It is the dry season. The harvest is finished for the year, and the villagers have not started back to the fields yet for the new year. It is the time for outreach. The villagers have time now to sit and listen and follow evangelism and health work.

I filled the month of March with health seminars in the surrounding villages. I first went to a small village about three miles from Manta where there is a group of new believers. A drunk man frequently interrupted us as I presented and Sidoine translated.

In Manta center, I did health presentations to high school students. Around 100 of them crammed into a hot little room. That was rather difficult, and I probably won’t do it again, but it worked for that time. On the way home, our clutch went out, but by the grace of God, we made it back. We spent the following day at the mechanic.

The next week, we did a program in another village. When it was time to leave, we found that the truck battery was dead. After traveling around a few days on a borrowed motorcycle. I finally had to go to Natitingou in a taxi (which God sent along at the right time) with my dead battery to try to get it recharged. However, we discovered the lead had split, so we needed a new battery. With the help of our friend, Toussaint, I carried a borrowed battery on my lap all the way to the stranded truck, and we headed straight home. We spent the next day hunting down a good battery and then several hours at the mechanic for some other stuff.

The next week we did another presentation. We discovered our first day of presenting was a market day and everyone would be gone, so we decided to do it the next morning instead. One must be flexible here.
The next week I spent 3 days in another village south of Natitingou doing a two-and-a-half-day seminar for the church group there. That went well. We were even able to find time to relax, eat, and read—something I hadn’t found much time to do the past few weeks.

We have a window of about another month and a half before the villagers go back to the fields again, and the prime time to work will have passed for another year.

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