Please Be Good to the Strangers Among You

Our family wants to say, THANK YOU!!!, to the way the ministry here in southwest Burkina has loved on us during these last 2 months. We have seen first hand the invaluable blessing and vital need for kindness shown to strangers. Not that we were strangers to missionary, Lynn Kennedy, or even Ministry Director, Pastor Patrice Hien and his wife, Celine. We had the opportunity to meet them prior to making our move here and communicated with them via Skype multiple times. Even still, because of them (and others) and their kindness, patience, and going-the-extra mile, we have a wonderful house, we are weekly being introduced to the churches here and are getting to know new people, we are being tutored in French, learning to drive a standard truck and a moto, have two amazing guards and an excellent housekeeper. Because of their investment into us, we are adjusting better to this culture than we would have been without them. All this to say that without them patiently helping us through the process of getting established and learning new things, we would not be where we are today. It makes me realize how important it is to love-on the strangers among us.

Imagine moving to a new place, not knowing the language, not understanding the culture, and yet needing to both survive and function…then, IMAGINE IT WITH A FAMILY…with CHILDREN! Now, consider those who visit your church, who are new not only to your church but to your town and even your state…or how about your country. You have a wonderful opportunity to be a HUGE blessing to them by reaching out to them with Christ's love and helping them through the process of adjusting to THE NEW AND THE DIFFERENT.

We have learned over these past 2 months what an important ministry this is. Investing time to teach ESL is another wonderful way to reach out to the strangers among you. Language is one of the greatest keys to building relationships and being established in a new place. So, please be kind to the strangers among you. Reach out to them in Christ's love and help them through the process of going from strangers to being friends. It is an amazing way to be a missionary right where you live. You never know how the investment you make will not only impact the individual's life but also his or her family both there in country and back home in their native land.



Leviticus 19:34 reads, "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God" (NASB).

Northern Burkina: There and Back Again

Hello, ALL! Well, it has now been 2 weeks since my adventure to northern Burkina, and I don't want any more time to pass for fear that I will begin to forget! First, I want to thank my wonderful wife, Tracy, for being willing to care for our girls while I was gone those 4 days. During that time Maleah was sick and then Grace. We had our first water outage. There was a deluge one night that seeped water into the house. Etc. I also want to thank Ms. Lynn Kennedy and family for their love and support as well as our guards, Gabriel and André, who were also a huge help. One thing that hit me several days after my return was that with obedience comes sacrifice. Not only sacrifice on the part of the person being obedient but also on the part of others. God kept us. God richly blessed our time up north visiting a ministry based in that region. And alongside those blessings, there were sacrifices made by multiple people. So, maybe sometimes one could say that when we are obedient to something God is leading us to do, it doesn't mean that it is going to be a bed of roses or a stroll in the park (or any other like expression). It may be hard on your spouse. It may be hard on your children. It may be hard on you. Oh God, help us to be obedient to Your voice and help us to experience your grace as we walk it out! 

OK, now that I shared that... at the start of my adventure, I had the opportunity to experience my first Burkina bus trip. Initially, when Ms. Lynn told me that I would be taking a bus to meet Pastor Patrice Hien and his wife, Celine, in Ouaga, I envisioned a small, tightly packed bus stacked high on top with luggage, no A/C, etc. Well, to my surprise, it was a very large comfortable bus with A/C and even a DVD player in the front for movies (which were not good, but the fact of it was still pretty cool). We stopped a few times for pick ups and breaks. Below are a couple of pics of our stops. Merchants kinda mob the door with many of the same items to sell passengers as they step out. Needless to say, I stayed put. The stops were maybe 5 minutes long, and I did NOT want to be left behind. However, I sat really close to door and so was able to takes some shots of the action. Oh, and here is a picture of what I envisioned I was going to travel in. Please note the man's head on the top right. Yes, he is traveling the scenic way - mounted on his moto!

Below is the bus station in Ouaga. The bus on the left was my mine.

That first night as well as the night we returned from up north, the Hiens and I stayed at the Shattering Darkness Ouaga rental home. In the room in which I slept I found this picture with a message written by Holli Bundy, a dear friend of ours from our home church in Vivian. Holli was a part of the 2014 FBC Vivian short-term mission team that served in Burkina this past January. It was such a blessing and encouragement to see and read her loving message! 

