Almandine

…Is the name of a girl at Centre Providence. She goes out every night, with a guy - the same guy, to the maquis (local night life) and then to bed. She comes home at midnight or 1 am. He pays. She says if she has a baby, she’ll give it away to someone. Her first thought was that he will help her raise it. But when asked if she’s seen that happen to other girls her age (16) who have gotten pregnant, she says no. But somehow, she has come to believe that he loves her, and of course that’s the reason why he comes to get her every night.. Right? And every time he does come, she feels needed, wanted, and that is a good feeling. We all want to feel wanted and needed, and it’s easy to mistake want for love, especially when you don’t get that from people very often. Almandine is a smart, fiery girl. She’s talkative, always making jokes, and she‘s got quite the attitude. But when he comes to call tonight, she’ll go. She wants to appease him, because if she doesn’t, she might lose that “love”, or rather, the want disguised as love. She lives in fear that she’ll lose that reassurance. My heart breaks for her, because I’ve lived for the same reassurances, I understand what she yearns for. When will she learn that human want, even human love, has nothing on God’s unconditional love. He doesn’t ask for our compliance first. No, He loves us anyway.

“In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love: because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love. We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:18,19)

An excerpt from The Ragamuffin Gospel, my latest read:
“The desire to feel loved is the last illusion: let it go and you will be free.” Just as the sunrise of faith requires the sunset of our former unbelief, so the dawn of trust requires letting go of our craving spiritual consolations and tangible reassurances. Trust at the mercy of the response it receives is bogus trust. All is uncertainty and anxiety. […] She pleads for proof that affection is returned. If she does receive consolation, she is reassured only for a time. She presses for further proofs, each less convincing. The need to trust dies of frustration. Tangible reassurances, however valuable they may be, can’t create trust, sustain it, or guarantee certainty of its presence. Jesus calls us to hand over our autonomous self in unshaken confidence. When the craving for reassurance is stifled, trust happens.

“Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself , “the Lord is my portion, therefore, I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:22-24

Here’s a little of what’s been on my heart lately. I hope this makes you think as much as it does me.

On a completely different note, it’s my BIRTHDAY today! 23 and feeling free, as my teammate Heidi would say. Soo, here’s a gift for you all, I finally got some more photos up on Picasa! Enjoy!

Our recent trip to Burkina Faso.

Every day life with my family.

A wedding, church, and the pottery village.

Dependence, humility, and worry

I am overdue for one of these. Organization seems impossible right now, so I’m going to give you a series of anecdotes and lessons I’m learning.

1. Dependence.

About 3 weeks ago now, I went up to Ferke to have Dr. Jen look at the growing cyst on my back, at Hopital Baptiste. She squeezed everything out, and I just about passed out from pain. I haven’t gone very long here without everyday medical treatments. I’ve gone from mourning over the inconvenience of applying products 3 times a day to ring worm, to relying on someone else to put medicine and gauze on my cyst wound. I just always seem to need someone else’s help. Add this to a limited French vocabulary and nearly nonexistent Senoufo or Jula, an only basic understanding of the culture, and it’s hard to be completely independent here. I love being independent, so this is hard for me (if you couldn’t tell).

“The remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no longer rely on him who struck them down but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel,” (Isaiah 10:20). In Deuteronomy 9, God tells the people of Israel 3 times, “it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.” God reminds them of how they turned away and made a golden calf, while Moses was on the mountain meeting with Him. Yet God accepts them back, telling them to love Him and serve Him with all their heart and soul (Deut. 10:12). He tells them to write His word on their doorframes, tie them to their hands, bind them to their foreheads, and teach them to their children while they walk on the road (11:18). God knows we’re not capable of keeping His word on our own, or else we’ll make a golden calf out of our jewelry in no time, and turn from Him to worship it.

I am surely capable of this. Clothes, money, food, guys, my own righteousness - even here I turn to worship these things. And it’s these struggles that remind me of my reliance on God. Cysts on my back, straining to understand sermons, and my own yearning for relationship - these all lead me back to my dependence on God somehow. The thing is, God loves when we depend on Him. We were made for this type of reliance. So why am I so quick to be independent, even of my creator?

