New Website!

Our website has been updated! It can be found at the same address (www.sheltering-wings.org) but has a new look and organization! Be sure to check it out and let us know if you have any questions.

A servant for Him,

~Liz

Food in Burkina…

WARNING- not for the weak of stomach :)

So many of you have asked what kinds of foods I eat here in Burkina. Up until today (1/28) I would have said nothing too out of the ordinary. There are some different kinds of foods I’ve tried, but here at the orphanage Ruth, Brittany, and I usually cook things that we’re fairly used to. It of course tastes a little different from home, but overall it has been fairly “normal.”
The main food that everyone eats here is “To.” Our kids eat it for almost every lunch and dinner, and in the villages, it is the main food. The base is a sort of cream of wheat only much firmer. It’s made out of the grain Millet. The sauce varies, but the common one is a very interesting stringy green sauce primarily made of orcre. For our kids, we try to put tomatoes, onions, peanuts, chicken bouillion, dried fish, etc to add more nutrients. I HAVE tried this creation, but have to say that it is NOT my favorite food. The texture is what gets me I think.

The millet/corn part of To

Some of my favorite African foods that I’ve eaten are Benga, Riz gras, Ingham, Arachides avec Sucre, and Bissap. Benga is a beans and rice creation, very yummy. Riz gras- they do a lot of rice and rice and sauce meals. The main one are riz gras and rice with sauce (peanut sauce or a tomatoey sauce). I especially like Riz Gras because the sauce is sort of mixed in and absorbed by the rice. Mmm… Ingham is a sort of starchy potato. I’ve had it in a tomato sauce which is really good. Arachides avec sucre- sugared peanuts, simple, cheap, and YUMMY! I got a lesson on making them and it’s easy! And finally, Bissap. It’s a purple drink- best frozen- that they make out of the leaves of a tree. Sometimes they add ginger sometimes other random things. The Burkinabe especially like to drink it for holiday meals, though you can find it being sold on the street in most places.

Here at the orphanage, we eat a lot of rice and lentils. We don’t have a lot of access to meat (here in Yako, we never really know when it’s killed so is not so safe to eat), and fruits are very hard to come by (really difficult for me!). You can buy veggies, but it just depends on the season for what’s available out in Yako. We try to be creative with what we’re cooking, and it helps that Ruth has accumulated lots of spices and soup type of mixes to use with things.

So that’s the simple version of what I eat.

Now the interesting part… Monday night we saw a big group of our kids gathered in the back of the courtyard. We wondered what in the world they were doing, and thought they had maybe snuck in an animal to try to raise or something similar. Brittany and I went to check it out and found that they had killed one of our sheep who was sick. Wow. So Brittany and I watched as they were cleaning out and sorting what parts they were going to eat. We soon found that they eat almost everything! Why waste? We watched as they emptied the stomach. GROSS! They were pretty impressed though, that we wanted to stay and watch (a few days before, we wanted to watch them kill a chicken, but they told us we wouldn’t like to see it). We asked if we could eat with them, and very surprised, they answered “of course!”

Sooo yesterday, they saved us a bowl of the “soup” they made with big pieces of sheep in it. Very yummy! We asked where all the other parts were though- especially the head. They had told us they eat the parts of the head, and were saving it for last.

This morning, one of our boys, Ascension, caught me at 6:30am when I went out to run and told me to come over and eat the head after running. Mmm… Breakfast! After I ran, I got Brittany, and we nervously went out to find a bowl full of … Well, parts of the head. Ascension showed us the brain, and nervously Britt and I took a small piece to eat. Not an awful flavor, but the idea of eating a brain made us a little nauseous- I thought Brittany was going to throw up at one point! :) Then came the eyes… *HEY, you asked what I eat! Sorry if it’s too much detail!* Ascension just popped one in his mouth and ate it. Wow… I took a tiny bite- I won’t give you more details about it unless you ask, but it was definitely interesting. Finally, the tongue. I actually really liked the taste- it was much more like a meat than the other things. I think Ascension was happy to show the white girls how to eat the head, and probably knew that we’d only get a few bites in so he’d have to finish it. It really is a delicacy here! What an honor that they saved it for us to try :)

So now, not only can I say I ate sheep- and many parts of it- but I can say I ate these very interesting parts for breakfast. Mmm. Bon appetite!