Below are some pics I took along the way. I especially love the one with the Telecel ad painted on the side of the home. You see this a lot here. People's homes become billboards. 

Below is an example of a small store or boutique.

You can bet this former Vermonter was lovin' the mountains, though it look closer to the western US than the Green Mountain State. 

As we traveled, some point not only the landscape change but so did the culture of its inhabitants. For instance, Pastor Patrice commented that folks there work their fields with long handled tools standing upright. Down south, even just an few hours south of where we were, people do almost all their work bent over with short tools instead. He explained that one possible reason for this is the difference in the type of soil that is worked. Up north it is sandier, whereas down south it is very hard. Up north, you see a lot more livestock, whether they are bovine, sheep, or goats. There is less farming and more shepherding there. You also get to see camels as evidenced by the pics below. Please note the Xs or + signs on the one camel's neck which, like a brand, designate ownership.

Pastor Patrice and I were invited to participate in a thanks-giving service that a northern-based ministry hosted. He had invited not only us but several other pastors who shared in Word and in song. Bro. Patrice preached a message from 1 Thes. 5:16-17, which says, "16 Rejoice always; 17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus" (NASB).

Before the message, I had the honor of sharing a testimony of thanks and also of reading a Scripture, Psalm 103... IN FRENCH! It was my first time to do so, and it was a JOY! (I did receive quite a bit of help from the Hiens before the reading - THANK YOU, PATRICE AND CELINE!). 

1. I thanked God for giving me life. (My mom was told by her doctor she would not have any children.) 

2. I thanked God for salvation. (God saved me from a prodigal lifestyle that nearly killed me.) 

3. I thanked God for His call to ministry. (For years I ran from it until finally realizing and accepting that God's ways are so insurmountably better than my own.) 

4. And, I thanked God for His blessings of my wife, Tracy, and our girls, Maleah and Grace. (God brought Tracy and I together at just the right time in our lives and, at just he right time, blessed us with two precious daughters.) 

What a gift from God our short time up north was! On the way home, I got sick from something I ate while in Ouaga. It was a fairly miserable trip back to Diebougou from there. It was short lived, however, praise the Lord. I felt much better the next morning. By Saturday, all of us were healthy again. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR PRAYERS DURING THAT TIME!!! God helped Tracy through some definite challenges, and God blessed my visit up north and helped me make it home without having to stay extra time in Ouaga to visit a clinic and/or for recovery. Thank you for ministering with us and to us in prayer!!!

WE LOVE YOU AND ARE SO THANKFUL FOR YOU!

Our Home - A Gift from God and from You!

God has truly blessed us here in Diebougou with the house that He has given us to live in! We could not have asked for more. Thank you for your prayers for us and for a good home for us! YOUR PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED ABOVE AND BEYOND! THANK YOU!!! Here are some pics:

 

 

Master Bathroom

The Family after a Wednesday Evening Service

Our New Bike - It Is Great for Quick Trips to the Marché or Boutique across Town. We will both also be learning how to ride a moto and to drive stick shift. Ed is learning now.

Sheepy Drying on the Roof after a Quick Bath

To the Marché And Beyond!

There are no Walmarts here. No Piggly Wigglys. No Targets. What we do have are boutiques (small stores with a variety of goods: canned, pasta, oils, juices, soda, cookies, etc.) and also the Marché. The Marché is our outdoor market that happens two times a day; once in the morning and once in the evening. There you can find fresh vegetables, spices, rice, meat, and the like, as well as non-food items like buckets, bowls, soap, clothing, shoes, etc. Come to think about it, the Marché in many ways is similar to our Super Walmarts back home, only less options and multiple people selling essentially the same items. It is a wonderful cultural experience. Our first time going as a family, folk kept staring at our girls. Blonde, Caucasian is a rarity here. It could have been very intimidating (and sometimes still is) having people stare at you, however, I have tried to engage them with a hello, how are you? At least right now, Saturday's will be our major shopping days. A few days ago, we went on our first shopping adventure as a whole family. The girls did GREAT!!! One of the best parts about our trip was that we saw 3 people we knew! One of them was Patrice Hein, our ministry director, on his moto. Not only did he say hello, but he also carried Tracy's half case of Diet Cokes (or Coke Light as it is marketed here) back to our home for us. At that point we still hadn't gone to the Marché, so having a bit of a lightened load was a really good thing. The other people we saw had worked on our house. This is one of the benefits of having local folks work on one's house - when you go out into the community you most likely will see them. It makes you feel like you are not a total stranger.

