Praising God

One of the guys on staff here at the Youth Center, Tolentino, came down with Yellow Fever about two weeks ago. It’s a pretty serious disease and when he was younger his older brother died from it. Yellow Fever, true to its name, turns your body yellow and gives you a super high fever, among other things. Tolentino’s fever was so high that for days he wrapped himself in a cloth and every 5 to 15 minutes poured a bucket of water over himself just to keep cool.

On Thursday he was sitting in front of his house with all of the people who had come to see him. They were all talking about how bad he looked and how serious the disease was. Tolentino listened until he couldn’t take it anymore. He asked everyone to leave him alone for half an hour. He went inside the house, shut the door and started singing praise to God. Tolentino has a big voice, so when he sings, you hear it. Everyone outside starting telling Tolentino’s family that the disease had affected his brain. After singing for about 10 minutes he started praying. He prayed for the rest of them time and then the fever left him. He stood up, went outside, and started eating for the first time in days.

Since then he’s been gaining strength. He was in staff meeting this morning giving praise to God for healing him. He said that as he was sitting there listening to everyone and thinking about how sick he was he remembered that God knows the number of our days. He could choose whether he was going to sit there and feel terrible before he died or if he was going to sing praise to God. He chose to praise God with everything he had left and leave it in His hands.

After hearing that testimony this morning I just had to share it with you. I don’t always choose to use the time that I have to worship God. When I’m faced with difficult situations many times I focus on the situations instead of taking time to push everything else aside and focus on God. I think it’s in those moments that true worship happens. When we say to God, I don’t know if I’m ever going to make it through this, but I know that my purpose here it to worship You, so I’m going to give you what I’ve got.

Parking triumph

The other day I parallel parked for the first time. I was with Katie going to the market to buy some baby clothes for a friend of ours (Jason was with us too, but he was headed to a different section to pick up some bike parts).

I know the picture makes it look like the car behind me was really far behind me, but hey, you've gotta start somewhere. I pulled up and then turned the wheels to get really close when I backed up and then straightened it out, not bad for a first-timer :-) hehe

This is Katie and I headed in.

Exciting News!!!!!!!!!!

One of the coolest things about being a Christian is seeing someone come to Christ! As a missionary I get to see it and hear about it often. I love it. There is nothing more exciting than celebrating along with the angels when someone lays down all of their own efforts and runs to Christ to save and be the Lord of their life!

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but about a month or so ago I was put in charge of our morning staff meetings at the Youth Center. We sing for about 10-15 minutes, have a time of prayer and then I give a little 5 minute devotion. It’s been really good for my Creole. Enough so that I have to prepare but not so much that it feels overwhelming. Apparently I’m a fairly entertaining speaker because more and more students have been coming each day to sit outside of our circle and listen to what I have to say. The past two weeks we’ve been talking about the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17) – why we need it, what it is, what it symbolizes, how to use it, etc. I’ve really been enjoying it and I’ve been getting a lot of “amens” which always makes any teacher happy :-) hehe

Last week after I shared Pastor Ze Agusto (the director of YFC Bissau) felt compelled to say that he knows that a lot of people around the circle are not Christians or are baby Christians and if they ever want to know more about anything that we talk about there are lots of people at the Youth Center who would love to take time to talk to about it. He asked three guys who are in the seminary here to stand up and said that any of them would love to chat about God anytime.

Right after that one of our students, Sabino, who had been coming to listen approached one of those guys. He said that as I was sharing about the armor of God everyday he was starting to really understand that Jesus is powerful. He realized that he needed Jesus in his life and he wanted to become a Christian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He had wanted to talk to me but he’s terrified of white people so he’d been hanging back (a lot of the tribes around here discipline their children by telling them that if they’re not good a white person will come and kill them – nice huh?). When pastor said that other people would love to share more too, that was exactly the invitation he’s been looking for.

