Kongoussi- Operation Christmas Child!

I don’t even know where to begin about my week in Kongoussi! As I talked about in a few of my update letters, I was able to spend time with the Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child (OCC) for one week. I have filled Christmas boxes for kids through this program (if you don’t know about it, be sure to check it out http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/index/) for a long time not only with my church and family, but also at Hope College for all four years. I asked Ruth when I arrived if OCC came to Burkina and she said yes, and knew the pastor who runs it! She emailed him for information, and in the meantime, heard from a friend who knew a group coming to Burkina to distribute boxes. We were able to connect with them and I got permission to be a part of the team! Brittany arrived in January, and we asked if she’d be interested in going as well (so they said she could!).

So we joined up with the group from eastern United States in Kongoussi, Burkina Faso. We stayed at a “hotel” which Brittany were very impressed with (had electricity and running water 24/7- minus a bunch of power outages which we are used to-, our own beds, and even a fan!), while the US team was a little less used to the quality of service and the bugs all over ;) … We spent the week distributing around 21,000 boxes to children in the surrounding areas of Kongoussi. 21,000 boxes!!! This is just a small portion of the 7,967,000 boxes that were donated this year from people in the US and Canada, and a few European countries. We handed out 4-5000 boxes each day. It was quite a process! The teachers of the different schools of the children would organize their class and give them a booklet with the story of Jesus. They would then line the kids up in front of desks that we sat at, and then we’d sing a bit and give a short message. Then the craziness would commence. The kids (in sort of lines) would come up to our table, we’d sign the booklet with a mark, then pass them through to give them a box and rush them out so the next could come through. The problem was that many kids would think there weren’t enough, so more than one line would push their way up to the table and try to get through. We also had some kids that would try to come through the lines more than once to get a box for their siblings or friends (which of course we had to refuse as there are only an allotted amount of boxes), so we had to start making our marks REAL big because they got creative on trying to make our marks on their books disappear (those great crayons that people give were used to color over the mark :) ) … After the boxes are handed out, we were able to mingle a bit with the kids as they sat and talked and some opened boxes. Sadly we didn’t get to see as many open boxes as we had thought, as there was an issue with people trying to steal them or take items from inside on the way home or to their schools. Many kids waited to open the boxes until they were in the safety of their own homes.

The truck with boxes on the way to the distribution- only ONE day's worth of boxes

Carrying the huge boxes of boxes
Signing booklets so the kids could get their box

As crazy as the process sounds, I was actually very impressed by it and the orderliness of everything. The Burkinabe do not have the same idea of lining up the way North Americans are taught from age one. Don’t push, don’t cut in line, stand quietly- all very different here. So the fact that the kids were all lined up fairly orderly was really great! I was also very impressed by the Burkinabe team that works for OCC. I didn’t realize until I was with the group from the States, that it is actually very rare for a team to come and do distributions for OCC. Many times the groups that come are directly from admin of Samaritan’s Purse, or in the case of the team we were with, have been volunteering with OCC for a long time. From what it sounds like though, each country that the boxes are distributed in have a team of people from their country that organize and basically do everything! So great because I think it is very important for ministries to be eventually handed over to passionate nationals who want to impact their country. So there was a great team of Burkinabe that organize and do just about everything for the distribution (as well as a pastor and his wife from Ghana who lives in Burkina and is the head of OCC for the country). So the great part was that even though we were there to help, the Burkinabe had a great process and everything basically worked out so we could just hand out boxes and interact.

