We have arrived!

Well we have arrived in Abidjan! I'm so happy to be here! It's nice to settle in and start making relationships. It's a great city, EXCEPT it's hot! It's probally in the 80's but 85% - 100% humidity! I dont think my hair will ever be dry again! ;) When I first arrived here I thought it was kinda like Tampa, Florida! There are cocoanut trees, so that makes me really think on Tamapa!

As some of you know Dad was sick the last few days. He went to the hospital on Friday and stayed there for the afternoon to have a malaria test done, because he was sick with chills, bad headache, and vomiting the night before. The test came back negative, but the doctor said it sometimes take 24 hrs. for the test to come back positive. So they started him on the malaria treatment and he is much better! Thanks for all the prayers!

I will add pictures when we get internet at our house!

Merry Christmas,
Autumn

A night out in the village!

Our sleeping arrangements ;)

More awesome mountains!

Us in the village.

Beautiful sunrise in Africa!

Well, we have just returned from our first village experience! It was great! When we first arrived we went to the missionaries house, and then went to meet the Pastor and his family. They were such a nice family with three young girls, and two older boys. We arrived and ate watermelon and drank tea (from a common cup! ;) Everyone got to drink out of it, it was a little weird at first, but I ended up drinking about 5 rounds (each round has three levels, the last one is the sweetest, which makes it the best!) before we left. After a little bit lunch was ready, chicken and rice with onions and etc. It was VERY good! Obliviously it was out of a common bowl and we ate with our RIGHT hand! ;) Then we sat around and visited, and after that went and greeted more people. Then it was time for supper which was also good, black eyes peas and onions. After praying with the believers and hanging out with them till about 10:00 pm, we headed to bed! I think sleeping outside was my favorite part! We had a room we could of slept in, but we wanted the outside experience. Mom and I put mats in the bed of our truck, and Dad got a personal size tent and slept on the ground (on a mat of course! ;) It was SO amazing to look into the clear sky and see all the stars, there was so many! We saw MANY falling stars, it was so great to see God's creation in that way! Another great thing was about 3:30 am a strong wind came up (I'm not for sure how strong, but STRONG!) and at 4:30 we were awaken by the call to prayer at the Mosque. It made out to be a great night!

This morning we woke up to get ready for church. We went over to the Pastor's and had breakfast. It was rice with sugar. Then we had church, Pastor had to preach at another church, so another man preached. There was about 15 people there, counting us. It was good. Then we visited for awhile till lunch. We had chicken and rice (different recipe though, who would of ever thought that there is so many different ways to make chicken and rice!) but this was very good also! After visiting for just a little while longer we had to leave. It was an experience I will never forget!

Some of the prayer request there was: For the believers in the village and surrounding villages to have strength. And that the Pastor can get his moto fixed also.

We leave for Abidjan in a few days!!!! I'm so excited! Pray for us for a safe flight there and that we can get settled and start making relationships.

Love you all,

Autumn

Our first African vacation!

Africa has some of the most beautiful landscapes!

Me in front of the hotel. (And no thats not a really giraffe ;)

Dad painting with mud! :)

Hey Everyone!

As you know we took a trip to Segou this weekend... it was so much fun! I think the best part was the pool! We got to go swimming two days for almost 4 hours each time! It was good being able to spend time with friends! We went to one of the tourist markets there and to a place where they make the pictures cloth, from mud (it's called Bogalon)! It was very neat! At the market we bought a map of Africa made with that. We saw many interesting things on the way there, as you seen on my parents blog.

As you know we are still doing French ;) In some ways it seems like we are starting to catch quite a bit of it! I'm so ready to communicate with the people, I just wish I could speak their heart language! Here in Mali that is Bamabara, in Abidjan we will be doing urban church planting... so there will be many languages but one main one will be Jula. That would be a great language to learn after we master French, which could be a while ;)

We will be going to Abidjan in 14 days, I'm ready to get settled and make some friends! :) We will be joining our teammates, the McAfees. We are very excited to meet them!

Well hope to hear from you guys soon!