Moses shared with him about what becoming a Christian means and Sabino said he was ready he prayed with Moses and Moses asked him to go and tell his family and then to come back the next day for discipleship if he was really serious. When he came back the next day he wanted to know if Jesus is more powerful than the witch doctors. When Moses asked why Sabino showed him an idol that he was wearing around his waist. Sabino said that his brother had lots of money so he went to the witch doctor a while ago and had him do a special thing to this idol so that his brother would favor him and give him money. Moses explained to him that yes, Jesus is more powerful, but the real heart of the problem is that money that you gain deceitfully will never satisfy. This opened the door to talk about the way a Christian lives and by the end Sabino decided on his own that the idol was worthless and he threw it away.

Please pray with me for Sabino that God would continue to open his eyes and that he would continue to be open to change his life to glorify God. Isn’t God amazing?!?!?!

Cooking with Emily :-)

Jase and I made this video a few months ago, but I forgot about it. It's part two because we did a part one about taking the heads off of shrimp that we bought on the street here - it didn't really turn out that great because people were talking loudly in the background, but this one is much better. It's meant to be a little silly, so feel free to laugh :-) hehe

Ponderings from the Tub

The past two weeks have been HOT! Today it’s 114 degrees on our roof and inside our house it’s been hovering around 90... Unfortunately my body picked right now to have an allergic reaction to something so my skin is going crazy - itchy, swollen, red, yuck! I’ve been fanning and taking lots of showers, but today I decided to try an ice bath (at the suggestion of my brilliant husband). I filled the tub with cold water and added as much ice as our freezer has been able to make today (it’s hard work freezing something when it’s this hot). It was great.

I’ve been reading the gospel of Luke a lot lately and as I was chilling in the tub my mind was wandering around in some of Jesus’ parables. The parable of the talents is a familiar story – a master leaves for a trip giving three servants different amounts of money; two work hard and double the money while he is away, but the third (who was given the least) gets scared and does nothing with it. When the master gets back he’s pretty put out with the third servant for not even trying to use what he was given.

When that story came to mind I asked God if this had been a pattern in my life lately. Have there been opportunities / skills / stuff, that I’ve been to scared to use. One word came to my mind – language. I didn't understand where God was going with that one at first, so I kept praying. The first two times we were over here I didn’t really do much in Portuguese Creole. I was teaching English and teaching English teachers, and, let’s face it, I don’t really like to do things I’m not good at (anybody with me???). When we decided to come back as full-time missionaries for four years I knew I had to get serious. I took my Creole Bible and my Creole-English dictionary back to the States and during the year that we were fundraising and training I was studying.

This time back I’ve been working hard at Creole – memorizing scripture, leading a morning staff meeting everyday, doing discipleship and business training with Guinean women – and it’s been good for me. I’ve gotten to know people more, understand them better, and I’ve had lots of new opportunities for ministry. But, the best part is that every time I try something new my Creole has been getting better and better.

As I was thinking about all of this I asked God where I fit in the story. I felt an assurance that right now I’m using what He’s given me and He’s blessing it. I also felt a sense of loss for the first two 8 month blocks we spent here. Sure my knowledge of the language was a lot less then, but what if I had used the small amount of language that I had instead of waiting to get more before I jumped in? Right now I’m being faithful with the “two talents” of language that I have, but what if I had been faithful with the “one talent” that I had before?

One amazing thing about our God is that He’s a God of second chances. Just because you messed up before doesn’t mean you can’t jump in now. What do you have that you’re not using because it’s not all that you would want it to be?

An Interesting Friday

Lots of days missionary life is not super exciting. I clean the house, cook food, go shopping, teach classes – fairly normal stuff. It does have some different wrinkles, being in a different language, in a strange place, but the things themselves are not extraordinary. But, every once in a while, I have a day that reminds me that I’m a missionary. Friday was one of those days.

