Tag: Senegal

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Wolof GPA Phase 1

At the end of January, I started learning a new language called Wolof. The Wolof people are the largest ethnic group in Senegal, and their language serves as the lingua franca here. While French is the national language, Wolof is what you will hear people using on the street as they are usually more comfortable in it. French is usually a second or even third language for people here. Using the English center students as a sample, about 60% of our Senegalese students identified Wolof as their first language, whereas just 10% grew up with French as their first language.

I am using a method of language learning called GPA, or the Growing Participator Approach. This approach is modeled, in a way, after how we originally learn language as a child. Before we participate in the language by speaking, we spend a long time listening to it. Once we start speaking, our parents don’t instantly come at us with grammar rules, but over time we start to figure out the grammar, not because we have memorized the rules but because we know what sounds right and what doesn’t.

The GPA method recommends 1,500 hours of learning, split up into six phases . I completed Phase 1 this week, which includes just the first 100 hours of classroom learning. Doing 20 hours a week, this took about five weeks. For the first two weeks, we (there were six of us in the class) were not allowed to speak. If this sounds incredibly bizarre to you, don’t worry because it did to me too. But the objective was to train our ears in the new language before we started thinking about speaking and pronouncing well. This is especially important when learning a language that uses a lot of different sounds, which Wolof does.

Knowing this, I thought that the first two weeks would feel fairly relaxed since I wouldn’t be speaking. Feel free to laugh at me at this point. While we weren’t allowed to speak, from day one we were learning, on average, 10 words an hour. The target is to learn 1,000 words during Phase 1. And though we weren’t allowed to respond with words, we were still required to respond. Often this meant simply pointing to what our teacher was saying, but often it meant following commands. By the end of the very first day we were hearing commands like, “Take the match and put it under the book.” and had to follow the command. And whereas if you flunk a written test in class, no one knows besides you and your teacher, with this method all instructions are given orally and it is very clear to everyone else if you don’t know what you’re supposed to do!

During each class, we took audio recordings of the sets of vocabulary that we learned as well as segments of the different games we played. We also took pictures (or sometimes videos) to go with each set of vocabulary in order to compile an “audio dictionary” of sorts. After class, we were supposed to listen through all of our audio recordings twice before the start of the next class. I am now  five weeks in, and I have yet to see a single word written in Wolof in my class. That still feels pretty wild to me!

While there is a long way to go, I am pleasantly surprised by the progress I’ve made so far. As a visual learner, I really thought this method would be very difficult for me. Admittedly there are still plenty of times I wish I could see a word written out, but I am also seeing progress in my ability to more accurately hear the different sounds in Wolof. I start Phase 2 tomorrow, which is the next 150 hours, and should take 8 or 9 weeks to complete.

For those interested, I’ve included a video below of my audio dictionary for the parts of the day and names of meals.

-Adam

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AFCON (Africa Cup of Nations) 2026

One of the most exciting cultural experiences we’ve had since getting back to Senegal was being here during the African Cup of Nations football (soccer) tournament. This is a biennial international tournament for Africa that dates back to 1957. Over the last 60 years, Senegal has won this tournament just once, which was in 2022.

The tournament structure is very similar to the World Cup, with group play followed by a single elimination tournament for the top teams from each group. Senegal played very well and made it to the finals against the tournament favorite and host country, Morocco, where they won in very dramatic and controversial fashion in extra time.

It is hard to describe what the atmosphere was like here in Senegal, because there really isn’t a good comparison to the States. In the U.S. there are a lot of different sports that are very popular and each sport has their own professional league, and several of these sports are very popular to follow on the collegiate level as well. For me I enjoy watching American football and basketball the most and specifically I am a fan of the Detroit Lions and the University of Michigan.

In Senegal, however, soccer is far and above the most popular sport and no other sport comes close. There isn’t a professional league here either so the big games are always international matches when Senegal goes up against other countries. All of this results in there being incredibly strong support for the national soccer team and a lot of pride tied up in how the team performs. Accordingly, the professional soccer players are arguably the biggest celebrities here as well. Leading up to the championship game tons of Senegalese flags and banners went up across the city and walls, telephone poles, piles of tires, etc. were painted green, yellow and red.

