Suggestions for OCC boxes

As I said in my update letter and blog entry on Kongoussi, I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do for the OCC boxes. It's an awesome ministry that can give kids not only simple gifts, but the message of Jesus' love for them! What a powerful example of His love that complete strangers would want to give ME a box!

Here are a few suggestions and things I learned (I'll blog again closer to the time to fill boxes to remind you of these things, as well as when they need to be ready by) Hope it helps!

-They are always short on boy boxes!! Fill some boy boxes! There is also an abundance of boxes for the middle age group. The older ages (10-14) are filled the least- I don’t really know why, but I guess people find them more difficult.

-The plastic Rubbermaid containers are great for packing things in- they can be used by the kids in so many other ways. It’s just real important though to make sure it is a similar size to the shoeboxes used by OCC because they can’t fit as many into the giant cardboard boxes for shipping if the containers are bigger than the normal shoebox size (which increases costs for OCC).

-Even though it’s real fun to do the box VERY boy or VERY girl, it’s also great to do it a bit more unisex too. It’s funny how a stuffed animal means just as much to a boy as a girl, or how “girl and boy” colors are not as true here.

Other great ideas:
-Kleenex packets
-Cross necklaces
-Some hard candy (candy bracelets and necklaces are fun)
-Blow up balls (great if you can find one kind of like a globe!)
-Chapstick-Stuffed animals-Legos (all kids like!)
-Things that say “Jesus loves you(me)”
-School supplies (if pencils, the refillable led kind with refills are great, or at least a sharpener for normal pencils)
-Maybe a small Nalgene type of water bottle if you can fit it with different things stuffed inside (especially in hot places, it’s great for bringing water to school as they of course don’t have the water fountains like our schools)

-Flashlights are really great and useful!
----- Kind of difficult though because I really won’t suggest toys with batteries. It’s a little better if you put a toy in that requires batteries if you put extra batteries in also, but eventually the batteries will run out and they most likely cannot find more (or are expensive).

-I want to say that putting in toys that are very self-explanatory are great, but it’s hard to tell what that means. We might think a slinky is self explanatory, but often the things we think are easy, are not… But still, if you think that a toy might be difficult to explain or understand how it’s used, chances are the child will have no idea how to use it

-A picture and letter are always really exciting. We tried to catch as many of them as we could so that we could translate them and even take a picture to send to the family that sent the box (though very rare for this to happen). Most times the kids can’t write back due to postage and other issues, but it makes it a little more personal. A REALLY great idea was that we saw a letter that someone had written in English, French, and Spanish because of course we don’t know where the boxes will end up.

-It’s interesting how many people still put in liquids, chocolates, army type of toys, and other items that are on the “no” list. They have to take time to take these out of boxes at the distribution centers and try to fill the empty spots with other donated things, so if it says “no,” please try to respect that!

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!

Fespaco

I don’t remember if I talked about SIAO back in December, but every 2 years Burkina Faso has a huge arts festival. Vendors come from all over Burkina, as well as other countries in Africa. I was able to go and even found a few great souvenirs. Also occurring every 2 years (but the opposite two of SIAO) is a film festival called Fespaco. Brittany and I were in Ouaga at the completion of Fespaco just before leaving for Kongoussi. We went to a film two different evenings. One film was a film from South Africa (so in English!) and the other- the winner of Fespaco- was from (not completely sure where) a northern African country. We sat in a cool outdoor theatre and experienced a great breeze under the African stars.

The other great part was that we got to go to the closing ceremony of Fespaco! It was in a huge outdoor stadium in Ouaga. We invited one of our kids from the orphanage to go with us (he goes to university in Ouaga). He was super excited, and with a huge smile, said about four times how this was his first time to the giant stadium and the first time to do anything like this. It really was so cute. And then the ceremony had a great opening with different groups- one reminded me of “STOMP” with drums and people using many common African objects to play music with, another was a sort of marimba type of music group, and the last was an incredible group of French firefighters who did acrobatic things- sounds crazy, I know. It really was crazy to watch, and fun to see the people around us reacting to it as well.

