Back From Benin

I just recently was able to travel outside of Burkina Faso to a country that is just southeast of Burkina, Benin. I did so because a good friend of mine was on a school trip there for nursing students and engineers. So I hopped on a bus at 6:30 AM and 20 hours later I made it into Porto Novo Benin. Wow, I'll be honest in saying it was a long long bus ride. But I knocked out some reading and did some thinking. I was along so I didn't have a partner for any of those fun or pseudo-fun road trip games. Plus I guess there aren't tons different state license plates here to spot, so like I said, I had a good thinking session. And on top of that, it was a bit stressful because the bus dropped me off in Cotonou, which was about 40 Km from Porto Novo, and I had no idea how I was going to get there. I'd never been to Benin before and didn't really know my way around Cotonou or Porto Novo. But I made it after negotiating my way on a moto taxi and then another taxi. But I could tell that my French was on the decline after way too many hours on a bus and not nearly enough sleep.
But nevertheless, I made, and for the next few days I got a chance to hang out with 15 college students and had a blast. Plus because they did a few touristy type things, I tagged along for that seeing a museum and going through the market. It was fun for me since I have never really did tons of the typical tourist type things that many people do over here. So it was great to see another country in Africa, see a different climate and meet some pretty cool students from Washington.
After Benin my friend and I took another 20 hour, actually with a few extra stops was really more like 22 hour bus ride back to Ouaga. The next few days we just spent some good time in my neck of the woods and had a lot of fun. And really it was special for me to have someone from back home see my life here, someone who knows me from high school as "Washington Ben" not "Missionary Ben". So all in all the last few weeks have been unique and different and a nice change of pace. And now as I'm sure most of you are aware, school will be starting sooner rather than later and with that my work with the youth group will start picking up again which I'm really looking forward to. Until next time, stay classy friends.
Oh and that is a cool church down in Benin, which from now on will only be known as "The Candy Cane Church".

Good Times with Old Friends

The top picture is of my old Youth Pastor and a really good friend from church growing up, but we also went to colleges not too far from each other and stayed in close contact. I can't think of boating or inner tubing without thinking about the epic battles we have had on Lake Washington over the years.

The Middle picture was taken the night before my buddy Ryan's big day. And yes before you ask, I do have my shirt off. What can I say I get around some friends we start goofing around, and bam shirtless. It's pretty natural for me. But we spent the night just having some good guy time in a barn. A great night all around until I went to bed at 4 AM on an air mattress that deflated on me. It wasn't the mattress' fault though when I opened on the hole to pump it up more I didn't realize that I knocked out the plug and so I put the cap back on without the plug. By the morning about 7:30 I woke up completely on the floor. What a great night of sleep that was.

Finally, the old house back together. The U.N. the night before Sean's big day. I have to say seeing those guys again and watching them take the plunge was awesome and surreal for me. But those 4 guys made my last year at North Park fantastic. They are all good guys and helped keep me in check when I needed it.

Back at it

It's been a month since my last post and I appologize for the length of time between posts. It's hard to believe I was at my friends' wedding a month ago and living it up back home. My time at home gave me a great chance to reconnect with some old friends, meet some new ones and eat a lot of good food. A good portion of my family came up from California, and Arizona during my time home, I spent some time with my brother, and of course saw my parents. In a way it was helpful just in the fact that it gave me a chance to get out of the African paradigm and in a sense refocus my energies. Also, it was a good chance to speak personally with my friends to see what they've been doing, how they have matured and grown since I saw them last. 3 of my old roommates are married or will be married by the end of August. That is an amazing thing that I'm glad I was able to participate and celebrate with them. At the same time it is really crazy when some of your good friends start getting married. But good for them and all blessings as they start new lives with amazing wives.
Now that I'm back in Burkina things are falling back into place. I wouldn't be truthful if I didn't say I was a little bummed to be leaving home again after having such a good time. But I am back at it, and working on cleaning up the material I have been recording for the past several months. Also I am working on some lessons for the youth group. That part of my ministry is kind of slow right now, most of the kids have left for the summer, so I'm doing a lot of reading and prep type work. Figuring out themes and lessons for the upcoming school year. I am actually quite excited to get those kids back and get back into the groove of things with youth group and all.
Here is a smattering of pictures from my trip back to America.

The pictures are of me eating my first bite of cereal and "real" milk which I have missed quite a bit while in Africa, and my buddy Mook and I at the rehearsal for the wedding in Michigan. More pictures to come.

