Tuesday, November 03, 2009

The past two days have been quite a journey with the Lord! We spent Monday and Tuesday teaching in Bamacounda. We opened each day with singing and dancing. Great job Pam and Charlie (our interpreter)! Karen was able to mention a little geography while teaching the creation story. Hallelujah! She blessed each child with a scripture card, referencing John 3:16 in French. The purpose was to make sure every child had the Word of God in their hands and in their home. GREAT idea! Ronda taught the children how to pronounce the English alphabet. She had the children repeat the letters after her and then used a story or verse from the Bible to go along with the alphabet letter. For example, “J is for Jesus” and she used Matthew 19:14 as the scripture reference. Woohoo! Mark taught…yep…you guessed it…math! He used a jump rope and badminton to teach. Who would have thought learning could be fun?! :) The kids would jump rope and count how many times they jumped. Then, he had the kids use the badminton set to count how many times they could hit back and forth. He also had the children use a pencil to trace the numbers. Tracing the numbers proved to be a challenge for some since they had never held a pencil before. Mark proceeded to perform a number rap to the song “Jesus Loves You”. It went …one,two, Jesus loves you…three, four, He’ll open the door…five ,six seven, for your to go to heaven…eight, nine ten, He welcomes you in. Amazing! I think we may have some hidden talent here!:) I was able to teach the 5 senses, using a scripture reference for each sense and had teaching aids to provide a little interaction with the children which brought each sense to life. Praise the Lord! Let us not forget the crafts by Gwen, Jennifer, and Janet. The children were able to take home hand made tambourines and a “Jonah and the big fish” crafts! Fun, fun, fun!

Pastors Roger and Sam filled in wherever needed. When able, they also join Russell having a “tea debate” with the elders of the village. This consists of finding a nice shady spot under the tree, drinking atyia, and discussing the issues of life. This provided several opportunities for Russell to share the gospel. For example, one gentleman asked that we pray for a well for the community. This provided an open door for Russell to share that Jesus was the Living Water. Of course, the debate ended with Russell praying for each man and the requests that they had. What can you say about Cindy!?! She was busy “putting out fires”, cleaning wounds, and putting on bandaids. It amazing…a bandaid works miracles in Africa too!!

I believe everyone on the team would agree with me when I say that Tuesday evening was one of the biggest blessings in our lives. We went to the Village of Kountoubou, as mentioned in the previous blog. The grass is so high due to the rainy season, it felt as though this village was way out in the bush. We were greeted with open arms, handshakes, and warm smiles. We first sat around the mango tree as we waited for the Chief and the rest of the team to arrive. One of our translators asked the women if we wanted to pound (piler) some rice. We were able to get a slight taste of what it’s like to “piler” rice. It is definitely a strenuous job and we only did it for a few minutes. We definitely admire and have a whole new respect for the women of Africa. They are hard working women!

We came back to the tree, and once we were all assembled, the Lord began to move. Pastor Roger thanked Yusuf (the Chief’s son) for making us their guests in the village. Pastor Roger then asked Yusuf if he could share about Jesus, which Yusuf allowed. Pastor Roger shared the gospel by teaching “Creation to the Cross”. After sharing he asked Yusuf if they understood and if there were any questions. I will never forget the words that followed. Yusuf said that he understood but he wasn’t sure if everyone did because it was the first time they had heard this. He then explained that they would like to hear if again and again! That statement hit me like a ton of bricks. We always hear that there are still people who have never heard the gospel, but you don’t fully comprehend that until you’re sitting in the midst of a people group who has never heard!

We were blessed to end our time with the village in prayer, which was at the request of some of the village women. The American women circled around the African women and prayed over them and their specific prayer needs, while the men prayed with the men regarding their needs. We were granted another invitation to come back in January. We also informed them that they could go to Sebastian or Immanuel Mendy with any questions they had between now and then.

It is a spiritual battle we are living in, but praise God we will be victorious through Jesus Christ! We must continue to press on, to dive into the faith assignment (thank you Mark) that God has given each one of us, and make our relationship with Jesus stronger with each passing day.

How will they hear if we do not tell them?

Love and blessings,

Alicia

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?” –Romans 10:14-15