Well, I’m back in Benin now for 3 days and it feels just like coming home. Had no problems with my bags getting here, which is no small miracle. I then took the bus up country all day Saturday, about an 11 hour ride, and stayed at our local hotel where I was able to have dinner with some good missionary friends.
The next day, Sunday, I continued out to the farm and went to our church here. It was good to see everyone and my little bit of Byali kicked in and I was able to interact with everyone comfortably. Then began the movement of all my “stuff” from my old house where our staff now lives to the small apartment we had renovated while I was gone. It’s a simple apartment but has the luxuries of home, like lights and fans (when the electricity is turned on from the solar panels), a bathroom and a small kitchen of sorts. All day I moved stuff in and put it in place. There were hundreds of mosquitoes because of the moisture from the new construction, but I smoked them out Sunday night with mosquito coils.
Monday was spent in meetings all day long. The farm is doing well, and despite the fact that our production per person was lower than I had hoped, it turns out our farm produced more than most anyone else in the region – the rains were bad this past year. So praise God for that, and an added bonus is that the overall poor harvest in the region means that food prices are higher so the value of our crops is higher than they normally would be. Obviously a mixed blessing because who wants high food prices, unless that’s how we’re going to finance our project. I was able to address some important items with different individuals and we all agreed on a few tweaks to our overall strategy.
Today our final year interns will be taking their final exams and my new interns will be getting more orientation. It’s all very cool here and I get to wear a light sweater most the morning and use a light blanket at night. Not bad especially since I’m just coming from Wyoming!
Thanks for all your prayers, and please continue to pray since there remains much to do and so little time.
