Burkina Faso Week 5

Greetings from Burkina Faso!

After a LONG twenty-hour bus ride, we finally made it to Burkina with slight exhaustion but great excitement about what we would experience here, and a great week it has been!  Burkina met us with a few challenges but great rewards as well =)

We kicked off our time here teaching Bible Overview at a nearby church!  Bible Overview consists of nine steps starting with Creation going all the way to the Second Coming.  David and I broke it into three parts, I took the first three, he took four through six and I finished off the last three since he’d be preaching on Sunday.  

I was a little nervous to teach Thursday night as this was going to be my first time teaching bible overview in an African church.  Up until this point my experience with bible overview was in a practice setting but this time it was for real!  Upon arrival the electricity went out which meant I was pretty much going to have to teach in the dark.  It was one of those times when I just had to surrender it all to God and pray that his message would be delivered despite the circumstances.  I got up to teach and greeted the church and instantly felt comfortable and welcomed, saying, ‘Although I can’t actually see your faces right now, I can feel the love’ =P.  Things proved to be challenging, teaching with lots of illustrations and me not being able to see my notes very well but overall everyone really enjoyed it and learned a lot and I learned a few things myself, like the need to memorize my notes more and to find other ways to present if people can’t actually see what you’re talking about! 

We finished teaching bible overview on Saturday and then David went to preach on Sunday where he too faced his own challenge.  He was already feeling tired and as though his voice was going to give out and then five minutes before he was going to preach a HUGE thunderstorm came and it started POURING!  The church we were at had a tin roof and no speakers so he too found himself having to just surrender it all to God and was thankful that if anything, it was Gerard who had to raise his voice since he was the one who was translating.  But just as before, God provided him with the strength he needed and he did really well!  The church was really touched by his message on living a life of worship and afterward a woman came forward to give her life to the Lord!  

Burkina Team going to church in style with matching team outfits, oh yeah! 

So all in all the teachings went really well this week!  In other news, we finally got to meet Gerard’s stunning fiancé!  It was so nice to finally meet the woman who has captured Gerard’s heart and we look forward to getting to know her more.  Gerard insists that David and I come to his wedding this November and says that if we don’t he’s going to take us hostage =P  Don’t worry mom, he’s just kidding, I’ll be coming home soon =) 

There’s also a super adorable two year old on base whose name is Elda.  She has become my new best friend and brings so much joy to each day.  She is also my new language exchange partner!  If you don’t already know this, toddlers are the perfect people to learn a new language from as their vocabulary is very simple and to the point so I’ve been having fun trying to learn French from her and have been teaching her some English too!    

Gonna meet up with our other Burkina Faso team from Togo this week to teach Bible Overview again with them at another church, looking forward to it =)

Prayer points:

- Rest for David, he unfortunately has a cold right now and is trying to recover, please pray that he’ll get better soon and be able to finish outreach strong and enjoy the rest of his time here in west Africa.

- Gerard continues to prepare for his wedding and is in the process of finding a home for him and his fiancé, please pray for provision for those things as well as continued strength and joy as he serves.

- Me:  Overall I’m doing okay, I think the greatest challenge since coming to Burkina has been the fact that I’m an extrovert and I’m the only English speaking girl around so I’ve been missing having girl time.  I am so thankful for the girl friends that I had in Togo for the first half of outreach and Gerard and David’s continued compassion as well as my new friendship with Elda and God of course, but yeah, if you could pray that I’d also hang in there and finish strong that’d be great =)

Thank you so much for all of your love and support!  I can’t believe that in just a little over two weeks I’ll not only be finished with outreach but leaving Africa all together!  It’s been an amazing year and it’s not over yet, hoping to make the most of every last bit of it =)  Much love to you all! 

Leslie

Togo Week 4

Hi Everyone!

We are happy to say that Titus Project has officially been established here in Togo and with great success too!  We came not knowing what to expect and not knowing how things would go but everything exceeded our expectations and we pray that it will continue to grow.

It’s been a busy last few days of making sure all things were completed before sending the teams off for outreach but all was done with great success as God miraculously provided for each team and everyone pretty much got to go where they wanted.    

The Togo team immediately started outreach the day after we finished, we sent the Ghana/Nigeria team off yesterday morning, the Ivory Coast team left today, and the Benin and Burkina Faso teams will be leaving tomorrow, including David and I, bright and early at 5:00 am for a twenty hour bus ride to Burkina, woohoo!  Thankfully Jonah gave me ‘The Hobbit’ to read during outreach so I should be set with entertainment and I have cookies and apples to keep my stomach happy too =) 

Although I am sad to be saying goodbye to all of the dear friends that I’ve made here I’m excited for the new adventures that lie ahead and heard that there will be more meat in Burkina too!  If you don’t know already, food is something that easily helps to turn my frown upside down =)  Not to say that any amount of meat will replace my friends here but rather it will help me to cope with the transition =) 

We’ve finally reached the half way mark in our outreach with only three and a half weeks left to go, I can’t believe it’s almost over!  This is where I’ve been challenged to continue to remain in the present and finish strong.  It can be easy to get carried away with thoughts of what the future holds, especially with Jonah, but I know that God wants to continue to use me during my time here and so I look forward to giving it my all in our next location. 

