Back to Loudia

Salt Flats

One way people get salt here is on the salt flats. I didn't really understand the explanation of how they do it, but apparently this salt is better for your health than regular salt, according to my companions.

In the River

Hunting for Oysters

Onwards to the mangroves

Loudia

This Saturday I spent the entire day in Loudia. We walked there with my bike so I could ride home. Went to search for oysters in the mangroves. My dog went for his first swim and loved it. We cooked, played and I think I met and took pictures of everyone in the village. Then I had a great ride home on my bike. It was a super fantastic day.

Response to Prayer

Last week I prayed for more conversations with the kids at my house on Wednesdays and time to play with them. Wednesday the power went out, so no computer, no movies. Just fun! We spent the afternoon doing puzzles.

Dvante Cell Group

This year Assine Gondor started a new cell group in Dvante. He is a new believer himself but very passionate about reaching his friends. Most of the boys who come to the group do not know Christ, and Assine, himself a new believer often finds it difficult to explain what he senses from God. Please pray for this cell group that God would continue to grow the numbers but also bring understanding to these young men and women that they would be able to enter into friendship with Christ.

Time for a Sunday Hair cut

I didn't realize but apparently Les Vieux is quite good and giving a good buzz cut. So a group of boys came over today to use the hair clippers. It was amusing to watch them. Afterwards they do the detailing with a straight razor blade.

Jerome's Water Project

Jerome has recently found funding to start a water project in his hometown. His vision is to find to build a water project to fund his ministry. He has cleared the land and already brought the water in. Please pray for Jerome that he is successful at this new endeavor and people are responsive to the idea of buying pure water for their families.

Thursday Night Bible Study

When I first came to Oussouye in 2007 I started a Bible Study at Victorine's house. My language skills were minimal. There was no electricity at her apartment and perhaps 60 students living around her. It was a great place for new contacts but difficult to conduct a Bible study with activities, small groups, extended worship etc. Last year we moved the Bible study to my house. The Wednesday night Bible studies have flourished but leaving Vicki's also left aside an open field where people never have a chance to hear the gospel. In January Vicki and I started meeting again on Thursday nights. I left out many elements of the traditional Bible study. Leaving in Bible discussion, a little worship and prayer. This has been so much more effective. In the few short weeks we are beginning to develop a group. It's short enough that people stay and listen. I am thankful for this opening. I need to make contact with these students soon because Vicki leaves next year. If I want to continue at this student complex of apartments I need a new student as willing as interested to gather people each week. Pray that one of these newcomers begins to seek after Christ on his own and I can connect with them on a level to keep it going.

Trip to Mlumpe

I was scheduled to speak at the church in Mlumpe on Sunday. They have recently repaired the road so I decided to set out on my bike. When the road was bad the trip took 40 minutes by bike so I figured surely it would be easier this time. And it was so much easier this trip.

Leopold was out of town so his wife, Mary Madeline and I had a fine time sharing life together. She speaks English fairly well because of her time in Ghana while Leopold was in Bible School. She however speaks very little French so we speak English. This was a great trip to get to know her.

Sunday morning, we faced the problem of translation. I do function here daily in my French but I do not preach in front of churches in French. I feel very insecure to do this because my French is adequate but not at the level I feel comfortable preaching in front of a group. However, with Leopold out of town and Mary Madeline shy to stand up with me and translate, we decided I would preach in French. This is a major victory for me. Normally I share prophetic words with the church members or the church as a whole if I receive them during worship. Translating an abstract vision was really difficult. But God was totally in control and people seemed to understand most of what was shared. Bertrand and I worked together with the French to translate it into Jola. Most of the church are really Jola speakers. I am very animated and try to keep my messages short so that tends to help keep people engaged.

The last week or so I have felt attacked spiritually in Fear, humiliation with my language skills and shame. My trip to Mlumpe was a victory in so many ways. God set it up for me to over come all three things on several different levels. I am really thankful for this last trip and excited to be back in the fight.

A trip to the dentist

This journey deserves a story simple because of it's appalling nature. Last week Dgeleck told me she had a hole in her tooth and showed me the gaping hole in the center of her back tooth. She said she needed some $ for medicine. Dgeleck is my good friend and comes to the Wednesday Bible study. She is Harriette's eldest daughter. From time to time we help her out with medicine or clothing. So she started on the medicine and told me the dentist said to come back Monday morning to have the tooth pulled.