The championship game was on a Sunday night and finished around 10pm. Selina and I went on our roof to watch as streams of people (including tons of women and children) ran around the streets of our neighborhood yelling, blowing horns and lighting off fireworks. Within an hour the president of Senegal had declared the following day a national holiday. The celebrating continued long into the night across Dakar and across the country. I saw many of my students posting on WhatsApp about how they had never been so proud to be Senegalese.

Two days later the team returned to Senegal and paraded into town on top of a tour bus. I taught a class at Engage that morning and left in the early afternoon to return home. I had to cross the parade path and thought the team had already gone by, but this wasn’t the case. Once I realized I was caught in the parade traffic I decided to park my car and get out to watch the team go by. This ended up being a crazy experience! I’ve never been so tightly packed into a group of people. I’ve read about crowd crushes before (occurs when dense, overcrowded, and unmanaged crowds surge in one direction or become severely compressed, causing asphyxiation), but never really understood how they could be possible. I definitely understand now!

The only other time Senegal has won this tournament was during the year we were in France before moving to Senegal, so we just missed out. I am really glad that we were in Senegal this time to be able to experience the crazy firsthand! See below for pictures and videos of the celebrations in the streets and the parade.  

-Adam

This is in our neighborhood, which is known for being pretty calm and quiet!
Nothing screams party more than a homemade aerosol flamethrower!
The crowd of people waiting for the team to come through!
I am glad I experienced this, but would not plan to be this close again 😀

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Trading Novelty for Familiarity

We have been back in Senegal for three months now (how??). I wanted to try and describe what it’s been like to be back.

Imagine that you have just bought a new pair of shoes. They’re stiff and not broken in and you notice everything like where they pinch and if the heel is rubbing. You wonder if these will work out, is the heel rubbing too much? Should you have sized up? Sized down? On the flip side, you are also very aware of how new and lovely they are. They look good with this outfit, they work well for this event and they are so clean.

After some time you don’t notice the stiffness as much, if at all, because you’ve worn the shoes in. As such they are more comfortable. However, they are also more worn in another sense. They are likely not as clean as they were when you first bought them, perhaps they even have scuff marks or stains. You’ve had them a while now so they’re not as exciting as when you first bought them but you most likely like them even better now than at the start because they fit more comfortably to your foot.

That’s what it’s been like coming back to Senegal. When we first moved here Senegal was stiff. We didn’t know anything and had spent all of one week in Dakar before living here. Was this a good choice? Are we a good fit for life here?

There were also things at the beginning that struck us and delighted us, sometimes simply because they were new. For example, that horse drawn carts often stop in front of our home or people passing by shout what it is they are selling. The piles of fruit and vegetables at various produce stands or ladies roasting peanuts in the sand on the side of the road. Day to day we just don’t really notice these things as much as we used to and if we do we’re not quite as amazed by them.

In fact, in some ways I am tempted to more so notice the “scuffs”- the dust, the heat, people smoking cigarettes on our front porch, the trash in the streets, the disrepair of things, traffic, cultural differences. However, while I see these things more, I’m also not as shocked by them or by the various, previously foreign situations I find myself in. I can move and live here more comfortably, with greater ease and confidence.

We’ve traded novelty for familiarity but honestly I would make that trade most days. The key is to pause and remember the things we do love and the things that did once amaze. Appreciate those things but with the added privilege of experience. Choose to sit in childlike awe and naivete again, but with the gift of moving out of the role of novice.

I am so grateful to be back here and for the growing familiarity of and love for Senegal. What a gift to get to call this place home!

– Selina

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The Saga of the Broken Fridge

The Reason for the Season (of Fridge Repair)

For those who have been following along with us, you know that we’ve been on a bit of a journey since our return to Senegal with trying to get our fridge fixed. Upon getting back, we found our fridge was only cooling to between 50 and 60 degrees usually, and sometimes it would cut out completely and increase all the way up to room temperature. Over the last two months we have been trying to get it fixed, and we wanted to share some things about what this process has been like here in Dakar. Some of these things we already knew, and some we learned during this experience.

