Friday, July 3, 2009

one month...

...It's bee a whole month since I got off the plane and almost fell down the stairs from the heat wave. I can't begin to count how many times my teammates and I have said CAN YOU BELIEVE WE HAVE BEEN HERE A WHOLE MONTH?? This has been the craziest month of my life...it's been hard, extremely hard, happy, sad, really sad, scary, loud, dirty, smelly, and beautiful. I love everything about this place, the food, the people, the language, and even the environment. The people in our village crave LOVE. They don't even have a word for love in their language so they have taken the English word for love because they crave it so much. You can see it in the children when no matter how many times you tell them to get out because your going to sleep or eat or take a bucket bath or anything...they just keep coming back. And you see it in the women who stare at you when you just sit with them, you don't even have to say a word, the fact that you would give them your time is all they want. You can see the craving for LOVE in every single person in our village in one way or another. My biggest prayer is that yes we are giving them love but I hope they know it's coming from Jesus and not from us. I hope that when we leave this place in one month the seek Jesus and don't just miss the two white girls who lived with them one summer.

A typical day for Balkissa (my African name) and Jamilia (my partner Hailey's African name) goes something like this: WE wake up around 7 am and go for a 3 mile walk up to the next village and down the main road. We just spend this time praying for our village, our team, our families back home, and asking God to send more people here to minister to these people. We usually get proposed to at least twice during this walk...the men here are crazy. They just want to go to America so bad (they think its full of money and beautiful women). haha Then we walk back and have some Jesus time during breakfast, then we head out for the day. We just start walking and let God lead us to the compounds that want to hear His word. Then when we get to a compound (usually 3-5 houses) we come in and greet the women (they are always sitting in the middle cooking and chatting with each other) and they usually ask if they can hear the preaching on our radio. So we get the radio out and play a 20-30 minute story of the Bible in their language then we ask them if we can pray for them. They always want us to pray for them and usually just walking through the village they stop us and ask us to pray for health, or blessings, or just for money. Then we give them a cassette with Bible stories on it. We have only had 2 women,out of the at least 60 we have played it for, get up and leave. They are all so hungry for something more here. They know we have joy and LIGHT and they seek that its awesome because they are so willing to listen to God's word. Then after we go to three compounds we go back to the house and have lunch and take a nap. Then we go prayer walking up to Zango (the village in front of ours) and we get Laban, this cold liquid yogurt stuff, yes it sounds nasty but its cold and anything cold here is GOOD! Or we get farimasas, a fried bread with sugar on it, also amazing! Then we go back down to the village and we go greet people. We just visit with anyone who invited us into their compound. Then around 7 we come back get our tents and cots out and then we watch Barbara (the French soap opera)! So of course we go sit with all the women and watch them watch it because they are so funny. They are yelling and screaming at the tv. Then Faati brings us dinner, we eat and then go to bed. We are usually asleep by 9 every night. Good sleep is hard to get in our village, we have the tv on, a party house behind us that plays music all hours of the night, a million animals, and some guys that hang out outside our compound that play music and chat. Then we get woken up to the Muslim prayer around 4am every day.

All throughout the day we have at least 5-10 children around us. They always want to hold our hands and carry anything we are carrying. They are so sweet but seriously crazy. They have no rules, and clothes are optional. The only time the adults really talk to the children is to tell them to do something or beat them for doing something they shouldn't. One of my favorite little girls is Nana (around 9 years old) this cute little girl is crazy but she just wants to be loved. Then we have little Charifa (7 years old) she sweeps our yard every day. We asked her why she changes her clothes 10 times a day (in a place where most kids don't wear clothes) she said because she showers 10 times a day, when asked why she said cause im dirty. haha Then we have 6 little boys in our compound ages 1-5 who are hilarious. They used to be scared of white people now we can't get them out of our house. Every morning we wake up to Jabiri (4 years old) standing in our yard just waiting for us to greet him. He is really sick (something is wrong with his ear) so we feel bad and we share our meals and stuff with him. These are just a few of my favorite kids in the village but there are seriously at least 20 between my compound and the next that are ALWAYS in our house and walking around us. There are a bunch of women who we have built relationships with. They are all so funny...they love asking us questions about America and they love when we give them American names.

