This weekend.

This last weekend I baby-sat 5 beautiful kids.  It was a pretty crazy weekend and I walked away realizing that maybe I am not ready for instant parenthood of 5 kids.  In fact – I used to want 5 kids so I could have an entire basketball team, but now – I think max will have to be 3. 

I had to deal with the un-expected this weekend too.  Their dog was bit by a scorpion or snake or something and sadly, passed away.  Let me just tell you that telling 5 children that their pet died is one of the hardest things I have ever done – I may as well cut off their arms.  And, I am just one person – comforting 5 people who need me at the same time was nearly impossible. 

I drove home after the weekend completely exhausted – emotionally and physically.  I also drove home with some more respect for the parents who take care of their children day in and day out – I don’t know how they do it and their jobs as missionaries as well. 

Diversity

Its Friday morning and last night was the 2^nd Wired meeting of the year.  This year is going to be good – Lord willing!  It has a different feel to it than my first year.  We certainly took a hit numbers wise – with at least 10-15 people moving away there are people who are greatly missed.  But, we are all hoping and praying for a great year. 

One of our goals is to be more evangelistic and reach out more to kids who don’t normally come to youth group.  We already have maybe 5 or so new faces.  But I am finding that as we change and grow differently I am having to change and grow as well.  I was overwhelmed when I first got to Burkina a year ago by the diversity of the group – and here I am finding myself overwhelmed again with the exact same thing.  So please pray for me and the Wired team as we try and figure out how to be evangelistic, how to encourage Christian growth in MK’s who have been here for years, how to involved kids of ALL AGES (I have several 6^th grade boys) and in all that not scare away anyone in the process. 

Here we go again! Yippy!

We had our first llama meeting today (student leader meeting).  Can I just tell you how excited I am to start back up with youth group?!  I have enjoyed my summer but I am looking forward to doing work that I am here to do.  It was fun doing random things in the summer but oh how I am so happy to start working with teenagers again!

We have two new llama leaders this year.  One is Madeline – her brother was a llama last year and is this year as well.  The other is Nathan – he is from the Philippines and plays piano for the music team at youth group.  I am looking forward to getting to know both of them more this year. 

The meeting itself went great.  I was encouraged by some of the goals that the students have.  Here is a short list of their goals:

-Build faith for new Christians

-Effective ministry IN the school

-Youth group more welcoming and open to everyone.

-Being more real with people

-Investing more with their friends and people they may not be good friends with

-Having prayer as a base and praying for friends as essential

They all seem excited for this year to start; it was encouraging!

Our first youth group of the year is on Thursday.  We have moved locations to they old WIRED meeting place.  My new house is not large enough for youth group.  No one is living in the house we will be meeting in so it should be a good place.  I am going to work on getting it comfortable for the teens tomorrow!

Thanks for all your prayers!  

Group Photo

Here is our Field Forum photo - All the Burkina Faso CMA missionaries :)

My House

I moved in June and thought I would share some photos of my new house with you.

This is my room :)

Here is our living room and dinning room.  We are going to re-cover the furniture one of these days.

Here is the kitchen - its very small.

My front yard with our little patch of grass - something very rare for BF.

There is my little moto and the car.

Some nice things about this house are the screened in porch, the great internet, the location (we are in a very African community) and the spare rooms (come and stay - we have room).

Out of Routine

The problem that I am just now discovering is that I have been out of a routine since about April.  With the power cuts, our unrest situation, camp, heading home for a few weeks, the bush trip and field forum my life really hasn’t had a routine for months.  So, because of that I feel like my life is just crazy.  This blog has sadly been effected.  But, school starts next week and I am hoping to slow down just a little bit so that maybe, just maybe, I can have a routine again. 

But, reality is reminding me that life is hardly ever IN routine – especially here in Africa.