sharing at FBC

on Sunday evening, August 8, i will be sharing with FBC Dadeville about my summer in Senegal.  i am trying to get some samples of Senegalese food together for this evening.  along with sharing about what God is doing among the Lebou people, i will also try to tell more about their culture.  i believe that it is important to have an understanding of the Lebou culture in order to understand how our ministry is set up in Senegal.  i know that nearly everyone as a concept of what a "missionary" does in a foreign country.  some of these ideas are probably accurate, but then some are not.  missionary work greatly varies in every part of the world.  i would love to share about what my daily life was like as a missionary in Senegal.  please try to be there!  i will also be sharing with a few other churches, but i will not be able to do the food samples and culture education there.  it will be fun!!!!

may i speak to Basse?

a couple of hours after arriving at my house in dadeville, the phone rang.  dad said that a man was on the other line asking for Basse, which is my Senegalese name.  i sat there for a second trying to figure out who would be calling me and asking for me with my Senegalese name.  i had no clue.  once on the phone i realized i was talking to Abdou, a senegalese who lives in new jersey.  he lives in NJ with his senegalese wife.  his wife Aita is from a family that i was close to in yoff.  i knew her from last summer, but this summer she was not in senegal because she had moved to america.  she had called her family a couple of times this summer while i was visiting and spoken to me on the phone. well she asked for my phone number, which i gave to her, but never expecting her to call.  to shock me, it was the first call i received after arriving home!

abdou speaks great English but aita can only speak wolof. so yesterday abdou called just long enough to get me on the phone so that i could speak with his wife.  i wish ya'll could have seen my parents' faces as they watched me speak wolof on the telephone. it was too funny.  aita just wanted to know if i made it home safe and to greet me.  it was so sweet!  the senegalese are so hospitable.

aita is about 25 years old and has a new week and a half old baby girl.  her family in senegal says she is not happy living in america.  for one, she does not speak english. two, she doesnt get to eat ceebu jenn for every meal. three, she does not have any friends... and many more reasons.  sort of a sad situation. 

i look foward to staying in contact with Aita throughout the year! 

 

saying goodbye

well i am back in alabama now...a few days early. erin, ben, and i arrived back in america on monday with no problems, except for my delayed luggage.  it is weird to be back, good but weird.  it is so hard to think about how quick i can go from senegal to america.  they are not similar in too many ways. 

saying goodbye to my family and friends in dakar was much easier this year than it was for me last summer.  i was able to leave them behind this summer knowing that i did what God had sent me there to do.  trust me, it was not too easy though.  its not easy to leave behind my senegalese mother, Awa, as she is crying her eyes out. its not easy to leave little papa, knowing that he is gonna continue to get sick.  it is not easy to leave any of them, knowing that they do not have eternal life.  i have spent two summers now with the Lebou people of yoff and i hope to go back in the future.  God is working in their lives, stirring up their hearts and minds.  last summer i did not speak much wolof at all, and my main purpose was to build relationships.  well returning this year to those very same relationships allowed me to have many conversations about Christ and what i believe.  for granted i am not fluent in wolof, but i can get my point across by the grace of God. 

last summer was the first time that the IMB had missionaries living in the yoff area.  now there is a couple living there for two years.  this is so exciting, because they are learning wolof and will be able to have a lasting ministry with the people they live around.  they will be able to continue with the relationships that were formed the previous summer.  please pray for this couple as they are living in yoff and ministering to the lebou daily. 

pray for the lebou of yoff.  pray that they would welcome this couple into their lives. pray that they would continue to show interest in learning English and moreso about learning about Christianity.  pray for the family which is reading books about Jesus Christ.  pray that God will bring each of these people to know of his saving power.  pray for more servants to go and live among the lebou. 

thanks for all of your prayers for me throughout the summer.  our God is always faithful! i hope that you will continue to lift up the lebou people in your prayers and the missionaries that are serving in Senegal.

by the way, i will keep this site updated with prayer requests and such.

ralph

a couple of nights had passed since ashley and i had heard anything from Ralph-the mysterious critter living in our room, and still the other girls did not believe that he existed. oh but now they do!  this particular night i heard Ralph, but Ashley did not because she had been sleeping with earplugs in.  i gave up on her hearing him.  a few minutes later Erin awoke to the sounds of Ralph.  soon three of us were on my top bunk and freaking out.  one of the girls had the super duper bug killer out: Yotox, in hopes of bopping ralph on the head.  after 30 minutes of looking for Ralph we could not find him. back to sleep. not for long though, because ralph was still making noise.  yeah so we got little sleep that night, but no longer was i thought of as the crazy one because now all 4 of us are convinced ralph does indeed exist. 

