Happy Easter!

We are just off to celebrate Easter with our friends in Bembéréké (Eve's birth place). Here's a photo of us in front of the maternity wing with my mum in January.

A joyful Easter to all! Jesus is risen - Hallelujah!

progress

In Simon's history lesson we were supposed to be talking about the differences that electricity and running water had brought during the 20^th century. This wasn't as easy as it might have been with your average 6 year old living in Europe. We had to look at photos and say what the old object had been replaced with.

We looked at the photo of a flat iron … and I realised that Simon has more often seen one of these (used by our seamstress in the village) than an electric iron. I don't quite dare to plug in ours in case it sends our solar power system crashing (plus I'm lazy and it's hot enough already here!).

Then we looked at the photo of an old village pump.

"What do you think this has been replaced by, Simon?"

"Um … a foot pump like in our village?" (Although at home we have a well, an electric pump, a storage tank on our roof, and therefore running water in the house, the pump in our village was a more obvious equivalent!)

Then there was a picture of a gas lamp, and Simon said, "Candles and battery-powered lamps!" … again, we do have electric lighting installed, but we can't use it all the time! How exciting it will be to visit Europe this summer!!

Still, we have managed to teach him about some things which are not in his everyday experience. In his Art lesson I asked him when people plant fields in Europe and he did know that it was in the Spring. Phew!

Simon at school – we are very blessed to have a room set apart for school in another building on our property.

marching on ...

The month of March is always a bit different for us here in the village, as the Monkolé churches hold their Dry Season Bible School. Three Bible teachers offer classes open to all Monkolé believers, held every morning. This year they are being held on the mission property, as we finished off work on a « paillotte » (open air structure) in January. The work was begun by the Longworth family in 2009, the roof went up last year, and this year we were able to put in a floor and stone benches.

We also had a special visit from an international speaker (!), Marc's father Jean-Louis. He came to Benin for a little under two weeks for a teaching tour around some rural churches who don't often get outside speakers. His first stop was two mornings teaching here to get our Bible School started. Here are Marc, Jean-Louis and some of the Monkolé Christians:

This month is also unexpectedly different for me. In October we were very pleased to welcome a young Swiss man who said he wanted to come and help a missionary family. He was to carry out his Swiss civil service by homeschooling Simon in the mornings – thus freeing up extra ministry time for Marc – and tutoring secondary school pupils in Kandi in his afternoons. We knew that of course this would mean that Marc would spend some time mentoring him and supervising his work. We hadn't realised just how difficult this might be.

Eventually we had to take him off Simon's homeschooling. Despite Marc's help and advice, he simply wasn't taking it seriously, and we felt it wasn't fair on Simon. He wasn't following the programme properly and was leaving silly mistakes uncorrected in Simon's work. This was of course a big disappointment to us, not so much for the extra time Marc lost, but because someone we trusted and were counting on didn't live up to our expectations.

While Marc is teaching Bible School this month, I have taken over Simon's schooling. Marc had told me how good the CNED course was, and I'm now discovering that for myself. It is a distance schooling course offered by the French government, and subsidized for French citizens living abroad. All the materials are supplied – tutor's manual, pupil's manual and all ressources – and it is all very well explained. Simon enjoys learning, despite a tendency to block if he doesn't get something right first time, and he is therefore a pleasure to teach most of the time!

Of course, the course is in French, and Simon is used to speaking English with me. But since it is only for a few weeks I figure it doesn't matter too much if we mix the languages. So all the official school stuff we do in French, but remarks like "Where's my ruler?" or "I think you know the answer to this one!" usually come out in English!

in the village ... and at home

Even at her young age, Eve has started getting made-to-measure clothes. Here she is in the village, being fitted for her latest outfit.

These photos also illustrate that although we feel at home here, we'll never be « just like everyone else ». Our village is sufficiently big that if we are down in the village there'll always be someone fascinated to see the « baturé » (white) people, and a white baby is even more of a draw. And kids will cluster round until one of the adults yells at them to give us some space!

Another thing I am often quite aware of which makes us different from everyone else is that we don't have the same support systems. Every mother of young children here has countless sisters, cousins, aunts etc. who she can rely on to help her out. Of course, we have friends in the village, and help in the house/with the kids (though only during my work time) and if it were a real emergency I'm sure we'd find help. But for the day-to-day stuff, it does sometimes feel like we are juggling a whole lot of balls (more so than if we were in Europe where gadgets would do some of it, and we would at least have 24/7 electricity!).