These are my friends Michelle and Mark. They're grrrrrreat!
I met Michelle when we started grad school. I don't know if I could have made it through without her. Okay, well neither of us is actually through it yet, but we've made it through coursework and advanced, so close enough!
Michelle is a brilliant linguist. She would shake her head for me saying that, but it's true. Most of us linguists focus on one narrow subfield, but because she does fieldwork in Africa, she has to know EVERYTHING. The two of them are headed back to Tanzania in less than two weeks so she can finish gathering data for the grammar she's writing.
They have great stories from their Tanzania travels. One of my favorites is that every day when they go out, the children point at them and say "Whitey! Whitey!" (in Swahili). By the end of their last trip, they were so sick of it that Mark wanted to point and yell back at them. But they're such good people that they didn't.
I consider it a huge blessing that Michelle was and is such a good Christian influence. I love that I have friends who are so knowledgeable and yet humble and generous and helpful - I could go on and on! Christian friends are something that I have yet to find out here in PA, so I've been thinking how much I appreciate the ones I do have, and how easy it was to find them when I was in school. That made me realize I need to lift up my friends in prayer more often!
And that brings me to the reason for highlighting them in this post. Would you mind saying a prayer for Michelle and Mark? For safe travels around the 28th of this month (getting to the village is a several day ordeal) and then getting through all the ups and downs of their 6 month trip. Thanks!