En francais

Today began the first of many french lessons. I will be attending french tutor 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for the next month. After the first month is over I will be only attending 2 times a week rather than 5. It was quite humbling to go in and sit down for the first 2 hours with a professor who only spoke french. I had a very difficult time understanding him at first but was super grateful that I had taken french this past year in school, otherwise I would have had absolutely no idea a single thing he was saying. My first 2 hours are spent with him, we refreshed numbers, and talked about what I want to do with my future. I didn't know how to explain to him that I wanted to eventually do dental hygiene so I just told him I wanted to be a dentist, and from that flowed an entire comparison of doctors, dentists, and nurses according to what they do (keep in mind, all in french). I only even brought that part up because I had no idea how to say I was studying InterCultural studies. He then proceeded to ask me what doctors, nurses, and dentists do, ha good one. I thought surely, I can figure this out. After many stick figure drawings and what seemed like endless games of charades we came up with maybe 3 or 4 things each profession did. Those first 2 hours passed quickly. My next 2 hours were spent with a professor named Moumouni who thankfully speaks a lot more english. He was quite a hoot to learn from and very postivively reenforcing on absolutely everything I did. We had a very good time, he even told me that I was a native french speaker due to my pronouncation.

This is Virginie, our house girl and her new kitten.

Today Virginie took us to the market to buy these beautiful cloths you see above. It was extreme culture shock when on our walk that way some man grabbed my wrist and hand and began yanking me with all his strength into his shop. I was terrified and he wouldn't let go, finally I got loose and took off. It's easy to forget the fact that we are white girls regardless of the number together, walking on through an impoverished market unprotected.

Home is where the the Heart is...

Welcome to my new home!

This is called the Dependence, aka guest house

We actually do have a washer, but Virginie (the house girl) usually washes the clothes

This is what we think to be a chicken coop

The porch and garage

More porch

Snickers, our wonderful dog who will eat your hand off if you try to touch her the first time meeting her. She likes to chew underwear, chapstick, and paper.

The dining area

Our fridge which looks much larger than it actually is, this picture is deceiving.

Our kitchen

The hallway to our rooms

My room, minus the wall with a disgusting fridge on the side that smells and is infested with bugs :)

And my storage room :)

Welcome to my new home!

What are you going to do about it?

These past 2 weeks have been an adventure, filled with joy, laughter, heartbreak, and challenges. As a team we sat down to debrief over all we had experienced and our hearts ached. Everything we have seen, every child we have touched, or hugged, every place we have been and everything we have done leaves us with the question of; "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?" In Burkina a child's survival rate is 3 out of 5, and 3,000 children are dying every single day because of Malaria alone. When I look into these children's faces I see fear, fear of not knowing where or when they will have their next meal. Where is their hope? What am I going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?

A little deeper

I know that my past few posts have been nothing but simple and brief, and I want to apologize because I have not had the time to share my heart, my thoughts, and the vision behind everything we are doing here. I promise that in the next few posts I will go deeper into the reality of which I now am living to the heart of the mission and the passion for these people that I have. God is doing a glorious work over here in Burkina Faso and I want you to hear about it, not just hear about it but know it and see it and feel it. I want your heart to beat for His work, to break for His people, to race for his praise, and to surrender to His beckoning call. I will shortly be somewhat backtracing so that I can describe in more detail the things that we have already done and the ministries we have already been a part of so please stay tuned. :)

Compassion Day

Thursdays in Burkina are Compassion day.

This little girl is writing a letter to her sponsor.

There are 5 people on the team who sponsor compassion children in Burkina, so they brought them all to us at the central church. 2 years ago I met my little girl for the first time, her name is Claudine. She is now 11 years old and when I saw her again she ran to me with arms wide open and gave the me the most heartfelt hug I could ever imagine. It was a glorious moment to know that God divinely orchestrated and placed her in my life.

For the next few hours we sat in on classes and the class Claudine and I were in asked every child to draw their favorite animal, these are claudine and I's drawings. Mine was orginally an elephant and then a giraffe and then a flamingo which just turned into a bird. I am pretty sure hers is a crocidile.

They had a recess so we all went out to play games with the children, their favorite games are to copy the white people.

Claudine had never tried an apple before and we had bought some to send home with our girls, so this was her ver first bite of an apple.

Compassion also gave us all a bottle of soda which was a very special treat for all of our children.

When I told her we were leaving she immeditely lost the smile on her face. I could see the sadness in her eyes, it broke my heart. I asked abby to come over and translate that I would be back to see her soon, she got so excited and joy filled her again.

Compassion is an incredible ministry that is saving the lives of children and giving them hope for a future. To find out more about compassion go to www.compassion.com

Day 1

Today we went to visit our first work site. The LAC is a school and compassion center where the vision is to build a high school. Right now the school system only goes up to 9th grade, in order for the school system to reach 13th grade they must have a science lab. The high school is in the process of being completed and will hopefully be completed in time for the next school year. Also on this property (which is rather large) is a house for a family that will potentially be moving in in August to run the new team center. The team center in the picture above is a duplex that will house double what the guest house holds right now and has the convenience of little travel to work. The teams that come out will stay here and be working on this property. Our team came out to put the roof on this center and the first day we scoped it out and attempted a few tolls (the roofing material) to get the hang of things.

There were so many little children who came out to watch us, this community has hundreds of children who do not and cannot ever afford to go to school. If you notice the water behind me and see the 'cleanliness' of it you will see their primary drinking source. We saw woman after woman come with donkeys and barrels to fill up their jugs and take back home. In this same water we saw people bathing, peeing, and playing.

As we were walking around the work site Pete (the missionary) dared me to sit on the donkey, and well I did. He then attempted to hit it and cause it to run but it was too lazy thankfully.
After we left the LAC we went to a ministry site called Tanghin, this is the area where the people use to worship a very large snake that ate their children. There use to be a Muslim school on this land and when the land was given over to the church and the school was torn down the snake completely disappeared. There is now a native burkinabe pastor who is planning on moving out here to start a church. This is one of the most beautiful pieces of land I have ever seen. As soon as we stopped the van the children, by the hundreds, came running towards us, and as soon as they got to us they grabbed our hands and walked with us. It was a heart breaking moment to realize that more than half of these children would not make it to the age of 10.
This is also the site where I raised money for the new Compassion center to be built, which should be starting really soon. They are hoping to have it done in the next few months. Compassion will give these children a hope and a future and I am thrilled to know that they will see that their lives matter to God.

Departure and Arrival

We are finally here! After 2 long days of flying we finally made it. Everyone is safe and feeling good, besides my cold that I caught 3 days before leaving I am A+. We had a very enjoyable lunch with everyone's friends and family at the Gazebo and then headed out!

A team picture!

All of our luggage which ended up costing us about $300 extra dollars, 150 due to one bag being 3 inches too big, and the other 200 due to a bag that was extra and overweight, it barely hit the 70lbs limit.

And finally we arrived! We were greeted by Susan and Lynda, it was nice to be 'home'