Pastor Pierre and Awa Ouattara (pronounced watara)

Pastor Pierre and Awa have been "married" in the traditional Toussian sense for 15 years. He asked her to marry him, he asked her parents, he gave a bride price and they went off to live happily ever after. Well, then they became Christians and then he became a pastor. Recently the church decided to schedule a time when all the couples who had been married traditionally but had not had the civil ceremony (which would make it legal in the eyes of the state) could do so. Well, things came up and the church still hadn’t arranged the ceremony. Meanwhile as Awa was pregnant, Pierre wanted to do this before the child was born, so he arranged it himself. Often when people want to get married they need lots of money because you have to feed everyone in the church and then have a big party at the house. Pierre refused to do this and had a meal with a few chosen people at the house (including Margaret and me).

The lady in red with Pierre and Awa is the Mayor of Toussiana.

Soungalo (one of our translators) on the far right was witness for Pierre and Bakery (president of our translation management committee) on the far left was witness for Awa.

Two years ago they adopted a little boy they named Jean (John). He was the child of Pierre’s older brother, but Jean’s mother died in child birth. When this happens, the child is blamed and most people don’t want the child. In this picture Jean looks scared but really he was just fascinated by the camera.

Awa had a little boy they named Sam Moise.

Sam is a Toussian name meaning blessing. It is not short for Samuel.

When Wilhelm and I were married, he had a cat named Mitzi. Recently Mitzi went out one night as usual and never came back. There was a family in Ouagadougou (pronounced Wagadoogoo) the capital city who had a bunch of cats that needed a home. Since Margaret’s cat Cha of 14 years also died, we decided to take two of the cats who are sisters and get along well together. I brought both cats back to Toussiana after my vacation. It was an interesting trip as the family suggested I just let them loose in the car. It was mostly ok until Ginger decided to sleep between the clutch and break pedal. Fortunately, I was not going fast on the highway but was just past the toll both.

Ginger went to live with Margaret and Mina came to live with me.

Saturday morning July 2 around 9AM, Mina started acting strange. Margaret had told me the signs to look for if she was getting ready to give birth. Sunday morning at 4:30 am Mina started delivery and the forth little guy arrived at 5:50 am.
Since she was restless all day and most of the night particularly from 2 am on, I didn’t get much sleep and listened to a sermon tape instead of going to church.				Here they are at two weeks old.

• June 2005, Locust Plague
• April 2005, Branch Conference
• February 2005, Literacy Classes
• September 2004, Market Pictures
• August 2004, Return to Toussiana
• May 2004, In Memory of Wilhelm
• July 2003, Wilhelm’s Parents 50th Wedding Anniversary
• Feb. 2003, New Office Building
• Nov 2002, Reading Contest
• July 2002, Toussian Translators
• March 2002 Literacy classes
• Jan 2002 Bissa New Testament dedication
• January 15, 2002
• Nov 2002  Language learning, Translation, Revision, Ladies day at church
• Oct 2001  Sunday school outing, Fonio harvest
• Aug 2001  Cobly Reunion
• May 31, 2001  Return to Burkina Faso
• May 5, 2001  Germany, Az, Oregon office work
• Jan 2001  Our time in Germany

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