Pictures

The top picture is of my Kiwi friend Georgie and I at my 22nd birthday dinner.
The bottom picture is just a random little boy 2 houses down from me.

Lent and other things

It is the season of Lent! A time of preparation, self denial, and anticipation for the Resurrection or our Lord Jesus Christ. I am excited that it has come already and am interested to see how Easter will be celebrated here in Africa.
In other events, Galen and I have already taught one of our two night classes to a group of Burkinabe adults here. We are co-teaching because I don't have the language skills to teach a 2 hour course on my own, while he doesn't have enough time to prepare everything for the class. So it works out well. Last class we went over the beginnings of how the church expressed the idea of the Holy Trinity in the early centuries. Although we didn't get through all the material, what we did get through I think was necessary to understand what we believe about God today. I look forward to next class, on Valentines Day, as we progress along in this important conversation. I have Dr. Nassif to thank for his thorough teaching on the trinitarian debate. Thank you Dr. Nassif. Hopefully I will be able to use the teaching I received from Dr. Snell in this next class as we dive deeper into trinitarian logic and theology.
The lesson here is, pay attention in class, you might actually use the stuff you learn.
We are drawing nearer to the softball tournament and although we had a scrimmage last Saturday that didn't go as well as one could hope, I'm excited to get back out and compete in something again. I've been competing in events for as long as I can remember, and now that I'm here it is sometimes difficult for me not to have that competitive outlet. It's that old saying, "you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore". Well, I found that to be true of competition.
It is only early February and I hoped the cool season would last a little longer, but just in the last week I have noticed a rise in temperature. Oh well, you can't stop the seasons, you can only transition with them.
I'll be sending out my quarter prayer letter soon as well with some more updates so you can be on the look out for that as well.
I hope you all are doing well and seek the LORD during this season of Lent.

A few pictures

The New Year

I have to apologize it has been quite some time since my last update. So much has been happening lately and I have not been diligent. With that being said lets begin. Where to begin? New Year's Eve was spend with the youth group I help with out at "Monkey Mt." It's not a real mountain, but it was still fun. There are monkeys out there, usually only in the wee hours of the morning. And since I didn't bring any blankets with me because "it's Africa, why would you need blanket?" I froze and didn't really sleep much. Bummer, who knew you could actually get cold in Africa? Not this guy. Anyway, after that I had two other out of town trips as well.
Piella first for the Fulani conference with Galen. I am interested in the Fulani dynamics, but because of the language barrier it is difficult. There are only a few Fulani men or women that have enough French to understand my French, which is coming along, but still not great. After that conference I'd had enough rice and Nyree (millet based oatmeal type stuff) for quite some time. I came home for that, had my 22nd B-day and the next day was off to Fada for the SIM Spiritual Life Conference. For my birthday I five of my friends and I went to Gandwana's. It's this fairly nice African style restaurant. But it's done in a very nice way with good food. Then we went to another friends house for Cake. It was a good time.
The 3rd Weekend in Feb. is a softball tournament. I'm getting pretty excited for that. Galen and I are coaching a couple of the kids teams. He's taking on the social team, I get the competitive kids. But I'm also playing on a team as well. I don't think those kids know what they're in for. If the screw around they are going to be taking so many laps their heads are going to be spin! Just kidding, but seriously, don't cross "Coach Steel". I am looking forward to that though. I have some more things, but I will wait a week or so and write another post. Until then, stay classy.

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