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.

November Newsletter--Forgiving the Builders of Babel

Picture 1) The view from the front door of my apartment on campus.

Picture 2) Downtown Sherbrooke, the third largest city in Quebec, where my language school is located.

Picture 3) I still haven't been to the U.S. capitol, but I’ve been to Canada’s Parliament building in Ottawa while visiting a friend.

I’m afraid of peanuts. Not really, but accidentally change a few letters in French, and my fear of spiders transforms into a fear of salted baking ingredients. Needless to say, since I began language school in September, I’ve made my share of mistakes, all the while wishing I could travel back in time to seriously injure (or at least sabotage) the builders of the Tower of Babel.

You certainly have to admire God’s ingenuity when it comes to humbling us; no human would have conceived the idea of assigning every French noun a gender (Why are beards feminine while women’s shirts are masculine?) or of creating a plethora of languages with a plethora of different accents within each one (When my Quebecois pastor says the word for God, he sounds like an African French speaker saying the word for hard.). And yet God is the one who gives us the ability to learn new languages despite these barriers.

It makes me appreciate the fact that His strength is made perfect in weakness. If any child’s life will one day be transformed by a message I share in broken French, that child will have no doubt whatsoever that it wasn’t me doing the transforming.

Language-learning is tough, frustrating, and slow, but I’m blessed that God has brought me to Canada for a year to learn French and to grow closer to Him while attending class each day with the three other intermediate students, completing my daily Rosetta Stone and French media requirements, along with my weekly French church and French social activity attendance requirements, and just learning to live life and build relationships when I can’t say or understand everything I’d like to. I can’t wait to be able to praise Him in two languages.

Praise God for:
· Though I planned to attend language school in West Africa, the fact that I’m still in North America means I can visit friends who live nearby, go home for Christmas, and even make the occasional trip across the border for cheaper groceries or to mail newsletters to you, my wonderful friends for whom I am so thankful.
· The six missionary families who are also studying French and living on campus, and who are a huge blessing to me.

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.
· That I would be able to build relationships with people here and that I would be able to see opportunities to reach out to them and bless them.

August Newsletter--Time for a Psychiatric Checkup?

Picture 1) 18 of us crammed into this crate during a realistic hostile rebel scenario.

Picture 2) Teens take a break from classes to play pillow basketball.

The past three months have me wondering if I’m due for a psychiatric checkup. For a week in North Carolina I met with West Africans, who were certainly crazy for planning prayer meetings at 6:30 a.m…right before the 7:00 one with the crazy people from every other region of the world. I donned pink war paint and spent three weeks with large groups of teenagers in Kansas, Nebraska, and Kentucky, even pelting teens with pillows as they shot baskets. I worked with two teens to share the Gospel with Louisville zoo animals—kids actually, but since one 5-Day Club® lesson was about Noah, we gave opportunities to act like favorite wildlife (which for this inner city group actually brought improved behavior). Then I moved out of my apartment and headed to Colorado, where 18 other missionaries and I crammed into a dark crate while our teachers pretended to be rebel forces, complete with realistic guns, bomb sound-effects, and burning objects. They let us out to sit for hours looking closely at their mouths and repeating odd sounds.

You’re probably wondering how this classifies as ministry. Well, the crazy morning prayers started out each day of the Child Evangelism Fellowship® International Conference, where we were challenged to remember because of God’s strength, “Time we spend on our knees is more important than time we spend in the office.”

I then taught teens how to teach children about God. We kept busy with classes and practicums from around 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., with breaks for pillow basketball, ultimate Frisbee, and decking out in war paint as part of the classroom competition between the flamingo and frog teams.

In 5-Day Clubs, many children who had not responded to the Gospel during a year of Good News Club® accepted Christ as Savior.

In Colorado, missionaries from several organizations gathered for training on responding to stress (hence the rebel forces), maintaining joy in foreign fields, and making sounds from foreign languages (hence the looking in mouths).

The craziness, long days, and over 80 hours in the car were worth it, not just because kids came to Christ or because I’m better prepared for ministry, but because I know each step on my path—the joyful, crazy, hard, and scary—is a gift God prepared especially for me.
Next up comes craziness in Canada as this September I start a year of French language school in Quebec.

Praise God That:
· Through Christian Youth in Action® I had the privilege to help train over 100 teens to share their faith effectively.
· I learned a lot from the wonderful CEF® team in Kentucky and successfully completed my internship.
· When the French language school I planned to attend in Senegal fell through at the last minute, God guided me to a missionary language school in Sherbrooke, Quebec (Word of Life Bethel) that accepted me last minute.