2. Humility

Yesterday afternoon, I sat in my courtyard, washing my clothes and sheets with a basin, a bucket, and a bar of soap. My host mom and sister like to laugh at me - my French, the way I wash clothes, you name it. And so they did, a lot! It’s kind of like when you think the foreign exchange student from Russia has a funny accent, and they do everything differently in Russia, so you like to laugh at the way she walks and eats too. Kadi, my host mom, also asked me why I don’t spend my money (assuming that I have an ample amount), and Kolo started on a continuous string of cockroach jokes, because she knows they freak me out(with good reason). I got so frustrated, and all I could do was give it to God. Then, when I finally sat down to journal, Kadi asked me to take the kids for a haircut.. I was tired and resisted, but took them in the end. Afterwards, Emanigi (10 years old) went back to the house to wash the dishes.. She had been up since 5 am, cooking and cleaning, and was still going. Here I was complaining that I’d washed and cleaned all afternoon, and then had to take the kids to get a haircut. I prayed for an attitude adjustment at dinner.

3. We worry for nothing

I have lots of questions. What in the world will I do after Africa? Will I go home after this? Will I come back again? Will I go to grad school? Who and when will I marry? While I’m here, what will I do with my project money, with the girls at Centre Providence? Goodness gracious. The God of all creation must think I’m RIDICULOUS. Thank goodness, “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Romans 8:38-39).

A very dear friend recently wrote me a card, and put this verse in it: “So do not throw away your confidence, it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” In the face of these worries, I tend to lose confidence. Add that to hot humid weather, rice for 3 meals, and other uncomforts that are bearable until other frustrations build up. Then I read Hebrews 12: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.” I LOVE this picture. I just stop and tell myself, "steph, strengthen your arms and knees, and get over it, keep going!"

Another friend here recently told me that they have seen in me a growing ability to have joy in the midst of struggle. I thought he was talking about someone else for a minute, because this is only something that God has instilled in me. “The greatest honor we can give the Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love,” (from The Ragamuffin Gospel). I want people to say that I live gladly because of His love.

I hope you can glean something from that ramble. Here are a few pictures from my recent Burkina Faso trip! The first is our team, standing in front of the sign for the animal reserve where we stayed for 2 nights. (top: Devin, Rod. bottom: Alyssa, Holly, Naomi, Chazz, CJ, Heidi, me, Jason).

Elephants! They walked right up to where we were sitting! They're so beautiful up close.

Oh la vie..

Now that I've been living with the Kone Bakary family for 2 months, they mean a lot more to me than a name. I tried to do my best here to show that.

Back: Emanigi, Nani, Emanuel

Front: Musa, Kolo, David

My bike, with Mohammed, a neighborhood kid, on the rack.

Kadi. Mother of 2 boys (but houses 4 + me), cook, sells charcoal (in the bottom photo, she had just gone to the village to bring back 40 sacks), makes bisap, baobob, and other sorts of homemade popsicles to sell at school at 7 am, 10 am, and 3 pm. She is an African supermom.

Bakary. Father and teacher (for elementary school age, and for me). This picture was taken by accident by Emanuel.. But I think it shows his personality pretty well. This is his “explaining” visage.. Which he does a lot with me! He’s very loving about it.

View from the door, of people dancing through the streets, the day Gbagbo was arrested. Djik! The smaller of our 2 dogs in the courtyard.

Kolo. She is 14 and unafraid to speak her mind. “Kolo, tu parles trop,” (Kolo, you talk too much), and “tu as foulle” (you are crazy), are things I say to her a lot. She dances on a regular basis and sings songs in Senoufo with my name in them, so I all I understand is “da da da Stephanie da da da”. But without her life would be uninteresting. In the bottom photo, we were washing our clothes together in the courtyard. It’s those moments that I look forward to the most.

Emanigi. She says she’s 9, but doesn’t know when her birthday is, so she is most likely 10. Her laugh warms your heart, and when she cries, it kills you. She’s the first to run up and hug me when I’ve been gone, and the last to whisper “bonne nuit” through my window at night. She’s living with our family so that she can go to school here. She’s told me that, in the village, her mom hit her, and that if she stayed, she would have been circumcised at the age of 11. Thankfully, she is welcomed into warm arms here as part of the family.

Emanuel. He is 7. His new favorite game is Uno. He whines a lot and asks too many questions, but he adores me and so I do my best to remind myself of how nagging and questioning I was as a child. That changes my attitude pretty quick. In the top photo, he was dancing for me on the front porch (yes, in his towel, he was on his way to wash).

David. He just turned 6 on Tuesday! We ate peanut butter cookies, sang and danced. This little guy is one of the greatest joys in my life, even though he drives me crazy. You can see him climbing a wall in one of these photos, stunts like that are things that he pulls every 5 minutes, and then says “Stephanie! Reguarde!” (Look!)

The joy in struggle

5 months since I came to Cote d’Ivoire. Crazy. This blog is long, but it is good. I promise.

