The Inadequacy List--November Newsletter

The first time a Burkinabe asked me, “Are you French or Swiss?”, I thought my French-speaking capabilities had received a huge compliment.  But this question was followed often enough by, “You mean they don’t speak French in the U.S.?” that I realized this was not the case.  In fact, after my intern/teammate Heidi (who is from Switzerland, but not the French-speaking part) moved in, the neighbors told me Heidi should speak for me because her accent is better.  They also thought they were giving me a compliment when they listed all the ways Heidi and I look like twins (same height, skin tone, etc), and then added, “The only difference is that you’re fatter than her.”

It wasn’t like I needed any help from other people to feel inadequate; I’d been compiling my own list of reasons I wasn’t cut out to be a missionary.  1)  I don’t ask other missionaries for their recipes because they usually start with something like, “First, grow your own beans…”  2) My first manual driving lesson involved a lot of my mechanic making apologetic waving gestures to a large percentage of the two million inhabitants of Ouagadougou stuck behind me, honking their horns because I’d killed the engine yet again when the light turned green.  3)  My first moto (moped) driving lesson made me wonder: given that people who are afraid (i.e. unbalanced people who start swerving towards the oncoming lane of traffic) tend to grip whatever they’re holding, why on earth did the person who invented mopeds make the handlebars control the speed of the moped?  4) I ordinarily detest how difficult it is to express myself and teach in French, until I am studying Moore (a tribal language), which resembles baby jibberish so much more than “real” words that it makes me grateful for French.

It’s easy to ask God what on earth He was thinking.  Why did He call me here, instead of having an African person who already knows the language teach the Good News Club^® in our neighborhood?  In fact, given the number of donkeys around (which are used for plowing fields or pulling carts, but which are also often just standing in the middle of busy roads), I’m pretty sure He could have reused his talking donkey idea and it would speak better French than me.  But the Bible does say that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness, which I guess means that every time I speak French, He has a whole lot of room for perfection.

And this is true: I’m pretty sure the neighbors are just as astounded as I am that the people in my teacher training classes and the kids in my club actually nod along to what I’m saying and enthusiastically yell out the main truth I taught them the previous week, because when I’m teaching, my French is way better than it is in normal life, thanks completely to God.

So, since the Bible also says for this reason we should delight in our weaknesses, I know that each time I kill the engine on my car, resort to cereal for dinner, confuse the same words in Moore that I used to confuse in French, or even just have a neighbor who calls me fat, it is only all the more evident how much I need God for everything I do.

 

Praise God for:

· Bringing Heidi to work with CEF for a year.  She is also living with me and has quickly become an amazing friend.  We call each other Heido and Chelso and have named my SUV that is the same color green as the taxis here Taxo.

· Over 50 children who come to our neighborhood Good News Club.  Many of them come from Muslim families.

Please pray for:

· Open doors to have Good News Clubs in schools.  Public schools are not open to this, but since Christian schools are known as the best schools, many Muslim and other non-Christian children attend them.

· The first teacher training that I will be organizing myself.  There are already many people who have expressed interest in having the 30-hour training.

 

Fun Facts

• Just being a white female in Burkina Faso means I get frequent marriage proposals.  One day I was walking home when a lady I’d never seen before said, “Hello.  My nephew is ready for his fourth wife.  Are you ready?”
• Apparently when you start going down an unmarked one way street and get stopped by a police officer, the question “Can I pay the fine here?” actually means “Can I bribe you not to give me a ticket?”
• Burkina Faso has such a relationship-oriented culture that the phrase “It’s been two days,” means “Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve seen you.”

To get a quick one-minute glimpse of a Good News Club, check out the video at http://youtu.be/eaBZf2BTYXs

 

Flushing the Toilet with Joy--August Newsletter

I considered putting a picture of manure in this letter.  A nasty, fly-covered mass left by something evidently large.  As I’ve discovered in the two weeks since I arrived in Burkina Faso,        practically every block here has one of these disgusting piles, and each is a cause for celebration.

Now before you decide that I’ve contracted some kind of weird African disease that went straight to my brain, let me explain.  A rainstorm one night kept me sequestered in my house, far from thrilled to be here.  I missed my family and U.S. friends and, though I was making friends here, had not met any other missionaries or anyone who could understand the transitional process I’m in.  I’d been speaking French with the neighbors, but the accents and vocabulary here are so different from what I learned in Quebec, that I sometimes couldn’t tell when they were speaking French or a tribal language.  My national director had told me to take a whole month to settle in (I was beginning to realize how long it takes just to pay for electricity), followed by three months of African French lessons before I could actually start ministry, and I was feeling like the closest I came to actually being a missionary was buying furniture in a foreign country.  To top it off, I was craving Chicken McNuggets enough to empathize with recovering drug addicts.

And then I began reading in Philippians.  The King James version says this, “I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (3:8b).  I hadn’t exactly been considering my own losses as dung.  No one sits around on a rainy night wishing they had more dung.  No one agonizes over whether or not they should flush the toilet.  No one who is promised the greatest treasure in the whole earth in exchange for their bowel movements rejects the offer.  In fact, they “flush their toilet” with rejoicing in order to win Christ.  To be sure, I rate you--my friends, family, and supporters—far over a dirty diaper, but going with Jesus wherever He leads is so amazing that nothing else can compare any more than dung can.