 

Most mornings (except Sundays), I get up around 6, spend some time with the Lord, put a kettle of water on the stove for the guards' coffee, and head out the door to go buy fresh bread. The French bread is very good here - especially when it is fresh. However, the traditional bread is AMAZING! C'est Doux! (It is delicious!) On my way, I see turkeys, goats, chickens, pigs, and the like. It is kin to living on a free-range farm! Between home and the boutique, I also pass by a number of folks, one of them is Madame Noël and her daughter, Ma-mo (see above). From her, I buy fried dough with dried fish in it. Again, pretty amazing stuff! It comes with a spice mixture sprinkled on top that I originally thought was sweet. IT IS NOT! On the contrary, it is VERY HOT! Louisiana folks would probably love it! Please pray for my witness and relationship building with those I see regularly each day, particularly Madame Noël, the boutique owner who sells the bread named Gerard, and a muslim man I have just started buying some bread from also. THANK YOU!

The girls are enjoying a homemade frozen (and melting) sweet drink called bissap (bee-sap). The women here make it from a plant. Needless to say, the girls really like it!

Here there are places that sell "ready-made" clothes, but most clothing, especially women's clothing, is tailored. Above are a couple of pics of us at the tailors. The girls did NOT like being measured. I think for them it was like being weighed or measured at the doctor's when they were really young...and they also disliked that greatly (which is putting it lightly). However, they will get used to this eventually. The tailors here are very good and gentle with folks.

Catch Up Time

Well, this past Saturday, July 12th, marked our 4th week of living in Burkina Faso, West Africa! And it has been a full 4 weeks. We have not blogged for nearly 2 weeks now for at least 2 reasons. First, we didn't get our Internet up and running until last week, and second because after we did get it running, we have been pretty much spent by the end of each day. Oh the conveniences that we so readily took for granted: dish washers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, hot water heaters, etc. However, we have learned how to wash dishes outside and how to launder our clothing without the aid of the those amenities we took for granted, and it is rewarding…yet time consuming. We have also learned how to take a bath with a single bucket of water if need be (part of which could be heated on the stove to take the chill off, when there is a chill), though we do have showers in our home. We are thankful that the ministry director, Patrice Hein, has found someone who can help out a few days a week with some of those tasks. This will significantly free up our time for language study, which is the real focus for the next 3 months. 

Speaking of which, we are now into week two of learning French and it is going well. Tracy is learning from Celine Hein (the ministry director's wife), and I am learning from a young man named Christian who is about to begin his student teaching this coming year. We are each tutored 3 days a week for 2 hours at a time. With the exception of Sunday being our day off (though we hear 3+ hours of French at church), our tutoring happens every other day so that one of us is always with the girls. Later on, once busy in ministry, the woman helping with the house chores will probably also be the one helping with our girls. Please pray that we have a good relationship with her, are a blessing to her, and especially that Maleah and Grace take to her well. THANK YOU!

Packed Up for Diebougou and Leaving the Ouaga Mission Baptiste

 

The drive from Ouaga to Diebougou is about the same 

as the drive from Jackson, MS to Atlanta, TX.

When the power goes out (which can happen quite often, especially during rainy season) flashlights are a must. The one seen in this pic is a solar powered light. During this post-supper outage the kids played on the Kindles. 

 Home sweet home, "Bon arrivée!"

Here are our girls in their home-schooling room playing "airplane."

Our Dishwasher.

Our washing machine above and our dryers below. 

 

If you do not put your laundry out earlier in the day, it may not be dry by evening (unless it is really hot). In this case, we started too late and so had to web out girl's homeschooling room.

Ed's tutor, Christian.