Some dancers on stilts at the ceremony- creepy masks, but crazy to see what they can do!

The "Stomp" group coming in with huge water storage metal bins used at drums and much more

The French acrobatic firefighters... I wonder if they actually fight fires?

Brittany and I with Etienne

The french firefighters

Mahadaga

HI!

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm heading to Mahadaga this morning (6am! Ick!) and will return around the 4/5 of April. Sorry I didn't get a chance to do updates on the Operation Christmas Child week, but I promise, when I return I'll do it right away!!

Please be praying for safe travels and a great two weeks. Blessings,

A servant for Him,
~Liz

Other orphanage news...

A lot has been happening lately here at our orphanage! We had a visit from five high school girls from a small village in France. One of our little boys was adopted by a family in their village a few years ago, so this group of girls was VERY interested in the orphanage and have even done a few fundraisers for us. They were able to make their first visit for these past two weeks. With them, they brought 200 kilos of books for our school and orphanage. They set up a library in the two weeks and came up with a whole system for checking books out. Real cool! They also helped paint a bit around the orphanage as well (lots of red paint everywhere).

Our forage/well system is now complete!! As I think I mentioned in a past blog, the well had been dug and we had a hand pump put in. For the past few months the kids have been building their arm muscles by pumping water all the time. A few weeks ago though, a very kind man, Russ, came in from the USA with a Friends in Action team (they drill wells around Burkina) and decided to spend a week of his time putting in all the pipes to run water throughout our courtyard as well as get the chateau up that has a big tank to hold water and pump it throughout the courtyard. He finished his part and a few days ago the FIA team came to help finish up the job. Sooo we officially have our FREE water that God has abundantly provided beneath the ground of the orphanage and it runs throughout our courtyard. This saves a bundle of money as well as lots of work to bring the water to different areas of the courtyard.

African ingeniousness- trying to figure out how to get the chateau up without a crane. It was heavy!! Ended up using a few metal bins as support and counted to three and all pushed hard. The last bit they had to hook it to the truck and try to pull it (was too heavy so about 15 guys jumped in and weighted the truck down). Crazy and funny to watch.

Finally up! Works great and we're hoping to get a roof on it to keep the water from getting boiling hot in the sun.

Finally, my plans for the next two months… I WILL be able to stay at the orphanage for the time Ruth is gone (March and April)! It’s so amazing how once we finally give something to God and say “Do what you’d like with this,” He will often do what is the desire of our heart. So I’ll be here at the orphanage living with Brittany and our social worker, Adiara, is moving in with us for the time. Brittany and I also head to Kongoussi (Burkina) to do the Operation Christmas Child distribution for a week in March. I’m hoping to visit Mahadaga still in the beginning of April, so I’ll keep you updated on that.

All else is going well here! Thank you so much for your prayers and encouraging emails. Please keep praying though because soon comes the HOT season of 120’s all day and night, so it’s going to be tough. Rainy season starts May/June so just pray I make it to then and then there will be relief :)

Pottytraining Joseph!Me with a few of the younger boys- Ferdinand and Achille

Brittany and I in African garb before church with Therese

A servant for Him,

~Liz

Elephants!

So I finally felt like I was in Africa this past weekend (and maybe after the pictures some of you will believe me too)! In fact, it felt more like a ride at the Animal Kingdom at Disney World at some points, but then I had to remind myself that I was actually seeing real animals. Unfortunately Burkina Faso doesn’t have the great selection of typical “African” animals as many other African countries (I’m jealous of my friend in Kenya), but I guess any animal I see here, really, is African :).

