by Katie Garrett | Apr 11, 2018 | Praise report, Prayer request
Jacob and Willy
Dear Praying Friends,
After more than four years of paperwork and pursuing adoption, we are finally about to meet our sons! You can imagine that our hearts are full of many emotions — we are relieved, excited, hopeful, and nervous all at the same time!
And we have so many questions: How are William and Jacob feeling about all this? How much do they even understand about what is about to happen as 3- and 4-year olds? What are the boys’ personalities like? What will it be like meeting them for the first time and what will we say? (“Bonjour, je suis Maman,” seems very strange!) How long will it take for us to adjust to one another?
There are also a lot of logistical details that still need to be worked out. We have purchased our tickets but we don’t yet have a confirmed place to stay in Conakry. We plan to be there April 19th – 26th. Then we need to have medical checkups for the boys and schedule our interview at the US Embassy in Dakar before we can bring the boys home. In the midst of all this, our adoption agency’s Hague accreditation just expired and the government accrediting body has quit so our agency is trying to cope with that and we are hoping that this won’t affect us since we are so near the end of the process.
We covet your prayers for us at this time. Pray for all the final pieces of the process to be completed. And most importantly, pray for the Lord to tenderly shepherd Will and Jake through the coming transition, to give us wisdom and grace as we learn to parent them, and to knit us together as a family of seven!
With rejoicing and trepidation,
Katie and Corey
by Katie Garrett | Apr 4, 2018 | Uncategorized
Do you believe the Lord hears and answers prayer? I believe it because we keep seeing Him do it! A bunch of us, including many of you, prayed specifically for certain things regarding our two-day Easter Camp.
Jennifer, Katie, and Molly working the registration table
God graciously saw fit to grant us what we asked for:
- 87 kids attended with their parents’ permission;
- town water stayed on;
- no one got sick or injured;
- the high on Monday was only 100° and 102° on Tuesday (much cooler than the highs of 107° – 110° that we have been experiencing!); and
- the Easter story was shared clearly in Wolof through teachings, a skit, small-group discussion times, songs, and a film.
Each of the campers made a seed mosiac of a tree using green peas for the leaves, brown lentils for the trunk, millet for the ground, and rice for the sky. We talked about how a seed dies and is buried and then new life rises!
I wish I could calculate the probability of each of these things happening. The statistical probability of the town water staying on alone is so low that I am sure God’s hand was specifically intervening to bless the camp! That gives me confidence that the Lord is also answering in invisible ways the things we prayed for that can’t be seen – for example, that He was speaking into the hearts and minds of the kids who were there to let them know that He loves them and died for them.
I know that many of the kids came to camp not knowing what Easter is about. At the beginning of camp, before any of the teaching times, I got to address the whole group. I asked them, “What holiday are we celebrating?” and one of our Sunday School kids answered, “Paques!” (Easter!) Then I asked, “And what is Easter about?” It was clear that most of the kids didn’t know as only a few hands were raised. I called on one of the kids I don’t know and he answered, “Korite” which is the holiday celebrating the end of the Muslim month of fasting. I shook my head, looking for another volunteer, but no one seemed to know. Finally, another one of the handful of Sunday School kids who were there was able to help us, “Easter is about when Jesus came back to life after he died.”
Kody, Corey, and Jeff hanging mosquito nets in a classroom
By the end of the two days all of the kids had heard the whole story of how Jesus, who was perfect, took the punishment for us, dying on the cross, and then rose again, showing His power over death and confirming that He is able to save us from death too. Pastor explained this to the kids later using an analogy that I appreciated; he said that if someone gives you breakfast, it makes sense to believe that same person when he promises to give you lunch later. In the same way, Jesus’ resurrection gives us good reason to believe Him when He promises to resurrect us too!
It was a joy to share this Good News with these precious kids. We are so grateful for the partnerships that made this year’s camp possible: our SIM Kaffrine team, the local Pastor and other Senegalese believers, and all of you who were praying! Glory to God!
by Katie Garrett | Mar 17, 2018 | Uncategorized
Balloon popping race!
Would you all start praying for the Kids’ Camp that is coming up in just two weeks? There are so many pieces that need to come together as we plan this with our SIM Kaffrine teammates and our Senegalese Christian brothers and sisters from the little local church here.
Starting in 2006, for quite a few years our team organized an annual Wolof Kids’ Summer Camp at the beach. In recent years, we had switched to holding an overnight Christmas Camp here in town. This year, we are doing something new: an Easter Camp!
We are excited about this because we know that for many of the kids it will be the first time they learn about Easter. Schoolchildren here get two weeks’ vacation from school, but there aren’t many visible traditions or celebrations for the majority of the families in our region.
