A missionary friend of mine told me the other day; “I feel like I spend half my life explaining my life.” I have to say, I can relate.
Besides trying to explain to African friends why or how we Americans do one thing or another, we are also committed to sharing our missionary journey with our family, friends and supporters each month through this blog and our ministry newsletter.
I don’t want to ignore those who lovingly lift us up in prayer and financial support, but sometimes I just get writers block. Like last month, I had every intention of posting a blog update…I even typed one out…but it just didn’t come out right. Sometimes it’s difficult to accurately represent our life overseas without coming across as either; “poor pitiful me”, or a prideful “look at me” missionaries. We definitely don’t feel worthy of either of those judgements. But we don’t want to let the fear of misinterpretation keep us from sharing our life either.

With that in mind, here’s what’s new with the Hoy team:

1. Before and after the rains:
Everything is green! As you can imagine, no one owns a lawn mower here, so you either let things grow into a jungle, or you whack it down with a machete. Those are rows of peanuts planted in the greener photo below.  Oh and the humidity this time of year is like nothing we have ever seen! I never knew cough drops or hard candy could literally dissolve into mush from humidity!

2. Creatures of the rainy season:
These are just a few of the creatures that we have seen in the rainy season. The kids loved seeing a real wild chameleon about a block from our house! We have also loved seeing beautiful birds of different colors, some yellow, some bright red and others iridescent teal, sorry my bird pictures aren’t great because they are so fast. We are used to seeing vultures, pigeons and hawks normally, but these new exotic beauties are here for the bugs…and there are a ton of them! We do wish that mosquitoes weren’t a part of the equation though, but I guess even they play a part in the food chain.

Chameleon

Milipede

Centipede

Grasshopper

Bright red bird

Bright yellow bird

Flying termites

Mosquito eggs

3. Back to school:
We decided to start back to school (homeschool) on August 26th. Our kids were actually quite excited! Our little man has grown a lot since we arrived back in January, and he could hardly wait to start preschool. Our girls were also thrilled to start some new fun curriculum for this year.

4. Training, encouraging and equipping:
Our mentor friends (who helped recruit us) have officially retired from the mission field, and returned back to the US at the beginning of July. Justin has transitioned pretty seamlessly into his support role alongside our national partners to continue the discipleship ministry they started.  Our national partners are way better missionaries than we could ever be, so we strive to support them as they lead. We do this by training, encouraging and equipping the national believers as they seek to be missionaries to their own people.

Chairs for a church plant

Meeting believers in remote places

Blessings,
Rachel