Yesterday morning, I went with Angelika, Holly, and Kadi (my host mom), to visit a woman from church who recently lost her husband. She’s young, with 5 kids, the youngest is still breast-feeding. We walked to a cartier on the outskirts of Bouake, past gardens and single cell cement houses. The woman only spoke Senoufo, so Kadi translated for us, from French. She said that if it wasn’t for brothers and sisters from church, coming to visit her, she would have given up on God. Being a woman here with 5 kids and no husband is impossible. Thankfully, she has some family members living with her, but even they don’t have jobs to pay for the family’s needs. I was filled with compassion for her, and frustration with my own life.

Goodness gracious, God, forgive me for complaining, ever! Who am I? I am blessed beyond what I deserve, yet my thoughts are pretty much always consumed with material things. I want to spend my life, my time, my energy, where it matters.

Living in the midst of poverty teaches you what is most important in life. My family has enough money for our needs, but not much more than that. I have a little money here, $100 per month, though for the past 2 months, I’ve lived on about $40 a month. I want to hide that from my friends and family here, because I don’t want to be seen as the rich American, but that’s what I am, my skin color announces that. About once a week, my 7 year old brother asks me for money. “Pourquoi?” I ask. “Rien,” he says (“nothing”). I can help, but it’s hard to figure out how or when. For instance, this morning, Angelika took the woman and her daughter to the doctor, to get her medicine. The child’s stomach was bloated and she complained of it hurting (most likely a mix of worms and malnutrition), and the inside of her eyelids were white, a sign of anemia, possibly caused by malaria. Medication for Palu (malaria) is 10,000 CFA ($20), but there is no way this woman could afford that on her own, let alone the other treatments needed for her daughter.

I’m learning to live what God asks of us in Isaiah 58: “If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness [..] The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land.”

The Bible tells us that as we share in Christ’s joy, we must also share in His suffering. Me, I am not suffering, but I am sharing in it with those around me. I am also sharing in great joy. Just as the hardships seem more real here, so does the joy. For instance..

A few Saturdays ago, I spent the day breaking up earth by hand with a "dabbah", a mini hand-hoe. About 85 people from my church came out, to a plot of land that was bought in the outskirts of the city. We ate attieke and fish, mixed with onions, peppers, and tomatoes, together, out of basins (7 people per bowl). The women whom I shared a basin with examined my skin afterwards, asking me questions about my freckles and my flabby arms. Nothing can compare with the joy and contentment I felt, sharing in the work and celebration that day with everyone.

This morning, I biked to a near-by village, which is known for making pottery. I had been there two weeks ago, befriended a family who lives there, and communicated that I would love to come back and work with them. So today, I sat for 2 hours, learning how they make coil pots, and then constructing one myself. I’m going back in a few days to make the designs, and then put it in the fire when it’s dry. The joy of getting to make pottery in the middle of a village in Cote d’Ivoire, all the while chatting with a guy who went to school for painting (like myself), priceless.

Centre Providence is a great example of how, as Kent Annan (a missionary to Haiti) wrote it, “The best comedy bumps up against the tragic.” Wednesday, one of the girls had her skirt hiked up during the morning role-call. One of the teachers snuck up behind her and pulled it up, while another tried to de-pants her (I’m talking underpants). She ran and all of the girls busted out laughing and rolling on the floor. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Later on, during discussion time, one of the girls said she heard you could lose weight by putting a maggi cube (like bullion) up your butt (and she stood up, to demonstrate). When the teacher asked what she’d do with it afterwards, the girl said, “put it in the sauce.” The girls there have fiery attitudes, and some of them would make millions as comedians. These are girls who have been in the drug and sex trafficking business, no doubt a bit traumatizing, and comedy is a great outlet for stress relief.

My little brother, David, both exhausts me and brings me uncomparable laughter, at the same time. One day I caught him attaching a plastic bag as a camisole, and a pagne for his skirt (remember, he’s 5). Another time he told me he cut the tail off a lizard, and asked me if I wanted to come see. When I said no, he said, “tu as peur? Vien! Je vais t’accompangie!” (are you afraid? Come! I will accompany you!). When I didn’t want to look at the very large cockroach he found in the bathroom, he said, “Don’t worry, they don’t eat people.”

