Recuperating in Dano

We planned on having some gamepark adventures with our visitors, but Dylan fell seriously sick on the morning of their journey and we had to send them on without us. It was a kind of tearful goodbye and not really how we wanted their visit to end, but we are glad they got to go and see the animals. We're even more glad that Dylan got better. As it turns out, he had a bacterial infection of some kind again. Once we found the right nausea medicine, he could take the antibiotics and get better. However it took awhile in Ouagadougou (the capital) and several tests before we worked all that out. Once we got back to Dano and were trying to recuperate, we all had fun taking the time to put together a k-nex rollercoaster together that Daniel got from his Grandparents for Christmas.

Let's go down to the river to pray

Besides giving away reading glasses and showing the Jesus film, I got to show the Homewood visitors more of what I actually do most of the time ministry-wise. We went and had another leader meeting with Kpe-zuo and afterward taught the lesson on baptism (the 2^nd command of Jesus in the lesson series) to the church in Wa-jiele. This is a picture of Adam crossing the bridge that covered the river where this church was baptized during the last visit from Homewood. The focus of this lesson on baptism was how they might try to communicate its meaning and significance to others in Wa-jiele who would want to come to know Jesus.

Reading glasses and the Jesus Film

We've found that visitors often need to not only see what we missionaries do, but to have an opportunity to love the Dagara with their actions since they don't know the language. Two things that we did with Adam, Craig, and Rick were to give them the opportunity to help me give out reading glasses which we obtained through SEE Ministries in V8 (yes, that's the name of the village, just like the vegetable drink). Anyway, after we did that, we watched the Jesus film. It is always cool to see people's reaction to stories from Luke's gospel that they can actually see acted out - many of them had never seen any film or television show. Thank God that we got there before Jerry Springer did.

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Brought some BIG visitors.

We took Adam, Craig, and Rick to their first Dagara church service. It was in Nyinyime, one of the very few churches with a church building, which for now means four walls with a grass matt roof, but soon will be a vaulted church building. But in the meantime, we came to visit them in their old building. The walls are about 5 ft. 5 in. tall. Which meant that our visitors none of which were short in any way could have looked like dino going to the movies, if they tried to stand up all the way. This is a bit ironic since the Dagara term for VIP is literally "big person" as these guys certainly were in both senses of the phrase, at least as far as visitors to this church goes. This is also one of our strongest churches responsible for planting several other churches and with an average attendance of about 100 believers. I really enjoyed getting to give the opportunity to some of our supporters of singing and communing with their Dagara brothers and sisters.

Crocodiles and Tea

The Homewood visitors are finally here and we're having a blast. On the way to Dano, we stopped and did something I always wanted to do . . . go see the crocodiles of Sabou. We all took turns squatting over these massive reptiles (or are they amphibians? Come on, where is that elementary biology knowledge when you need it?) Anyway, whatever they were, it is quite an impressive and indescribable sound when the jaws come chomping down together.

Afterward I also took these connaiseurs of sweet tea from Alabama to try Mr. Barry's tea. In west africa, they make tea by brewing about equal parts tea leaves and water for about thirty minutes. They then rebrew the same leaves two more times. By the third time the tea is much weaker but the first round started off like tea espresso. Although quite different, they enjoyed it, especially the third round where he added some mint leaves.

Would you believe?

After meeting with Kpe-zuo again this morning we went together to Wa-jiele to begin teaching the church maturation lessons on seven commands of Jesus. The first, to have faith and not doubt and then to repent, was illustrated by the story of the two guys on the road to Emmaus. It is remarkable how relatively more important death and dying seem in Dagara culture than it is in my own where we tend mostly to ignore it or try to even run away from it or deny it's existence. How much more touching it is then when the Dagara, not running away from death but facing its reality, put their faith in Christ's power to resurrect. When we are blasting through life as if we're never going to die, I think sometimes we don't get what a powerful message that is.

Micah's birthday

We got together with our new teammates, the Richters, who came to town for the weekend to celebrate their daughter, Micah's birthday. She turned 4 and she wanted a doggy themed birthday. We sang, "Happy Birthday to you, woof woof, happy Birthday to you, woof woof, etc." and ate a doggy shaped birthday cake and played doggy games. This was also the day that Dylan had some alergic reactions to medication he had been taking for an ear infection. We praise God that we discovered what was happening to him soon enough and we really struggled over the following week in which he had big itchy red spots all over.

Carter's House Party

We attended a massive party put together by the Carter's celebrating everyone's contribution to getting them back into a home after their fire. We are so excited for them and glad they will have a place of their own again. It was a lot of fun eating and drinking and praising God in song. We didn't get to stay for it, but there was a firework display afterwards, that we saw from our house. Praise God that they are moving back in to their home!

New fire escape and car port

We are excited to now have an extra escape were we to have a fire in the house. We were also able to build a new car port. This is the first time we've ever had a tin roof car port. In the past we just made a structure using logs and grass matts. However, the last one we had fell on our truck and a log almost broke through the windshield. So we decided to go with the tin roof and were able to do so through the generosity of our teammates, the Carters, who donated leftover tin from their fire. You can see the charred surface of the tin in the picture.

Church planting can be such a headache

We went to Mebar for Church this morning. Going didn't actually give Andrea a headache. She actually had pretty severe one before going to church but braved it anyway. The woman you see in the picture later prayed over Andrea for her headache to go away. It made me think about how often we may go to a large church and no one actually know what's really going on in our lives. There are lots of drawbacks to small disorganized Dagara church services. But there is blessing and intimacy there that one may not get at even a big, well thought out, church gathering in the states.

Kpe-zuo

Kpe-zuo is really my first one-on-one leader in training. He is the main preacher of the Nyi-kpier church and he helped to plant the Wa-jiele church. I met with him today at his home to enroll him in the leadership training prgram. He was assigned with selecting a major goal that he is going to work on over the next quarter - for example, to plant another church or take on a leader in training under him. I look forward to seeing how this one-on-one style will work.

I said what about breakfast at Barry's

I don't always do this like I should, but this past Saturday I went and had tea with Mr. Barry. For those of you who don't know, Mr. Barry is a Fulani muslim friend of ours. He has been open to bible study and discussion of Christian principles ever since we've known him. He would face enormous peer pressure and possible downright persecution were he to convert (probably more so than his Dagara counterparts). All of our families have been good friends with the Barry family for years. Pray that our friendship will continue to communicate Christ's love to them.

New Generator Building

We were able to start the final stages of some of the construction at our place this month. We hope to finish before Homewood visitors arrive. This is the building for our generator to keep the noise and danger of explosion enclosed. Thanks to all of you who contribute to our work.