Jour 3

Daily thoughts from Africa with Benjamin Lackey, who thinks he's french.

" That's my dream job, to be a gate guard here."

to dane, talking about when it's time to leave burkina: "Let's runaway, if you really did it I almost really would."

Today was an early departure for the team and a semi-long drive out to the worksite. Today we began a project out at the LAC. The LAC stands for Lycee de Alliance Chritienne, or the Christian Alliance School. This is one of the more developed projects we have here. On the land is housed a compassion center with 250 children in the program, a middle school with between 200 and 400 students, some of which live on the property in the dorms. There is also a church, a pastors house, the site of the Evision housing (for short term teams) a missionaries house, a huge soccer field, a basketball court, and the storage facility for Friends in Action, a Christian well drilling team out here. So none the less, this is a very busy and occupied piece of property. Our job today was to clear a straight line out of the brush and trees so that they could begin to build the new wall around the property. Below are some pictures of our work and the site.

These are some of the classrooms

Try aiming into that little hole everytime you need to use the bathroom, oh yeah and not to mention bearing with the smell....( you know what i am talking about)

One of my favorite things on this site is the Compassion center, in this picture you can see the new classroom/office that I raised money to build when I was living out here. When I left they had just begun drawing the lines and digging the holes for the foundation and now it's finished and houses 40 children every compassion thursday.

This is the other classroom/hangar I raised money to build, all in all I wanted them to have enough space to add 80 more kids to their program. This site is very special to me because it's where the little girl that I have been sponsoring for 5 years attends.

www.compassion.com (for more info-compassion day for the team to come)

Then began the work...

Machetes were our primary tool of labor for the day...the on looking Burkinabe thought it quite funny to watch a bunch of white people (more or less girls) trying to hack away at tall grass....

We also had to break through the old walls to draw a direct line...Ben is a monster!

Here is a little shout out to Camelbaks, what saves your life in the dry hot heat of Africa!

There was also a few trees to cut down, let's just say I should open my own tree service when I get back to America!

Susan rocked that wall today as well!

oh the destruction of our legs, ankles, shoes, arm pits, and well entire bodies was due to these little spurs that stuck literally everywhere on you. The 'brush' we were clearing was mostly spurs, you can imagine the annoyance.

Inside the Church! I loved walking in there with Courtney today as she said; "We have it all wrong in America, our churches are concerned with carpets, color, lighting, temperature, and smell and all they are concerned with here is worshipping God and growing in discipleship."

The private school (which is one if not the only private Christian middle school (potential high school) in all of Burkina and their recent addition is going to allow for them to expand into a highschool very soon. Schooling for children here rarely stretches into highschool so this is an honor for the students. (if you are interested in helping boys or girls (more importantly) go to school there is some scholarship opportunities, let me know-school is about $700 a year for boys to live on campus, and about $200 for girls who will have to live at home or elsewhere).

After working at the LAC we toured a few close by ministry sites, the one below is the site of the new team center, which will house probably triple or more teams and people than the guest house does now as well as serve as the apartments for interns and couples. (Probably where most of the team will be living at some point, as that most people, not just from this team but from many other teams with Franklin, desire to come back and serve here for atleast 2 years.)

And just after lunch our dear dear dear friend Virginie came over, she was the girl who helped us out at our house when we lived here. (It's normal for people to have house help, guards, chefs, and nannies here, mostly because there is very little means of work for these women and it helps to feed their families.) We were able to spend a little time talking and eating and reminiscing with Virginie, and she gave us the big news that she is expecting in April, check out another posting on Cultural norms for talking about pregnancy.

After all of that we headed to a huge artisan festival that is only in Burkina every 2 years (and we just so happened to be here the same week) to do a little shopping, eating, and enjoy some live african entertainment. (sorry no pictures from that, too many pick pockets and thieves there to bring cameras, just try to imagine thousands of burkinabe roaming around, selling anything they can outside of the building, even fried catepillars, which we all tried...not soo much a fan myself...and then walking into the buildings to find booth after booth after hundreds of booths full of art, jewelry, clothing, etc. anything people can make and sell. It was a fun experience for everyone.

and:

Just a fun and somewhat terriftying fact, as I sit here and type this right now the huge (probably 2 feet or more in size) rats are scurrying in the ceiling over my head, and I am being attacked by bugs, in my bedroom none the less. OH the beauties of Africa.

Avec mon coeur

I wanted to spend a little time talking about the trip and being back in Burkina. For everyone who has been reading my blog since the day I moved out here over a year ago you know this has been a long journey. A journey full of surprises, heartache, trials and triumph. Being back has been those same emotions (which were then drawn out over a long span of time) but on speed. The moment I stepped off the plane and could smell the rancid stench of rotting garbage and well body odor everything came flashing back through my mind. It's crazy to me how even some of the worst smells can trigger memories. It's hard to put into words what is going through my mind and what I am experiencing right now but my dear African adopted mother, Amy Nehlsen put it in the clearest way I can sum it up when she said; "it's like you're trying to balance 2 realities right now, one you have here and one you live in back home." I have seen this 'balancing', or more like 'clashing' of my 2 realities more evidently now that I am back than I had before while being home. I hate the fact that it's so easy to teeter across that line of remembering the poor and destitute, this life here, and living the life consumed (whether I want it to be or not) with myself back in the states. I remember that the hardest thing I dealt with upon arriving home was the fact that I didn't need God's strength the way I did here, where it was all I could do to get out of bed. This teetering on the line has been such a struggle this past year and I guess I didn't see it so much as I do now that I am back. Being back isn't like walking back into a fairy tale life though, as much as I wish it would be a dream come true it's more of a reality check in my life. Burkina is a very hot, very dry, and mostly miserable place and none of that was written into that fairy tale life I had dreamed of, BUT there is absolutely no where that I could dream of being more, and being back here is consistently confirming that in my life.

