I had a wonderful time catching up with R – it’s been probably 2 years since I’d seen her. She was once the wife of our gardener, H, and was so very helpful in the translation of health pamphlets into Fulfulde. She is now the youngest wife of four wives and longs to have a baby. She loves children and she helps her co-wives take care of all of theirs. She was a Fulani children’s teacher in Gamboula before the war, and when I entered the compound with a “Salaam aleykum”, I found her helping a Hausa woman friend learn Fulfulde. She’s a natural born teacher with gentleness and compassion oozing out of her. She caught me up with the situation of a family of friends dear to both of us, and then she wanted to give me their telephone numbers. She pulled out the basket full of scraps with numbers jotted on them, most of them just numbers, no names, not even in Arabic script! I confess I giggled a bit, and teased her a bit about her papers. She did pull a tiny book out of the bottom of the basket, but again, inside there were just a lot of numbers with few names. Her telephone had been stolen and she was guarding hard copies in case it happened again, but oh my, I think she needs someone to organize her telephone book.
It was great fun to visit with her and even though she has had some relief from a painful condition, she may be in need of an operation at our mission hospital. Now that there are many Fulani patients around, she feels better about coming over sometime for treatment when we’re back from our retreat (after the first week in April). Please pray for R, that she would understand the loving grace of the Messiah and how about praying that she might experience the joy of her own baby in her arms?
