a bit more of our life here—at least as much as we enjoyed making (er, eating?) it.
Life in Senegal 1 of 3
The next three updates are going to be a three part series: things we miss or took for granted, things that are the same (maybe a little different), and finally, things we like better here in Africa.
Part One:
Things We Miss or Took for Granted in the US.
WASHING MACHINE: For our first few weeks here Nancy did the laundry by hand. One thing she learned was that it is a LOT of work!
We now are happily borrowing an old machine. It is VERY nice not to have to hand wash everything; however it does have its issues. (Like a leak from the bottom! Good thing we have all tile floor!)
DAIRY PRODUCTS: We don’t have much dairy here, in fact anything we do have is imported. This makes for expensive things like cheese and yogurt. Things like sour cream, cream cheese and liquid milk are non-existent. We are finding substitutes for some things already, plain yogurt makes a good substitute for sour cream and Laughing Cow Cheese (no, really, that is what it is called) makes a good one for cream cheese.
GARBAGE PICKUP: In the US you just take your garbage out in front of your house and they come along sometime and take it away. Here, not so much! Starting early in the morning you start to hear honking—long and loud—that is the garbage truck. Then you need to run out to the street with your trash can before he is gone. However, all his honking sounds the same, whether he is at your street or several streets over, this means that whenever you THINK you hear him we head to the window or up to the roof to see if everyone else is heading out with their garbage. One thing that we find funny is that when he honks you go, so all kinds of people are rushing out with the garbage, whether it is the house helper or the lady all dressed to the hilt to go out for the day! It makes for an interesting picture!
CLEAN TAP WATER: This one is actually the hardest to deal with when we go to brush our teeth, it is so natural to run that brush under the water! We filter our water everyday, and we have to get used to making sure we have enough on hand—the other day we made beans and rice; and between the rinsing and soaking, and the boiling we were tipping the bucket to get enough to finish!
ALL-IN-ONE/EASE OF SHOPPING: Michael had to get some silicone the other day (trying to fill cracks so mosquitoes can’t get in). Let’s just say he had to go to several shops to see if they had it in.
We go to a different place to buy our bread than we do to get our veggies, and that is different from who we get our fruit from and so on, sometimes it is hard to visit all those places quickly!
UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND YOU: Let’s just say our French isn’t great. Even if we did have French down perfectly many people actually speak Wolof or Jola, among other languages, in the everyday life.
When Michael was trying to find the silicone, he tried to describe what he was looking for, not knowing the word for caulk. After meeting with blank stares from the guys in the hardware store, he noticed some silicone that was used to seal some glass panes on the counter. When he pointed to it, they exclaimed “Oh, silicone!”
It’s nice when all you have to do is say the same word with a French accent—but sadly it doesn’t happen all that often.
HAVING OUR OWN CAR: It would be very nice to just hop in the car and go where we want! But, we do not have a car here in Dakar, so, we need to find some kind of public transport.
We know of at least five options:
Car Rapide — This is actually not a car! It is a very colorful bus and you pay about $.10 per passenger. These can get very crowded and make as many stops as they need to stay full. They only go short distances, like around the neighborhood.
The “Beat Up White Bus” (we don’t know the real name) — This works like the car rapide, but for longer distances, think across town.
The Nicer Bus — This has specific stops along the way, more like we would think of city buses in the US.
The “Clando” — This is an unofficial taxi (the name comes from “clandestine”!). It works much like the car rapide, in that you pay for a seat instead of the whole taxi. They go only on a small scale, think neighborhoods. They cost about $.20 per passenger.
The Regular Taxi — This works much like you would think of a taxi working in the US; you hire the whole car and they will go all over the city. We generally get these if we have the whole family. They generally cost between $4-$6 roundtrip (always negotiate!), and come in various levels of disrepair.
HAVING A YARD: Coming from living the country, we miss grass and having room to let the kids run free! We do have a flat walled roof that we have access to, so sometimes we let them run up there.