Friday morning started with a princess beading party. Wade and Katie’s daughter Abby had her 10th birthday and for her party she wanted me to make necklaces with her and her friend Anna. So on Friday morning I was in my kitchen with beads spread all over the table teaching two little princesses how to make lovely necklaces and bracelets to accent their royalty. We were having a good time when I looked up and there was a woman with four little kids and two bowls standing in front of me.

I knew that she had probably come to ask me for something because she was holding out empty bowls, but she was using a word that I didn’t know so it took me a little bit to find out what she wanted. She was from the islands and she was going to return there the next day and she wanted me to give her some food for her children.

It’s really normal in Guinea-Bissau for people that we know to ask us for help when they need something and almost every time we do help them; however, it’s not really that normal for a Guinean to come into the house of someone they don’t know and ask for help, so I was totally thrown off. Sometimes people come to the Youth Center for help and then when they see me they ask me, but since our house in the back of the Youth Center people never really come into the house to ask for things. Every month we give money to the Youth Center’s giving fund and then when people come that we don’t know we refer them to the guy at the Center who’s in charge of that fund. That helps us a lot because they know way better than we do if someone is trying to scam us and they also know how much help is appropriate.

For some reason in this case I was caught really off guard. I asked her to wait and came upstairs to talk to Jason. As soon as I walked in the door tears welled up in my eyes. I was really feeling the weight of this woman’s problem and I couldn’t figure out why it was so heavy and overwhelming on my heart. Jason talked to me for a bit then I went back downstairs talked to her a little more and then took her to William. As William started talking to her I left because a friend of mine stopped by to talk to me. The cool part of this story is that when William was talking to her he felt like he should share Jesus with her. He did and she accepted right away. He made it really clear that we were going to help her out and that accepting Jesus didn’t have anything to do with her getting money for food from us, but she told him that for a long time she had had questions about her life and no one had ever told her the story of Jesus before. She wanted to become a Christian because when he was explaining it, it all made sense.

Wow. When William came back and told me that I was amazed! Then all my feeling of uncertainty and the weight of this woman’s problem made sense. Satan knows when someone is in the right place at the right time and the last thing that he wanted was for someone to share Jesus with that woman. When I realized that, I was so convicted. I’m the missionary, right? Shouldn’t I always been on the lookout for people that need to hear about Jesus??? I’m so glad that William decided to share with her, but if he hadn’t she would have spoken to two Christians and walked away with her heart still searching for answers! I prayed right then that God wouldn’t let me miss another opportunity.

Don’t you love it when God answers your prayers right away? Well, that’s what happened to me…

Right after that Katie and I went to the market to buy some black lining material for some bags a friend of mine is working on. While I was in the little shop buying the material a Muslim man sitting outside turned and asked me if I was buying it to make myself a burka. Obviously the man could take one look at me with my uncovered head and tell that I am not a Muslim, so he was just trying to provoke me. I thought about what he said for a minute and then I was reminded of my earlier prayer.

So, I took a deep breath, got myself mentally ready for a good amount of Creole, and answered him – no, I wasn’t going to make a burka, I was going to make some purses - and as long as we are on the topic why do Muslims put such a weight on their wives to have no identity and be so hidden away from the world? Well, that sparked a conversation about Islam in general and I was able to explain to him that the way I see it Islam is a very heavy religion for its followers. They live everyday of their lives with the uncertainty of never knowing what’s going to happen to them after they die. When they die they believe that all of the good that they’ve done is added up and weighed against all of the non-good and that decides their future. I told him that I only know of one person in history who could pass that test, Jesus.

We talked about that for a while and he agreed with me that it is a very heavy thing. Then I explained to him that the reason that I’m a Christian is because God knows that no one is good enough to get to heaven on their own, so He sent Jesus Christ to come and die for my sins. When I accepted Jesus as my savior He came into my life and cleaned away all of that sin and He continues to do that everyday as I walk with Him, so the life of a Christian is a life of freedom and relationship.