  1. Finding the right help can be very difficult. Very few tradesmen (essentially none) will have any kind of online presence. Word of mouth and recommendations are key here, especially as the quality of work can vary greatly amongst tradesmen. Whenever possible you want to avoid hiring someone you have no recommendation for. This is true across all trades: carpenters, masons, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, A/C repairmen, etc. We have needed to hire each of these (except for a carpenter), at least once, but some on several occasions, during our few years here. So, we first turned to the local missionary community to get a recommendation. Unfortunately, this only turned up two names. One we were told was an “A/C guy” and the other an electrician, but with the caveat that perhaps they work on fridges too. After neither of these first two guys worked out, we turned to a Facebook group for expats and asked for a recommendation there which is where we found our third repairman.
  2. A worker will probably not tell you when they don’t know what is wrong. We’ve been told this is a product of the honor / shame culture. We first experienced this when Evie was really sick and in the hospital when she was two weeks old. We were told by another missionary, who is the head of her organization’s medical team here in Dakar, that the hospital would not tell us when they had reached their capacity to treat her, and it was up to us to push for a medical evacuation if that was needed. We think that is what we were experiencing with the first repairman we worked with as well. Over the course of about a month (more on this next), he tried four different fixes, none of which fixed the fridge. We don’t think he really had much of an idea what our fridge’s specific problem was, but rather was just going about replacing parts that could be the problem. At the end of it all, he just stopped responding to us.
  3. Communication is often difficult and plans are held loosely. With our first repairman, he would often not get back to us for days. At one point we didn’t hear from him for about 10 days and we thought he was moving on from the repair without wanting to say that. Then one day he messaged and told me he was in the village and without data which is why we didn’t hear from him. Also, almost all plans are made with the phrase “Inshallah” at the end, which means “If Allah wills it” in Arabic. Over the course of the last two months of trying to get our fridge fixed, I would estimate that we have had at least 10 days when a repair guy said he would come by and then just didn’t show up, without calling us and without giving any explanation the next time about why they didn’t come. This can be maddening to our American sensibilities.

Last weekend our latest fridge guy stopped over and did a freon recharge. This seems to have done the trick…kind of. The fridge is now cooling to between 35 and 40 degrees consistently, which we are very excited about. However, the side of the fridge where the condenser is located is now super hot, like can’t-leave-your-hand-on-it-for-more-than-a-couple-seconds-or-it-will-burn-you hot. So we are not confident that all is working as it should. Only time will tell!

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A New English Center

Our primary ministry in Dakar is at the English center where I teach. The center is located in the neighborhood of Point E which is in the heart of Dakar, situated close to downtown, the Corniche (a main avenue that runs along the coast) and many universities including Dakar’s largest university, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD). This neighborhood is ideal for us since many of our students attend one of the universities nearby and travelling across Dakar is often very difficult and time consuming due to traffic and road conditions.

Our current English center is a converted three-bedroom apartment. Two of those bedrooms are used as classrooms and the third is an office. We also use the salon (living room) as a classroom for larger level classes and drop-in classes. We have been located in this space for the last 15 years, however, we have badly outgrown it.

This academic year we have over 230 registered members and nearly 130 students are signed up for classes in our current trimester. Many members who are not signed up for a class this trimester still come each week to attend a drop-in class or simply to hang out or study. At several points during the week we have all three classrooms being used, which means students who are there to hang out or study are forced to sit in the hallway or kitchen. During these busy times it is not abnormal for us to have more than 50 students in our center. We praise God for this! At the same time, 50 people is a lot for a roughly 1,000 square foot apartment! We also turn away students at every registration period because our classes, which are limited by our classroom sizes, are full.

