Photos

The internet is working(ish) this evening so I thought I'd post a few photos of life here at the moment. (Note - not that well, I wasn't able to send it immediately.) Here are the kids playing with friends at the pastor's house in the village:



On our way home through the fields - Eve has managed to hitch a life!



Marc preaching in the Kandi-Fô church last Sunday:

--   Hilary DENEUFCHATEL  BP 134 Kandi  REPUBLIQUE DU BENIN  Afrique de l'Ouest/West Africa    www.try-lingual.blogspot.com  

A few minutes of the work of a Bible translator

A quick glimpse into my work:

I am working through our Monkolé text of 1 Chronicles, which means I
need to do lots of checking that names are the same everywhere they appear.

In 9:6 we meet a Zerahite who the NIV calls "Jeuel", and who is "Yéouel"
in the French Nouvelle Bible Segond. We transliterate names from French
into Monkolé, which means he becomes "Yeuɛli" which is fine, as that is
what I find in the Monkolé text. (And the "y" sound is used more
frequently than "dj" in Monkolé, so it's probably better with a "Y" than
a "J".)

The Word Commentary I am following tells me that Jeuel is also mentioned
in Ezra 8:13, so I open up Ezra in Monkolé to check how we've spelt it
there. Ah, but the text I'm looking at has all its special characters
"messed up" (things like the "ɛ" in "Yeuɛli"). It was typed up with
different software, and we have to do a "Search and Replace" to get them
all looking normal again.

I thought one of my translators was supposed to do that while I was in
France, so I open up my file where I noted their work. Sure enough,
Philémon should have done it, and I am fairly sure he'd told me he'd
done it, so either I haven't collected his work off the server, or he
didn't save it up to the server when he'd finished it (easily done with
the connection problems we have here).

In the copy I have on my computer the name is "Yeuli", so it could be
changed to match 1 Chronicles, although in Hebrew it is actually spelt
slightly differently. Anyway, I need to wait until I go on-line at the
end of the morning to check the Ezra file. If I modify a file which
isn't the most recent copy my software gets confused! For now I write
myself a note so that I don't forget pour Jeuel.

My commentary also says that he appears in 2 Chronicles 29:13 (I check
the Hebrew text, and it is spelt the same way as in 1 Chronicles). I
open up that file and it is spelt "Jeiɛli" (probably following a
different French translation) so I modify it to "Yeuɛli".

And it's back to 1 Chronicles 9:6 ...

Back in Pèdè

We are safely back in our house in Pèdè, and very happy to settle somewhere after a summer of travelling! (We like travelling too, but after a while it's good to stop!)

For us parents, at least, the familiar routines are easy to pick up again, and it really doesn't feel like we were gone for a year. It was lovely to be welcomed back by the translation team and their families, and to be back in our church here again.

For the kids, a year is a long time, but when we first arrived back in the house they were too excited about getting out all the toys they left here to worry about anything else! And their friends here have been round to play too, and they picked their friendship back up where they'd left off, which was good to see. It is nice to have space again, both in the house and the compound, after living in a relatively small flat with very close neighbours! If I find Benjy a bit loud I can move (or move him) to a different bit of the house!

I am happy to be back with my team again. It is so much easier to coordinate our work when we are all in one place! And if I have a question I can just ask it, rather than sending an email and having to wait until their connection is good enough to pick up my email and reply.

It is rainy season, and our first few days back were very wet. Then we had a week without rain, by the end of which everyone was saying we really needed rain for the fields. And then yesterday it rained steadily from 7am till 3pm, so that was a relief.



Houses and fields on the outskirts of our village



"It's raining, it's pouring..."

Back to Benin

We arrived safely back in Benin last Sunday evening, got our new one-year visas in Cotonou, and travelled up to Parakou yesterday (Friday). We're now spending the weekend in Parakou to do some shopping and catch up with friends, and we will head home to Pèdè on Monday.

It has been good to arrive during rainy season - not that we've seen much rain yet - as the temperatures have been "mild". The highest we've had so far was 31°C when we arrived in Parakou yesterday.

I celebrated my 40th on Thursday in Cotonou. Our friends Alain and Christiane Soudrain invited us to come and have an evening meal with the short-term French team (of about 15 people) who had just arrived in Benin the day before. It was interesting to meet them, and nice to have birthday cake and be sung to by so many people (in French, Spanish and Fon!).

During our 8 hour wait in Istanbul:

Cotonou with our friends Alain and Christiane:

Timing

This is the fourth time we have left the UK as a family to travel to Benin. And it is the first time that we haven't had to leave early in the morning. I am very grateful for that. When I know I have to get up before my usual wake-up time I never sleep well, and I tend to wake up several times in the night. Then I feel sick when I wake up, and end up feeling weird for most of the day.

This time we don't even leave my parents' until after teatime, which means I have all day tomorrow to do the last-minute things (all but one suitcase are already packed), and - I hope! - I should sleep well tonight.

Of course, the flipside is that I had jolly well better sleep well tonight, because our journey timetable is slightly crazy. We have a flight at 11.45pm, which will only last four hours, and then we have to wait around for 8 hours at the airport in Turkey. Our flight to Benin leaves there early afternoon, and we'll arrive in Cotonou after a seven-hour flight. So we'll have been travelling for about 24 hours without much chance of good sleep in there!

I know lots of people are praying for us, and I am very grateful!

In transition

After a few days with Marc's parents we Eurostarred over to the UK for a couple of days at my parents' before our last ministry trip of the year. We visited churches in Hatfield, Bedford and Yeovil, and as usual it was a great time of sharing, catching up with people and being prayed for. We are always thankful for people's prayers, and it's even better when we're there to hear them.

We had asked for prayer for safety on our travels, and that was well and truly answered when my dad's car started making a strange noise. Five minutes later we met my sister's mechanic who "just happened" to be at her house servicing her car. He agreed to take a look at the car, and ended up changing the brake pads, one of which had actually split down the middle. I always feel humbled when God allows us to discover a problem and find His solution almost simultaneously!

In amongst the visits we also had the treat of a day at Stourhead, a place very close to my heart ever since I went on a school trip there at the age of 15. It was great to see the kids running around the beautiful gardens.

We are now in Derbyshire at my parents' until we return to Benin late next Saturday (6th August).

Out!

We made it. All our family members and possessions were out of the flat, and it had been well cleaned, by 3pm on Friday when we had to hand it over. It was hard work, but we were well-supported by friends and family, both through practical help and prayers.

A fridge and bed frame on top of a car which is already pulling a full trailer:

The day before we left:

We were happy to hear the lady from the agency say that she wished all flats were handed back to her in such good condition, and happy too to hear her offer to help us find a flat when we (probably) settle in Nancy again in 2020.

We are now at Marc's parents, and found someone (family of a friend) to buy our car at the very last minute!

Tomorrow we continue our journey on to the UK by train ... hoping we manage to carry all our luggage!!