Big Picture

This was an action packed week! Monday we went to a “Bouki” a baby naming ceremony and we got to meet the King of our tribe! We also got to see a sheep get sacrificed and cleaned and gutted. The king was a ton of fun and joked with us and told us we needed to live in his village with his family! Our supervisor said he has a bible and he is reading it because he has actually gone to school and is really well educated, but his wife is a Muslim religious teacher in the community so that hinders him a ton. He is not a believer right now, so you can pray for him to come to know the Lord through His word! Monday night I went out to our village and stayed the night there alone and I thought I would be fine, I can handle one night alone in our hut…. Worst idea ever! We had the worst storm I’ve seen so far in Africa and I thought our hut was going to blow away!! Again, it was surprisingly sturdy and held up well against the storm. I prayed a lot that night J
Tuesday I tried to pound millet with a 15 year old girl and with the same lady who took us to the well… I feel like I need to give her a name, we’re not supposed to put specific online just for the sake of protecting the people here to I’ll call her Linda. The teenager grabbed my cross necklace and said Jesus Christ so I got to tell Linda and the 15 year old girl, in their own language, that Jesus died on the cross rose from the dead and I follow him and that my life is in his life! That was a pretty big deal to verbally communicate the gospel. They didn’t want to follow him, yet, but this is just the beginning of ministry time here! The Lord has really been impressing it upon my heart to have a big picture perspective about my time here and knowing that this is really the beginning of ministry in the village. We’re the very first missionaries to go into this village. These people have never ever heard the good news. Paul talks in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 about planting the seed, and laying the foundation for another to come and water the seed and build on the foundation. Lauren and I are the seed planters and foundation layers here in our village. We may not get to see growth or these people being built up, but I do know that our Father is faithful to fulfill all the good that he starts (see Philippians chapter one) and He has a plan for these people that is bigger than my 4 months here!
Wednesday we finally finished language study and we got to go to the well for the first time. It’s about ¾ a mile from our compound and at least ¼ of a mile deep before the water table. The ladies lower down this rubber bag kind of thing and pull it back up on rope. It probable holds about 4 gallons of water, and then they pour the water into a 25 liter container and carry it either on their head if they only have one, or some ladies bring a donkey out and carry 4 of these 25 liter containers back at a time.
The 2 year old that I’ve written about a couple of times that was scared of me before but has open up got even closer to me this past week!! On Thursday I was out napping under the tree by myself and he found me and wanted to play. I just really wanted alone time at this point and did not want to play, but also couldn’t pass up the opportunity. So he sat in my lap for a little bit then he decided it was time for some more fun so he went and hid from me in the millet field and watched me look for him and pretend I couldn’t find him. Then he would come running at me! Full charge and jump into my hands and laugh so sweet as I threw him into the air and spun around with him. After I returned him safely to the ground he would run back into hiding then run back to his launching pad! We played this little game for a good 20 minutes until the little one got too excited and ran right into a millet stalk and broke it off at the ground!
It broke my heart to see the way his demeanor completely changed around his mom, Linda, though. Our tribe has these silly unwritten social rules that they follow. One of them is that they don’t show any affection to their first born child. Sadly, this little one is the first born of the family. I didn’t even know his real name for a couple of weeks because his mom calls him something different. The only attention he gets from her is getting hit in the head for doing wrong and a yell at night to call him into the hut for bed time. When I went to see him to tell him bye that evening when our supervisor was there to pick us up he was standing outside the hut by his mom who was making dinner and just bawling. He wouldn’t even look at me anymore. His mom, Linda, is the same young woman who dropped off her little 6 month old girl to my hut last week and fell asleep with me. I think most of my ministry time in our compound is going to be spent with this little family. The dad is the chief’s son and I’ve gotten to build a relationship with him too. He’s a lot of fun and is easy to relate to. Linda is also the one who led us to the well and she has just begun to open up week before last and even more this past week. Please pray for the relationship I’m getting to build with this family. I think a big way I’m getting to show Jesus’ love is with this Linda’s children and loving them so much even though they aren’t mine, but I would take them for my own if I could J I can tell that she wants to love her oldest son because she smiles at me when I hold him and she can tell he’s happy but it breaks social code and would bring shame upon her whole family so she can’t.
Like I said our supervisor picked us up Thursday evening. Friday we went as a team to clean another missionary’s house that had to leave on emergency medical leave a few months ago in a town a few hours away. Saturday was laundry a rest day. Today is Sunday and we get to go to church again! Ways to pray this week… for the family I wrote about, Linda and her husband and 2 kiddos, that the Lord would give me opportunities for ministry and relationship building. Also, since we are officially done with language study we’re getting into the actually planned ministry time. Our supervisor is taking us out to story with her and the days we’re not doing that we get to prayer walk and map out our village, so pray for direction for that too! And for sensitivity to the Holy Spirit for any and all opportunities to minister to whoever is around us. Again, thank you so much for following, and praying. It’s a constant encouragement to think of all of you back home thinking about, and praying for me!