What happened in May

I brought a new camera out to Cote d'Ivoire this time around, and I'm loving it.  Here's some recent photos from our team's may seminar, my church's baptism, sunday school, and Centre Providence.  Enjoy!

Our team photo.

Sisterhood, across cultures.

 I don't know what I would do without these girls.  Marie Louise, Mai, me and Lea.

 Benjamin a gate notre photo!

 Sunday at church.  Phil and Mimi (our new leaders on the field) with Deborah

 At the baptism pool

 Eric, our luxembourgeoise

 An old man in our congregation was baptized! There were 16!  Ages 18 to 70.

 David and Manygi - my host siblings

Ngo - one of our neighbors was baptized

 Sunday school.  This is Grace.  I also call her Omangi.

 Teaching the class about the day that Jesus calmed the storm.

Drawing

Playing

 Ephraim

Timothee's class

Lea

Azza, one of my Centre Providence girls

Leaf printing

with Azza and Sarah

We're working on a mural for the party in June

How to be a strong, effective, soul saving Christian

Lie: Living in Africa will make you a super Christian

Truth: Living in Africa will bring you face to face with your own weakness and closer to Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith.

There are days here, like today, when my energy is gone, finished, ka-put. This week, I’ve lacked motivation more so than most. Why? I am a missionary in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa. Am I not supposed to be a superhuman, super spiritual, always joyful woman of faith? Goodness, I wish. Some days I feel this way, like I could tell any mountain to throw itself into the sea. But today is not one of those. 

Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing,” (Jn 15:5). Yesterday, I biked to the girls school where I volunteer with Jesus’ words to Paul repeating in my mind: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9).

How can this be?  Jesus, are you telling me that you put me here, in this world, here in Cote d’Ivoire, to realize my own weakness? Yes. How can I be of any use? My power is made perfect in your weakness. My use is completely dependent on your power? Yes. 

It seems like this is where we fail. We try to relieve poverty and suffering with our own power. But the truth is, God never gave us that right or ability. “The call of God does what the call of man can’t. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb, “Come forth!”(John Piper) If I rest on my own strength for each day, I won’t make it past noon. With His strength, on the other hand, I will.

I would like to tell you that I started a fund for the widows in my church, I have brought healing to girls who have been abused, and I have made deep and lasting friendships that cross culture and language. But I haven’t. I can’t claim any of these things. In fact, the first hasn‘t been done yet, and only He can measure the second. God help me if I take for myself any of the glory for the third. I’m relying on God to accomplish these things, everyday. “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.” (2 Cor. 3:5).

The health, wealth and prosperity gospel doesn’t exist here in Cote d‘Ivoire.  Everywhere I look, someone has lost a child or husband. Being a Christian doesn’t equal an easy life. One look at Paul’s life - full of prison, shipwreck, and persecution for spreading the gospel - and this is obvious. He didn’t endure it all for recognition and a long life. He said, “This slight, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,” (2 Cor. 4:17). Let’s stop being Christians for the sake of our own comfort. Jesus calls us to save souls and make disciples; One look at New Testament examples proves that this isn’t done without a price.

David Livingstone, pioneer missionary to Africa, once said, “Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?” It should be for this reason that we do anything. Not because of our own ability, but because, in our inability, we owe Him our all. 

Today, let’s ask ourselves this: what is my motive for any of this? Who do I work for? If the answer is “for my own gain“, get on your knees and listen to Jesus’ words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Thank Him for the thorn in your flesh, or ask Him to give you one. He wants to use you despite your weakness. You’ll be more effective for His use if you realize, as Paul said, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” (see 2 Corinthians 12:7-10). 

Get up and live by His strength. He wants to use us, weak as we are.

This is real love

I've discovered the best, fool proof way to love a Senoufo widow.  Go work in her rice fields. She already has the land and the seeds. Money won’t give her workers. So we organized the 20 somethings from our church to wake up bright and early on Saturday and help Zahatia plant and weed her fields. If that isn’t love, I’m not sure what is.

At 5:30, I woke up to get ready and put the bags of water, which we had attached the night before, in the coolers. We met the other youth at the church at 7 and were off to the fields by 8. We walked in a line, carrying coolers, pots, bowls, plates, and spoons. When we reached the fields, we left our shoes behind and walked along the small, raised paths of land, not more than a foot wide, that ran between the sections of rice. Leaving our supplies under the mango tree, we stepped into the murky, half-calf deep mud and water. Starting at one side, we placed small sprouts of rice into the ground, working like a machine, a line of pagne wearing young women. The only differences between us were the colors of our pagnes, and of course, my skin. But even that changed, as I was soon covered in mud and continued on along-side of them, despite the sweat, frogs, beetles, crabs, and leeches. 

My friends would look up at me every now and then and say “Tenedja, ç a peut aller?” (can you keep going?) or “Steph! C’est comment?” (How is it?). Most of the chatter was in Senoufo, but I didn’t mind. I just kept thinking, “this is why I’m here!” Zahatia, the widow we were helping, only speaks Senoufo. We don’t even speak the same languages, but I had the opportunity to encourage and love her without words. Real, active love, done in solidarity. Aiding widows and orphans. This is it, this is life. I’m burnt - so what! I’m tired - whatever. I planted rice with my Ivorian brothers and sisters, to help our mama, who takes care of 6 kids on her own because her husband passed away a few years ago. This is how I want to live. 

As we sat on the ground, underneath the mango tree, eating rice and sauce with fish, a dish I’ve grown to love over the months, I looked around at my brothers and sisters. I found myself surrounded by people I love, and who love me in return. I wish I could better explain what a joy it is to have them in my life, and what an exhilaration it is to serve alongside of them. I don’t notice our color difference until I see the pictures - and then I ask, “who is that strangely colored person?” It’s me, but none of these people rarely notice it anymore. A good friend recently told me that I’ve done lots of things here that he never thought I was capable of. Things like eating rice and sauce, sleeping under a mosquito net, traveling to Ghana, and working in the rice fields. On Saturday, my friends called me courageous. But I felt more than that - I felt alive. 

After about 7 hours of work, 7 fields planted and another 8 or so weeded, we packed up our coolers, bowls, pots, and spoons, and left the fields around 3 pm, all 30 of us, invigorated and exhausted from a long, hard day’s work. Zahatia waved at us, with a huge smile on her face, saying “anie-che! Anie-che!” (thank you!) as we packed up the car. The work we did that day may have taken her weeks on her own. Not one person wasn’t touched by providing for Zahatia’s needs. I pray that this is only the beginning of much more than is to come. I would give anything to see our church mobilized to care for it’s widows, and I think that this is finally starting to happen.

Check out these photos from the day.