Onward and Returning Home

On Thursday Fiona and I went to the orphanage for the morning. It was a fairly quiet morning, I spent most of it being slept on, and Fiona and I were trying to decide whether we thought the orphanage had just been struck by lightning or if it was just a regular power cut. We decided we thought we'd been struck by lightning after all.

In the afternoon we were planning on going to help with a kids' club but it was cancelled due to the rain so instead I saw a bit more of the town by going fabric shopping with Charlie and the girls.

On Friday I went to the orphanage in the morning (Fiona was unwell). I then spent the afternoon making popcorn whilst Fiona put together a quiz for the games' night we were hosting that evening for a group of English students the missionaries teach.

Saturday morning we went to help with the kids' club run for the Garibous, where one of them stood up and gave his life to the Lord, hallelujah!

On Sunday Fiona and I were picked up by a missionary family to go to their church and see what a typical West African church is like. They also translated for us, otherwise it could have seemed a lot longer!

On Monday we finally got to see the nursing clinic, where I spent the morning while Fiona was at the orphanage. It was a challenge with the language barrier but it taught me a lot! I then joined Fiona at the orphanage for the afternoon.

By the time we got home from the orphanage I was feeling unwell again and, therefore, unable to go to the carpentry with Fiona on Tuesday morning. However, having spent the morning in bed I was OK so Charlie took us fabric shopping so we could have outfits made

Wednesday was a very recreational day. Charlie took us to the tailor in the morning to order our outfits and then to the handicrafts centre. We then went to a local market so that Charlie could organise some of her craft work. In the evening we went to a garden restaurant for dinner where there was live music and man dancing on stilts, amongst other rather incredible feats.

Thursday was a stressful morning at the clinic, working with a nurse who had zero tolerance for my lack of French, and therefore made things very difficult. However, I then went to the orphanage to find that a baby had been sick on Fiona, which cheered me up a bit! In the afternoon we helped at a kid's club with a puppet show, where Fiona and I practiced our puppeteering skills, and a very theatrical performance of various bible stories.

Friday was traveling day. Fiona and I went to Fada, a town 200km east of Ouagadougou, and once again I was ill! A sign of things to come unfortunately. We traveled by bus and stayed with a missionary family, Pete and Kathryn and their 10-month-old daughter Leila. When we arrived we went to visit a Felani (a local tribe) family.

On Saturday Kathryn took us for a walk around the town and to their guard's house for a visit (it is quite common for people to have a guard at night here). In the afternoon Fiona and I went by motorbike to a local compound where we spent the evening and night with a Felani family, Houa and Hamma and their 3 month-old baby Ebeneza, giving us a new perspective of life here.

On Sunday morning we went to church with the family and then spent the afternoon with them and Pete, Kathryn and Leila. We went to a local cafe for lunch and then to the cattle market, very different to anything that would happen in a western country!

On Monday we traveled back to Ouagadougou and once again I was unwell, this time it lasted most of the week, so I spent most of my time in my pyjamas doing transliterating and sound editing for Steve, to help with his work sharing the gospel with the Felani people.

On Friday, we went to a lovely restaurant for dinner, and a nice relaxing evening, followed by a relaxing weekend to finish off the trip.

Thank you all for your support and prayers. Please pray specifically for good health on my return home, wisdom in what God wants me to do in the future with regards to mission, and for the various different projects which are being done by the missionaries here.

If you would like to support me financially please send donations to the King's Community Church in Hatfield, including my name in the description. Sort Code: 405240, Account Number: 00021870. If a donation can be gift aided please say this in an email to kccaccounting@hotmail.com . All donations will then be sent on to me and are very welcome!

I apologise for the lack of photos in this post, there was a technical difficulty.

The beginning of the Adventure

Having arrived late Friday evening I didn't stay up long. I was welcomed into the home of a family who work with World Horizons, Steve and Charlie and their 2 children Libby (3) and Daisy (9 months).

I met the children on Saturday morning, just before going to the home of a Burkinabe family who practice the traditional craft of Bogolan, which involves dying material in mud and leaves several times and removing parts of the dye to make pictures. I helped Charlie to video the process to show how the craft is done. This is a great way to meet the locals and form friendships with them. We had a fun afternoon swimming at the international school.

On Sunday I went with the family to the international church, then for a walk in the afternoon and a lovely roast dinner in the evening. A little slice of home!

On Monday I went with Charlie and the children back to see the final stages of the Bogolan. It wasn't quite as we'd expected, which meant it took longer to document. For this reason we returned in the afternoon, where, again, it took longer than expected, but we got most of what Charlie needed for her video.

