Phil and Barb-Our New Story: Only In Africa . . .

"You were taught . . . to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

"Only in Africa" (OIA) has become a "catch-phrase" --- a title of a "folder" in your head where you put anything you can't believe you really saw, something too far out of your realm of understanding to "process" right now, or something you could only experience in this part of the world and only be understood by someone who had been here, too. These are not "negative experiences," just VERY different ones!

Quite often OIA refers to how it seems Africans define time: "whenever," "no big deal," "optional," "maybe today, maybe not," etc. In terms of the "big 5 W's we teach kids to be aware of - "who," "what," "where," "why," "when," an African's list might read, "who," "what," "where," "why, and "wonder if it will happen anytime soon!" Time - that is something there is a lot of here.

BUT -There is a lot of something else wonderful in Niger - "international experience!" Just on the compound alone we have doctors and other missionaries from Niger, Nigeria, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, England, Canada, Romania, as well as the USA! But for the last 10 days we were blessed to have an "AIDS team" here from Ethiopia, who came to work and conference and minister with our AIDS team regarding the problem of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Ethiopia (in Red)
(Niger is 3rd country to left; a little north.)

We were blessed to have a few of them to dinner at our house, and then to have several of them spend an hour in our classroom, talking about their culture, and singing and dancing for us.