Welcome to Ziguinchor

So maybe you'd like to hear a little more about where I'm living? Okay, I'll tell you!

The Homestead: We're staying in a WEC guest house which, from what I can understand, rarely gets used (apart from when the JEM Saint Paul group comes to visit several months out of each year). We live in a walled-in compound on a plot of maybe one to two acres of land. The compound consists of three buildings (the house we're staying in and two office buildings for WEC staff). I share a little bitty room with Sophie and...some mice.

Water/Plumbing: We have running water, two showers with coldish water, and three toilets. We drink filtered water.

Ziguinchor Roads: Some are paved and have cement trenches on either side for burning trash, but more often than not the roads are unpaved, with trash-filled ditches, like the one you see here.

Senegalese Bowl Dish: As I've mentioned before, we eat bowl dishes for lunch everyday.

One of my favorite bowl dishes is called Mafe: peanut sauce and cravettes served over rice. Delish.

Aminals: Yes, aminals. I can't tell you just how many goats we see on a daily basis. In fact, on the way home from church today we saw a baby goat on the side of the road, which had literally JUST been born. Sheep, chickens, and pigs also roam freely. Everywhere.

Kids: So, so, so many kids running and playing in the streets. The picture below was taken while we helped out with a Christian kids club one Saturday afternoon. 

So many new sights and sounds, yet I'm still very eager to get back home. I know I'll look back on this time and wish I had treasured it more. I'm desperate for the Lord's sustaining strength!

So far...

Daily Schedule in Ziguinchor

7:30 Breakfast
 8:00 Team Time (Bible Study/Prayer)
9:00 Leave for the Talibe Center
9:15-1:30 Talibe Center (Play and hangout with the Talibe boys and teach Bible/French lessons)
2:00 Lunch
4:00 Open Airs (We perform skits and preach in different neighborhoods) or Door to Doors (We split up into groups of 3-4 and go door to door and ask people if they're interested in learning about Jesus).
7:00 Dinner
8:00 Practice Open Air Skits/Free Time/Lena's Workout Class 
(Yes, I have opportunities to teach group exercise, even in Senegal!)

Sundays and Wednesdays are our days off, and so far, going to the local pool is proving to be our favorite pass time. Posts with pictures will be forthcoming!

Adventures in Senegal

The ferry ride from Dakar to Ziguinchor went really well! Fortunately Mark booked rooms with bunk beds our team, so that we could sleep comfortably through the night. The boat rocked me into a solid eight or so hours of sleep, and when I awoke the next morning I went up on deck to watch the sun rise over the Casamance River!

       And now it is high time I share what my team and I will be doing here in Senegal! One of our primary goals is to love on and care for the talibe boys in this area. Talibe boys range in age from 4-18 and have been handed over by their parents to a marabout, or Islamic leader, who raises them and teaches them the Quran. 

  Talibe boys spend hours everyday learning the Quran in Arabic (a language they do not understand) and begging for money on the streets on behalf of the marabout. They live in poor conditions, are poorly fed, and in some cases are beaten by their marabout when they do not collect enough money. 

Four or five mornings each week we will be working in Le Centre Talibe, founded by a Christian, Wayne Lawthei, who wanted to create a bit of a refuge for these boys. It’s open five days a week from about 10am-2pm, and it’s a place where the boys can play soccer, take showers, wash their clothes, and eat a warm meal. My team and I will play soccer and foosball with them, hang out/get to know them, and teach them French and Bible stories. Ultimately we are there to love them and share Jesus' love with them!

The language barrier is already presenting issues. Some of the talibe boys speak French, but most of them speak tribal languages (Wolof being the most common). We’re all trying our best to learn a bit of Wolof, while using French when we can.

As for our afternoons/evenings we will be going to one of the local high schools twice a week to help out with an English speaking club. We will also be doing “open airs” in the streets. Open airs consist of skits, preaching, and sharing personal stories of how Jesus has changed our lives. We will also be working in other areas, but I'm not entirely sure what that will look like yet.

So. Here I am in Africa. Crazy. The first two days here were really fun. Everything was new, different, interesting, and exciting. But day three came, and I crashed. The dirt, the language barrier, and other aspects of the culture were getting to me. To complicate things more, I'm not very good at just chillin' and living in the moment. My family will attest that even on vacation I count down the days till we return home, because I want to move on to whatever’s next in life. So being here in Senegal, where everything’s new and different and harder than what I’m used to, provides an even greater challenge to living in the moment. But I believe that’s one really important thing God wants to teach me here—the ability to be happy moment by moment, day by day, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. And that's possible because of Jesus Christ! Paul says in Phillipians 4:11, "I have learned in every situation I am to be content" and then in Phillipians 4:13, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." God has called me here, he has brought me here, he has good work for me to do here, he will sustain me, and he will be faithful. I'm gonna fight hard to remember that and to enjoy living in the moment!

Greetings from Senegal!

I am very pleased to announce that Peter and I were able to successfully fly into and out of Marseille! Unfortunately were not able to stay in the transit area of the airport as we had hoped. In fact, upon our arrival, we were directed to go through customs. As you can imagine, this made us just slightly terrified. We prayed fervently as we waited in line and in God's kindness, the lady who looked at our passports was extreeeeeemely nice. From what I could gather, we should have been escorted from customs to our airline check-in desk, but when Peter explained our situation, the customs lady opted not to call an escort so that we wouldn't run into any trouble. If that wasn't the favor of God, I don't know what is!

By the time we made it through customs (around 8pm Wednesday) the Marseille airport was like a ghost town; there was no one there to check us in. So we claimed a row of seats (the ones with metal arm rests in between, so there's no possible way you can lie down on them) and pulled an all-nighter. With the help of a movie, prayer time, and some good music, the evening passed quickly. As you can imagine, we were pretty happy to see our team members walk through the airport doors bright and early Thursday morning!

All went well with checking in and getting through security, and we made it to our gate with no problems. Upon our arrival in Algiers we had a long, 10 hour layover; we arrived in Dakar around 12:00am today (Friday).

Just outside the Dakar airport Mark rounded up five taxis for our team of 11 and all our luggage. The taxi ride was a "hit the ground running" kind of experience. In other words, SCARY! But God protected us, and we all made it safely to the WEC (Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ) guest house where we spent the night.

Today's adventure will involve taking a 16 hour ferry ride from Dakar to Ziguinchor—our final destination! We'll be staying in a WEC guest house in Ziguinchor for pretty much the entirety of our stay in Senegal. Internet access will be more limited in Ziguinchor, but my goal is to continue blogging when I can. I am keenly aware that I haven't yet explained what we'll be doing in Senegal, so look for more info on that in my next post.

Thanks again to each and every one of you who have been praying for me or sent me emails/facebook messages to let me know you're thinking of me. I am so grateful for you people!

New Years Update

Happy 2014! So much has happened in the past couple days, but I only have a few minutes to write. If all goes well, Peter and I will be flying from London to Marseille today and meeting up with our team in the airport tomorrow to fly from Marseille to Algiers and from Algiers to Dakar. As long as we stay in the transit area of the airport tonight, we should be okay without a visa (we hope). So there you have it—the quickest of updates.

Thank you for your prayers. Please keep them coming. Peter and I are both weary and pretty anxious about how things will pan out. Please pray that God would give us strength and faith. Please pray that we would be able to stay in the transit area with no problems. I'll try to keep you posted in the coming days!