A servant for Him,
~Liz

Me with Goat Soup

Confusion about what parts we were eating- Ascension laughed the whole time

Playing with my food- sorry Mom!

Before eating a bite of the eye- my stomach wasn't smiling

Me with the tongue and Ascension, laughing again, with the jaw

Random photos!

Here are just some random photos of life here in Burkina... Enjoy :)

Typical village- mosques everywhere as well

On the road in the bush

My first African wedding- it was a surprise to see smiles on their faces because for weddings here the bride and groom are not allowed to smile. It is after all, the most serious decision of their lives!

Traditional dancing done at a party for the Chef of Yako for the New Year

A young girl on the street in Yako

Two of our toddlers- Ibrahim and Joseph- who are quite characters

Me and one of our girls, Barkewende (in Moore means "thank you God")

Our toddler, Tebnomah

One of my favorites- one of our boys, Aristide, and baby Deborah. The kids are all so good with the babies!!

More thank you's!!!

Thank you to Mrs. Hunter at Manistee Middle School for the globe for our primary school here at Sheltering Wings, as well as the generous donation from the Adventure Learning at MMS!!

Thank you to the Smith family and the Nyitray family for your donation of pens for our school!

(both pictures are with our school headmaster, Innocent)

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

Busy weeks full of blessings

There are so many things I need to update you on! Things are going really well here. I’m really getting into a schedule and getting busy! I have started teaching my English class. With school being cancelled for a week because of conflict that was supposed to happen (but didn’t) and now Christmas break, I have only had two classes so far. It goes fairly well though- all of you know that I am not a teacher, but because it’s VERY basic English I am doing alright! :) If you have any creative ways to present animals, numbers, colors, etc. etc. in English, I’m always open to suggestions… I’ve also been doing at least two nights a week of English help for our older kids. I was a little nervous about this because their French is very good and their English classes learn a lot of grammatical stuff (imperfect simple blah blah). BUT this has really become one of the things I enjoy most. Most of the time, if they have homework questions we start with that, but then we just practice conversation for the rest of the time. Usually they ask me lots of questions about the States, my life, what I think of Africa, etc, and I talk with them about it all. I actually, believe it or not, have trouble now talking to them in English for the help sessions and find myself slipping into French especially when they do not really understand the English phrase. It's sometimes difficult for me to just speak in English with them…

Which brings me to the next praise! My French is REALLY coming along! I know for sure that this can ONLY be of God’s blessing because it really just happened all of a sudden, where I was understanding a lot more, and soon after, speaking more! I know it is not by my doing that I am learning so much. I’ve had a lot more opportunities to speak with the kids and workers, and have been getting French help (mostly just a little vocab) with one of our primary school teachers. Learning the language and being able to communicate is really SO huge and really can be what makes you feel more at home in another culture.

One specific story of praise for that… I have been praying that God can just help me even to witness to one person here- that I’ll have the words I need at the time I need them, especially with it being in French. I had this conversation recently!! One of our boys recently accepted Christ (more on that later) and a few days later, we had a really great, LONG conversation all in French about many different things. At the end of it, we talked a lot about faith and I shared a few things with him about the Christian walk. I was so excited and surprised after the conversation, to walk in the house and realize that the entire conversation (minus a few words in English when I didn’t know the French) was in FRENCH! And I was able to really express what I was thinking. Wow. That was awesome.