So this past weekend five friends and I went to the Nasinga Park in southern Burkina. It's near Pô which is very close to the border of Ghana. The park is a HUGE plot of land (91,000 hectars) that was started by a Canadian missionary to help Africans in raising animals, but was taken over and is now run by the government. It’s about a four hour drive from Ouagadougou, and Ouaga is about 2 hrs from Yako- a LONG day of travel (both ways). Unfortunately I was a bit sick last week as well (no, it wasn’t from eating goat head, but thank you everyone for your concerns for my health! :) ), but felt much better for the trip thankfully!

So after the three hour drive to the outer gate of the park, we had an hour drive into our campsite on really rough roads. We had our first tour the night we got in and were sad to not see elephants. Our guide explained that it’s better viewing in the morning though. We did see baboons, TONS of antelope, a gazelle (tiny! I thought they were big), some big birds, and warthogs. For the evening we had a meal of antelope- the catch of the day. Because my stomach was a still a little icky I couldn’t eat much, but I thought it tasted good! (Brittany and I were the only ones who liked it). It kind of tasted like one of Mom’s roasts. We slept in little “huts” and they only had electricity from 6-10pm. Needless to say it’s a bit hot to sleep without a fan in there, but I guess it was good preparation for the upcoming hot season here (even had to wet myself down during the night a couple times).

Our huts

In the morning we got up bright and early and went out at the first light for another tour. We weren’t seeing a thing (do African animals sleep in unlike the African people??) but soon came around a corner and there was an elephant! For the morning tour Brittany, Cathlin, and I sat on the top of the car for a better view (way cooler view, though a little uncomfortable as we had forgotten a mat or something to sit on as many of the other groups had brought). So when we came face to face with the elephant, it was exciting! And when he started looking at us and flapping his ears/moving his feet a little and our guide said rather quickly, “Avance avance!! (advance)” two of us got a little nervous and helped the driver by shouting GO! :) Saw some more antelopes, baboons, and a few African buffalo which are apparently rare to see! As we neared the end of our tour we came upon three more elephants! They were all eating a lot and one broke a tree because he wanted the leaves at the top. So cool to just sit and watch them enjoying their breakfast.

Our ride!

Beautiful and so close!

In the bush!
The restaurant where we ate for the weekend was located right at a watering hole where the elephants play in the morning, so when we returned from the tour we got to eat breakfast and watch about a dozen elephants playing in the water.

At the watering hole- not rocks behind me!

Probably the coolest thing though, was on the way back to Ouaga- past Pô- a man flagged us down and we started to slow and saw a family of elephants crossing the road!! This was outside the park! It was like being in MI and the deer crossing, only way cooler (and probably way more dangerous to get in a car accident). A great weekend and a chance to see some more of God’s awesome creation! Elephants crossing!

A servant for Him,

~Liz

Featured Child

If you have gotten onto our website lately you’ll see we have another child for February/March sponsored. Praise God, a family friend responded to the last child and we already needed to add a new one to the website! So for February and March our new featured child in need of a sponsor is Fatimata. Please contact me or shelteringwings@charter.net for more info!

Fatimata was born in 1997. She lives in Sector 5 of Yako, Burkina Faso. Fatimata’s father died 4 years ago. Her father had two wives and 12 children. Fatimata lives with her mother.
Fatimata has four siblings who are married. One of Fatimata’s sisters lives with the family- she was married and has three children, but the husband is deceased. Fatimata’s brother lives in the same courtyard with his wife and three children, but they have a separate house. Many of her other siblings live in the Ivory Coast. The home that Fatimata, her mother, her sister and children live in is a very small, mud-brick, one room house. Fatimata has to walk to a nearby community water pump to fetch water for the family as they have no running water.

Fatimata attends the Sector 5 School and is in CM 2 (comparable to 6th grade). She likes math and this past trimester, got a 5/10 average (3/10 is needed to pass). She walks to school every day. For fun, Fatimata enjoys playing a game called Marraine- a game similar to hopscotch. At this time, Fatimata is in good health.