hello friends, goodbye friend

June 13, 2007

We have been looking forward to this visit for several months now, and it has finally arrived. Last Wednesday, my sister Ethel and a friend Rebecca from my home church in Gulfport came for a visit. They arrived at 2:30 in the morning (I guess we’ll take a visit at whatever time it comes). Since then we’ve been showing them around Ouagadougou and allowing them to experience some pretty interesting firsts. So far, they’ve survived all, and are picking up French quite well. We’re looking forward to the next five weeks with them.

In the meantime, we have to let Carissa go back to the States. She flies out next Monday, the 18th. We are all sad to see her go. Blake and Aubrey held a conversation with her today that made me smile. We told them that Nouni gets to go see her family next Monday. Blake reasonably assumed she would have to take a plane and told her he would take another one and catch up to hers. Aubrey chimed in, “I wanna go”. So they’re realizing a change is about to happen, and have picked up on some of it. But we’re not looking forward to Monday night when Carissa does actually board the plane without either one of them. None of us are looking forward to saying goodbye. She has become a member of our family, and will be sorely missed.