I love Farmers

I am sooo proud to be a farmers daughter!  I love where I come from and I love farming!  Yes, I moved to the city and am currently not farming but I will always be a farmer :)

All that to say: I also love hilarious farm kids who post youtube videos - check out these farmers they will certainly make you laugh with their parodies on Gangnum style and I'm sexy and I know it:

The Peterson Farm Bros

30 Hour Famine Update!

Oh this is cool!

Do you remember the 30 Hour Famine from this year, 2012?  I did not blog about it but I certainly talked about it on Facebook and in my update emails.  For this particular fund raising event WIRED youth group raised nearly $20,000 and went to the village of Bouassa.  WIRED drilled a well, helped build a classroom, gave out grain, dug holes for bathrooms and hung out with children. 11 Adults and around 40 kids have come to know Christ from this single event - and that was just the beginning.

Susan, my lovely roommate from my time in Burkina, just sent me this message:

Just talked to Jay briefly today and he gave an update on the church we did the project in.  Apparently they did start school in the building and the church has about 40-70 people in it.  The well is having an awesome ministry in the community with the pastor's wife heading that up.  Compassion has started there as well, using both the school building and the hangar. They have a dedication service out there tomorrow.

When WIRED decided to help the Baptist church do a church plant in this area  I went out to the land to see what it was like.  There was absolutely nothing - just some brush.  It was truly a blessing to see how God used WIRED with this piece of land.  Now, its neat to see how he is continuing to use this land to help spread his name.

Here are some photos from that day last April that WIRED did their project:

Well Drilling

Using the newly found water to soak me!

Child Evangelism

WIRED :)

Garages

Weird Portland fact - people do not park their cars in the garage.  Instead they pack it full of junk and keep the cars outside to soak up the rain.  This blows my mind.  I mean, garages in definition are to house your vehicles.  Do people all over do that and I just never noticed?

Feeding the Orphans

From September 2010 to June 2012 I was literally living off the support of my friends, family, and people I dont even know so that I could serve God in Burkina Faso.  These people (maybe even you) were so generous that when I had raised enough in February 2012 to finish my time there and asked them to stop (yes, I had to ask people to stop giving me money) - they still didn't.

So, I left the money in Burkina Faso and have been handing it out since.  Much of the money went to the youth group, WIRED, that I had been running the last 2 years.  Some went to the Dorcus House and the rest has gone to different projects that the CMA has been working on in the country.  

Here is the lastest update of where that money has gone from Betty who is working with Envision in Burkina:

This past week we went up to the orphanage in Yako. Ruth Cox the directress had just had a car accident and fractured her wrist and really messed up her car. She had gone off the road and hit a road sign. Thankfully the other people were not hurt. The same week one of their bright young students, age

18, who had been involved in a serious accident this summer and survived, who was a role model for the younger students, died suddenly. They did not know if he had residual injuries from the earlier accident and died from internal bleeding, but on the way to the hospital he died. They had faced these two events at basically the same time. You can imagine how discouraged they were.

They also live super simply there, and that is putting it mildly to say the least. They eat a lot of pasta and rice and lots of very basic veggies that they can buy locally.

We went and told them we would be bringing lunch. We went to the store and bought them sliced lunch ham, sliced cheese, hamburger meat for making some hamburgers, fresh buns and pita bread, lots of in season fresh fruit and veggies, grapefruit, avocados, watermelon, potato chips, fresh potatoes, and many other items too.

When we sat down for lunch with the Yako team and pulled out the sliced ham and cheese with the fresh buns and pita bread you would not have believed how excited they were. They were grinning from ear to ear, got a camera and took a picture of them with ham and cheese and when they ate they were rolling their eyes in pleasure and talking about how great it was. Such a simple thing that made such a big impact on these people who work so hard at Yako.

All of this was done through the generosity of Hannah [and by Hannah she means Hannah's supporters] and we want her to know what happened and also that we have enough money to make another or even several more trips like this one. Our next trip to Yako will be in December and we are going to take rice and oil and some money for the orphans food, as well as another nice batch of meat, cheese, fruits and veggies for the missionaries and interns too. Hannah [again, my supporters!] , through her generosity is helping to really bless this ministry and we cannot thank her enough for this.

Let her [Hannah's supporter] know that her [their] gift has and is making a real impact in lifting spirits and improving conditions in Yako!

Betty

Familiar

At some point between the last post and this one, life in West Africa became "normal."  Looking at it now it didn't seem normal - I still had so many adventures that were certainly outside of the typical life of most Americans.  But, I suppose after living in any given location for at least a year things start to get normal.  I am now in Portland, Oregon and have only been here 2 months and its already normal.  My theory is that when you live in a different city but its still in your culture, the transition period is drastically shortened due to familiarity.  Although Portland is a tad bit different than Eastern Washington it is still the beautiful Pacific Northwest and has always been my home.  

So, all that to say, its possible that because life in Burkina Faso became my new "normal" I stopped seeing it for the truly unique place that it is.  And thus (thus? I never use that word), stopped reporting back.  I am making a new vow - although no one is really going to hold me accountable - that I will not let my eyes become clouded over with familiarity...or if I do - that it wont be for over a year.