been a while...

well, a lot has happened since i last updated this thing....

school is well underway, in fact, we only have about two weeks left before first quarter is over! and then i get a week long break....looking forward to it.

homework this year is very hard. we seem to have homework in every subject every night. i rarely have free time anymore...i guess that is part of being a junior!

oh! For NUTS, we have an all girls team...the Sahel Comets. hey, it was better than the sahel stars...we are going to have fun....im looking forward to NUTS....

Saturday night was a youth activity, and we going to play capture the flag, but i didnt manage to play because there were some fires right on the compound where we were playing. Still, i managed to get an asthma attack. it was a bad one, too. one that i still havent recovered from....

so, the dude that was in charge of the dorm rushed me home, running red lights and honking the horn....we were going so fast, but i got back in time to take my meds, and although there still isnt really much improvement, i know that it helped.

yeah, that is about it for now...

God Story

Last week my church youth group did a missions trip. We stayed at the church, and we reached out to the community around the church and members of the church. It was an aweomse week. In the morning I worked at VBS. I worked with games and got to run around with kids in nice weather....it was awesome.

In the afternoons i did really odd jobs. On Monday i went to a nursing home and played Bingo...haha, it was fun. On Tuesday a group of five squished into a mustang convertible and delivered fruit baskets to the shut-ins. We had a blast! Wednesday and Thursday i went to a Rescue Mission and cleaned some of the building. The Rescue Mission helps homeless people and provides food, clothing, some lodging (i think) and the gospel. It was a privelage to help there! Friday afternoon i worked at a car wash, which was soooo fun. i had an awesome week.

So, the God story...all week we were trained in street evangelism, and thursday night we went to a park to evangelize. There was three of us in a group, and we started out being rejected about 6 times, and then finally we saw an old man with a dog (very important to the story!). So, we started petting the dog and then used the dog to start a conversation. Turns out Tom was roman catholic, which made it very hard to witness. Also, Tom was a very lonely old man, so it was very hard to get a word in while he told us a whole bunch of stories! So, we shared our faith and gave him the name of our church and the times of services. So...Sunday night our youth leader, Merle went to the Resuce Mission to help with serving the meal, etc.  Now, Merle did not know Tom...but he saw Tom at the Rescue Mission. And Tom was very upset. So, Merle started to talk to him, and Tom's DOG had just died, so Tom was very uspset. So, Merle started talkingn to him and figured out that we had witnessed to him at the park. Merle again invited him to church, and Tom is coming on Sunday! Pray for him that he will really hear the message of salvation at our church!

Now that is God for you...

CREATION!

My mom, dad, and I went to Creation...which is an amazing music festival. There was so many great bands there...

My favorite concerts were Aaron Shust and Leeland...they are amazing.

Showers were really far away...camping was fun...it rained most of the first day but the rest of the week was beautiful!

The candlelighting service was AMAZING. It was like....unexplainable...but we are light to a dark world...pretty much sums it up!

The trip to the states

Well, I have officially decided that if you travel with the DeValve family, you will have an adventure. No matter what

Our plane left Niger two hours late. Then we stopped in Ouga (which was scheduled, but they didn't tell us until we were randomly landing an hour into our flight....). The stop in Ouga was supposed to be about 45 minutes...which stretched into 2 hours. Some guy had to be medically evacuated and so they had to get the plane ready for the guy. We were supposed to have a 3 hour layover in Casablance...but by now we were worried about actually making our flight. Fortunately, we made it to Casa in time and then flew into JFK and took a bus up to Hartford, CT.

While we were in CT, we celebrated my Grandparents 50th anniversary. It was a lot of fun to see all my relatives again...

My grandma has four sisters and they all came with their husbands..except one whose husband is already in heaven.

It rained...i was cold

Cousins... Cousins (minus a few) and grandma's sisters

Grandpa and Grandma!

Our new family crest

Four brothers

The flowers..

After Grad we went up to Tera for a week where we just hung out as a family.

Oh, wait, I forgot! The night after Grad we stayed up and watched The Lord of the Rings all three extended versions. I guess i missed most of the first ones due to hyperness and i slept through half of the second and half of the third...but it was fun!

Anyways...back to the week in Tera...

We had a goodbye party for Daniel...and Daniel gave away a lot of his old stuff....

Actually, these used to be mine...