Learning English has proven to be a very effective tool to draw people in and build relationships with them. We use the Bible in every class, exposing our students to God’s Word from day 1 with the purpose of identifying “seekers” who are open to further Bible study outside of class, either in a group setting or one-on-one. From there our prayer is that God would speak through His Word, bringing these “seekers” to believe in and trust Christ for their salvation. We currently have seven weekly Bible studies (four group studies and three one-on-one studies) where our students are reading and studying God’s word. Please pray for eyes to see and ears to hear for these students; that the gospel would be seen and understood not as folly, but as the good news it is!

We want to be able to welcome more students because we know that every student that walks through our doors is going to be engaged with the Word of God and experience the love of God through our teachers. We also want to be able to offer more comfortable spaces (no more having 10 students crammed into a hallway!) where our students can come, hang out, study and experience God’s love. With these desires in mind we are writing this post to share with you a financial need we have.

During the last 15 years in this location, our rent has not been increased once. Once again, we praise God for this! As we have been looking for a new, larger facility over the last year, it has become apparent that we will likely need to be able to afford a rent that is 300-400% more than what we are currently paying. Please take five minutes to watch the video below to see and hear from our students and staff about this need.

If you would like to support this ministry through recurring support or a one-time gift, you can do that here https://avantministries.org/missionary/adam-and-selina-matzke

Until all have heard,

Adam

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Choosing to Embrace Risk

Sometimes when I talk to friends who are missionaries on the field I’m struck by the crazy situations we encounter in a cross cultural setting. These crazy stories can often be ones filled with disbelief and laughter; just the other night we were joking with friends serving in another West African country that their 10 passenger car could actually be considered a 20 passenger car since piling as many people into a vehicle as possible is a pretty common sight to see in West Africa.

At other times though there are stories filled with disbelief and sadness, anger, frustration, fear and trauma of various kinds. Whether it’s from robberies, health scares, tense political situations or miscommunications in a second (or third!) language, it is easy to come across situations in a foreign country that push you towards complete physical or emotional exhaustion. It comes with the territory.

For example, a friend and I were commiserating recently about the fears we often have to surrender to the Lord living in a place with limited health care. In reality we have some of, if not the best, health care access in West Africa. That being said, it is still limited, especially in relation to emergency responses or intensive care for a more serious illness. In my case, I reflected on all that we experienced with Evie right after she was born. When she came down with a fever and was septic as a two week old we hit the cap of what could be done here medically. By God’s grace this was enough and she made a full recovery without needing to be medically evacuated elsewhere. My friend has been walking through terrifying breathing issues with her youngest son for about a year now and they have nearly exhausted all the resources here to determine why this is happening. When the moments of crisis with his breathing hit they have to hope the emergency response teams are able to come quickly (traffic in Dakar doesn’t always allow this) and aren’t occupied elsewhere.

For other friends serving in Africa there have been plane or car accidents, having their homes broken into, various other illnesses or injuries, getting mugged on the street or navigating countries being ravaged by military coups. In fact, in between drafts of this very post I heard about several friends having to evacuate their country of service due to political unrest and of another friend who was serving in Africa and had to fly to a different country emergently to get a much needed surgery which uncovered a cancer diagnosis.
In other parts of the world (and in parts of Africa too) I know these stressful experiences can involve being watched by the government, persecuted for sharing the gospel, getting evicted from homes with little notice or even getting kicked out of the country.

These things can feel overwhelming. Why choose to serve in places like this where there is so much risk, where the reality of walking through some sort of trauma feels more like a “when” than an “if”?

This reality is obviously not limited to overseas missions. Those choosing to enter the military are choosing a life with great risk. Those choosing to go into the medical field will very likely experience things that are very stressful or traumatizing. Even the simple choice to love another person is fraught with risk, knowing that our lives are fragile and we may lose our loved ones to illness or tragedy.

The list goes on and on for things that we choose to be a part of (or don’t choose, but endure anyway) in this fallen world that we know will be wrought with darkness and sin. And if it’s not from external situations then it’s from the internal battles we face with our own sin. The reality of life in this world is hard.

As a follower of Christ, however, we can choose to do things or go places that carry risk without grim determination, but rather with exuberant hope. Yes, we will face trials in this life – whether at home or abroad, but we don’t face them without this great hope. The One in us has already overcome. He has already won. The end has already been determined and we are on the victorious side. The darkness will be banished forever, the King reigning on His throne. No more tears, no more sadness, no more anxiety, no more trauma, no more battling my flesh.