Please Pray That:
· I will learn French quickly and effectively and find joy in having my brain fried for about seven hours per day :)
· God will provide good community among the students and me at language school.

May Newsletter--Back in My Day

Pictures 1 and 2) The kids love review time at Good News Club.

Picture 3) At Missionary Training School in Warrenton, Missouri, I learned how to prepare for my first term, along with friends and fellow new missionaries who all agree that Burkina Faso is number one (or were perhaps bribed to pose for this picture).

I started feeling old on my tenth birthday when I realized my age was in the double digits. Now, approaching the quarter century mark, I cringe to think it’s been a decade since my freshman year of high school and two decades since I gave my life to Christ. I’m exceedingly grateful God was working in my heart so long ago, but I’d rather not be able to use the words “long ago” to describe any part of my life. In college I stopped praying that God would slow down time and started thinking of each day as one step closer to Heaven.

Then I felt God’s calling into long-term missions and was so excited to go to Burkina Faso I had to force myself to finish college. And then I found out that with support-raising and children’s ministry training, internship and language school it would be years before I reached the field. But the other day, I woke up and realized that less than a third of a year from now I’ll be in Africa. My first reaction was closer to respiratory failure than joyful gratitude.

You see, it’s also been a long time since I’ve been to Burkina Faso (almost four years), and time can make you forget how much you love the children of a country, and spiritual battle can make you forget that the God who holds time in His hands not only walks with you but also draws you closer to Him through the hard things He calls you to. The funny thing is that the things that I don’t want to let go of here are all blessings given to me by the God I sometimes have a hard time trusting. Each of you who get this letter and pray for me are another reason that I don’t want to leave the country and do what you’re praying about.

So as I finish my internship in Kentucky, I’ve been crying along with some of my Good News Club® children who didn’t want their club to ever end. As I help prepare for Kentucky summer ministry before heading to Colorado for pre-language school and cultural training, I’m continually reminding myself of God’s promises that He’ll always be with me and that His strength is made perfect in weakness. I can’t thank you enough for praying with me!

Praise God for:
· Each member of the body of Christ who has blessed me through prayer, support, friendship, and love.
· What I’ve learned about ministry and for how God has strengthened me through my internship.

Please Pray for:
· Me as I prepare to head overseas, both that I will figure out how to get visas and ship things to myself and that I will joyfully put my trust in our Amazing Savior.
· The youth and young adults who will take intensive training in the next few weeks on how to teach summer 5-Day Clubs and for me and other staff as we teach them.

February Newsletter--A Scary Prayer

Picture 1) Children listen to the Bible lesson at Good News Club.

Picture 2) I explain a method for teaching the Gospel at a teacher training.

I had never before been so nervous about a prayer. It was the end of a typically crazy Good News Club(R) in inner city Louisville. In this club, you never know when children might start punching each other, when a child might come in wearing only his long underwear, or when a child might be preparing to tackle you so he can steal the toy dinosaur you brought as an illustration of an idol. It was difficult to tell if the children were even hearing what we were teaching, so you can see why I was a little nervous when I asked if one of the saved kids would like to pray out loud. I had no clue what might come out of the volunteer's mouth.

A ten-year-old boy whose name begins with A raised his hand, then made his way to the front of the classroom. He patiently waited for everyone else to get quiet, then opened his mouth. "Thank You so much for this moment in time and for this Good News Club. We really need this." He then asked God to help each person apply the main teaching from the lesson to trust God and do the right thing even when it's hard.

Shocked (although I should've known that God works just as powerfully in chaotic clubs as He does in model ones), I thanked A and dismissed the group. I had never before given God so much thanks for a prayer as I did that day. Though the group is only slightly less crazy and it's still easy to question if our efforts are making any difference, each week one of the children prays, and though you'd think I'd get used to it, I continue to be shocked by God's grace revealed in those prayers.

I praise God for:

All of you who support me in ministry through your prayers and gifts.

The wonderful church family I've had the opportunity to be a part of in Elizabethtown.

His work in the hearts of Good News Club children.

Please pray that:

God will continue to draw Good News Club children close to Him.

God will continue to prepare me for ministry in Burkina Faso through the remaining five months of my internship and will bless the ministry opportunities I get to be involved in such as Good News Clubs, teacher trainings, ministry promotions, and committee meetings.