Before going back to get the last few clips of video, I went out on the moped to get some bread for lunch. Having forgotten how to ride, there were a couple of hairy moments, but I won't go into too much detail because the aunts will worry :)

On Tuesday I went with Steve to the Bible school in Gampela, where there is also a small studio in which they record preaches, which can then be played on the radio. I was shown the sound system and then shown around the bible school and helped to organise the library.

We came home for lunch, which Pauline, a missionary from Australia who teaches at the bible school, joined us for, during which a thunderstorm began and continued throughout the afternoon, preventing us from going out. A perfect opportunity for baking with Libby, or Kathy, as she wanted to be called for the day, a giant puzzle and a game of hide and seek.

This morning (Tuesday) before we went out we prayed together, just before 9am. One of the things we prayed for was that there would be rain in Kojonti (in Burkina Faso), where it hadn't rained for 2 weeks. Steve later got a text saying that it had rained at 9:30. Praise the Lord!

On Wednesday we went to visit the orphanage, Aesso. We met Patricia who started it with her husband and she told us about their work. She told us stories about how some of the children came to be at the orphanage, and the difficulties of finding them families. It is a Christian-run orphanage, and the workers there are not involved in the search for a home for each of the children, so all they can do is pray for a good family to adopt each child, and give them a strong Christian foundation whilst they are there. The children should be adopted by the time they are 7-years-old or they will be moved to a government-run orphanage, which will not teach Christianity, and will not value the children as individuals in the way that Aesso does. We also got to meet the children, play with them, and see how affectionate they are.

We then went home and discussed how much time I would like to spend there, and in the nursing clinic per week. I will start on Monday, with a full day and 2 mornings per week, divided between the 2 places, which are run by the same people.

Although we didn't get to see the nursing clinic because of the poor weather, we were told that there is a clinic which mostly treats Malaria sufferers, and a maternity clinic. I am trying to make sense of all this in my head. It has really tugged at my heartstrings and the orphanage was one of the main reasons I felt God brought me here, but I don't know what I can do beyond just being there to help in a small way, so please pray for clarity and encouragement in this, and pray for the children that loving Christian families will be found for each of them and for the workers that God will guide them and that they will be encouraged and see the value and the importance of what they do.

On Thursday it was the 'Eid al-Fitr', the feast day marking the end of Ramadan. For this we had been invited to visit the family who had featured in the Bogolan video, which meant that we could show them the final version of the video. We also took them a tin of cupcakes as a 'bon feté' gift. The video can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdWoWzLLJxw 

On Friday morning I was feeling unwell, and our trip to the Bible school had been cancelled so I went for a walk to a local guesthouse where I could sit in the garden, catch up on the blog and read the bible.

.On Saturday, Steve and Charlie made it a very special birthday for me. I went for a horse riding lesson in the morning and then we went for lunch with some Brazilian friends of theirs. I Skyped with some of my family and then we had tea and birthday cake

Sunday I was unwell, with a tummy ache and feeling tired and dizzy, so was unable to go to church with the family. Fiona (another short-termer) arrived in the evening.

By Monday I was beginning to recover so Fiona and I went and spent the morning at the orphanage, the children were easy to interact with and loved the attention, but the workers there don't speak English so our interaction with them was limited. The rest of the day was spent with the family.

On Tuesday we went to visit an American family who are also missionaries in Ouagadougou and work with garibous (Muslim beggar boys who beg on behalf of themselves and their Marabout, who teaches them the Qur'an and is thought to have spiritual power, who communicates with genies and who a lot of Muslims are afraid of because of this), teaching them French, carpentry, and running a kids' club. They also provide food and shelter for them.

On Wednesday we went to to help with the work that is being done with the garibous. They have a carpentry class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so we joined them in the morning to walk around the town giving away the footstools they had made. Quite a contrast from their previous lives as beggars! We also heard stories about how prayers had been answered. They had given a stool to one woman and she had said that only the previous day she had prayed because her previous stool had broken after several years use, and she had prayed for a new one. Another man had sustained injuries when the porch of his shop fell down so whilst he was in hospital the garibous fixed the porch and were thanked. They said no-one had ever said thank you to them for anything!

In the afternoon Fiona and I went into the town centre to look at the market stalls, and I had great fun bartering and practicing my French.

Thank you all for your support and prayers. Please pray specifically for good health (and that the mosquitoes would leave me alone!), wisdom in what God wants me to do while I am here, and for the various different projects which are being done by the missionaries here.

If you would like to support me financially please send donations to the King's Community Church in Hatfield, including my name in the description. Sort Code: 405240, Account Number: 00021870. If a donation can be gift aided please say this in an email to kccaccounting@hotmail.com . All donations will then be sent on to me and are very welcome!