The REAL Day 7

Today began with a visit to the Jardin preschool, another school which Grace Chapel has helped support. The sports team taught some soccerball activities in the courtyard area, and the music team taught some voice lessons. We took the old children's song, "BINGO" and changed it to "JESUS". The holy Father had a Son and Jesus was His Name-o ... J - E - S - U - S,  J - E - S - U - S,  J - E - S - U - S, and Jesus was His name-o. It actually worked really well.

After the morning at Jardin, many of us went on a hunt for girraffs. We drove about an hour out of Niamey and into the giraffe preserve, and after driving all over the tundra - seemingly without any direction - our guide found a family of four giraffes. It's fun to see them in the wild - without fences. The giraffe are much lighter colored here than they are in the states. Interesting! We had a picnic under a tree, which provided much welcome coolness from the very, very hot dirt and air. I'd guess it was at least 100 today, but a cool 100 in the shade. Ahhhhh.

Then in the evening we headed back into town to do another mini-concert and sermon in the outdoors. This time, however, we were in a large parking lot near one of our pastor's churches, rather than in the middle of nowhere. It was a bit strange - cars driving by and people on bikes and motor bikes coming over to see what was going on. Yesterday, some of the other mission folks from Grace arrived, including Dave Bidwell, Kevin Tracy, Jay, Cal and Stephan. It was nice to see them and include them in our group.

It was a long day - another great day - but we were all tired and ready to hit the sack when we got back to the pastoral institute where we are staying.

More tomorrow ... if internet holds out!
Blessings,
Teri