We have this hope to share with our friends, family and neighbors who will inevitably walk through their own trials, but don’t have to do so without hope. We have the answer. We hold the key. His Name is Jesus and He changes everything. Our paths may lead to dark parts of the world, to hard situations and to places we never wanted to walk. We may even actively choose to embrace some of these risks, dangers and discomforts for the sake of following where God leads, for His glory and for the opportunity to share the good news with others. 

In all these things we cling to hope and to a God who is good and will preserve us, maybe not in these mortal bodies, but certainly in our faith.

2 Timothy 2:3;8-10

“Join with me in suffering, like a good solider of Christ Jesus…Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.”

– Selina

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Grace Upon Grace

I had a very wise mentor remind me a couple months ago that God gives us “grace upon grace”. She was expressing this as something the Lord had been reminding her of at the time, but also as an encouragement to me. At the time of this conversation I was entering the first trimester with baby no. 4 while also tackling being a first time homeschooling mom living overseas. As a seasoned homeschool mom herself she was speaking from experience that there is certainly a learning curve to the homeschool life just as there is with anything. Given our life circumstances she was offering it as an extra encouragement to rest in God’s grace, especially when things didn’t go exactly as I planned or hoped with homeschool. A big part of this seems to be weighing out my expectations for myself as a teacher, for my kids as students, as well as what we can reasonably accomplish each day with a 1st grader, preschooler and a 1 year old.

“Expectation” is a theme that just keeps popping up as I can find myself trying to “measure up” to expectations in other areas as well such as who I should be as a missionary. Whether it’s from assuming our supporters have certain expectations of me or comparing myself to the other missionaries whose newsletters show up in my inbox it can be a vicious game and one that does not take into account God’s grace or sufficiency in my life. In each area of life I am guilty of playing this game – mother, wife, teacher, homemaker, language learner etc. etc. etc.

Suffice it to say that I need to be regularly (like daily? or hourly? or minutely?) resting in the Lord, who He is and who I am in light of who He says I am. I am a chosen, adopted child of God whose sins have been forgiven. I’ve been given new life and a new identity. My worth is not measured by how well I’m meeting expectations or by what I can contribute (a truth I often forget –> I’ve contributed nothing, Jesus contributed everything). In this God has been reminding me to abide in Him, to rest in Him, to find peace in Him. And in this I’m also being reminded that I can’t do everything, but I can be faithful in the areas God has called me to for each season of life.

So what does this season of life look like? It’s a season of finishing well and preparing for change. As I type this we are coming to the end of our first term here in Senegal. We have been away from the States for 3 years. We have made two international moves, had a baby in Africa, started homeschooling, learned (*are learning) a new language (we’ve discovered this is a process), made so many connections with Senegalese people as well as our expat community here, discovered how long and slow cultural acquisition is, grown lots in our marriage and parenting, learned more about who God is by seeing Him through the lens of other cultures and also seen our faith get deepened tremendously through trials and triumphs, homesickness and creating a home, high highs and low lows. We’ve barely scratched the surface on what it means to do ministry and life cross-culturally and we are so grateful we get to walk this, at times heart wrenching and exhausting while simultaneously beautiful, life.

We are excited for our upcoming time in the States to be close to family, to share about the past three years with those who have invested so much for us to be here, to have our baby, to rest well, to get further equipped for the work ahead, to show our kids the city and state we grew up in and love and so on. We are also already so excited for our return to Senegal at the end of the year! What will our second term hold? Each season in it’s time.

For these final three months before our first home assignment I am seeking the Lord for what He has and am resting in His goodness each day. May I walk faithfully the path He has – all glory be to Christ my King.

– Selina

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New Friends in the Neighborhood

If you’ve followed along with our journey then you know that we have a heart for our neighborhood and long to connect with our neighbors, but have found this more difficult than we expected. Culturally it’s been hard to figure out how to connect, especially on a deeper level than brief conversations on the street.

