An encouragement to parents...

We have our first team here!!! They have been awesome – for numerous reasons which we will get into in another blog. For their first day here, Sunday, we split them up and I went with three of them to a small village church called Okolasi. They shared their testimonies while Tim translated. Normally Okolasi's church services are pretty short - not this time! After the guys finished their testimony a lady got up to give “an encouragement” – which lasted an hour!

Despite its length it was still a good story, and I wanted to share it with some of you parents. Now I’m going to just give you the gist, because in reality that is all I got! She had a son who was bad, in and out of jail, and had people that wanted to kill him. She prayed and fasted for her son for three days and begged God to change him. Somehow he got the opportunity to move to another city here, Port Gentil. Before the flight his mom met him at the airport and he told her that he knew that she loved him and that God loves him. When she talked to a cousin of hers in Port Gentil, he remarked that her son was a changed man. Now if I understood correctly this story happened awhile ago and now that son is in the ministry, either a pastor or an evangelist.

Now comes the brutally honest part… as she was telling this story my thoughts immediately turned to wondering how she and her husband had raised him. Had they disciplined him like they should have? Shown him love? Etc… This would be the point where God gently reminded me of two things.  One - I had no idea how he was raised, especially since they raise their children much differently here.  And two - am I the one to say that the parents did a good job or a bad job - God reassured me that I was NOT the judge!

As each parent can testify… you only have so much control… which eventually dwindles to little more than an influence. You can hope that you have given them a good base of values and character, but at some point they start making their own decisions.

Well this whole episode just reminded me of God’s redeeming capability. He is a powerful God that can make dramatic changes in someone’s life, no matter what their upbringing or poor decisions! 

They melt in your heart, not in your hand!

We had a request from a church in the states for handprints from all the kids at the Hope House, the abandoned children’s home that we visit.  So, took a few markers and a bunch of crayons over there last Saturday and traced their hands.  After that we had them write their names and color their artwork!  It was really hard giving them away so I ended up scanning them all into my computer.  As I was going through them I found this one… the translation for the words inside the heart: Liliane (they call me Mama Liliane) and Emi (a boy about 12 years old) are friends!  Yes they do melt in your heart!

About me & News

So I added a little blurb about me... for those of you who don't actually know me - but I'm pretty sure most of you do.  Oh well. 

Check out the Ben & Jerry’s!  A little bit of Vermont here – don’t mind the fact that it is a single serving size and it is roughly $4.00! 

Things have been a bit overwhelming here… this time is definitely a lot different that the first!  So much responsibility!  But I’m learning and eventually hope to settle into my role here. 

News…

The first team that was scheduled to come out had problems with their visas and didn’t end up coming!  Not cool… we’re still trying to figure out the why on this issue. 

We’ve been in Francais (French) for most of the month of February.  It has been really neat because our teacher is teaching us some of the common sayings that the Gabonese use:

“On est ensemble” – we’re together, keep in touch

“Ah, bon” – oh really?

“Revenons a nos moutons” – back to the subject (literally back to our sheep!)

When we use these with our Gabonese friends they are so excited and are so proud of us!

Joe and Megan have been at school (over in Cameroon) for the past two months!  I hadn’t seen them since I left last year!  Joe’s grown two inches since Christmas!  Megan is beautiful and growing up – so wish they could be kids forever!  This is a picture of the three Straw kids from our plane flight together last year (Megan, Sam, & Joe).  I have really missed them so it is great to see them again, even if it is only for a week!

Dissatisfied with this blog...

So you like to know what Leanne's up to, but she is horrible at writing on her blog!
Well for the low, low price of free you can also check out the blogs of the people that live with her! Not only will you get a different perspective on life here, but you will probably get it more often and it may even have some juicy details!! Check out the blogs listed on the right hand side...
So things are pretty busy here, we're getting ready for our first team to arrive which was supposed to be tomorrow (Monday the 7th). They had some issues with their visas and they will hopefully be arriving later on this week.

Meetings

So Mondays have turned into our meeting days... our meetings as a Libreville team - Business Agent for Bongolo Hospital, Air Calvary, Hospital Guesthouse, and Envision. These are all the people that live in Libreville and we often have to work as a team to get things done here. It really helps at the beginning of the week to go over what is happening that week to make sure we get it all covered and that everybody is on the same page.

We have also started doing our Envision meetings on Mondays as well... get the meetings over with at the beginning of the week!

I'm famous!

How many of you can say that you've had a shoe named after you??? I just got an email from my mom announcing the news! UGG has named one of their shoes "Leanne" - yep that's me! Pretty stylish too, don't you think?

Airport Stats

Here stand Alicia, Dan, and Hannah waiting for a team to come in… so far our airport statistics have not been so good. Both of the teams we’ve had were delayed coming into the country. The first was almost put on the plane to leave that night! And because of that episode they had trouble getting out of the country – they thought they had already left. So thus far we are only 25% for a successful airport visit.