Wayne went to Switzerland...I defrosted the fridge.

One of the reasons that we chose to go to Senegal was because it is a French speaking country and the primary language that we would need to learn for our ministry is French.  This appealed to us for 2 reasons.  First of all, by knowing French, much more of North Africa is open to us if we ever leave Senegal.  The other reason is that I studied French before and so we knew that we both wouldn't be starting from scratch.  We are both here to study the language and really both working full time jobs between going to classes, studying, and extra activities to practice our French.  But with a 2 year old, it's not always possible for both of us to always do the same activities, which brings us to this past week and the title of our blog.

This week, a couple of students from our school here went to a conference in Switzerland on Islam and they had some more space in their car for a couple more people to go.  Wayne had the great opportunity to go with and attend this conference for 3 days.  And the best part of all of this, the whole conference was in French and pretty much everyone who attended only spoke French!  It was a great chance for him to really push ahead in both his oral comprehension skills and his speaking skills.  We were really glad that he could take part in this.

While we both would have liked to attend, we realize that at this point in our lives, our language learning is taking place in a somewhat less than ideal situation.  It would be great if we could spend many more hours on our French each week and both be able to jaunt off to Switzerland for a few days for some intense practice.  But then again, we would miss seeing the joy on Addie's face when she saw Cinderella's castle (at least that's who she thinks lived there) or hearing her play by play of Aladdin because we're not in the same room to watch it with her ("Mommy, there's Jasmine's palace!...Daddy, they're kissing....Forward fast this part please!!!"), or hearing her say "A tout a l'heure (see you later) to our friends here at school.  We wouldn't trade that for the world.  Addie and I had a great time together for a few days while Wayne was gone and even got to go on a date to McDonald's together.  

So God has provided us with a great school to study at, opportunities to learn and practice together (ie. church) and opportunities for Wayne to have even more intense practice.  And God has given us a wonderful little girl who continues to bring smiles to our faces even in the tiring stressful times of language learning.  And as a bonus for this week, God gave me a day at home with Addie so I could get our fridge cleaned out and defrosted, and it looks great!