French, French, and MORE French!

Well I think the title sums it up, French! We have tutors come 5 times a week to teach us, and that doesn't count all the other practicing we do! I know it is all good though, eventually when we have it down and we will be very happy we know it!

Really not much else goes on around here. If I would tell you every funny story with our French or just anything I would be typing for a long time (and I don't want to type forever! :) It's just the little things that make you laugh around here, like calling a woman a he, or Mom saying I was in the saloon instead of the salon! (a salon is like a living room) We don't get all the entertainment as you can get in the states, so something funny will happen and I will laugh FOREVER about it! It's almost funny how long I laugh at it!

Since this coming week is Thanksgiving we get to celebrate it with all the other missionaries! That will be fun, and we also get to bust open the Oreo's we packed from the states! (I just don't know how I'm going to eat them with out good American milk!) Then we are going to a hotel about 3 hrs away to spend a couple nights, along with our missionary friends, the hotel has a pool and satellite TV!!! (although most of it will be in French)

It's really hard to know what to blog about cause nothing really goes on, but I should have some pictures to put on the blog after our trip! Thanks for all the prayers!

A Saturday out!

One of the resort rooms.

The lake.

Us by the lake.

A village on our way.

An African man fishing.

Hey!

Well last weekend we went to a resort place with our leadership to have lunch! It was very nice! It had a lake that you could swim in.(Just watch out for crocodiles ;) That's where my picture was taken at. We had fish kabobs which was EXCELLENT! They have these little mud huts that you can stay in, they are nice also, they even have air conditioner!!! :) It was about a 2 hour drive to get there, we passed many villages on the way there! That was our first time to really see a village, so that was very cool!

We have been doing the normal, French! It is very nice that from the little we know we can start putting words together to make sentences! I haven't really been able to practice my French with anyone besides my parents, but at the market I can understand the prices which feels like a great accomplishment. :)

We will be leaving to go to Abidjan the week before Christmas! I'm very excited to get settled in the city we will be living in! Thanks for all the prayers!

Hey Everyone!

Hey! I was just going to let you know that I have moved all the post from my other blog over to here, and I will be posting a blog soon... hopefully I will get around to it in the next few days! Thanks!

I drank voo-doo water and liked it!

Hey! Well as you know we have been learning French, which is a great task! We have been learning greetings such as, Good morning, How are you, I’m fine, What is your name, and such. We also have learned to ask, “Would you like some water?” Which is, “Voula voo d’leau?” Or that’s atleast how it sounds. (d’leau = water) Well mom said, “Voo-doo d’leau?” So we now have voo-dooed water! So we need lots of prayer for our French learning, we don’t want to “curse” anyones water!

It’s going great here, I met this 15 yr old girl and I’m going to her house on Thursday. So thanks to all of you that have been praying for me a friend. And supposibly there is a couple of girls next door, but I have not seen them.

We went to church on Sunday and that was an experience, a good one though! They danced ALOT during worship! The service was in French and Bambara so we didn’t understand it, but I’m sure it was good!

A few weird things: Some of the chicken that you buy at the store, still has some hair on it. I take a “cold as it gets” shower every night! A few days ago me and dad drank a 13 yr old coke!!! It tasted funny but still pretty good!

Thanks!

IN AFRICA!!!

Me with our truck (well we will be getting a new one soon), it’s called the Clunker and there’s a reason why! :)

Mom on the couch.

This is our house! Pretty much all the houses look like this! :)

Our pretty courtyard! This is the lizards home!

Our table and such.

This is our living room.

My bedroom.

Wow! I’m so excited I’m here! We arrived here on Saturday, well lets start with the plane trip. We flew from Memphis to Atlanta, I don’t care for the smaller planes that much, especially when we have to land in the rain! The good thing about that one is we only had an hour and a half flight!!! Then we had our layover and met up with some other missionaries coming to Bamako. The next plane trip (from Atlanta to Paris) was “alright” I don’t want to be put on a plane for 8 hrs!!! We got an unexpected meal which was really good. We flew through the night and I got a couple hours of sleep. We arrived in Paris at 11:00 am their time, we mainly just went through coustoms then went and hung out till it was time for our flight. I had a good two hour nap! Then the flight from Paris to Mali was 5 hrs. and that was a good flight! We in Bamako 8:00pm (the time here), the airport was pretty different but with the help of the missionaries already here we made it through and went to our house.

