Questions for me?

Just had a thought- if you have questions for me, specific or broad, about my time here in Burkina will you write a comment on this blog entry (found right below the entry, just click and write)? I’ll take a few questions to answer each time I’m online and maybe help everyone to get a better idea of certain things about my time here. I’m sure there are things that I just forget to talk about that you have questions about, so ask away!

A servant for Him,
~Liz

Something special for my Silent Praise group at Hope College!

Something special for my Silent Praise group at Hope College! The kids at the handicap center in Mahadaga were pretty excited that I knew some sign language and could communicate with them quite a bit the past few days. I told them about the group at Hope College called Silent Praise. I was a part of it for four years, and was director for my last two years. We learn sign language to praise songs, and share it with local churches. This was a huge part of my learning sign language (as well as a couple mission trips to Jamaica working with the deaf and taking an ASL1 class).

They wanted to say a special hello to my Silent Praise group (as do I!! Miss you guys!)!

(“We are the students of CE1 (3rd grade) in Mahadaga. Hello Silent Praise and God bless you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!”)

Mahadaga

I had a GREAT week and a half that FLEW by in Mahadaga in south-eastern Burkina. Mahadaga is another SIM station that has some pretty amazing ministries that I wanted to see and be able to help out a little bit. I arrived Wednesday (March 25) and was there til Saturday, April 4.

Mahadaga’s main ministries are a Dispensary/Clinic and a Handicap Center for kids. It was started quite awhile ago, and the dispensary is now run by Burkinabe people (not the missionaries). They are hoping to do this eventually for the Handicap Center as well. Both stations have really great staff that love the Lord.

So we arrived in Mahadaga (12 hours after I left Ouaga) just before dinner- I traveled by myself to Fada, and then met up with two friends from SIM (Maria and Kristin). It was a long trip, but talked a lot with different people and luckily wasn’t too hot (if you consider 100* + not hot). One of the missionary families from Mahadaga picked us up from Diapaga (the buses won’t go there anymore because the roads are so bad- better now) and invited us for dinner. They’re so great, and have two young boys (maybe 3 and 1). Caleb, the 3 year old, speaks English and French and a bit of Gourmanche (language of the Gourma)- throughout dinner he’d say “REGARDE! REGARDE!! (Look, look!)” and “Comme ça (like that).” What an awesome thing (and of course difficult at times) to have your children grow up with such culture and languages! The family already had ideas of things we could do for the next four days!

The first day we hung around the station a bit and went to the market. Unlike Yako’s market day which happens every three days, Mahadaga’s market day is every Thursday and much less of a selection of Yako’s. It is a really small village that has not as much access to a variety of foods. Mangos are in abundance though!! The trees are EVERYWHERE! I don’t think I had eaten mangos ever in the States actually, and in Mahadaga I ate them at least once a day! We got a tour of both of the stations in Mahadaga on Thursday as well. Friday we ventured to Parc d’Arly. This was very similar to Nazinga! We saw herds of elephants, buffalo, hippos, “pumbas” (warthogs), and baboons. It was real neat!! Saturday we went to the waterfalls in the area. Unfortunately it was more of a trickle, but still really pretty. A great hike as well (I couldn’t help but think of the Lion King again with some of the dead/dry surroundings). Sunday was church- all in Gourmanche translated to French. Was actually very different from church I’m used to here in Yako. I couldn’t quite explain it, but it was different! The language is sort of similar to Mooré, but I still didn’t understand anything. Fulfulde on the other hand (language of the Fulani) is completely different. Sunday afternoon, the girls and I helped a bit with the kids club that a missionary couple does right next to the station. I enjoyed just sitting and watching and enjoying the kids’ singing and smiles.

The local market

Pumba!

Herd of elephants
At the waterfall

Beautiful scenery around the waterfall

One reason I was real excited to come to Mahadaga was because of the Handicap Center. I’ve really enjoyed working with kids with handicaps in the past, and was anxious to see the ministry in Mahadaga. I especially was excited about the fact that they have a school for deaf children! The problem I found was that the kids were all on a spring break until Wednesday. Thursdays they do not have school, so turns out the only day I got in the school was Friday. It was great though!!

Monday morning I helped a bit with the handicap center. I worked on some admin stuff to help out the director. In the afternoon I helped with a big project of organizing the pharmacy over at the dispensary. Tuesday Maria and I both went out with the “animateurs” who are basically the social workers for the handicap center. They travel to distant villages and do physical therapy for the kids way out. They have some whom they visit each week, some every 3 mos, and some every 6 mos. They talk to them a bit, talk to the family, ask about any important needs, and do therapy. We visited four kids- the first young girl had a problem with her arm, the next boy had some mental issues as well as a large hump on his back, the next young boy was blind in one eye, and the last little girl had some issue so that her balance was off and her walking was difficult. It was interesting to see the different methods used for each child. And wow was it great!! Tuesday evening Maria and I saw our first birth. We had asked if it would be possible and checked in with them Tuesday evening. It was incredible. I’d be interested to know how different it is from the States (though am definitely not ready to be in that position yet!). Culturally, one difference is that no one is in the room while the delivery is happening. They are allowed to be, but it isn’t cultural, so the poor mother lies there alone. Many other things I would imagine are very different. Such an incredible thing to see the miracle of God in a birth of a baby.