JUST GOING TO SLEEP WHEN YOU LAY DOWN: Mosquito nets! How we hate them! We are constantly tucking the kids in as they wiggle in their sleep. Even when we are ready to sleep, we have to take the time to tuck in the net, then climb in then finish tucking it in…if we need to get up in the middle of the night, it has almost become a game to see how little of the net you can untuck to get in and out!
Don’t forget to tune in over the next few weeks to see the continuation of our three part series. I hope this gave you a glimpse into what our ‘new’ life is like!
Prayer Requests
- Praise for better health. We seem to have gotten over our flu, and Isaac seems to have gotten over the fever he was fighting. Praise God that it wasn’t malaria!
- Pray about our continued adjusting to life here. Things are going well, but we are still very tired most days.
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers,
Michael & Nancy Dore
(with Titus, Emma, Micah, and Isaac!)
Little Things
A Riddle of Little Things
A riddle to start your day—what do shampoo, a fork, and a hanger have in common? Keep reading and I will tell you—but first, some back stories…
I am not normally a person who cares about girly things; I don’t use makeup, I have a wash and wear hairstyle, etc. But one thing I like is Herbal Essence shampoo. You may not know this, but a few years ago they changed the formula and redid all the packaging; why they did this I have no idea, when a product works why mess it up! So over the past few years I have been shampoo hopping, I just can’t find what works for me. Coming to Senegal we knew that we could get soaps and things, but we knew the chances of getting ‘our brand’ were slim…
We knew that most of our household things we would need we would be able to borrow during our time in Dakar. That was great from a packing standpoint, but not so great from a “Now I have to leave all my possessions behind, all those possessions that I have grown used to using and are like my friends” standpoint. (I know, I need to get out more!)
While I was packing I had a pile of hangers that I was hoping to fit in a suitcase at some point…well, that point never came, they just didn’t make it. A life or death problem it is not, however I knew that we had a LOT of dress clothes (since that is our main wardrobe). I just figured we would fold them all somehow, and deal with the wrinkles.
Now for the kicker—when we got to our apartment for the first time it was about 6am, still dark—the power wasn’t working. We were shown the layout by candle light, and would you know one of the first things I noticed by that candle light were some HANGERS laying on the dresser!
Later that day we were finding things to eat with, plates etc. and Michael says, “Hey look! OUR FORKS!” Yep, we have several forks, spoons and knives that are the exact same pattern as the ones we left packed up in boxes in Michigan!
The next morning we were headed out to our ‘grocery store’. The open air market across the street, as were greeting everyone, and meeting all the shopkeepers I was trying to assess what each one sold. As I looked up in one little shop what did I see, the OLD HERBAL ESSENCE bottles! The same shampoo that I could no longer find in the US!
So back to the riddle—what do shampoo, a fork and a hanger have in common? They are just little reminders to me that GOD LOVES ME! HE knew my needs even when I did not! God is in control! HE puts me in a house with all I need, HE puts me in a place across the street from a shop that carries the shampoo that I love, even though it has been out of production in the US for years! What an awesome God we serve!
Today, look for the little things, the things that show that God knows not only your deepest needs and desires, but also how to show His love in the day to day life! We would love to hear about them!
Nancy for the Dore Family
A New Year in a New Place
A New Year
The Lord has blessed us with another year—even if we didn’t manage to stay awake long enough to see it in. We did make it all the way to 10:30! (OK, so we are officially old now, I guess.) Pray with us that we would see the Lord cause us to grow and learn and serve in new and different ways in the year to come. Pray that we would become closer as a family and in our marriage. Pray that we would open ourselves up to the people around us and be humble in our attitudes toward them.
A New Place
This new year finds us updating you (full of excitement and tiredness) from Senegal! We have come here at a great time of the year, the weather is very mild—only in the 70’s! We are slowly catching up on our sleep as we recover from the jet lag—and from being woken up with unfamiliar noises several times during the night. We are getting used to the sounds of Africa (the call to prayer, the drums and music) as well as the sounds of a city (traffic, horns, a general buzz of people.) Waking up at one in the morning to blaring horns, the shouting of hundreds of people, accompanied by a couple of loud explosions just down the street from us is slightly disconcerting (that is an understatement!)—until you find out that people are celebrating a win for the local soccer team by cheering, honking and setting off fireworks!