Our house is really nice, not what I expected for Africa! We live in a nice neighborhood, we haven’t really got to meet any of our neighbors yet. The other day when we opened our gate door like 20 kids ran in saying “Bonjour!” It was really nice! We have a dirt road leading to our house with lot of potholes It’s quite bumpy! We have took a walk in our neighborhood and there is alot of nice people! There is even a man that can speak English that is going to translate the Gospel to the people for us! (He is not a Christain eigther, so pray for him.) There is so many people to reach here!

We had our first French lesson today! We learned how to introduce ourselves and have a small conversation! It will take a while but i know that we will learn it!

Thanks for all the prayers and continue to pray for us! Pray for our language study, for us adjusting, and that we will find a way to reach the people of Bamako! My name is now Adjua Kouime, this is my African name! Mom’s is Teres and Dad’s is Yuhana. It’s very cool here! (not temperature wise though!)

Saying Goodbye

Me and my cousins.

My Grandma and Chloe with my Grandma’s birthday cake.

Well we only have two more days in the country! It’s very exciting to be leaving but we have been saying alot of goodbyes. This last weekend all my mom’s family came in! We celebrated my Grandma’s birthday, it was an awesome cake! On Sunday our home church had our commissioning service, it was a good time. In the morning we got to speak and they prayed for us, and at the night service we had a fellowship meal (that was an awesome meal!) and people asked us questions. Then our family left after the services. It was great weekend together!

Well all I’ve really been doing is just hanging out, we have been eating with some of our friends and just visting. I can’t wait till Friday! Pray that it will be fairly easy to say goodbye and that we will have a safe plane trip. Thanks for all the prayers!

Is this real?!?

Wow guys 9 days!! Who would of ever thought we would be here, well God did. We will be flying to Bamako, Mali on the 17th!!! I’m so excited! We are having a great time with family in Arkansas right now, it’s going by very fast though! Sunday we will be having our commissioning service, it’ll be fun!

Well when we get to Bamako I don’t know how great of internet access we will have, so I don’t know how often I will blog. Not that I blog that often anyway! Ha! We will be spending 4 monthes in Mali for training then we will be in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire to reach a city of 6 million! Pray for us as we leave our family. I know God has a great work for us over there!

Thanks for all the prayers!

Washington D.C. Trip

Our interesting looking food…

Mom and Dad eating.

The West African restraunt we ate at.

The White House

Hey Everyone!

Sorry I haven’t posted in forever (again). We went to D.C. a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time! We ate at a West African restraunt… it was interesting… good but different. We also went and saw the White House… there was even a sniper on top!!! It was cool. It was a long bus ride and I was tired when I got home.

It’s crazy we will be in Africa in 3 weeks!!! It’s so exciting!!! We will be leaving ILC in a week, then off to Piggott for 2 weeks!!! Pray that God would prepare us and our family as we will be leaving. It’s going to be good because in Mali we will have a couple families that will be there with us. See you guys soon!

Autumn

ONLY 6 WEEKS!!!

Hey everyone I will be in Mali in less than 6 weeks, SO EXCITING! Again I havent blogged in FOREVER!!!! I’m sorry, I’m going to try to get better at it. Last weekend was our no electricity and cooking from scratch, it was alot of fun. We got to eat with our West Africa group for supper. You can see me and mom making biscuits in the picuture… lets just say that they were interesting, but edible. I was very glad to have back electricity on Moday though.

Me and mom wore bandanas on our heads today because thats what we will have to wear in Africa. Dad tried to support us by trying it too… but I dont think we need the support. He looks very funny in it.