We sang a song with the kids at distributions- it talks about lots of different problems we can have in life, and the chorus is "Il y a de l'espoir pour toi" (there is hope for you)

Besides the full days of distributions, there were three nights of “outreach” for the community. There is a missionary here in Burkina with a great team of Burkinabe who do evangelism in the villages- they work with OCC for the outreach nights, which was great! They have different dramas and puppet skits they do- all in the heart language of the children (in our case for Kongoussi, Moore). They also have a great video about the life of Jesus that is in French (and translated to Moore for them). The first outreach night we used all of the drama and skits (we even participated in one!) and then watched the videos. The other two nights we had a later start, so just watched the video. It was surprising to me how every single time, we would arrive to an empty field and as soon as we started setting up, getting music going, etc, we would end up with over 1000 people. It was also interesting to be watching the video with people who have never heard the specifics about Jesus- often hearing gasps and comments about the things shown in the video as though they had never heard it before. The last night was absolutely incredible- Brittany and I stood in back and watched as- in the dark with no electricity- we saw light after light appear in the hills surrounding us. No less than 7 lights at any given time, and at least 2 people walked with each light. They just kept coming! It was indescribable.
Beautiful Children!
A few great stories--- A Muslim man came up to us in the first day. He said that he had been at the distribution and had decided to become a Christian. He had been a Muslim for all of his life (he was maybe 50-60 yrs old) and his family is Muslim as well. He said that he was so touched by what we were doing there, and could see that Jesus was indeed still alive and working in our world. He said that he has not seen the Muslims doing things like this and helping their own people, and he said that he could see the truth in the message we presented. He prayed with us and gave his life to the Lord! He was so excited and we could just see joy flowing out of him. We connected him with a local pastor who will follow up with him, and he said he was going to go home and tell his whole family. The interesting part to me, was that I never saw him with a child- meaning he must have just heard about what we were doing and stopped by to see what it was all about. It was incredible to me to think that even though we were bringing gifts for the children, we were possibly even touching the lives of the adults as well. We had two men visit us at dinner (everyone in Kongoussi knew where the big group of white people were) and told us that they could see the difference in the children they work with- a joy and excitement and just a hope that they had after receiving the box. The men said that it deeply affected them as well and they were very grateful for the gifts. We also saw it affecting little family villages and compounds, when we saw one in particular with kids sitting around and playing with their new toys (legos!) in the middle of a very simple and (by our standards) poor courtyard. To see the smiles on the childrens’ faces… Another interesting thing was how often we felt as though Satan didn’t want us going to the places and giving the children the gifts- spiritual warfare going on! We had two times where we got stuck in the sand and thought we wouldn’t make it to the distribution and a couple of other times where we thought we had a flat tire (and then the car with the Burkinabe team got a flat tire). A number of people from the team had a few days of being sick and not feeling well including one who, out of nowhere, lost her voice and couldn’t speak with the children in the same way. The last night’s outreach the video stopped working a number of times and people started getting antsy. Yet God worked through these things! One awesome way we saw this was that at this last outreach, MANY people responded to the message despite the problems with the videos (at the very important parts of the video, I might add). Another great point was when we almost ran out of gas, so had to stop and wait for the team in another car to get us some. When they arrived, their car stopped working for some reason. We sat for probably 30-60 min and out of nowhere, kids just started running towards us. We ended up with a group of about 30 kids, so got out of the bus and played with them with tennis balls and gave them other various little toys. They were so happy and we were able to talk to them a little about Christ’s love for them. I got some great videos of them singing their national anthem for us and just their huge smiles! God’s power is greater than any other!


The Muslim man who accepted Christ!

A funny sort of unexpected role Brittany and I had were translating for the children. All of the letters from people who had packed the boxes were in English, so the kids could not understand what they said. They would find us after opening their box (even sometimes at our meals at the local restaurant we ate at) and ask for us to translate the letters. Brittany and I were some of the only ones who could do this, so it was kind of neat to be able to help. I can’t say I did an incredible job of it, but it’s better than nothing I guess.

The team from the States was really great! Very friendly and welcoming, and even brought three rubbermaids full of gifts for the orphanage. A generous group that definitely loves the Lord! It was a GREAT week filled with tons of experiences and memories I will not forget (did I mention it was 110-115* the whole week?!). An awesome chance to see the other side of what I participated in in the States!