I hate the dentist. I hate it more than any other kind of medical appointment! I absolutely hate the dentist and have a huge fear of going to the dentist for work. So I offered to go with Dgeleck out of my own desire and need to have friends with me at the dentists in America. I had a sack full of supplies to help us when we left her house together this morning. Anti bacterial cream, books, the Bible, my cell phone for emergencies. I don't know what I was thinking but mostly that we were going to be there all day waiting in a line and she would be as scared as I am and need things to keep her occupied. However, Dgeleck has no experience with having a tooth pulled so she is happy and chipper and we walk to the hospital. Listening to my MP 3 player, of which I added Eric Terlizzi to help calm her nerves. She was quite content to listen to Akon and Celine Dion.

We waited only a half an hour for the dentist to show up. I wasn't sure if I would be allowed to sit with her or not but when the dentist called her in she handed me the things from her pockets and went on it. I took this to be her way of saying, "You wait here." I am not sure I could have handled being in the room anyways. I was shaking like a leaf. Lot's of noises commence. Then I start hearing blood curling screams and the snapping and cutting of taking out a tooth. I cringe now even thinking of it. The doctor comes and closes the door, which of course didn't help at all, I could here everything. But instead of that soothing dentists voice saying, "it's ok, just one more." "you'll be all right, everythings going to be fine." I hear shouting and yelling from the dentist, for her to be quiet and sit down. The screaming continued for a few minutes and then it was all over. Out comes my beloved Dgeleck with tears running down her cheek. She gives me a hug and we take hands and head home.

I had asked someone before the event if they give them novicane. They told me yes, normally one on each side to numb the tooth. I didn't ask afterwards because it seemed obvious to me, that whatever they did give her apparently didn't work at all.

She is sleeping in my bed now, exhausted I am sure. Poor Dgeleck. I wondered what to say afterwards. How do you be encouraging after such a horrible event. She had told me previously that she had to have two teeth pulled but she surely only had one done. So I didn't want to ask just after the excruciating show of pain she had just been through. I only knew to hug and love and get her bed ready, let her sleep off the pain.

Oh man, I am going to brush my teeth more, floss more and pray I never have to go to the dentist in Senegal, EVER!!!!!! Pray for my dear girl Dgeleck that she would heal up well and strong, having no fear of going to the dentists in the future.

The Measure of Love

Sometimes I wonder how my work measures for the Lord. Some may look for the number of people who have started relationships with Christ, or the number of people in attendance at Bible studies, or the number of times I preach in a month or year. But what is the measure of Love?? What if my job description read "Love everyone around you." And that was it. That the extent of my work to be paid for as a missionary was to Love? How refreshing it would be to step away from the measure of this world and live totally and completely under the measure of Christ. Whole heartedly given away, to loving everyone under the sun with my heart, soul and mind.

How does one know they are successful in this business of loving? There is no measure. You have successfully loved 20 people today and that will produce "X" amount of love in others. There is no measure. For what is the fruit of LOVE?

Yesterday I returned from my bike trip to Mlumpe to find three little rascals on my roof. Now of all the people in my life who come to my house and find the gate locked, only ONE person has figured out how to open the gate without the combination to the lock. SANDARINE!!! My petite Sandarine. I love her dearly. She is perhaps 7 years old and the size of a 4 year old. She comes to visit me often, with groups and alone. She comes to be loved. She'll sit in my kitchen and just watch me. Always a smile on her face always ready for a hug when she leaves. Yes, she is my measure of love. The only one who knows how to open my door. She knows my secret. Yesterday I scolded them for being on the roof and for being at the house when no one was there, but they don't speak French, they don't understand what I am saying. They understand only Love.

1 John 3:16
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another

I don't know if I am successful in many other missionary type ways. My life here in Senegal has no measure that I know from my past experience. I am still here if that is a measure of my resolve to serve Christ. I am still pushing forward in language and making disciples. But the fruit of my ministry seems to be in love. Only Jesus has the combination to count how much love I have for others and how it will change their lives tommorrow, next year or in thirty years.