We are here in Senegal to do our 5–6 months of French study, which will be a very intensive time as we try to get to as high a level as possible in our time here. During that time of formal language study (4 hours of classroom time each day, as well as homework), we will also be balancing homeschooling and family time as well as trying to be working on relationships in our community. Pray that the Lord would give us strength and grace to live out His love through the stress and busy-ness.
The kids are doing pretty well so far! This is an answer to prayer as they have been able to make some friends, play on their own, and go to Sunday School at the Senegalese church. Pray for them as they adjust to all the new things (like the heat, the mosquito nets, the fact that they cannot talk to people easily). Pray that they would be able to pick up some French quickly so that they can get along better with the people that they meet here. They are already doing well with greeting people in French (Bonjour, ça va?) and smiling and shaking hands.
We are all fighting some colds, so you can also be praying that we would get over them quickly—it is just an extra thing to drain us of our energy right now.
We also thank the Lord for the many people who have made us welcome in so many ways!
We will try to get some pictures out soon!
Prayer Requests
- Praise for a safe trip—all our luggage made it and we had no real hassles on any leg of the trip!
- Praise for a good few days so far.
- Pray about our health and rest as we try to adjust to the time and new conditions.
- Pray for wisdom as we work at learning so much!
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers,
Michael & Nancy Dore
(with Titus, Emma, Micah, and Isaac!)
December 13
Thanks for praying—Nancy’s wisdom teeth extraction went really well. She is now trying to take it easy for a few days while she heals.
Waiting for the Rollercoaster
Ready to Ride
Have you ever stood in a really long line, one you have to wait in for hours, to ride THE NEW roller coaster? At first you are excited, then about halfway through you begin to wonder if it is really worth the wait. Finally, you break into smaller lines and pick where you will enjoy the ride from: the front, the back, or safely in the middle. You can feel the coaster fly by, hear the excitement from others in front of you as they depart or return. You start to feel a major rush, your stomach is seriously making you reconsider if this is really a smart idea. What exactly is going to happen on this ride? Are there any tunnels? What twists and turns will there be? And that first hill looks like a doozie—am I crazy for wanting to go on this? Palms start sweating, hands start shaking, stomachs start flip-flopping; you stand at the front of the line, your turn is next. Now is the chance to bail, you still have time. But, even with all the unknowns, deep down, you know you wouldn’t miss this ride for anything!
Remember this?
Well now it looks like this!
Time Flies…
Even though it may not seem like it to you, time has flown by and we now have less than FIVE WEEKS to go before we head to Senegal! We have been very busy sorting all of our belongings, scanning papers and having doctor’s appointments. We still need to get our immunizations (on Dec. 17th). Thankfully we can get some in Senegal for much, much cheaper (think $10 instead of $100)!
Isaac has had a few doctor’s appointments to see if he has any allergies; he had severe hives a few nights in a row. The results so far have come back negative, which is a praise; but we’d still like to know what caused them!
Nancy gets her wisdom teeth out Dec. 11. She’s stocked up on soft food and has tried to plan for a couple of down days in the midst of our busy schedule. The surgeon told her that it is possible the nerves on both sides are intertwined with the roots, but he won’t know for sure until he gets in there. He also said they will have to grind down her jawbone to get the bottom two teeth out — OUCH! Pray for an “easy” surgery and quick recovery.
Prayer Requests
- Praise that Isaac’s results came back negative for allergies! Pray that the hives wouldn’t keep coming up.
- Praise that we can save money by getting our immunizations in Senegal.
- Praise—since it is around the Holiday season we’ve been able to see our families quite easily! =)
- Pray that we will have good time management as we juggle the holiday season and many projects for our BIG move!
- Pray for Nancy, that she would be calm and get good rest the closer we get to her wisdom teeth removal. Also pray for quick healing and no complications!
- Pray for our kids to adjust well to the busy-ness and changes.
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers,
Michael & Nancy Dore
(with Titus, Emma, Micah, and Isaac!)