This has been a huge prayer point since we moved here. Fast forward to last weekend when our neighbors had a party. Parties here go all day and late into the night and involve a big tent in the road, load music, drums and plenty of dancing. At one point the dancing was in the road right outside our house (see the video below) so we watched from the porch for a bit.

Some partygoers got a kick out of our kids dancing on the porch and it apparently drew the particular attention of some kids who were at the party. Funny enough this was actually our first security breach as Mia had been the last one in once we were done watching the dancing and I (Selina) had forgotten to double check that she had bolted the door securely. She had not. So you can imagine my surprise when, at 7:30pm, after one ring of the doorbell six or seven young girls in fancy dresses walked right into the house wondering if our daughter could come out to play with them! At this point our kids were already in bed so I told them to come back the next day. In all reality we didn’t think they actually would return, especially because we weren’t sure if they were from the neighborhood or had travelled to the area just for the party.

The next morning was a Sunday and we ended up staying home from church after Adam had had some really strange heartburn through the night and wasn’t feeling well (side note: he’s totally fine now!). Around 10am (a time we would have normally been at church) our doorbell rang and a little nine year old girl (we’ll call her G) from the neighborhood asked if she could play. At first I just had Mia and Des play on the porch with her, but eventually asked if she wanted to come play inside. She ended up spending five hours with us that day!

G came back the next day as well and even brought a friend at one point. We ended up being so grateful for those two days with her, especially after finding out that she was leaving for a month for a trip to a village outside of Dakar. We pray she comes back to visit when she returns!

We thought at that point that perhaps that would be the end of our visitors for awhile since G was clearly the most comfortable about coming in and hanging out with us, but apparently word got around and later in the week two more young girls stopped by asking to come play and one even brought her two year old brother! It has been so sweet to see our kids playing with these Senegalese children as this is something we have longed and prayed for, but have struggled to establish. We are prayerful that these friends will continue to come back to play, that our kids can build relationships with them and that we can also get to know their families. 

Three things of note:

  1. These opportunities have been plausible mainly on account of us homeschooling. We have the availability and the flexibility to grow these relationships, especially since we know our time with these kids will be more limited once October comes and their school starts back up. We had prayed that homeschooling would allow greater opportunities for ministry as a family and already God is answering this prayer in cool ways!
  2. Mia in particular has been very anxious about interacting with kids who don’t know any English. We think some of this anxiety may be connected to the year she spent in French school when she was unable to communicate at all. Even at our church she gets quite nervous to be around the Senegalese kids and has no desire to go to Sunday school since it’s either in French or Wolof. By God’s grace, and again in response to lots of prayer, she has had no hesitation at all being around these kids even though they only speak Wolof and a little bit of French.
  3. I was talking with a friend from Ghana who noted that the way these neighborhood kids (even the two year old) are comfortable being out and about and in our home is largely connected to the culture. In this we are so grateful to have found a way to open up our home to neighbors even though it is not something we would have thought up on our own!

Please pray with us over these relationships. For wisdom when interacting with the kids, opportunities to share the gospel and also for connections with their parents. This last point is a particularly interesting one as we’ve had four different kids over and have only met one parent so far, G’s mom. She was super nice, but only spoke Wolof so communicating was basically impossible past initial greetings. At least we gathered that she didn’t mind G being at our house, but we would love prayers on how to navigate this wisely.

-Selina

Dancing outside our front door around 6pm (the party had started in the morning).
The party still rolling at 11pm 🙂 Thankfully our kids are used to these noises and aren’t bothered!
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Near Disaster at the Embassy

This month we had to visit the United States Embassy to renew my passport. Adam, Desmond, Evie and I went, borrowing a friend’s car to avoid having to taxi. We snagged my new passport photos at a little photo shop on the way and arrived on time for our appointment.

