This week was rough. It started with the rain. All of Tuesday it rained and if you want to go teach in the rain in Cococodji you’re going swimming because the roads are so poorly designed that they are flooded and the water can only leave by evaporation. So that means wet and muddy shoes for us for the rest of the week too.
On Tuesday they cut our power yet again because the mission forgot to pay our bill, once again. And our phone died so we couldn’t plan and everything was still flooded.
On Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, maybe Friday too I can’t remember completely but we had no water so we had to go find some people who we could get water from. We were able to find some water so we filled up some old big plastic tanks that the people use to transport gasoline, washed them up and had to walk them back to our apartment. As we suffered to lug those heavy things back I watched as all the people we passed mock me, the weak white boy struggling to carry one tank while my companion marched ahead with two.
All of my progressing investigators left Hevie at the same time or found work so we lost lots of good people to teach and motivation. Last week I talked about two new investigators I found that were just golden yeah they were chased away by some ex-members and other investigators that go around preaching our church is the church of the devil.
So seeing those people refuse to answer our calls really hurt me and my confidence and Saturday it rained again.
All the times we stayed in, the disappointment in the sector, the rain, no power, no water, and it is almost month nine and all I’ve eaten is tomato sauce and rice! It sounds really hard but I’m smiling big today because there are not just 6 days in a week but the Sabbath day can change it all!
The past two Sundays we only had 1 investigator at church but this week I had 7!!!! Out of no where people who said they couldn’t come because they had no money for transport, walked to church, non progressing investigators became progressing; old investigators who had stopped coming came back and some new faces brought by my converts came too and the joy of the work made all the bad memories and the pain go away! Now I’m not just surviving, I’m living.
The past two Sundays we only had 1 investigator at church but this week I had 7!!!! Out of no where people who said they couldn’t come because they had no money for transport, walked to church, non progressing investigators became progressing; old investigators who had stopped coming came back and some new faces brought by my converts came too and the joy of the work made all the bad memories and the pain go away! Now I’m not just surviving, I’m living.
My muddy shoes
The bridge under construction
The following are a bunch of pictures I took on the roof of my apartment:
Some junk on my roof