The political situation here is tense. People are leaving Abidjan by the masses. We’ve had 2 families stay at my house for a few days, on their way up north. The power was out in the north of the country for 5 days, from last Wednesday to Sunday, with no good explanation, except that someone down south (most likely instructed by Gbagbo) turned it off. No power means no running water, medicine in the hospital going bad, people on monitors dying, the bodies in the morgue rotting.. Not a pretty picture. The most it affects me is having a slightly overfilled household for a few days, and sweating profusely while I try to sleep. Not much to complain about. We sit and wait, while Ouattara’s military has moved south to take Abidjan.. Pray for peaceful resolutions.

Also, take comfort in knowing that life goes on as normal here. School started this week! For the first time since the voting, back in November. I sat in the school yard a few days ago, with Kadi, my host mom, and sold homemade popsicles and a corn/sugar mixture that tastes like cheerios. Bakary, my host dad, is a teacher there, so he was at work for the first time since I moved in with them. It was so great to see life going on as it did before this all started.

Thank you, as always, for reading this. Best, Steph

Hey folks! I finally have a few pictures taken of my life here. Enjoy, and look forward to more coming soon!

My Ivorian brothers: Emanuel and David

Alloko. Fried plantains. The BEST snack around.

Kolo, my younger sister. This is her always, laughing.

Emanuel

Emanigi (my other sister), Kolo, and David

This picture describes their personalities perfectly

Emanuel, actin' cool on his dad's moto

My sunday school class, with my co-teacher, Tenan

Ninieri

Songimay and I. My favorite full of energy 4 year old.

Never a dull moment

FYI: This blog is a series of anecdotes from the past 2.5 weeks. I hope you find them as interesting/amusing as I do.

I dyed my hair red with henna last week! It’s called “jabi”, bought for 50 CFA (10 cents) in the market, you add water and it looks like you’re putting dog poop on your head, but works amazingly! It’s the same color as the boxed dyes I buy at home. I recommend it.

When I ride my bike here, I practically make the morning news. I get lots of cheers and “bon soir”s. I can just hear them thinking, “hey, white girl on a bike!” Since the Peace Core left Cote d’Ivoire at the start of the war, there haven’t been many white kids riding around here on bikes. My favorite is when they yell, “bravo!” after I make it across a high traffic road.

Kadi likes to take me to the market with her, to buy the beef for the day, because the butcher gives her a good price (keep in mind that the butcher is literally a man at a wooden table, with the meat from ONE cow, and he cuts it with a machete). Last Saturday, I suddenly realized that all 15 women waiting for their cuts were smiling at me with expectant glances, because the butcher was making a marriage proposal to me. All in good humor, but if you know me, I tend to take things seriously a little too often. Needless to say, I’m learning to have more witty comebacks here - and in French at that! Last night, one of Bakary, my host dad’s, friends was proposing that we go back to the US together and get married. I told him he was too old and I wasn’t ready, because I wanted to be free like a bird! Again, all in good humor.

Last Wednesday, I was at one of the local orphanages, playing with the littlest ones, when the director walks in, puts a baby in my hands, and leads me to a car, with 3 other girls and babies. I always have to laugh at the situations when I only know half of what’s going on, sometimes none. We took the babies to get vaccinations at a local hospital. Then we go to the police station. Turns out, a baby had been abandoned at the hospital the day before, literally a birth and run. Can you imagine? I can’t. About half an hour later, I’m called over, and given a 3 day old baby, to carry back to the orphanage. She was tiny and yellow with jaundice. My heart broke.

The political situation here seems to be heating up.. Or perhaps it’s cooling off. It’s hard to tell. All banks are closed, public schools have been closed for months, countless people are laid off. Monday, 5 presidents flew in to attempt a peace treaty with Gbagbo (the president who’s holding on to his place). The hope is that he will leave and Ouattara can finally take office, though he’s already acknowledged as president by many, mostly everyone here in Bouake. It’s been 3 months since elections, everyone is beginning to tire of the waiting. Monday morning, we held our breath, to hear no news by the end of the day. We still wait (im)patiently for what Gbagbo will do. C’est la vie. Nothing here runs as you think it will. I’m amazed by the amount of patience people live with here.. Or maybe it’s more like quietly enduring. We are blessed with a lot of certainty in America that does not exist here.

To sum up life, I’m still figuring out how to best spend my time here. If you are able, please pray that God would give me wisdom in this area. Between work with the church, in local orphanages, Centre Providence, and relationship building with my family. We’re working on a schedule this week to talk to our pastor about on Sunday. I’ve been blessed in all areas, and encouraged by Philippians 4: 6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

It’s been a joy to build relationships with my family. Every night, we sit outside and laugh.. Sometimes it’s teaching Kolo kickboxing, or singing in different languages, or making paper airplanes.. Never a dull moment. I feel at home here, something that I thought would take a lot longer than 2.5 weeks.. Life is full of surprises!

