Hey Everyone!
Most days I feel like my life is totally random here in Burkina. Things that would be completely abnormal in Washington State are seemingly normal here. For example: I was driving my friend Kari home last week and while we were driving we both looked over and saw two women driving on a moto – not too weird. The crazy part was that the woman on the back was nursing her newborn baby! Oh multi-tasking at its finest! I laughed so hard and Kari who has lived her nearly her whole life said that she had never seen that before – so maybe that’s not too normal.
Life here has been heating up – just when I thought it couldn’t get hotter, it did. I can be thankful that the power cuts have been few and far between though! Now they seem to only come right before a rain storm. We are slowly getting closer to rainy season so the humidity is fairly high but I am looking forward to the coolness that rain brings.
This last week was very exciting for WIRED youth group. We were able to spend all the money we raised with the 30 Hour Famine! For an entire week we had a medical team seeing over 800 children in the village of Yagma. On Friday I drove a van full of boys there and they began drilling a well. On Saturday the whole youth group went to Yagma – the boys continued to drill the well and everyone else continued the medical clinic. After lunch at the Dorcus house (which is also in Yagma) we did a grain distribution to about 400 people and rejoiced because the boys found water! Then in the evening we helped put on a worship service right there in the bush and a church that is being planted there did some evangelism. As I drove home at 9:00 p.m. in a van full of wiped out teenagers I thanked God because we were able to participate in something so beautiful.
I also thanked God because it was over with – on Friday night we had no internet and I was completely unsure how the day was going to go. I looked at the schedule for the entire day and I slowly, one thing at a time, gave it to God because I just didn’t know if anything was going to work. Would we have enough drivers to get there? Did the sick kids know where the clinic was? Would we find water? Was the grain going to be there to distribute? Did I have enough food to feed these hungry teenagers? No one seemed to have the answers to these questions. But, man God just answered every prayer! The day turned out great and I was so glad that I stopped worrying about it and trusted him.
Thank you also for all your prayers for this awesome event! Some of you even gave money to support this – so thank you for being able to help this village that is so needy right now.
In other news things have seemingly quieted down with the protests and riots – since I last emailed you we had some more scary situations and for an entire weekend I was on lockdown at the Nehlsen’s but for the last 3 weeks all has been fairly quiet. There is still a curfew in effect and nothing has been completely resolved but I think everyone is getting tired of drama – African’s included. Please continue to pray for peace here in Burkina.
I took a spring break in April and went to the Lyon’s family’s house for a week. Their kids are in the youth group. It was nice to get out of the city and away from the protests. It was a vacation but I did spend it with about 8 youth group kids in a village – so I'm not sure how much of a vacation it can be called. I did enjoy hanging out, listening to music, and laughing really hard with these crazy missionary kids!
In one month I will be on day two of the WIRED end of the year retreat! Please continue to pray for all the details that go into that. Before that though we have three more youth groups and an end of the year banquet. Pray that this year we can end well. Its going to be hard to end because so many people are leaving – not just seniors. Families come and go here so quickly and many of our youth group families are leaving at the end of this school year – youth group will look drastically different next year. Pray that those kids that have been coming leave with hearts changed.
I am still going to the Dorcus house once a week and it has been one of the highlights of my week! As soon as I drive up all those girls just run at me – I cannot speak French but we share deep connections and the hugs from them mean everything to me! I know that some of you support Dorcus house and I just want to say thank you because your support is changing the lives of these young women in amazing ways.
Again, thank you so much for your continued support and encouragement! A special shot out to Mercer Creek for your encouragement cards that I got last week – that was really special and great timing!
Also, feel free to email me any time – and pray that the Internet doesn’t get cut off like the last few days so that I can reply! (Can you imagine all Internet and landlines being cut off in your whole country for even one day? Its crazy.)
Thank you all for everything you do for me – you are amazing.
Love,
Hannah
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