I’m not quite sure of what God has in store for us in Burkina other than meat but if it’s anything like here then I look forward to building more relationships with the people, joyfully serving them inside and outside of God’s Word and continuing to learn more about God and the beautiful people of West Africa. 

That’s all for now, I hope this update finds all of you well, thank you so much again for all of your prayers and support! 

Leslie 

Togo Week 3

Hi Everyone!

Just finished our second week of Titus Project here in Togo!  Only one more week and then we’ll be sending our fellow bible teachers off to go teach others in Togo, Benin, Ghana/Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso and then we’ll be heading off to Burkina ourselves.  It’s been such a joy to train and equip them and to see them grow as they’ve now had two practice teachings of the Inductive Method and the book of Philemon.  

Highlights from this week:

- I had the privilege of preaching at our Thursday night gathering on base where I preached on the topic of forgiveness as this is something that I’ve been dealing with lately.  It seemed as though there were a lot of people in the audience that were also dealing with un-forgiveness who were really blessed by the message and I was thankful that God used me and the situation that I was facing to be able to challenge and encourage them to also forgive.  And apparently it not only reached the adults but the kids too!  Our base leader came up and told me later on that his five-year-old son actually went up to his mom and told her that he was angry for something that she did, that she hurt him but that he wanted to forgive her.  A five year old actually got the message of forgiveness!!!  How cool is that?  You never know who God’s going to speak to through your sermon.  As I’ve been here I realize that God’s given me a gift in teaching and preaching and that I ought to be a good steward of this gift and continue to use it for His glory.  It’s little things like this that encourage me, not only in the fact that I enjoy it but that God’s actually using me to help transform other people’s lives too!

- Got to experience my first African wedding!  Love was in the air all week as everyone was preparing for the big day.  We had a little bachelorette party on Wednesday for the bride, which was exactly what I needed, as most of the people in our school are men so I really appreciated the extra fun girl time this week =)

- Had 13 of our students join us for a teaching and sleepover at a church in town last night.  My teammate David not only taught at a church for the first time but did it all in French too!  He totally rocked it and I was very proud of him.  

- And to top it all off, after three weeks of eating lots of dishes made of yams and corn and rice, we treated ourselves to some yummy cheeseburgers in town today! 

It’s our last week with the students before we all head off to our different outreach locations.  It’s been a blessing to be able to spend time here in Togo as I’ve fallen in love with the beautiful people and surroundings.  Gonna make the most of the last few days we have left =) 

Til next time, Au Revoir \(^_^)/ 

Togo Week 2

Bonjour à ma famille et à tous mes amis!  (Hello family and friends!)  Comment ça va? (How are you?)  All is well here in Noepe, Togo, here’s a little update from week 2 =) 

We had our first week of Titus Project here at YWAM Noepe in Togo and a great week it was!  We have a full class of 18 bible teachers from 9 different nations, some of whom are already leaders of schools within YWAM and one of them is actually going to take what he’s learned here and pioneer another Titus Project at his YWAM base in Cameroon next year!  Yay for bible training schools being spread throughout West Africa \(^o^)/. 

I’m not gonna lie, I was a little intimidated at first to be teaching a group of mostly older men as a young woman who just finished SBS, especially since some of them had already had years of staffing SBS.  I thought, ‘Who am I to teach them?  They’ve already been teaching for years and here I am teaching them how to do things?’  But the intimidation quickly faded and was replaced with confidence and excitement as I saw their friendly faces and eagerness to learn.  I had the privilege of teaching on ‘The Heart of a Teacher, How to Present a Teaching, and How to Give and Receive Feedback’ this week. 

As I reflected on the heart of a teacher, I was reminded that I’m not here for personal growth in order to better my teaching skills but rather so I can help to equip others with tools so that they can grow as teachers and bring transformation to others.  Having this mindset has helped to take the pressure off of teaching and to make it more enjoyable as I serve God in this season. 

My French is still quite limited but I’ve been making progress each day and am thankful that gestures can go a long way too =)  Here are a few more sentences that I’ve learned!

1. Where is the toilet? (Où est la toilette?0

2. I don’t like ants because they bite me.  (Je n’aime pas les fourmis car ils me piquent)

3. This food looks delicious!  (Cette nourriture à l’air delicieuse!)

Highlights of this week:

- ‘Spicy’ African worship on base and at church

- Got to try some Fufu which is a native dish to Togo made up of mashed yams paired with a spicy soup, I wanted to try the one with the large mysterious rodent (still not sure what it was) but it was too expensive so I had chicken instead =P 

- Got to ride a moto taxi in town today!  It was so fun riding through the streets and corn field with the wind blowing in my hair =) 

- Was sad to say bye to some of the outreach teams that left but was excited to welcome new people, once again thankful for the many friends that I’ve been able to make here =)

Okie dokie, that’s all for now!  The ‘students’ start teaching this week, looking forward to seeing them grow.

I love you all!  Sorry for the lack of pictures, due to the internet connection I can’t post much but will definitely post them after outreach =) 

Bye for now! Au revoir!