I like it here, but I’m very excited to get to Africa too. Some prayer request of mine are: that I would learn all I can while I am here at ILC, I would find a friend in Cote d’Ivoire, and for our family as we are preparing to leave. Thanks. Hope to blog soon.

Still at ILC

Hey everyone! Sorry it’s been forever since I blogged. I’ve been going to school alot and hangin with my friends in the gym. I’ve made lots of new friends, its really cool. Tonight we are going to the mall and spending the night with each other. Today we got shots, I though I was getting alot of shots and it would hurt, but I only got one and it didnt hurt. I have to do a devotional Wednesday for school, so pray for me. I’m having an awsome time. Bye.

In Rockville, VA

I was just going to let everyone know that I’m in Rockville, VA (close to Richmond, VA) at ILC. It is a very nice place and are quad is very nice too. I start school tomorrow with 17 kids in my class. It looks like alot of fun. I have met my friend Megan that I had been talking to for a while and I’m sure i will have lots more friends after tomorrow. And also you can link to my parents blog to the right of this blog. Well I might not be able to post as often but I will be sure i make time to. Cant wait to see what God does through these 8 weeks.
Autumn

Back From Cruise

Dad’s interesting food…

The wing of the airplane before going into a storm.

An ice sculpteral of the boat.

Ashlyn at the airport.

Me and Dad in the airplane.

Hey everyone! I got home on Monday from the cruise. It was an awsome time!!! They had a pool, mini waterpark, awsome food (well most of it!), and 24hrs room service!!! I personally liked the 24 hrs room services! And I got to spend a great time with family! But now i am in Nashville visiting my cousins Andy and Chloe. Then we will leave here on Sunday and arrive in Richmond, Va on Monday, to go to ILC (International Learning Center), which we will be there for 2 monthes. I will start school on Wednesday there, it will be in a class with 12-16 yrs old kids, i think there is like 30 of us! It looks AWESOME! And PLEASE leave comments, i like to hear from everyone! And i have got my pictures working
Autumn

Hangin With the Moody Family

Hey Everyone! This weekend I was able to go my dad’s aunt and see alot of my family! I got to see my Grandpa Gary which i hadn’t seen in a long time! (He is the one with me and my dad in the pictures) We had some good Bar-B-Qe and I hung out with my cousins. (My cousin Carissa, which is the oldest, then Ashlyn and McKenna) We had a double piggy-back ride going but I dont think i could of held them much longer Then i went and spent the night at thier house. But about all I have been doing is working puzzles with my Grandma and going swimming at Ashlyn and McKenna’s. Im leavin to go to Florida on Wednesday, then on Thursday we are getting on the cruise I’ll probally have alot of pictures after that! O yeah and its my first plane trip for me and my cousins, so pray for that! But I’m sure it will land safely. Well I’ll post after the cruise! Bye.

At the Lake with Family

hey! I have been spending alot of time with family before we move, so this last weekend I went to the lake with my mom’s side of the family. I went tubing on my uncle’s boat (again), i was able to go swimming in the lake too! Me and my cousins, Alex and Jessie, was able to sleep on a screened in deck , except for the last night when it rained Me and my cousin Jessie kinda adopted two dogs while we were there, we named the boy Spot, and the girl Dot ha! We fed them every morning, cause they were hungry! The pictures above is Spot (i think! cause they both looked exactly alike!) You can see me, my cousin Jessie, and my uncle all tryin to sit on the couch, I ended up movin to a sleeping bag! It was alot of fun and I got to spend alot of time with my family!

Ar-Kansas

Hi Everyone! Im down in Ar-Kansas (for you KC peoples)! We’ll Ive been down at my Grandma’s and Grandpa’s for about 3 weeks, except i went to my Aunt’s last week with my cousins. We went tubing on my Uncle’s boat, it was awesome!!! I have a picture above of me and my cousin Andy tubing. I also have pictures of my Grandma’s puppy, Roxy, shes part rottweiler! Shes so cute! My parents got appointed on Friday the 27th! I was not able to go though I miss everyone up in KC!
Later, Autumn