A Christmas message at last year’s camp
We hope that between 80 and 100 kids will come to camp at the church April 2nd – 3rd. Please pray that the Lord will bless our planning and everything that happens during those two days. You can pray specifically that there will be no water cuts during camp, and no sickness or injuries. Pray that each child the Lord wants to attend will get permission from their parents to be there. Pray for each of the messages to be clear and engaging and for the kids to grasp the significance of Easter. This is the hottest time of year with temperatures above 110° every day last week, so you could also pray for God to graciously grant us some unseasonable coolness during the camp!
May we all know and experience the great love of God this Easter as we remember all He has done for us!
by Katie Garrett | Jan 16, 2018 | Prayer request
We are excited about what is happening tomorrow and want to ask you all to pray with us!
Tomorrow we plan to visit the village of Kemand (name changed). This will not be our first visit to this village, but we are now planning to start regular visits that will continue for the next couple of years, Lord willing. We have two specific goals for the coming months: 1) to help those with diabetes and high blood pressure better manage their illness through community health groups, and 2) to start several Bible reading groups.
As nurse practitioners, our teammates have a lot of medical knowledge and experience they can share. One of the first things we will do is visit each household in this village (which is quite a large one) and do a health survey to identify those with diabetes and high blood pressure, which are common ailments throughout Senegal. The survey will also enable us to gather the health data that will help us later to see if our intervention has had an impact on the health of those we have worked with. As we visit each household in the coming weeks, we will start to build relationships and ask if we can pray for the needs of each family. Through regular visits and conversations, we will begin to get to know people and see who is interested in reading the Bible. The booklets Corey has worked to produce over the last few years with long excerpts of Scripture printed side by side in Wolof and Wolofal (Arabic-script Wolof) will enable the groups to learn more about what God has done in the past and what He has promised by reading the Bible for themselves. We hope that reading groups will be formed in multiple households, with each head of household gathering his whole family to participate.
But this vision still exists only in our minds – we don’t yet even know the names of more than a handful of the folks in this village. And while we know the chief a little and he has opened the door for us to work there, we don’t yet have any idea what the response will be to the idea of having Bible reading and community health groups. So would you pray for tomorrow’s visit? Pray for a warm welcome and for God’s leading. Pray that His Spirit will open doors so that we can be a blessing in this village where Jesus is not yet known. Pray that He will draw people of peace to us and give us good relationships. And pray that the Lord will lead our hearts “into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5). We want to know and express God’s love well and we will need patient endurance for this work. Thanks for praying with us!
by Katie Garrett | Nov 1, 2017 | Uncategorized
In rural areas in our region, a larger village will host a weekly market (called a “louma” in Wolof) where people from the surrounding villages can come to buy and sell. The village where we used to live has a louma every Wednesday. There are tables and small thatched shelters grouped together in the open space at the center of the village and you can find fabric, plastic basins and cups, farming tools and even sheep for sale. Corey is preparing to set up a new table at the louma for the first time today. This is the same village we lived in half-weeks and have done our farming project, sheep project, latrine project, and other interventions over the past few years.
From left to right: Luke-Acts in one volume, Psalms, Exodus, and Genesis
On Monday, we picked up the first few boxes of the new one-volume Luke-Acts written in Wolofal (the Wolof language written using Arabic script) at the print shop in Dakar. Thanks to all of you who have prayed for the transcription and publishing process over these last years! We now have Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and a single-volume of Luke and Acts in Wolofal and now Corey will turn his attention from typesetting and printing to distribution and evangelism. He will have some of each book available at his table in the village today, along with some alphabet primers and sets of twenty small Wolof/Wolofal chronological Scripture story booklets.
The four published full books above and the 18 story Arabic script/Roman script booklets plus the two primer/alphabet books below
We have never done this before so we are not sure what to expect. But we take heart when we read God’s words in Isaiah 45:18-19, 22, and 23b:
“I am the Lord,” he says,
“and there is no other.
I publicly proclaim bold promises.
I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner.
I would not have told the people to seek me
if I could not be found.
Let all the world look to me for salvation!
For I am God; there is no other.
Every knee will bend to me,
and every tongue will declare allegiance to me.
As messengers sent out by God, we want to boldly and publicly proclaim His message of love and forgiveness and grace; we don’t want to just whisper the good news about what God has done through Jesus in our homes while all around us people are lost and without hope. We are confident that the Lord wants more Wolof people to seek and find Him and receive His gifts of salvation and joy. Will you pray that Corey will see evidence that God is with him at the louma today, and that He is drawing Wolof people to Himself? Would you pray for many people to be interested in reading God’s Word and for them to have the courage to buy a book or booklet? Thanks! And we will let you know tomorrow how it went!
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