Upon checking in with the guard standing outside we were directed to wait in the “waiting room” which is a patch of dirt and sparse trees across the street from the embassy. When we were allowed to do the next step of check-in at the outer window we found out that only Evie and I were going to be allowed inside. The embassy is extremely strict on security measures including restricting how many people are inside at one time and doing these various checks before allowing anyone in. When we had done Evie’s passport several months earlier our whole family had gone inside so we thought that would be the case for this appointment as well, however for an adult passport it turns out that entrance is restricted to just the adult renewing (and in this case Evie since she’s a baby needing to stay with me).

In the ensuing hurry of divvying up our belongings based off what I would need with Evie and what Adam would need with Desmond I ended up with just the diaper bag and headed inside to go through the metal detectors and bag scanners. I placed my bag, sunglasses and paperwork in the bin. There are no electronics allowed inside so I didn’t have my phone with me. Then I went through the metal detector with Evie, exchanging some Wolof greetings with the guard ushering me through and feeling quite proud of myself for the interaction.

I turned to get my bag and the guards doing the bag checks asked me, “Avez-vous un couteau dans ce sac?”; “Do you have a knife in this bag?”. Thinking it was just a standard question I chuckled and said “No”. After a pause though I realized that they were intently staring at the scanner view of my bag and then it hit me. A couple of weeks ago we had had a picnic and I had thrown a butter knife into the diaper bag! Panicked I started to explain. With wide, incredulous eyes they handed me the bag so I could remove the knife. Through profuse apologies I went back through the metal detectors and thankfully caught Adam before he had walked away so I could give him the knife.

I hurriedly walked back through security, with plenty more apologies, and went out of the security building. From there I went to the next building and sat down. At this point you are sitting in a big, blessedly air conditioned room in rows of chairs. The guard at the entrance to this room tells you which person you’re going to go after and you receive a number (not sure why both are needed). Eventually you hear your number or see that the person before you was the last one to go and you head up to one of the windows along the front of the room.

As I sat there, finally beginning to stop sweating from panic and embarrassment, I decided to verify that all my paperwork and photos had made it with me in the shuffle. Which is when I realized that while I had try to sneak a weapon into the embassy, I had not brought any money with me. The passport renewal is a closed process once in this room – you go up to a window and give them your application and old passport then walk down to another window to pay and bring a receipt of payment back to the original window. Air conditioning or not I’m sweating again wondering what to do and really hoping not to have to go back through the security. And once outside I would have to hopefully track Adam down since I didn’t have my phone to contact him.

By God’s grace another family from Mia’s school happened to have a passport appointment at the exact same time for their baby and were sitting behind me. They could thankfully cover me and I made it out without any further issue. In fact the guards even shared a genial laugh with me on the way out as I once again offered apologies.

While not necessarily the most ideal Embassy visit it certainly makes for a good story! Life is never dull in West Africa.

-Selina

* photo above of Des passed out on the way home from the appointment…which is what I looked like once we got home 🙂

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Heading into our Second Year

*I originally typed this out a month ago, but the weeks have been full which is why I’m only just posting 🙂

As we press on into Year 2 we are thankful for the many reminders of how much more settled we feel now and we look forward to continuing to plant deeper roots over this next year.

For example, we have started running into different events that we were here for last year like cool season, Ramadan, events at Mia’s school and so on.
It also dawned on me recently that I used to be so stressed by the doorbell ringing, which was a bummer since it usually happens multiple times each day, but now I feel very comfortable answering it and even have a rhythm with our various vendors (fish guy once a week, fruit guy every day, trash pick up, lemon guy several times a week etc.).

Conversations in French feel less daunting – although this is still one of the greatest areas for growth that we see. We have a better idea of where to get groceries from to get the best prices and which times of day are better for traffic. We have relationships in the various spheres of our life here including several really close Christian friends, which was something I was deeply craving this time last year. Our kids enjoy their lives here and are at ease when at home and out. We’re all picking up phrases in the local language, Wolof.

There is still SO much to learn, especially in language, culture, team dynamics, how to do ministry here, what church involvement looks like and so on, but we are in awe of the way God has worked and we feel confident that He has great things in store for the rest of this year. We continue to feel so blessed to get to live in Senegal.

Thank you for your part in this journey!

-Selina