Senegal

We just got back from a trip to Senegal for some meetings. Some of the sights were saw were absolutely breath-taking!!


All of these pictures were taken at a restaurant that is on the western most point of Africa.








We climbed on these rocks so that we can say that we were literally on the western most point in Africa.

Can you look at these pictures without stopping and praising God for His awesome beauty and majesty??? I can't. I am in awe of His amazing creation that far exceeds anything we could ever hope to create.

Thank You, Father, for giving us the gift of seeing You through nature. Thank you for surrounding us with daily reminders of how great You are!!

Photos!

Here are some more random pictures for you to enjoy....

This is an interesting bug we have seen. They call it the "child of the rain." Apparently they appear only after it begins to rain. I found it quite fascinating mostly because of it's bright color! It's almost a neon orange-ish color!! It's a drastic contrast to the sand around it.


This picture is of one of the many paths we follow to get to the homes of many of our friends. The Fulani villages are, for the most part, pretty spread out. We often have to walk through the bush a little bit in order to get from one compound to another.




This is one of my favorite pictures. These two girls are some of the sweetest girls in our villages. They are more precious to me than I can even express. In this picture they are both looking at the pictures in a book on Noah's Ark.

The Desert Lizard

One day, Melissa and I were driving home from our village when we came across this little guy crawling across the road. Of course, we just had to stop and take a picture of him!!

I'm not entirely sure what he is but he didn't seem to be too fond of having his picture taken. He tried to hide among some sticks but we still got some good shots.

Here he is peeking out from under some brush. I am amazed at God's creations!!

Random Shots

Ok...so since I'm around regular internet access for a few days I figured I would try to get as many pix on my site as possible. So here are some random shots from my life in Niger.


This is me the night before Easter coloring Easter eggs. Thanks to my mom for sending us the coloring kits!! It made us feel like kids again!!




And this is a view on Easter Sunday morning. Melissa and I had our own little sunrise service by the river bed. It was a great way to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord!



This is a picture of me in the village. One of the little girls wanted to take pictures with my camera so I was teaching her how. She's become pretty good at it!!


And last, but certainly not least, is the picture of our little surprise we found in our yard one morning! I don't know if Jake, our dog, killed it or drug it into the yard or what. But when I found it, it was dead. That is a HUGE rat!!!

Jake

Most of you know that we have a dog named Jake. He's a German Shepherd that we got from some other colleagues. He's great for keeping us company and as a guard dog. Everyone is a little afraid of him because they've never seen a dog as big as him! But, he's a sweetie...wouldn't hurt a fly!

So, for those of you who are dog lovers, here are some pictures of him for you to enjoy!!

We get creative sometimes and so here he is wearing a lei! He didn't enjoy it as much as we did!



And here he is sitting in his hole. He loves to dig and this is his newest creation. It's actually a two-tiered hole (quite the scene) that he can sit in and/or store his toys or any other random objects he finds in the yard!

Everyone loves pictures so here's a few more!!

Ok...so here I am in the village playing a game with some of the girls. I suppose "attempting to play" would be a better way to put it! I wasn't very good but they were good sports anyway! I don't know of any game to compare it to except jacks - they dig a hole and place small rocks or seeds inside of it. Then, they take a bigger rock and throw it up in the air and move some seeds out of the hole before catching the rock. Then, they have to throw the rock again and scoot all but one seed back into the hole before catching the rock. You need to have a lot of hand-eye coordination for this one and I guess I just didn't have what it takes!! But we had a good time laughing at my attempts!!

Here is me with some kids by the well. We're just hanging out.












And this one I put on here just for you, Dad!! I wore the Weigand Farms hat out to the villages one day and everyone thought it was hilarious!! I told them it was a hat from my dad's farm. Just wanted you to see me in it!! Love you!!

Here are some pix for you!!

Ok...I know it's been forever since I updated this but I am finally at a place with some good internet connection!! So, here are some pix from the past few weeks!! I hope you enjoy them!!

Here I am having some fun with some of the kids in our village. Aren't they great?!?!





This is a picture of one of the houses here. I just wanted you all to get an idea of what they live in. The round building with the triangular roof is the hut and the thing just outside of it is called a tendere, basically it's a shade area where they can work and stay cool.

And here's a picture of me carrying a little girl on my back. This is how the women carry their young children. It's really quite amazing...they can carry their child and have both hands free. All they do is put them on their back and tie them in place with a piece of fabric. The first time I did it, I was so nervous that I was going to drop her!! But we made it and now she asks me to do it all the time!!