          So now every time I see one of those piles in the middle of the road, I picture myself joyfully flushing Chicken McNuggets down the toilet.  Which probably makes the Africans wonder if I contracted some kind of weird American disease that went straight to my brain.

 

Praise God for:

· giving me His words: with just 45 minutes to prepare, I taught in French for the first time in a course for children’s workers called Teaching Children Effectively, and I think the students understood.   I taught another three classes after that.

· a Burkinabe family who work with another mission organization and who have kind of adopted me.  The Tandambas live just three blocks away and have helped me buy everything I need for the house, transported me around the city, and just spent time with me.

Please pray that:

· I will find a good program for my three months of language study and improve my African-style French to be able to communicate God’s love.

· I will be able to buy a good car (and learn how to drive it: all the cars here are manual).

· God would continue to provide opportunities to share the Gospel with children and that He would provide wisdom in forming partnerships to reach even more children.

 

 

 

 

 

Picture 1:  I was able to fly back to the U.S for my sister’s wedding.

Picture 2:  As part of class, we took a tour in French of this cathedral.

Picture 3:  One weekend, I got to feel really Canadian and drive a sled dog team.

I never before realized the power of the “send” button.  Before I pressed it, the rhythm of the     missions preparation process that has lasted four years, rather than the one I naively anticipated, had lulled me into feeling that my place in Burkina Faso was just a dream, even though I was only a couple weeks away from finishing language school—the last step.  But then I typed an e-mail   asking my travel agent to buy tickets to Burkina Faso for July 16^th…and I pressed “send.”  And then I panicked.  The “send” button had used its powers to evaporate every feeling of unreality, exchanging it for the question “What on earth am I doing?!”  You know the feeling when you’re at the airplane door and you realize there’s no longer anything you can do to keep your sky-diving     instructor who is attached to you from jumping?—boring compared to pressing “send.”  It took me a while to remember that God is more powerful than any button, that the God who strengthened me and displayed His grace for me over and over during these last four years is the same God to whom I will grow even closer in Africa.

So on July 17^th I will arrive in Ouagadougou, the capitol of Burkina Faso, which has doubled its population in the last five years to two million people, people from each of the 70 different tribal groups of Burkina plus refugees from many other West African countries.  Less than ten percent know the Lord.  I want to begin showing them God’s love as soon as I arrive, building relationships with the children in my neighborhood so that I can start my first Good News Club^® there and also building relationships with churches so that together we can start Good News Clubs all over the city, all over the country, maybe all over the world.  I can’t wait to see more  Burkinabe people discover the power of the “send” button, following God across the sea themselves to share His love.

Praise God For:

· The progress I have made in French.

· Heidi, a Swiss-American who is preparing to join the work in Ouagadougou for one year.

Please Pray That:

· My national director will be able to find a good house for me in Ouagadougou, even though he lives a couple hours away.

· I will be able to rejoice in God’s ways as I say goodbye to friends and family in Canada and the U.S.

 

Picture 1: My teachers and some of my fellow students. This semester I’m in the advanced class with 5 other missionaries, and there are 17 students in total.

Picture 2:   I’ve enjoyed getting to know people at church through participating in the French choir.

I wasn’t called into missions while high on drugs…but that’s what I told everyone in my language class.  I meant to say I was called while on a trip to Burkina Faso, but apparently in French there is a distinct difference between being on a trip and in one.

At least this was an in-class mistake as opposed to a “real-world” one, although I’m not lacking in that type either.  One time at church a lady asked me how many children I have.  When I tried to say, “I don’t have any; I’m single,” the word celibataire came out célèbre, so I  actually told her, “I don’t have any…I’m famous.”

Unfortunately, not being  fluent isn’t always humorous.  Even going to stores, banks, and           restaurants is nerve-wracking without knowing if I’ll be able to communicate.  It’s even more difficult to build friendships when my vocabulary doesn’t go much deeper than the weather.  I start each day knowing I am going to fail numerous times and am constantly aware of how much less I can express than I could in English.  It tempts me to dread French, and by extension, to not want to love the people who speak it.

A quote from Augustine I heard at my French church made me realize that English can be an idol: "Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used or using anything that ought to be worshiped."

English is really only a tool—to glorify by my words the only One worthy of worship—but when I cling to English and make it an idol, it’s like trying to build a house with only a screwdriver.  Even though I may not know how to use the hammer fluently, God still uses my efforts to glorify Him in French too.

I’m now in my last semester of language school, and I head to Burkina Faso this summer.  I have a lot to do before then besides improving my French:  getting plane tickets, figuring out what I need and how to get it there, and continuing to talk with the national director about how my ministry will look.  Since I have no idea what I’m doing, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your prayers to our God who knows everything (including every word in the French dictionary).

Praise God for:

· The progress He’s given me in understanding and speaking French.

· The community of other missionary families also studying French and living in apartments on campus.

  Please Pray for:

· My attitude as I learn French, that I would not get frustrated but would have patience, perseverance, and even joy through the process.

· My preparations for Africa.  I’m not even sure what all I need to do, but I know there’s a lot, and most of it, I don’t know how to do.