Hailey and I made a list of things we want to accomplish while out in the bush, so far we have done pretty good:
1. ride a bush taxi (we did this to go visit our teammates village)
2. cook over a fire like the Africans (I got to help someone, but were still working on it)
3. carry water on our heads (we do this all the time and they laugh so hard)
4. ride a donkey cart (it was a cow cart but it still counts)
5. go to the river of death (we did!)
6. ride a boat across the river and not fall in (it was a close call the boat was filling with water the whole time and I got splashed on the back and the hand but we made it across and back) I don’t know if I mentioned why the river is bad but let me repeat: if you go in you will get fungus on your body, you will most likely pee blood, and you will get an infection that has caused people to become paralyzed or die…of course the Africans live in this river haha
7. poop in the bush, the rest of our team does, we are lucky and have a poop hole, I’m not really sure I want to do this one but its on the list
8. catch a baby goat, there are so many goats and chickens everywhere (a kid caught two for us and we got to hold them)
9. catch a lizard (the kids caught it and ties a leash around it and tied it to our fence, we named it Poppy and we let it go as soon as the kids left) haha
10. drink the tea, only the men drink it so you have to be asked to sit and usually its not a good idea because it sets a bad impression (but we have had it twice now…we were playing the Jesus tapes while we drank it if that makes it better) haha
11. try all the foods we can find (we have tried everything you can buy in Zango and anything the village people offer us as long as its hot…that way the diseases are most likely dead)
12. get henna, here they do it all the way up the leg and all over your hand and up your arm (I got it on my hands and feet, Hailey got it on her feet, its really cool but I feel like my hands are always dirty so I have been scrubbing it off) haha
….we are still adding to the list because we have done almost everything on it so far

This is America weekend….yesterday when they picked us up we took this hour long drive on the worst road I have ever experienced, literally we were flying out of the seats and hitting our heads on the ceiling it was so bumpy and there are definitely only seat belts for the drivers in this country haha) then we got to this place and this little African man crawled up on top of our luggage and used a millet stalk to point which way to go. So we just drove and all the sudden we sad 14 wild giraffes. They were so beautiful, we got out and walked really quietly and took pictures with them. We couldn't get super close because they are scared of us but we were really close. Then we drove a little more and found 11 more, this group was a family and they had babies. Then we came back to Niamey, went to the US Embassy and had lunch, watched the News (Michael Jackson died…which we already knew thanks to mom calling and telling me but we were all quite upset. We had our own little memorial with Dani doing the Thriller dance. It’s like double shock finding out anything about America out in Niger…I guess sometimes we forget life goes on without us there.) Then we went swimming…the pool felt so amazing but our bodies are getting used to the heat so it was kinda cold for us…haha Today we are having a 4th of July celebration, this means a cookout at the Zerma team leaders house, I’m really hoping we will have fireworks. We are so lucky the journeymen, Brandy & Kanessa, are so amazing. They take such good care of us and I just love them. They always plan really fun things for us to do and they always make sure we are okay and take care of anything we need. I can’t even describe how amazing they are!

I’m having the most amazing time here. Every day gets a little closer to coming home and seeing my friends and family who I really do miss but it also means one day closer to having to tell my friends and family here goodbye…maybe forever. It’s really sad to think we may never see these people again, they have become family to us.

Please continue to pray for me. I am starting to get comfortable and in a routine and sometimes when I do that I don’t rely on God as much as I should and I never want to be anything but completely focused on Him. Please pray for our team, we had some illnesses last week, Cody and I had bladder/urinary tract infections, Dani and Kanessa had some weird stomach issues, and Tori has been fighting a cold for awhile now. Just pray that God will give us strength to always be able to give 110% to our ministry out here. Also just pray for the Zerma people, they are Muslim, but they know that they are missing something and they are willing to find that thing they just need a lot of help. Just pray that they will always know that the reason we are different is not because we are white and from America but beacuse we have Jesus. Also a man in Cody's village got saved last week so please keep him in your prayers, that is a very difficult decision to stick to here because the culture is so very Muslim.

I miss you all so much!! I have already filled a whole journal with stories about life out here so I can’t wait to come home and tell everyone about it!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Lauren! Sounds like you are having an amazing time. Thanks for the update. I will continue to pray for you and hope to see you in Lynchburg soon.

    Love,
    Joyce Simmons

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  2. Hi, Granddaughter, sounds like a real experience and you are doing well. derrick was with us the other day and we talked that we should have sent you a bag with " fireballs " in it. figure it is too late now. Love you and can't wait to hear your stories. We love and miss you.

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