Issue #34
October 25, 1999

Dear Friends and Family,
What do golf clubs, baseball bats, kettles of hot water, buckets of soapy water, pellet guns and bug spray all have in common? The might sound like a weird combination to you, but then again you have probably never had the experience of a fire cricket. These very large bugs make the worst noise. It is a piercing noise that causes you to want to cover your ears and can keep you awake for long periods of time at night. That is why you will often see someone out at night with a flashlight at and a baseball bat or golf club to try to find the thing and beat it. Others are trying to find more effective ways such as pouring hot water down the fire crickets hole. This seems to work. Shooting down the fire crickets hole. Not many people really want to try this one. The soapy water one has been a daytime solution, to kill them before they start making noise. When the soapy water is poured down the hole, they come out, and then they meet up with the golf club, baseball bat, or large stick. Just one of the joys of living in Africa. Of course I live upstairs so I don't have to hear them as much at night.

My big thing this past week was that I started taking tennis lessons. I needed to do something to be active. I have never played tennis before in my life, so I had no clue what I was doing. There is an African that teaches tennis. He is really good. It would have been fine, except I had an audience. Two boys from my class, Shawn and Austin, climbed up in the basketball goal stand to watch. They kept saying things like, "Miss Epps, don't you know how to play tennis?" "Haven't you ever played tennis before?" "I know how to play tennis. Why can't you?" I got a good laugh out of it. It did make it kind of hard to concentrate though. It was still fun. Hopefully, I figure it out soon, so I don't provide them so much entertainment.

Last week was a good week. We are still fighting colds, but I think most everyone is one the mend. It kind of just gets passed around and re-passed around here since we all live and work so close together. We spent most of the week getting ready for the elementary chapel service that was last night.

Friday night was class parties. We got together at my house had a bunch of goodies to eat. I let the kids make commercials one the video camera and then watch it. They thought is was a lot of fun to see themselves on TV.

Sunday morning the elementary choir sang in church. As I said before Sunday night, the elementary was in charge of the service. The kids picked the songs they wanted to sing. The elementary choir sang two more songs. The first and second grade recited the Bible verses they have learned, which was quite a few. My class acted out the song, "Champion," by Carman. Fourth grade did a reader's theater, and Fifth grade did a play. It worked out well. We weren't sure how it was going to come out because we didn't have as much time to prepare as we would have liked, too.

Dan and Nancy Grudda arrived back in Africa late last week. Dan is doing better, but continue to pray the headaches will completely go away.

Andrew Belle Isle, a sixth grade student, has severe hearing problems. He wears hearing aids in both ears. When he woke up Sunday morning, he was completely unable to hear out of one of his ears. Pray that this will be remedied and/or that he and his parents can find the help that he needs.

The container still has not arrived. I haven't heard anything else since it was emptied last week and stuff removed. I haven't heard if a price has been mentioned yet.

Thanks for your prayers and support. I have to go work on planning another party. My class filled their marble jar for good behavior and read the amount of books for a part, so I now I owe them two. I convinced them to just have one big one.

In Christ,
Traci Epps