It has also been a blessing deeper than words can convey, to be here with people who are experiencing this for the first time. Now when I say blessing I don't mean it's been inspiring the entire time, though it has, but I often find myself catching myself in little annoyances as people gasp, awe, and gauke at this culture. It's in those moments though that I find little glimpses of that initial passion I had upon arriving here, and despite my annoyance I am seeing things just slightly differently, sometimes pretending to see them for the first time so that my awe of God's diversity doesn't fade with my conformity.

On another hand I have absolutely loved and cherished every single moment spent visiting with the people I became so close with of my time here. I can't convey the warmth my heart feels when I see someone I came to love or appreciate here, even people like boutique owners who I spent countless hours walking around their booths looking at things during my repos time (the 'nap' time here in Burkina is from 12-3 and I am the absolute worst napper on the face of this earth so I spent that time walking around stores at the only 'tourist place'). People like the compassion staff at my little girls' site who came running up to greet me and welcome me back, or the dorcas house girls who skipped half way across the property to come and embrace me and welcome me 'home,' and one of my favorite moments of visiting was with Virginie, the girl who helped us out at our house while I lived here, who became my dear dear dear friend and someone I love deeply. She came over to enjoy a little lunch with us and to tell us the big news that she was pregnant (thereby breaking the unspoken 'laws' of burkina, women NEVER say or admit that they are pregnant here in case they lose the baby, nor do they buy anything for the baby until after it's been alive for a week or 2, the infant mortality rate here is astronomical.) It's moments likes these that you can't plan for, these moments are the overwhelming kind that make it seem as if you had never left. These are the people that make you feel at home in a place so foreign, strange, and dirty that despite it all you never want to leave.

It feels like home to me, it feels like I'm back where I belong....

Jour 2

Philosophical sayings from the french Benjamin Lackey

"I don't even flush anymore cause no one can even tell I peed."

"if you cry in Africa you'll turn into a pillar of salt."

Day 2 began early this morning with a wonderful hot plate of Larry Wolters famous sticky buns, which after an hour of working may have not been the best choice of a nutritious meal to start a very long and hot day, none the less they were delicious.

We began the day working here at the guest house, it's not every team's ideal first day of ministry but it was an awesome way for our team to serve those who are constantly pouring out of themselves to these people. It was really cool to see everyone work with such enthusiasm, even though we had very little contact with the Burkinabe. We spent all morning digging 18 inch holes in the side lot where all of the team and construction stuff is stored, it was a lot of hard work and even harder when we figured out half of our holes needed to be shifted. After digging all morning we put the posts in the ground and the Burkinabe helped fill the holes with concrete.

(just a little fun burkina fact; most of the walls separating houses and lots are covered on the top rim with broken glass bottles, to keep people from climbing the wall and breaking in.)

After working all morning we had an hour off for lunch and resting before we headed out to see the Dorcas House. (for those of you who know nothing about the Dorcas House it's a center for women who have been abandoned by parents passing away, or by getting pregnant, or by being left on the streets to become prostitutes. Whatever their situation they are chosen to come and spend a year at the Dorcas House learning, most importantly, the truths of Scripture, as well as learning a wide variety of trades that they can take with them when they graduate from the program.

The drive out there is rather long and always filled with interesting traffic...

One of the skills the girls at the Dorcas house learn is how to make soap.

This is the line of classrooms they have, one is for bible teachings, and another is for sewing and soap making.

They recently got a volleyball net, which was such an awesome thing to come out and see, when I lived here a year ago this was one of my main ministries and we spent alot of time together learning to 'play' volleyball (which looked more like learning how to catch and throw the ball, most of these girls have never been involved in sports or been allowed to play games at all).

Just a few pictures from around the property, it's expansion over the past year, and some glimpses into what life looks like for a Burkinabe.

Baby Bunnies, these were buried in the ground with cotton and covered with 2 stones...not quite sure why

This Millet grinder thing is Dorcas House's most recent addition, they are hoping that in learning to grind millet they will be able to make enough profit to pay for health needs at the center.

They also recently started a little pig farm, they have found that pigs are the biggest income out of all of their projects.

The guard's wife just had a baby 2 weeks, ago his name is Samuel, he was a huge hit with everyone on the team.

After touring the center we had a little match of volleyball, americans vs. burkinabe.

This sweet little boy is Herman, he was adopted by the man and woman at the Dorcas house who are basically considered the managers out there (they are Burkinabe) and the wonderful boys, Jake and Ace Burns, that I babysit for in Lynchburg wanted to send some of their clothes out to Africa, this is one of their shirts. When we presented this to Herman, everyone was circled around him, he put it one with unmatched speed and then began jumping around, cheering and shouting his name, as he danced, over the joy of having a new shirt.

This is the team with all of the girls from the Center, it's a beautiful and powerful ministry. So many lives are being changed, and so many already have been changed. Please keep this ministry in your prayers, as the Nehlsen's (the primary missionaries who help out there) are transitioning back home to american in 8 months. This means there is going to be a transition for the Dorcas House as well, they are run by the National group of Women from the National church here but it costs about $1,000 a month to provide the food for all of the girls here and they cannot profit enough from all of the things they make to be capable of earning that much money. The goal of the center is that it would become self-sufficient, so alot is having to happen over the next few months to get them to that place.

These were the 6 girls who stayed after their first year to do a second year and hopefully become interns at the Center. It was so incredible to be back with them and to see how God had been working in their lives over the past year, it felt like I was home again.