Awa's apron

Awa is my Senegalese mother who works at a fish market.  the working conditions at the market are disgusting to me, but to her it is no big deal to eat breakfast while chopping up fish and collecting payment for the fish she is selling!  well she does wear old clothes to work but she still gets disgusting fish guts all over her. her only apron is an old trash bag tied around her waste.  ...not anymore!

after nearly causing a four car pile up at the clothing market, i found some plastic material that could be used as an apron.  hot pink!  erin and i spent the evening cutting out the apron and lining it with duct tape and finishing it up with her name on it.  the finished product is beautiful.

the next morning we delivered her new apron to the fish market to give her. it was great.  she stood up above the other hundred ladies and announced: "hey everyone look at what my children brought me."  she absolutely loved it....loved it so much that she said it was too nice to wear to work.  so even though she won't wear it while she works, she has it and greatly appreciates it.  she actually had to nearly rip it out of another woman's hands. evidentally i may end up making aprons from now on.

a spanking?

i personally think that my little African apartment is really nice.  i remember thinking i would be living in a dump of a place last summer and being shocked when i arrived at the yoff apartment.  those of you who still think about straw huts, just stop thinking that. but dont get me wrong, this apartment does have its faults.  when lisa was my roommate, we woke up one night convinced that there was a rat in our room.  no one believed us. two weeks ago i had the room to myself and was again awoken to the sounds of something similar to a rat. no one believed me.  then ashley moved into my room. she heard the rat as well. now people are starting to believe us.  whether there is a rat or not, i dont know for sure.  but there is some creature in our room.
and its name is ralph!

for those of you who have ever slept in the same room as me....you know i talk, scream, etc all throughout the night. so when i think i hear a rat: i scream: loud! well the morning after the last rat incident, i was walking outside of our compound when the mother who lives below us called for me to enter her room. she wanted to know what in the world i was screaming about at 3 in the morning!! how embarassing!  she also said that she had heard me screaming on several different occassions! i tried to explain that i just talk and scream in my sleep, but that did not work for her. she said the next time that i do it she is coming upstairs to spank me!  go figure! i told her my mom at home never spanked me for talking in my sleep. but she said i frightened her and she checked all the rooms that night to see what was going on.  many others downstairs heard me screaming and now they all think i am crazy! too funny!

playing prayer

so the other day i spent about five hours with one family in yoff.  it was great...until i was unable to ignore the fact that my little bamar was "playing" prayer.  he had his prayer mat out, was standing and kneeling and even pretended to have his prayer beads in hand.  (just like the Muslims pray here, 5 times a day).  my heart was hurting.  i asked bamar what he was doing and he said he was praying.  yeah, he is about 3 years old.  mmm...he played prayer all day.  what do you think about that?

bamar is in the family that i have been able to have many conversations with recently about differences of faith.  God is working in the lives of the people in that family. last week i gave them a copy of a book about the history of Jesus. well earlier this week i asked one of the girls if she wanted a different book about Jesus to read as well.  she said yes because her father had the first one.  right then i thought i was going to die. i thought she meant he had taken the book away from her because it was about Jesus. then she explained to me that he took it because he wanted to read it himself. evidently he thinks it is "interesting"!!! get that!  it blew me away! this man is probably like 60 years old and a very devout Muslim.  i always see him praying, yet God has him reading a book about Christ being the Savior of the world! please pray for this man as he is reading about Christ. pray that he will not only find it interesting, but find that it is the truth. that Christ is the only Savior!  pray that he will allow his family to also read the book. yesterday i took them a second book: All the Prophets Have Spoken.  another older man who lives with them saw it and asked if he could have it. why, of course you can! so pray for this man as he reads about Christ as well....mmm...pray!!!

the count down

well i dont have much time left in senegal. so i ask that you pray for us as we begin the goodbyes and all that goes along with them!  we have gotten our hands on a few different books that discuss the history of Jesus and the prophets of the Old Testament. we plan on giving these books to some of our friends who have shown interest in yoff. pray for us as we give these books out and talk with the people about God and being followers of Christ.  have high expecations of our God!  he is able!
 
we are still doing the storying tapes with the young boys in our neighborhood and they are so eager to hear them!
 
it has been raining a good bit and when it rains it is nearly impossible to go out of the apartment. there are no streets where we live. so the sand is thick and disgusting. even on the real roads, taxis dont run in the rain or soon after.
 
yesterday we went to the ngente of our new baby.
 
a funny story from the wedding last weekend:  when greeting an elder man at the wedding, we learned that he had been a patient at the eye clinic last summer.  he said he had something from the clinic that he did not know what to do with and wanted us to tell him about it. he digs through his cabinet for a minute and eventually pulls out a tiny bottle of shampoo. after explaining to him what to do with it...i was grateful that he had waited and asked. it was too funny. he had held on to that tiny bottle of shampoo for over a year because he did not know what it was!  (patients were given bags of toiletries along with eye care)  so ... maybe you had to be there to know how funny it was!