With Patricia, an "animateur" and our first visit

A normal village in Mahadaga

Wednesday I went out with Betty. Betty is an 80 year old woman here with SIM who began as a full-time missionary here in Mahadaga in 1954. She retired some point around 2000, and has been coming back every year since for 6 months of the year. WOW! When asked if she’ll come back again, she answers, “Well there’s still so much work to be done. I can’t finish yet!” She is such an inspiration and really has done incredible work here. Betty works with the Fulani people group. For more info on them, see http://www.sim.org/index.php/content/fulani. She has quite a patience and heart for them. I went out and, of course understanding no more than 2 words, just observed as she sat and taught the Fulani in 3 different villages. They are beautiful people!

A Fulani family

Betty!

Thursday I spent the day at the handicap center. I helped out/observed some of the physical therapy going on at the center. I made some new friends right away, Potaga and Lalaba (don’t know spelling of their names because they just gave me their sign names). I learned a lot about the center while there. One of the coolest things I think, is that the school of 250 has children who are deaf, children with handicaps, and kids considered “normal.” They are all in classes together and ALL learn sign language starting in the 1st grade. So my two friends- Potaga had a problem with her leg which she has in a brace, and Lalaba is deaf. Both speak sign language! They helped me a bit with remembering some sign- and I found that much of the language is similar to American Sign Language. They walked around with me a bit, and I saw the school for about 30 blind children as well! Thursdays are a “trade day” for the kids- no school, but they learn different trades (girls- sewing, tye dying, etc, and boys-carpentry, leather working, sewing). They were all very willing to have their pictures taken, and as every other child here in Africa, LOVED to see themselves and laugh about it. After siest, Maria and I went back to the center and I gave her a little tour as well, but not as much going on in the afternoon.

My new friends, Potaga and Lalaba
Some of the boys learning carpentry

Friday was my first and only day in the school. I was real excited and got there early to find a class to observe. I first went to Potaga’s CE1 class (3rd grade). It was so neat to watch- they sign everything and the hearing students often speak out loud what is being said so that all of the hearing students can hear it if they can’t see it for some reason. So compared to other classes, it is probably fairly quiet, though you still have the sounds of children’s laughter and normal class noises. The teacher was real excited to talk to me and see that so much of the sign language was similar (he’d sign a word from across the room and I’d say yes what it was or sign the word we use). Really fun! At their recess break at 10, I went to a CM2 class. It was the class of the director of the school (I don’t think most schools here have the resources to pay a principle or anything like that, so it seems that most often, the director is also a teacher). He had a meeting though, so left his class to figure out different math problems that were on the board. I was pretty impressed by how motivated they were even though the teacher was gone for over an hour. It was interesting to see that in this small class, I think only 3 were deaf while the first one I was in had probably half of the class at least that was deaf.

I went back after siest, anxious to see more, and went to a CP2 (2nd grade) class. It was also interesting, and the teacher was kind enough to walk me around and have each child show me their sign name (and he’s say it out loud). These kids were very loud even though I think many were deaf :) It was real great, and I was sad to have to leave as I had promised the director of the project I'd help with some inventory before leaving. As the kids left for home though, Potaga and Lalaba found me to say goodbye and were sad to hear that it was goodbye because I was leaving. I had a sadness about leaving even though it was just a short time I was there. Such an incredible week full of many great experiences.

On the cliffs of Mahadaga, overlooking the city- beautiful!

A servant for Him,
~Liz

More OCC pictures!

A full truck of gifts every day!

A village in the very pretty, hilly area of Kongoussi

The kids would surround our bus and wave and grin- when we got out, every single one wanted to shake our hands!

Me with "Easidou"- a cutie that danced with us at the beginning of a distribution. Did not get a box, but OCC staff saw that he wasn't on the list and gave him one anyway

Some boys waiting for the distribution

The girls waiting for the distribution

Some precious kids outside of our bus as we sat by the road- just wanted to say hi and were amazed when we took pictures and they could see themselves

A girl opening her box while friends look in

Brittany and I in the warehouse with the TONS of boxes

A class of Muslim girls... An incredible witness for them as well


We would see large groups of kids walking down the streets- many with the boxes on their heads, some on the back of a bike. All would wave and smile and often try to chase the bus.

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