Changes can come suddenly or over time. Sometimes you don’t really see them happening until you go away and come back. Having been away from Benin for six months, I returned to find many changes.

All over town, there are new roads where there used to be only paths or dead ends. One new road goes right by our house. Where there used to be a house, a small place to drink sorghum beer, and a shelter for people to dry their grain, there is now a road. On this same road right near our house, there used to be a well that brought people from all around the area. Mind you, the water wasn’t very clean, but it was good enough to wash clothes in. The well is gone now. If I didn’t have pictures and video of people getting water out of the well, you would never know there had ever been one there. This new road seems to have caused quite a disruption. All along it, houses and halves of houses are missing. Even the Catholic Charity Mission lost half of its building. Other changes in town include new houses which have sprouted up where trash piles used to be. New stores have opened and others have closed or been demolished.

A friend is now pregnant. Another who, when I left, doubted she was pregnant just had her baby. One who was pregnant when I left had her baby and became a schoolteacher.

At church, the little children’s Sabbath School has grown by leaps and bounds. We are now overflowing our two rooms. I have been recruited into helping teach cradle roll which should come naturally since my mother has done it my whole life. My biggest difficulty is trying to talk to kids in three different languages and remembering who gets spoken to in which language. Thankfully, I only have to do the lesson in French. We have seven children, ages 2 to 5, and three 7-month-old babies crawling everywhere in a 6- by 7-foot room. But God is good, as always, and has provided us with the whole Bible story felt set from various sources and lesson helps in French.

There are other changes that are not so joyful. Some people have left the church. Young girls have gotten themselves into trouble. There is illness. Hard decisions remain to be made. Our computers often don’t work, and our e-mail never does. There are many other things too difficult to explain that need lots of prayer.

But God is faithful, and His hand is at work here in the hearts of many—some of whom I know and some of whom I don’t. Our God knows how to reach each heart here and has promised, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me” (John 12:32). I take that as a promise and know that He keeps His promises.

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