Progress

I have been quite busy as of late. The regional coordinators for Africa came in to visit last week and we went up to a town called Piela and stayed there for a few days. It was interesting to see the medical center up there and the work with malnourished babies. Also, we ate with a Fulani pastor and met his family. That was fun, and in the evening he and his kids sang some worship songs in Fufoldi. My French is continuing to get better. I actually ordered some cinnamon rolls from a woman today for Thanksgiving morning over the phone by myself in French. That's right, I'm getting cinnamon rolls on Thanksgiving (yessss) and I ordered them by myself, another plus. I have encounters like that which are very encouraging, but I have other ones, like trying to get a flat tire on my bike fixed by a local guy which are not as encouraging. All I wanted him to do was pump it up, but then he started fixing it, I couldn't tell him to stop, because I didn't have very much money on me, plus I didn't have a lot of time. It was stressful, but I got through it. Even though I won't be home for Turkey Day tomorrow I'm still really excited for celebrating it over here. Cinnamon rolls and a movie marathon I think are in order. I'm have a dinner with Galen's family too, after that, you guessed it the movie Miracle on 34th St. I'm excited about that one, because it's always the first Christmas movie my family always watches after dinner. I brought it with me, and then it's time to break out the Christmas music. The next 6 to 7 weeks are going to be filled with the album A Charlie Brown Christmas. One of my favorite albums of all time! That's it for now, everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends

Croc'c, French, and life

When I first came to Burkina, Galen told me about a crocodile farm outside of Ouaga where people could get a close up view of crocodiles and even sit on them. Since I heard that, I knew I had to go. So a few days ago, my roommate Will, another guy Robin, and another guy Dave, took the trek to see the Croc's. I have to tell you it is quite an experience. There was something amazing to sit on a crocodile. Something about coming up close and personal with such a revered and feared force in nature. We all had a great time getting a chance to watch the croc's in action. It's one thing to watch it on t.v. and another thing to watch wild animals like that up close and be in their presence. For as much fun and goofing around as we did, we all had a certain level of respect for these creatures and wanted to respect their space as to not get too close to the really wild ones.

In other news, I've started French class. Right now that is the main focus of my day, I go Lundi through Vendredi (Monday to Friday). I still have a lot to learn, but it is exciting to put together small phrases to say, as well as understand bits and pieces of conversations. Right now, besides learning vocabulary, my pronunciation is all that great either. There are some phrases in French that are like tongue twisters to me or I can't get just the sound. I know it's still early in my schooling so I'm trying not to get discouraged. Besides that a few other ministry opportunities have opened up for me. I am helping at a youth group for students at the international school which is nice, because they speak English. And it seems that the audio recording project should be getting under way sooner than I'd expected, so I am excited about that. Despite my lack of language skills I'm am beginning to feel more and more comfortable here, while there are things I miss about home, Burkina is becoming more familiar to me.