Hi everyone! Thank you for those of you who knew I was sick and prayed for me. Last Wednesday I wasn’t feeling well and went to the clinic to check things out. The doctor did a blood test and surprised me by saying I had typhoid! Typhoid is a fecal-oral transmission route- basically I ate something from someone who had typhoid and perhaps didn’t wash their hands properly before preparing food that I ate. I know, disgusting. Yes, I definitely got my typhoid fever vaccine before I left the States, which obviously isn’t 100%! But you know what, I do believe it helped me from getting it so bad. I really was blessed to have a minor case of it. I took off two and a half days of work, and rested over the weekend. It helped also that I got treatment soon after symptoms presented themselves. I am now feeling 100%, and have been for a day or two now. I’m still taking antibiotics (I’m on the 8th out of 12 days) and after that, I’ll be finished! Praise the Lord I amd healed and better since I now have only 3 weeks, that’s right, just 3 weeks before I go home to North Carolina for one month of home leave!
I am excited to tell you all that I have signed a new one year contract to work in Niger. 
I will continue to manage the nutrition feeding center program but am also now managing our new UNICEF funded child survival program. It’s a health education program geared toward women with children 0-5 years old. Our target beneficiaries are 45,000 women with children 0-5 years of age. We’ll be tracking kids growth by weighing and measuring them every 2 weeks. If a child is malnourished, we’ll refer them to our feeding centers and to the government run feeding centers. We are at the hiring stage right now for 9 full-time supervisors. I’ve already found my project supervisor who will be overseeing the work of the supervisors. We’ll work together to provide the initial training/teaching for the supervisors. They will in turn use the training they have received to teach the same health lessons (in a more simple form) to our community health workers. The community health workers will then teach women in their communities both through individual visits and support groups held once or twice a month. This is so exciting and such an amazing opportunity for me, I’m pretty much beside myself with excitement. God has been so good to me.
I have reason for even more excitement when I go home, because my younger sister Meredith is getting married December 28th. I am so happy to be there for her, and to share in this special time with her. I love my family so much and am already blessed to have an amazing brother-in-law, my sister April’s husband Blaize. And now I get to have a second brother-in-law, Peter! Praise God for providing such excellent, godly men for my sisters. I couldn’t be more pleased with them both.
Prayer Request:
Update on the office: Please pray for our country director, Charles Ibsen. He was called on by our regional director to serve as team leader for a mission to the Congo (DRC) to respond to the crisis. Charles will use his French speaking skills to translate, attend government/UN meetings in Goma, and other tasks. Please pray for the SP team and relief workers who are working in the midst of this war. Charles will return mid-December right before I go for home leave. Thank you for keeping them all in your prayers.
I have a lot I want to accomplish before I go for home leave, pray that I would diligently use my time during these last 3 weeks. Pray that God would prepare my heart to share my experiences with you all.
Thank you so much for your prayers and support! See those of you in NC in a few weeks!!!
