Happy New Year!

As I said in the last blog, our plans changed a bit from traveling to Benin/Togo to traveling to the west side of Burkina Faso for our New Year’s break. So, on the 29th, I headed off with three other short term girls to Banfora and Bobo Dialosso. Kristin and Christine are from Canada and Maria is from Germany. Kristin has been here for 5 months working in Ouaga with a music ministry and at an orphanage and will probably stay another few months; Christine arrived in Burkina a few days after I did and is working in Fada as a teacher for a missionary family’s children for 14 months, and Maria has been here for 5 months working in Ouaga with children’s ministries- teaching in two schools, visiting a hospital, etc- and heads back to Germany in May. We had a really incredible time filled with MANY adventures. We learned even more about what it means to be flexible and patient and adapt to what is going on around us. I have a feeling my family and friends will get a bit annoyed with me when I return with this new sense of time ;)

Banfora was absolutely gorgeous- so green!! We had one very full day of visiting three different spots in the outskirts of Banfora. We first went to Tengrela Lake- it is known for its hippos (were lucky enough to have one hippo spotting!). We then spent most of the day at a waterfall climbing, swimming (safe to swim in the moving water!), and eating our African lunch of baguettes with sardines and veggies (which we forgot a knife to cut up :) ) and fruit. Finally, we went to the “Domes” which were absolutely beautiful rock formations. We were able to climb them and look over the incredible green scenery of palm trees and sugar cane fields.

Bobo was more of a city setting (was the previous capital of Burkina Faso) so we toured the city a bit and did a day outside of the city (looking for a lake we never found, but had an awesome village experience instead). We also spent New Year’s in Bobo. We were all a bit tired so were not going to do anything special, but there was a church behind our guesthouse that we ended up going to at about 11pm. I am SO glad that we did because it was an awesome experience. As I sat there singing with everyone, and then at midnight dancing and singing through the church, I realized what an incredible thing it was that I was in Africa celebrating the new year with my African brothers and sisters in Christ! A young girl grabbed my hand as we danced, and I was just overwhelmed by the idea of us being able to celebrate the beginning of a new year in this way.











Hippo!

On Tengrela Lake!

The Waterfall

The Domes

New Year's Eve

Looking for the Lake!

So now I’m back in Ouaga, rested up a bit, and am heading back to Yako tomorrow to get back into things. I really do miss the kids- even after just two weeks! Thank you everyone for your prayers for our trip- we really felt them and knew that God was looking out for us on many occasions!!

I pray you all had a fantastic new year celebration and are now able to begin the year ahead with a renewed vision and excitement! I learned here what it means to truly be thankful for another year- it really is a blessing here to live another year with the life expectancy so low and death rate for babies so high. Another year is quite a thing to celebrate!

A servant for Him,
~Liz