Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Baby Monkey "Dexter"







Hi Friends and Family,

Shelby and Lorelle invited a couple young ones from the congregation over today to play cards. They arrived with a totally unexpected wonderful gift. A new baby monkey! His name is Dexter.
From the pictures you can see he is very shy right now. We are sure he will warm up soon, Jack too was quiet the first couple days. We have a vet coming on Saturday to give him a check-up and vaccinations. We will also know better approximately how old he is at that time. I am thinking 7 or 8 months.

The two little girls, who stayed with us over summer vacation, Rachida and Samuella, came to meeting this week with bags packed. It is school vacation. They will be with us for two weeks. It has been a very easy transition now for them to come and stay. They are used to our home and routine. They were so cute this morning practicing there presentations for the truth campaign. We are still using the campaign in outlying villages and army barracks. Tomorrow, X-mas, we will be going to the army barracks down the road from us. All the little ones are excited, they even set their clothes out the night before. All the little girls wanted to have skirts, not dresses. Oh, to be 8 years old again..... It was fun to hear them practicing there presentations, a complete mix of Krio and English.
Not sure how much African news gets to the US, but just in case you are hearing of the news from Guinea, please don't worry. The Guinea president died the other day and the military has given notice that they are taking over the government. We have not heard anything bad in regard to the missionaries or friends there and we personally are very far from the Guinea border. We are on the ocean side of Sierra Leone, Guinea is the inland border country, so we are on the complete opposite side of the country. The US embassy sends regular emails to all US citizens updating us on everything, we have not had anything to worry about.
We have been busy getting ready for convention. Dennis, Shelby and I have all been asked to help or take part in various aspects of the convention. It is a great priveledge. Shelby has really come a long way with her sign language and has been asked to interpret seven different parts.
Dennis was working on one of his talks today when a brother showed up at our house to rehearse some, he came by bicycle! He is from the Sussex group, the group we went and worked with last summer. It is farther than the Godrich congregation that we visited last weekend. The Sussex group is 22 miles from our house, and it isn't flat countryside! We also learned that he uses his bicycle to go to meetings and he has a wife with a little baby, she also rides bike.
Sorry to hear of many still out of electricity, hope you can get it back soon!
Thinking of you lots,
Lorie






Sunday, December 21, 2008

December 08

Hi Friends and Family,

Didn't really know how to title this one.... our baby monkey "Jack" died on Thursday, it was sudden and so unexpected. It has really taken me by surprise. We thought he would be our "baby" in the family for 5 to 10 years not just 5 months, he was really affectionate with the children. I hadn't realized how independent our children are until Jack came, he was a such a cuddly baby. He will be missed dearly. I don't think we will have another one for some time, if ever. We don't want to take one from the wild, Jack was already in Freetown and in need of care when Shelby brought him home. We were priveledged to be able to give him some happiness and a "family". I know he was just a monkey, but we had never had a pet that was so personable before. He was even having sounds to say different thing, like, "thankyou" and "goodnight" and he was always making sorrowful cooing sounds if we left him alone without a night light. We had a little solar chargable light we would put on for him at night so we didn't have to worry about our not getting electricity. :)

Jehovah is wonderful with his many creations. It has been a priveledge to see his many marvelous animal creations distinctly different to different parts of the earth. Here there are so many different kinds of lizards, with such variety of colors. Also so many birds, many small birds with bright colors. We caught a baby bird the other day, before Mason our cat did, we kept it safe from the cat for a little while. Its parents were sitting on the wire above our house calling for it, when I released it, we all enjoyed seeing the happy little family reunited. It was such a soft little yellow bird, so tiny and delicate.

We have convention in two weeks! Wow how time flies. Dennis' father and brother and a friend are visiting in January for two weeks. We are so excited to be having visitors!

I really miss working in service with car groups and sociallizing. The other night I reread the cards and letters sent by family and friends, thankyou so much!

I thought my schedule would get a little easier when Dennis came back and took up his studies again.... I was wrong! But a good wrong :) Four more people started studying. Two are from when I went on a Return Visit to offer a study, her sister was visiting as well as a friend. All three accepted books and we started the study that morning.

I had had a study back in 2006, that I would call on when I visited Sierra Leone. When we moved here the study became regular. Up until 5 months ago when the shop she worked in closed, We had been studying during her work time. For the past 5 months I couldn't find her. Then last week on my way to an RV, she came running to me along the road. She told me of her new work place and we will resume the study. I told her I had tried to call her, she said her cell phone had been stolen. She had a new number and gave it to me.

The lady mentioned in the last post that Lorelle invited to meeting and had started studying is doing very well.

All the activity in the preaching work helps me not get too homesick. It helps me to see the big picture of the span of time we are living in. I also really enjoy reflecting on the kingdom songs and watchtower articles and realizing the united worldwide brotherhood. We all are singing the same songs on the same day! It helps me feel close to friends and family, through our united service to our loving and wonderful heavenly father Jehovah.

May Jah be with you,
Lorie

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Hello

Hello Friends and Family,

Yes we are alive and well. Our internet service has been out for a while. It came back on line today.

Dennis and Lorelle arrived safely, the luggage arrived a couple days later :) All was well though, including the delicious homemade cookies from Granny! Thankyou! We are still enjoying them.

Thankyou to all the friends and family who sent back gifts and greetings via Dennis and Lorelle, it means so much to feel the love of our worldwide brotherhood.

It was a real treat to get the new convention releases. Our convention is coming begining of January.

The "truth" campaign has been marvelous.

Many people wait in long lines for taxi rides, so if we have room we often will offer a ride. People are often amazed as most private vehicles do not pick up passengers, then when we speak the Krio they are even more surprised. It give a fine opportunity to witness. As many of the foreign workers do not learn Krio and reguire their workers to speak English they are really thrown off by our speaking in their native language. We have had some great conversations. Shelby placed a tract with a women and the next Sunday she came to the meeting.

Lorelle placed one with a young women last week and she came to the meeting this past Sunday, she gave me her phone number and Tuesday I met her for her first study. She said she will be at meeting again this Sunday.

We had Circuit Overseer visit this week, lots of activity. On Sunday Dennis counted over 20 that came to the special talk from our having the priveledge to invite them. I was a little unsure about my scedule once Dennis and Lorelle returned as I had been filling in for them on some of their studies. Well no worries, Saturday I got a nice RV with a neighbor just down the road. And a brother met a woman near our home, who said she used to study. He told her our address, she came by that afternoon and we resumed her study, she recently moved to our neighborhood. She had been attending Godrich Congregation. I invited her to meeting but she said it was too far for her to travel with her two daughters. We offered for her to ride with us, she came early Sunday morning with her two girls and we packed in the car like sardines. But happy as clams :) It is not easy to get transport from where we are living. It is a good 1/2 hour walk to where you can access taxis, and then you have to have two taxi stops to reach the Kingdom Hall. Often the wait to get a taxi can be very long as there are just more people than taxis. Many friends walk over an hour to meetings because paying for taxi is just too much money. We are so thankful that we have a vehicle and can give rides. We would not be able to live in the neighborhood we are in without a vehicle, with our little ones the walking would just be too difficult. Fuel prices came down this month, it had been 18,000 leones a gallon but is now down to 12,500 leones a gallon. This converts to about $4.00 a gallon US, not great but much better than the $6.00 it had been.

The temperature has been upper 85 to 98 degrees during the day. Evenings are in the 70's, with nice breeze so sleeping is good even without a fan.

Keep warm New Englanders.

Your in our thoughts and prayers,
Swifts