Easter and livin' the life

I hope that everyone's Easter went well. I was privileged enough to give a message at out bi-monthly Saturday night service, on Holy Saturday leading up to Easter Sunday. While I went in quite nervous about delivering one of the bigger sermons of the year, I believe the message I gave went very well. I received a lot of positive feedback and really believed that God lead me in what to say. Up until the morning of that Saturday, I was still wrestling with what to say and how to say it. After reading one of my friends' blog posts that same morning I was inspired by some of his stories and was able to proceed with a new sense of clarity on the meaning of the Resurrection. I took this picture that same day around 4 PM. I did so to document a strange phenomena that I've never been a apart of. It rained (although only a small amount) and was still 100 degrees outside! That's crazy.
The second picture is from taking some of the youth leaders to a local hotel for a day or relaxing at a pool on one of their days off. If you can't beat the heat, I figure you might as well swim and try to enjoy it. As I being to get prepared to leave I have tons of work left to do with the youth group, as far as end of the year retreats, banquets, and more. And Thursday night, I'll be DJ'ing the high school Prom. So I'm already excited about playing some Tom Jones and Airsuply for that. Not really, but I would like to play Tom Jones, but I don't think that's what the kids are dancing to these days. What a shame.

Ben leads a Seder?

Last Friday night I had the privilege of leading a group of the youth group students in a Seder. I would not consider myself trained in doing so, but I was able to use a program one of my professors from college has used before. It was designed as a follow up to the mission trip we took in October. This is because our Bible teaching focused around the exodus from Egypt. So these students were able to get a better understanding of how the Jewish festival of Passover works. The program I used has been modified in a Christian sense though, so several of the aspects of the seder dinner, which allude to the coming Messiah were actually explained through the coming of Jesus. It was a great night overall. The kids learned some new aspects to the Passover story and had some good fellowship. Meanwhile it was fun for me to lead something like this and stumble through my rusty Hebrew pronunciation.

30 hr. Famine

So I decided to do a running diary for the 30 hr. famine that our youth group did.

Thursday
3:00 PM: I ate a whole pizza, the fast starts at 4:00 PM, so I gotta get my fill in.

4:35 PM: I'm taking an unusually late nap.

6:45 PM: Just woke up, it's dark out, I think I overslept.

7:30 PM: Missing dinner, I'm getting a little hungry.

10:15 PM: Working on youth group talk.

12:35 AM: Going to bed.

1:27 AM: Regretting that late nap. Lying in bed trying to fall asleep.

2:32 AM: REALLY regretting that late nap. I'm an idiot. I'm in bed, sweating, and a little hungry.

Friday
8:07 AM: Woke up because it got too hot to sleep anymore.

11:50 AM: Time to get over to the youth event.

12::32 PM: We have been fasting for about 20 hrs. now, I'm having the kids journal and pray.

12:35 PM: I go into the back room to change into my painting clothes, and a gecko falls from the ceiling into my shirt. I kind of freaked out and almost yelled from surprise but since all the kids were in such contemplative states, I refrained. I pulled my shirt off real quick and danced around like an idiot though.

2:00 PM: We head out to the ministry site "Pam-Bila" to paint some school rooms.

Sidenote: Pam-Bila is a ministry site that we are partnering with for our food distribution this year. The money our students raise will be going to help feed the students of that ministry and their families.

3:30 PM: The kids are hanging strong although the 100+ heat is starting to get to a lot of the students who are on empty stomachs.

5:00 PM: We are finished with the painting, now it's off to the school pool to relax a little and get refreshed.

7:00 PM: Off to the youth group house to start youth group.

9:30 PM: We're heading into the home stretch the 30 hrs. ends at 10:00 PM and now we are getting into some good worship, despite being tired and hungry.

10:24 PM: Finished worshiping, now it's time to eat! NOT! As the leadership we decided to put a few pieces of bread out on the table and let the kids figure out what to do. Our hope was to stretch the kids and have them think more about the desperation that the people here face on a regular basis.

10:44 PM: The kids are meeting, talking, and praying. We regroup, Leanna talks some more, the kids share their hearts. They start to get it and I hear a lot of wise words from the kids.

11:10 PM: We really break out fast, the kids eat, talk and continue to process everything.

12:00 AM We're done! Time to go home everyone.

An long day, a tiring day, a rewarding day.

You Know you live in West Africa When...

You know you live in West Africa when you look at the thermostat and it says 95 degrees and you think, "Wow, it's cool enough for me to go for a long run outside today!"

Fund Raising and more

Recently I've been helping the students at the International school raise money for their prom. Earlier in the week the Jr's. were auctioned off by yours truly in a servant auction. Last night my friend Leanna and I hosted a casino night again to raise money. There was blackjack, poker and more. Here we are with the one of the students who won the most chips for the night and earned this t-shirt.
And for those of you who might not receive my quarterly report, I want to let you all know that I have chosen to extend my time here in Burkina for a few months. My original term was to end in April, but because of the nature of my work with the students I believe that it would be best for me to stay until the end of the school year. So I will finishing in the middle of June now. It has taken me a while to come to this decision but I believe it is where God is leading me and I am excited for the work I will be able to continue on doing until June.

Finally, if you would like to watch a video a couple friends and I made you can click on this link and enjoy me getting punched slapped and more!
http://www.vimeo.com/3147840

medical outreach pics

Here are some pictures from the outreaches. The bottom one is of the students testing urine samples (obviously the best job) the second is of some of the kids in line with me, and the top one is one of the doctors doing a check up on one of the students.

Medical Outreaches and more...

I have had the great opportunity last week to help out with an ongoing medical ministry that is happening on the outskirts of Ouaga. A Belgian doctor here goes to schools on the outer parts of town and gives the students medical check ups. He also partners with the school where I do a great deal of my ministry so my students have over the past few months been able to help out with this. I finally had some time to get to one of these and I have to say I was very excited about what I saw. Now mind you that elementary age students who don't even speak french are not my cup o' tea per se nevertheless it was fun for me to measure height, weight, and administer vision tests to the students. After they have those checked out a series of doctors give them a more thorough examination and the kids are able to get basic antibiotics, ointments, and eye glasses for next to nothing if needed. In one week this doctoer will see up to 400 kids. Helping these kids with medical issues is a huge step towards them being able to become better students. If they can't read the chalk board many (as you can imagine) stop paying attention to class and become bored. Not only that, but these outreaches are meeting basic needs of the community and are doing so in the name of Christ. One of the school that we went to last week was an Arabic Islamic school where kids go specifically to learn and read the Koran. I believe wholly that these types of outreaches take large steps to peoples of other faiths in showing them the love of Christ.

As for the more part. For the past 3 years the youth group has raised funds for a food distribution here in Ouaga. Well, we are gearing up for another year hopefully that will challenge the youth group to give and ask others to partner with them and also meet a need here in the community. We will be partnering with friends of ours who do a ministry that puts kids in school teaches them vocational skills and gives food to their families. They also do work with justice issues where parents are physically abusing the students and property issues with women (a major issue throughout Africa). I am excited to see what our students will do with the challenge given them and I pray that as a leader I can help inspire them and show them what it means to be a generous giver to those less fortunate.

My internet is being slow so I'll try to post pictures from the medical outreach tomorrow, until then enjoy your Sunday rest.