It's a Wonderful Life...

Behold, for I bring you tidings of good news and great joy from Africa. The Christmas season is upon us, and in the midst of the hustle and bustle I hope that you all have had a chance to reflect upon the amazing wonderment that is the birth of Christ the Lord. Christmas for me will take place up in a remote town called Sebba, where we will be doing some evangelistic outreach as well as encouraging the few believers that are there. What better time than Christmas to proclaim the coming of our Lord than at Christmas time?

I can honestly say that my time here has been going by rather quickly and if I’m counting correctly, I have been here 73 days. Looking back over that time I am amazed at how much I have seen and lived with in that time. A few end of the year highlights for me from 5 to 1:

5. My roommate and two other guys and I went to a crocodile farm outside of Ouaga and got to not only feed the croc’s live chickens, but I got to sit on one as well. It was a fun trip.

4. Myself and eight other 20 something year olds went south for a weekend trip to an animal game park! We saw warthogs, bush bucks, monkeys, and many large elephants. While I did not get to have a picture taken with me on an elephants back like with the croc’s it was fun to get fairly close to them in a basically unrestricted area.

3. My progress in French studies. While I have a lot of work still to do, and my sentence structure needs a great deal of work, I am amazed at my ability to be where I am with the language. I still get frustrated at times with the language, but I can now have basic conversations with most people.

2. The friends I have made here. My roommate as well as some of the other short term missionaries have been a real blessing in my life. Being able to have good conversations is something I always cherish, and it has helped me open up and be honest with others here as well as continue to learn about Christian community.

1. The chance to be Santa Claus (I love Christmas and this was an absolute blast for me). In my last update I mentioned the fact that I had a Santa suit made, and that I planned to go out to give candy to kids. Well, I can say that I went to the store, and bought about $80 worth of candy. From there, I visited a kids program at a local church. There were probably over 100 kids there who were all very excited to see the man in red. I also visited a school where a friend of mine helps in. There were probably 60 kids or so there, and they too were happy to see little St. Nic. They even sang a song for me. And then with the rest of the candy, one afternoon, a friend and I just walked around the neighborhood until I ran out. I was originally giving the candy just to kids, but parents and other adults looked quite eager to get a little treat so I gave some out to them as well. It must have been quite a funny scene having grown men working on the streets as mechanics chase down a white guy in a red suit for a sucker, or piece of chocolate. That also gave me the chance to use my French as I wished them a Merry Christmas and asked them a few questions. I even had a few people pull over who were driving cars, just so their kids could get a piece of candy from Santa. Overall I would say that well over 200 kids got some kind of candy from Santa Claus here in Ouaga.

I can’t say how that candy will bring those kids closer to Christ, but I know that even though no one gave their life to Christ from candy, those kids received a gift not just of candy, but of joy, and I pray hope. And during this time isn’t that what we are all called to do? Shouldn’t we be bringing joy, peace, and hope on this earth just as Christ did 2000 years ago. I really enjoyed it and even though I’m out of candy this year, Santa will certainly be making more rounds next year as well. Hopefully he will be able to visit even more kids next year.
Merry Christmas to all, enjoy celebrating the hope found in an infant in a manger with family or friends and Happy New Years.

Don't pass over Africa Santa!

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone and the "Official" Christmas season is well under way I can and have been listening to Christmas music (I actually am right now as I write this). I have decorated a small Christmas tree and done all that I can to help bring the Christmas spirit here. It's still interesting that there's a 0% chance of having a White Christmas, despite that though I've really been enjoying Advent thus far. I made an advent wreath out of the bottom halves of coke bottles. Each week I am focusing on different aspect of Advent, last week was the week of Hope, this is the week of Peace. I had this Santa Claus or in French Pere Noel (Father Christmas) made by a tailor I know. He said this is the first Pere Noel suit he's ever made, maybe it will catch on here. Here is my roommate Will and I in the typical "family" or in this case "roommate" Christmas card photo. A few presents under the tree and stringed popcorn to give it some extra color. The plan is later this week to go buy candy and go around to some different neighborhoods and pass it out to the kids for Christmas. I'm pretty excited for that and I'm really hoping that the Santa spirit will bring some joy to these kids lives'. I actually got the idea from the original St. Nicolas who was known for giving treats to kids. I said, hey why can't I do that here? So there you have it. I'll let you all know how it goes for the new and thinner Pere Noel, until then joyeux Noel!

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.

My Hostess and one of her children (left) A couple of kids in the market (right).

Back to School

Now that I've been here for 2 full weeks and working on my 3rd it's time to start learning how to communicate with people here. So I began going to French school on Thursday. It's actually more like a personal tutor, because I'm the only one in the class. I guy named Elvis is my teacher (no not that Elvis). He's from the Ivory Coast, and came to Burkina to study law. Anyway, I'm enjoying the class but I'm going to need a lot work and patience to get this thing down well enough. Right now, I'm trying out the few phrases I know on people in the community or my roommate, it's pretty apparent my pronounciation isn't great. The hardest part I think right now is that so many words sound alike, and the words have sounds in them I'm not used to making. But, that is part of the experience and I knew that when I signed up. I had a pretty good day today, I went to class (9-11 everyday) came home, went for a run around the neighborhood, took a nap and read. I can't really argue with that I'm trying to put a few more pic's up but it won't let me right now, so stay tuned!

Ouaga/Djibo

After only a few days in Ouaga the North Park Sem team and I headed up north to Djibo, where our ministry with the Fulani is mainly held. It is about 120 miles north of Ouaga and took us by bus about 5 1/2 hours. None of the roads here are in that great of shape so we could not go very fast on the way up. It was hot up there with temps around 110 F. These people to not live with electricity, running water, or most other things people in the States take for granted. I found my time up there to be both exciting and difficult as I got a chance to live with the Fulani and see what their culture is really like. I know it will take several more visits to get a bigger fuller picture of what the Fulani life is like, but from what I saw it was simple. The father and sons work the fields because it is almost harvest time, and the mother cooks, cleans, and looks after the kids. They are up at the crack of dawn, usually by 5:15 or so and in bed around 9 or 10 at night. I have much work to do in order to be able to communicate with them and in order to see where God exists in their culture. The Fulani take leasure time in the afternoon, but don't play many games. According to a man who was up who is working on a Fulani tranlsation of the Bible, he said there in no real Fulani word for fun. Kids have fun, but that should tell you something. I look forward to my language education and the ability to go back to Djibo to communicate more and learn from them.