He is moving!

God is moving here in Senegal! and it is so exciting!

the talibae house that we visit a couple of times a week is now housing 17 young men, ALL being believers! so cool to see so many young Christian guys on fire for our God!

we have been able to share the Jesus storying tapes with many different people in Yoff. we are trying to play one tape a day for a group of younger boys in our neighborhood. they have been so interested in hearing them! the tapes are based on the Bible and contradict many things that they have been taught from the Quran.

we have had many opportunities with the family that i have written about previously, who i consider to be very devout in Islam. God is tearing down walls (lisa)! we have given them a copy of the book titled The History of Jesus, which is in French. the girls in that family are quite interested in reading it. i definitely can see how God has opened these doors for us with this family. we began a great conversation with them by discussing Santa Claus and the birth of Christ. yesterday i was able to tell one of the daughters and the mother the difference in being a follower of Christ and a Catholic. here we claim to be "followers of Christ" rather than just saying Christian, because there is no word distinction between Christian and Catholic in Wolof. also they assume that everyone who is not a Muslim is a Christian, which is indeed not the case at all!

please pray for more opportunities like these. pray that the girls in that family will read the book about Jesus and want to discuss it with us. pray that they will be more curious and have many questions. pray for God to give us the answers (its not easy talking about all this in Wolof!)(to shock many of you, we dont use translators) pray for the guys who are listening to the storying tapes everyday. pray that they will know it is the truth. ...pray continually! thanks, for i know God is faithful to your prayers for the Lebou!

wedding

sunday night, awa took erin and i to a Senegalese wedding...
oh it is quite different from a wedding in america!
lots of dancing! -if you can call it dancing.
only women attend weddings, except for the men playing drums.
they fed everyone there expensive Senegalese food and everyone got a coke. i was shocked.
i was only made to dance once... and yes i was made to dance. its not the kind of dancing i would choose to do...you have no idea!
but it was fun and i got to wear fancy senegalese clothes....
going to another formal event on Saturday: the ngente!

sweet home alabama

so three of us on the F4F team are from the beautiful state of Alabama. the other night we found out that the chick from virginia had a copy of Alabama's "sweet home alabama" with her. needless to say, we had some fun listening to it!

so a list of things i miss from Alabama: (mostly food)
~hint, hint mom and dad!!
mexican
diet coke
sweet tea
italian
vegetables
casseroles
dad's beef stroganoff
chocolate ice cream
jalapeno poppers
my car
good showers
grass
fast food-no complaining about how slow mcd's is
pants
AC
clean, fresh air
dogs rather than cats
church
country accents
Cosby
options
Wal-mart
set prices
hamburger helper
and much more....

even so, i do not have a home here (hebrews 13:14)

home sweet "home"

i have to say that yoff does seem like home after being in Saint Louis for a week. we arrived safely back in yoff a little before midnight on Thursday evening. the ride home was much better because we rented out cars rather than the rapide and it was evening so it was not as near as hot.

while in saint louis we were able to share stories of Jesus on tapes in Wolof with the family that we stayed with. it was awesome! they all sat on the bed and we sat around on the floor. they listened very intently. there is a flip chart with pictures that goes along with the tape also. i was praying while the tape was playing for them. praying that God would be working on their hearts, that they would be convicted and know that Jesus is the only Savior of the world! in the end they asked if they could have the tape, and of course we left it with them. they just kept saying: "yeesu dafa baax" (Jesus is good)! oh they dont know how Good he is! pray that as we are now back in dakar, that that family will continuously be thinking about Christ and that God will touch their lives in a miraculous way!

on Wednesday we had another okra fry! this time with the family in Saint Louis. i have to say that this time we cooked much less okra, only 1 kilo but they absolutley loved it! i only remember one person making a nasty face. it was great!

pray for us as a team as we rest up this weekend from our tiring weekend in Saint Louis. pray for us as we begin the last portion of our time in senegal, only 3 weeks left. we have a lot that we want to do in such a short period of time.

some changes

well a lot has changed in our ministry in the past few days in Saint Louis. erin and i were not able to sleep at the family's house because she got sick and other reasons as well. however we have spent ample time with them: from breakfast until time for bed. it has been so much fun spending the whole day with one family. i have learned how to cook many Senegalese dishes...and plan on cooking them for ya'll!! we have had many great conversations and opportunities. and what comes along when God is doing great things? spiritual warfare! due to some distressing circumstances (together the team has had a couple of hundred dollars stolen and been taken advantage of in many ways), we will be leaving Saint Louis sometime today. nothing to worry about, but we feel it is best that we leave tonight rather than waiting until Saturday morning. so please pray for us as we say goodbye to the family we have been staying with. pray that they will know that we love them and have a better understanding of why we are in Senegal. pray that through our leaving they may see a difference in us because we are Christians. pray for our safety as we travel tonight. we are renting out a car instead of a rapide to get home. thanks for your prayers and i will tell more about this week in a later post.

"surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me." psalm 54:4

Saint Louis for a week

after being in the rapide for over 7 hours, including our short lunch break and seeing 32 cow carcasses, we arrived in Saint Louis late yesterday afternoon. the ride went smoothly and i entertained myself by counting all the dead cows! fun!

well, not that i dont always need your prayers, but this week I would almost beg you to remember me! why? because erin and i are living with a family while in Saint Louis. we are actually living in hydrobase which has an approximate population of 1355. there are about 10 people living in the house where we are staying. it is the mother, her 2 sons, and 4 daughters, and other random people. ben actually lived with this family in february and march so there is a foundation to the relationship. we are staying there because there are so many females in the house who he was not able to directly minister to. the rest of the team is staying a few minutes away in a hostel. they will also be spending time with various families in the area. i am super excited about the opportunity to live with this family because i know my God is going to do great things this week. pray for specific times to share Christ, language, for our health as we will drink unfilterd water and eat unbleached food, use squatty potties, 'shower', sleep in a room full of people and eat only Senegalese food! it is going to be awesome, but we dont want any health problems to hinder our ministry. pray pray pray pray pray pray!!!!

Acts 2:38-41

by the way, the first night went well. erin and i slept together in a twin size bed and drenched ourselves in bugspray. late night though, because they didnt finish cooking supper until 11 pm....fun!

the run down

okay so the new baby of yoff was named Mamadou Samba! He was named on Saturday, but the big ngente party isnt until July 17!

Saturday a group of us went to the Senegal Lions futbol (soccor) game in Dakar with our night guard and translator. Senegal won 1-0 against Zambia! the game was a lot of fun and reminded me of college football...the crowd was way into it...it was great!

Sunday after church I went with Awa to the boat race. Each village/area of Dakar and the surrounding areas had a gaal in the race. there were actually three separate races. it was also fun, but we really did not know exactly what was going on. half the time we could not even see the ocean...but nonetheless it was a blast. ...well all except for the fact that Awa got into a fight after she was insulted by a teenager and then more fights broke out after a disagreement regarding who won one of the races. at that time, we were told by Awa that we had to leave because it was getting too violent. later we learned that indeed there were a good many people injured. in the end, Yoff represented itself well in the boat race. the boat race was one of the biggest gatherings of Lebou people together in one spot that i have been too. it was overwhelming to see that many people and know that not one of them is a Christian. continue to pray for the first Lebou believer!

pray

"the Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. ; Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation" 2 Peter 3:9,15

"He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth-the Lord God Almighty is his name!" amos 4:13

God created the earth and every person and everything. what can he do? anything! absolutely!

from wherever you are, you can take part in what God is doing among the Lebou people: PRAY!
pray for them to be open to being our friends, to want to know more about our lives, why we do what we do, why we live among them....
pray for them to doubt their religion of a false god and their traditional beliefs of false gods and evil spirits. pray for them to know that their fetishes have no power.
pray for God to reveal himself to them in dreams and visions. pray for them to doubt why they pray the way that they do, why they believe what they believe.
pray that we can have the language capacity to tell them that Christ is a Savior, not a mere prophet! if they only knew!
pray for others to come and live among the Lebou!
pray for how you can take part in their lives!

THANKS for praying!

meeting the family

on Tuesday night erin, lisa, and i went to Ngor with Awa (my Senegalese mother) to meet some of her siblings and her oldest son. Ngor is only a short taxi drive away from Yoff, but much has a much smaller population. it was great to meet some more of her family and to be her 'puppet'. she tells you who to greet and where to go...she loves it. and she introduces me as her daughter. oh its great! she truly does love me and the other girls. but as you know, her love is different because she does not have true love that only comes from our Father! continue to lift her up in your prayers as i spend more time with her!

while in ngor, awa took us down to the beach where we saw where her husband repairs gaals-Lebou fishing boats. it is a beautiful sight to see all the boats lined up along the shore in the evening. all those fishermen! so often i think about Jesus and the fishermen of the New Testament...if only the Lebou fishermen knew about Him...thats why we are fishing for fishermen!

dead animals seen while walking on the beach:
sheep
cat
chickens
swordfish
and tons of fish in general
!!!!!!!!!