Post for January 17 from Sam...

What a day for a drive through two countries!

Today was a travel day … from Dakar the capital to Sedhiou in the Casamance. This drive takes you across the Gambia. This is the same trip that Larry Enlow and Brandon York took last week. So we experienced the thrill of really getting a feel for the country. By leaving at 5:30 a.m. we were able to get out of town before the traffic built up. If you go at 8 a.m. or later, it will add about 3 hours to the trip. As it was we arrived at 3 p.m., a mere 9.5 hours on the road. On the way down we passed through Kolack. Kolack means “Gates of Hell.” I asked Joseph about the ones who named it …which direction were they going … north or south? He did not know, but we found out. Immediately after left Kolack, we found the road was terrible … we were weaving around potholes, off to the side of the road, off the road completely, start and stop… with a good road, the trip would be about 6 hours depending upon the ferry crossing the Gambia.

We had Robert in the back seat. When all of this began to happen, he got sick. He has been a little tentative since yesterday. We moved him to the front seat and he did well the rest of the trip.

We just arranged for the neighbor to cook supper for us. She will do “Yassa” a great Senegalese dish … rice, meat of some type, veggies, and sauce. Most have really liked the food here. We will have some “ataya” shortly. It is a strong tea with lots of sugar, sort of an espresso tea. That should get us going. We probably will not stay up too late tonight. Last night we got between 4 and 5 hours sleep.

Tom has yet to figure out the phone instructions that are in German. Joseph did put the minutes into the phone so he has 12,000 units … not sure what that means in minutes.

Thanks for praying for us. Over the next few days we will meet leaders, talk to the potential translator, work on the place, get Tommy introduced to key leaders, etc. Please pray that all of these will happen so that he will be able to start immediately. Robert and I will return to Dakar on Thursday next week and fly out Friday night. Pray that as the A-Team used to say, I just love it when a plan comes together.

Bro. Sam

Additional prayer items: Set up of the house is what we are working on today. Pray also for the adustment of Tom to this culture ... include Robert in that as well.