To leave you with words from Amy Charmichael, a missionary to India, at the start of the 20^th century,

“He hath never failed thee yet, never will His love forget, O fret not thyself nor let thy heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” We have no one to fear but God himself.

As I finish writing this, it’s down pouring, basins, no, oceans of rain! It’s not even rainy season yet! I had planned to grab a taxi into town to post this blog online, but it looks like that’s not going to be possible today. C’est la vie! Again, nothing seems to run here as you plan for it too. Patience, patience, patience. Sometimes, I’m a little tired of learning more patience. The most amazing thing is, that in an hour, I’ll bet you 100 bucks that the sun will be out, and that things will be dry by night fall. Oh Africa, never a dull moment.

La vie avec une famille Ivorien.. so far.

"The life with an Ivorian family"

Pardon me, if my Anglais is bad… or if you find a French word or two. I haven’t spoken much English in the past week.

Daily surrender - that’s the name of the game here. When I wake up, I tell God, “you have to give me enough strength for today, because I don’t have enough on my own.”

My “parents”, Bakary and Kadi Kone, are super helpful and welcoming. They’re in their 30s, and have 2 little boys. Her little sister, Kolo, and one of His brother’s daughters, Christine, also live there. They care a lot for our well-being.. Sometimes too much. Bakary doesn’t want Jamie or I to take a moto-taxi, and he’s afraid for me to ride my bike. He has good reason, but my perception of safety is so different here. But I am a child, right? I think I know everything here already, but in actuality, I don’t. So Bakary introduced us to a man whom he knows who’s a moto-taxi driver, who he trusts. They only speak to us in French, though Bakary knows a good amount of English. Kadi’s mother has been here for the past few days, and she speaks only Djula, so I’m picking up some of that as well. She likes to talk to me.. And I either just sit and smile, spit out what Djula words I remember, or speak French, and ask Kadi or Kolo what she’s saying. Last night, she taught me how to dance to Senoufo music. She grabbed my hands and started doing the “Senoufo shuffle” as I like to call it. It was great.

I take bucket baths twice a day. My “mom”, Kadi, helps me heat up a pot of water over hot coals, and I mix that with cold water from the outside tap. After being here for a few days, my little sister, Kolo (13), asked why I didn’t use the whole bucket. You’re supposed to pour whatever is left over your head. So now when I finish washing, she asks, “toute l’eau?” (all the water?) She also likes to laugh at me, often. Not only does she laugh, but she falls on the floor while doing so. It’s teaching me humility, and I’m thankful I learned to laugh at myself a long time ago.

My little brothers have taken a quick likening to me. Emanuel is 8. I recently taught him how to draw stars, and now he draws them everywhere. He is really sweet kid. He’s also super intrigued by my skin. Sometimes he’ll pet my arm hair, or point out my freckles and try to wipe them off. He has yet to figure out that they’re permanent. David is 5 and he is what they call here, a “bundi”. He likes to get into everything. One of his favorite past times is ringing the bell on my bike. Alas, he keeps life interesting. Yesterday, he made their puppy, “Djik”, ride his little tricycle. He pushed it all around the courtyard. The dog didn’t seem to mind. I also gave him a bath a few nights ago, outside, in a basin, as they do with kids here.

This week has been a lot of just spending time with the family, building relationships. Usually, we get up around 6, and the morning is full of sweeping, washing, reading a bit, walking to the market, preparing the noon meal. Then a petite rest in the afternoon, and more preparing, reading, playing with the kids, conversations, learning French always, and LOTS of visiting. Before dinner, everyone washes again, and dinner is around 8, then more visiting, sitting, and talking, and bed around 9:30 - 10. In the coming weeks, my schedule will change a little, as I start spending more time in ministry, at the local orphanages and Centre Providence.

Like I said already, life is a daily surrender: of my time, my will, my idea of how life should be. Every other morning so far, we’ve had ignames for breakfast. They are like large, heavy potatoes, cooked in oil with a tiny bit of garnish. I much prefer the bread and coffee days. But I had to stop my thoughts and say, “steph, this is how it’s going to be, for the next several months, you just aren’t going to get yogurt and granola for breakfast.” A surrender. That’s just one of the many.

If you are able, please pray that I’ll be full of patience, humility, understanding, wisdom, and strength.. All of the fruits of the spirit, really. I have been reading Psalm 23 fairly often. I love when it says “he restores my soul”, and “my cup overflows”. I’m learning to lean on Him in ways I never have before.