He said that Jesus was a great prophet and that he believes every word that Jesus said even though he hasn’t read the Bible yet. I told him that he cannot believe every word that Jesus said and be a Muslim because Jesus said that He is the only way, the only truth, and the only life. We talked for about 15 minutes and in the end he told me that if someone brings him a Bible he will read every word of it because he wants to know more about Jesus!

As Katie and I walked away from that conversation we were both amazed. It’s not very often that a Muslim man will listen to the words of a woman, let alone a Christian woman! It was just so obvious that God was at work in the situation. His name is Zakarias (Zachariah in English) and I would appreciate your prayers as I go back and take him a Bible.

All that to say, my eyes are peeled. I’m ready. I’m pumped. And, I can’t wait to see what God is going to say through me to the next person :-)

New Veggies!

This past month and a half has flown by!!!! It's been fun, stressful, strange, familiar, and good. We really are so blessed to be here with this opportunity to really make a difference!

A lot of things have changed in Bissau since last time! One very exciting change is that there's a new store!!!! They call it a super market, but it's just a little room with some shelves and refrigerators. The thing that's exciting about it is that on the last day of each month they get a shipment of vegetables. You may ask why I'm so pumped about veggies, but wait, you don't know what kinds.... This month they got red peppers and (drum roll please) frozen broccoli! That's right I found broccoli in Bissau! You have no idea how excited I was. I bought a whole kilo!

That's not all! After I left that new little store I went to another little store that gets cheese sometimes and they had cheddar cheese. There are no words in the English language to convey my shock. I seriously almost passed out with joy!!!!! It was only like double the price of not-on-sale cheddar in America so I snapped up the three little squares that were there. Then I found the manager and told her that as long as they kept ordering cheddar I would keep buying it. I actually told her several times because I was just gushing. I think she got the point :-) The thing is here just because a store has something once that doesn't mean they will ever have it again!

So with the broccoli and cheddar powers combined I was in heaven for dinner that night. I had Jason take a picture so you could share in my joy :-)


Before Eden and her family moved to Dakar we had a Kool-Aid party. Like a tea party - little cookies, little crackers, little tea cups, but with Kool-Aid which is much better in Africa than hot tea :-)

Me, Eden, Abby, and Anna

When we first got here I got a bad rash from the heat and the mango trees so after lunch I would take a shower, get a pack of ice, and sit in front of the fan with the ice on my rash. It was my own little homemade air conditioning. I liked it so much I thought that Sydney might like it too, so one day I got out the ice pack and cooled her down. She liked it :-)

Sydney in the "AC"

Sydney is actually doing really well here. She doesn't really seem to mind the heat - she's hardly ever panting and she's full of energy.

So, that's the latest from around here :-)

a few thoughts about a bad day

You know how some days you just have “one of those days”? That was yesterday. I woke up feeling totally off, and it seemed like everything that happened was more frustrating that the last thing. I ended the day thoroughly soaking my pillow with a steady deluge of tears (my most effective stress reliever) and finally falling asleep completely and utterly exhausted.

I woke up this morning wondering, how do I start over from a day like that? I’ve done it before – cried myself to sleep and then woke up thinking, ok now it’s a brand new day. But this morning I didn’t really feel that way. Everything was still off. I cracked open my Bible and turned to the Psalms. I started reading without really noticing what Psalm it was. As I read just one chapter themes started leaping off the page – “I will praise the Lord at all times” “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them” “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them” Then I got to verse 16:

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

It was one of those moments when everything else fades and the Bible speaks directly to you. I closed my eyes and just prayed. I confessed my selfishness and bad attitudes that had made every problem bigger than the last yesterday. I praised God for so many things that He’s done in my life and I thanked Him for the promise that He is close to the brokenhearted.