Other news... The long-awaited well was dug at our orphanage and the pump was installed! We are now only using the city water for the guesthouse where Ruth and I live. This is an incredible blessing, as a group tried on two different occasions to dig the well- the problem was not that we didn’t have water (they said they saw more water here than in most areas of Burkina!) but that it was very deep. Finally another group was able to get deep enough and install a hand-pump for us. We hope to run pipes to every corner of the courtyard and have a tank installed for the water someday soon as well.

We also have a new baby! Her name is Nafisiatou and she came to us about two weeks ago and is now about four weeks old. Her mother died because of complications with childbirth, so Nafisiatou will be staying with us for the first year of her life, and then her father and/or someone else in the family will come to bring her back to her village to integrate into her family.
Other very exciting news! A group from the States came for a very short overnight visit while working in another area of Burkina, and participated in our Tuesday night family prayer at the orphanage. They asked to help and give the message at the prayer night and of course the kids said yes. They shared a little bit about our need for Christ and what it means to have a relationship with him. They asked if anyone was interested in doing this at the end (praise God, almost ALL of our children are Christians!) and Ascension, an 18 year old at our orphanage accepted Christ in his life! Ruth has been praying for him for a number of years, and God has been working on his heart. About one week later, we had a party for our sponsorship program and orphanage, and our 8 year old, Thérèse, accepted Christ as well! As Ruth has said, we are rejoicing with the angels in Heaven!! Please keep these children in your prayers though, as we have already seen some very real spiritual attacks against their new Christian hearts. Pray that we can support them and help lead them in their new walk of faith.

Ascension and Therese

Speaking of our party, we’ve also had a lot going on with our sponsorship program. We recently had two full days of distributions for the sponsored children. At each distribution we give a bag of grain to each child as well as a couple bars of the soap we make. An area pastor gives a short message, and we sing a little as well. These distributions happen quarterly for our 150 sponsored children, as well as one or two monitors in each area meeting with the children once a week to make sure things are going well. If you’re interested in learning more about the sponsorship program, be sure to check out our website (http://www.sheltering-wings.org/) – I’m hoping to “feature” a child in a blog every so often that is in need of a sponsor, so please pray about sponsoring one of our children in need. Only $25 a month pays for the child’s education, some school clothes and supplies, and helps with food throughout the year.

Our first distribution in December and Kids playing at the sponsorship program Christmas party

So we had the very busy distributions (I was the official photographer of the children) and then our Christmas party as well. Busy!! We also recently had a Christmas party for the teachers at our school. Wow this was a fun (and funny) experience. They requested hamburgers for dinner (only one of the 8 had ever eaten one). So, for our Christmas dinner with them, we had hamburgers and fries. Ruth and I demonstrated the different ways of enhancing your burger (ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo) and then had to teach a few how to open the little ketchup packets that Ruth had. How funny to see some cutting their hamburgers into little pieces, trying to eat with a fork and knife (which they rarely use in daily life), and trying to keep the different toppings on the burger. They watched every move Ruth and I made- I bet how they feel when I try to figure out the cultural norms. We had yummy cookies and brownies that Ruth and I made- the women all asked for a lesson in baking. We then played a few games- ones we’d normally play with kids, but they went over really well! :) We played “Hot potato” with tennis balls and Christmas music, and were surprised by how competitive they got! Also played “Never have I ever” – one thing that one of the women said they had never done was to climb down a well- the men all had done this!

So, that sums up some of the major things going on here! I leave for Bobo tomorrow, so hopefully will have a great update for you when I return! I hope you have a wonderful New Year celebration!! Blessings,

A servant for Him,

~Liz

Two disclaimers

One, the weather on the side of my blog is often incorrect- so if you see that it's only 60 or 70 (especially during the day) don't believe it :) It's hot! See previous entry about what the temp has been like at night recently tho :)


Two, sorry for the format of the blog- I try and try to make it right, but it often just messes around with the spacing and placement of everything. It drives me nuts!

Thanks for your patience :)