August 2008

August 6th Mission Update

What a busy month!

School will be starting soon (Aug 12th) and the Lord has brought most of the Sahel Academy team together. We could still use some help in the secondary grades, and at youth pastor for the school, but we are continually amazed how the Lord provides.

In about a week we will be starting another school year. Let me recap some our summer vacation. It was filled with a variety of activities. We helped move furniture, bookcases, cupboards, books (many to our new media center), desks, chairs, swam, played too many computer games, mowed some African grass (quack grass) and watched some movies.

In addition to the above activities. Chris took an introduction to aviation course through EAA and Utah Valley University and is looking forward to the more advanced and challenging course. He was able to work some at the SIMAIR hanger too. He also hung out with a couple of his classmates. He will know how to get around Niamey better that me (mom).

Justin has been earning some money by watching the new dorm parents 2 children. A side note: Justin changed his first diaper and it was smelly. The little guy laughed at Justin but behaved and gave no more surprises. Justin also spent some time with a friend in digging a tunnel and swimming.

Noah to spent time with some friends and swimming. He really had a laid back summer! Althought the last part of it was hard trying to keep up with the Brett Favre soap opera.

I switched 2 classrooms around with Justin and Noah's help. On July 23 I flew out to Maradi to meet Randy and fly back to Niamey, since it was our 20th wedding anniversary. We were able to go out for dinner when we returned to a place we found pretty nice by Niamey standards.

Randy has been busy at the office and home with computers. He made a trip out to Goure to help the missionaries set up a small computer room in a youth center. After an 8 hour taxi ride from Goure, he ended up making a very short side trip to Danja to look at a network problem before flying home with me before dark.

This past week Randy was able to pick up some computer things from customs that came over 2 months ago for the office. He was very happy about that. He can now proceed with some much needed work at the office. Because of the field's need for a treasurer, even Randy has been doing some treasury work filling in while others are away. Yes, you know it is bad when Randy is covering in treasury!

Back to the present and future. The boys and I (Wanda) will be starting school on the 12th of August. Chris will be a Senior (we don't know where time has gone), Justin a Sophomore and Noah an Eighth grader. I ( Wanda) will be in the first and second grade classroom teaching with one of the teachers who helped start Sahel. At 83 she will be returning to Sahel for the school year! I will have 1 Kindergartener who will join the 1st and 2nd graders. I am not sure what subjects I will teach. it promises to be another exciting year here in Niger, Africa.

Praises:

-Randy's stuff our of customs / exoneration

-A good vacation time

-A young man coming to teach some math and science in the secondary classrooms in September

Prayer:

-A good start to school

-Continued good attitudes

-The SIM Niger field needs someone with accounting skills to be treasurer (Yesterday!), even for a short time.

We also wanted to give a special thank you to people who have responded to our continuing monetary need. We had a very good month in June (the last we have records for as of today,) There is still a considerable amount we need to make up, but we look forward to the Lord's provision. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Wanda Potratz for Randy, Chris, Justin and Noah

Ministering in Niger, West Africa with SIM