As I did that my breathing got slower, like the air cleared, and I knew how to start over. When life gets tough (like yesterday) I have the tendency to grit my teeth, buckle down, and power through. The only problem with that is I don’t actually have the power to do it. Believe me, yesterday I tried and you see how well that worked out for me and my soggy pillow. God reminded me today that life isn’t about how much I can cram into it, it’s about how closely I can walk right next to Him. There were a million times yesterday when I could have dropped everything and focused on God. I could have gone to Him when I started struggling instead of waiting until my spirit was totally crushed. Today I’m going to take those opportunities.

When I finished praying I read the chapter again, Psalm 34, and I realized something that made me laugh. In level three of our English program here at the Youth Center (the level that I wrote the curriculum for and have taught to six different classes) they memorize Psalm 34 in the Message translation. They do a couple verses a week over the three months and by the end they can say the whole thing. It’s funny because I’ve taught that chapter so many times I could quote it at any moment. Today I was reading a different translation of the Bible, but all of the themes and even some of the phrases are the exact same. If I had looked at the Psalm before I started reading it I might have moved on to another one, because after all, I know that one by heart… Sometimes I forget that the word of God is living and active and that God uses even the most familiar words to continually challenge and change us.

So, it’s about 11 am and I think I’m ready to start my day. Thanks God!!!!!

Sweaty and Happy :-)

So far we are loving Bissau. It's pretty much the hotest time of the year, so we're sweating, a LOT! But we're drinking a lot of water, so it's like our own sauna. I have a few more photos from the past few weeks that I thought my be interesting:

This is Jason picking out his sweet new running shoes right before we left for Africa. If you are asking yourself, "do those shoes have toes???" The answer is yes, yes they do. So far he LOVES them.
Here's Sydney chillin' with all of our carry-on luggage in Detroit.

A very pregnant goat eating some trash in Dakar

Eating lunch with friends in a little restaurant by the ocean in Dakar.

This is the boat we took from Dakar (in the north of Senegal) to Ziguinchor (in the south of Senegal). It was really nice, but the people we shared the cabin with were interesting... I don't really understand drunk people...

Some new friends we made on the 14 hour boat ride. We sat at the same table for dinner and the girls were just too cute! He's German and she's Senegalese. They have their hands full with two 17 month-olds!

Jason and I preparing breakfast for everyone (the three families that make up our team) on Saturday morning. We sent over dried blueberries and real maple syrup, so we had some amazing pancakes and Jason made some killer breakfast potatoes (his speciality).

Our new favorite place in the whole world! Right outside of the guest house where we live in Bissau they built this lovely little cabana. It is shady, breezy, and heavenly! You can see our little dog, Sydney running towards me as I'm taking this picture. She growing so fast!

Feelings

Right now I am sitting in the middle of a huge pile of stuff trying to organize it, but tears keep clouding my eyes – not in the way you think. I am so overwhelmed by how blessed we are! We arrived in Guinea-Bissau on Sunday afternoon and since then we’ve been eating, talking, reuniting, and gathering all of our stuff – from last time and from the container that our team sent over last May. My main goal today was to unpack all of those boxes and make a list of what we need to go buy downtown, but each time I open a box I’ve just been blown away! I found vitamins and nice conditioner for my hair, good pens and Ziploc bags, parmesan cheese and dried fruit, our plastic plates and some knives that actually cut things, an oven thermometer and some screens to get the bugs out of our flour, my very favorite books and a bag of potpourri to make our house smell nice, and the list goes on and on.

This trip to Guinea-Bissau feels different because it is different. We aren’t volunteers coming for 8 months, we’re full time staff moving here for four years. We really are making our home here and that’s good and hard and exciting and just different. Jason and I have been so blessed and we have always had everything that we need, and it’s just so fun to feel like we have some things that are ours as we settle in. So many of you have prayed for our stuff to make it safely over, have given generously to us and our work, and have been part of the whole journey with us and I want to say thank you. From the bottom of my truly grateful heart, thank you for letting God’s love for us spill out through you. Wow, ok I have to turn off the waterworks before I dehydrate myself - hehehehe