The Odyssey sans a Giant Ogre

So I’m writing this from 30,000 ft. in the air somewhere over north east America. My travels getting home are almost over, but it has been quite a journey thus far. I left Burkina at 3:30 AM on Tuesday morning local time and flew to Casablanca. Because of the time of the flight I didn’t get more than an hour or so of sleep that night. I came into Casablanca at about 7 AM if I remember correctly and my next flight wasn’t until 4 PM. So I sat around watched a movie, read, and got a 15 minute power nap in. It could have been a longer one but a pesky fly decided to keep landing on me and waking me up. So after waiting for several hours I got out to the plane in Casablanca, and.... had to wait some more. Our plane was about an hour leaving but we did eventually take off.
I came into New York City at about 8 PM local time, which is Midnight back in Burkina. At this point I had had minimal food throughout day and about 1 ½ hours of sleep for the day. Needless to say my body cloak was somewhat askew. The funny thing is I can kind of prepare my body for periods of time as such where I don’t eat much or sleep much and can just keep going. So by the time I got through customs and figured out how to get over to Manhattan I was a little out of it. I was quite excited to see my friend Rachael who lives in New York. So she gave me directions and I hopped on the New York subway for the first time ever with all my luggage and hoofed it uptown. My stop actually got me off in Harlem, which I was somewhat conscious of. Here I am, a white guy with a bunch of luggage at 10:30 at night walking through Harlem, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the best chameleon then. I got to Rachael’s though, and I dropped my stuff off and we went out to hit the town. We walked most of the night and she took me to a little Pizza joint that is pretty famous. I think it was on Regis and Kelly, not that I watch that show, I just saw an article inside the restaurant. I don’t want you getting the wrong impression of me about the Regis and Kelly thing though. After pizza and a Root beer! (My first one in 9 months, oh it tasted good) we walked around. Rachael pointed out a lot of things and famous areas of NYC in the Manhattan area, most of which I forgot because it was midnight and I was on basically no sleep for the past day and a half or so. Plus in the amount of 24 hours I went from the second least developed country in the world to Time Square! Most of the night as we walked I just gawked and had my jaw drop. I really blew it though and didn’t bring my camera along, so really I could be making this all up because I have no evidence. The whole experience was surreal to say the least, trying to soak it all in, being exhausted, and enjoying my time with Rachael. We got back to her apartment at about 4 AM local time, (my body had no clue what time it was other than I was exhausted). So, here’s the catch I had to catch my New York to Seattle connection at 8:20 AM, which meant I should be there by 7, and with an 1 or so on the subway, it wasn’t looking like I was getting much sleep. In fact I set my alarm for 5:30. So for the second night/day in a row saying I got insufficient sleep would be an understatement. I hop on the subway head back to the airport, miss my transfer and have to double back!! At this point I’m freaking out but I know there’s nothing I can do to speed the train up. So I get to the airport 40 minutes before my flight. I try to check in at the electronic desk... no dice! AHHH! The truth was I too tired to lose my cool, I just didn’t have the energy. So the 40 minutes come and go, and I realize, for the first time in my life I’m missing my flight. So I go up and ask a lady to help me, and she starts looking through her files, and comes up with nothing. And she was quick too, I think everyone has experienced the flight check in lady who is just pounding on that key board a mile a minute. What the heck is she looking at anyway? I’ve always been curious how many levels or codes they have to put in. Amazing, however I digress. So she says that Delta has my flight booked not for the morning of the 25th, the 26th, the next day. This is not good. So from about 7:50 AM till I think maybe 10:45 I’m scrambling around trying to work on other flights. Air Morac, who I came from Africa with was no help because they don’t show up to work until like 3 PM! Eventually the lady gets me on the afternoon flight, and I just about jumped over the desk to hug her, but I felt like that might be against some policy, so I held back. Also, I’ve been traveling for over 48 hours and haven’t showered so I didn’t know if she’d appreciate that either. Going through security I got several “you look kind of tired” comments from people working. So here I am, 30,000 ft in the air, I just drank my first glass of “real milk” in almost 9 months. Boy did it go down well. If you didn’t know I love milk, real milk that is. Always have, always will. So that’s my tale. At least I hope that’s my tale. There’s always a chance my luggage won’t come in or will have to make a stop over in Idaho or something, but for now, that’s my tale of getting home. And through all the hassle and lack of food/sleep I won’t complain, because I’m back home, and it feels really good.

More Pictures

Here are a few more food distribution pics. A group working hard (above) The whole group (Middle) and a few Africans waiting (below).

Finally Pictures from the Food Distribution and others

I know it's been a long time coming, but I finally got the pictures my friend Sara took at the food distribution. So here are some.

More Pictures

The above picture is one of the grad's, Rachel and I just after graduation. The below picture is the group of kids I took out for bowling afterwards. Good times were had.