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.

 

Generosity

After our youth meeting on Saturday, I found out that Angelika, Madame Traole, and Lea were going to visit a few widows from our church. Lea had a lot of rice left over that she’d been given at her wedding, and she wanted to give it away before it went bad. Mai and I joined them. 

Zahatia had just come back from the fields when we arrived, around 5 pm. Her 3 littlest ones were running about, shirtless, eating mangoes in the yard. She walked up the path to greet us, and we all walked over to her small, cement block house. Sitting down outside on small stools and chairs, we waited for the news to be asked. Lea explained her gift of rice, which Zahatia graciously accepted. And then she did something that none of us expected. She walked over to her basin, full of the day’s harvest, and placed it down in front of us. Inside were mangoes, eggplants, and peanuts. Then she came out of the house with another large bowl full of sweet potatoes, the ones with bright violet skin. We passed around a few peanuts, picking them off the dirt covered roots. Zahatia, a widow with 6 kids, was giving us all of this produce. 

As we packed them into bags, I wanted to say, “no, you need it more than I do!” but that would mean not accepting her gift, which would bring her shame. I was touched by her generosity. She has so little, and yet she gave us so much. It reminds me of the story that Jesus recounts in scripture, of the woman who gave a few copper coins - all she had. And then a rich man gave a few silver coins, but he had so much more. Which one am I? Surely, I’m the one giving the silver coins, and Zahatia is the one with the small copper pennies.

If that’s not generosity, I don’t know what is. Zahatia has taught me to give freely, to give all that I have. Now, I have no other choice! The truth is, when we put ourselves into such a place where we must step out in faith, we give God the chance to provide as He promised. God will take care of Zahatia. She knows that He is the one who gave her that produce, and He can bring her 10 times more. The money and the objects that I have are not my own - they were a gift. I have no choice but to share them, as Zahatia shared her harvest with me.

Last night, I sat talking to Lea about Saturday. She recounted testimony upon testimony, of times when she gave away pagnes or money and God gave back to her all the much more. Like yesterday when she used her last 1,000 francs to get her mom in town, and her dad gave her 2,000 more when he came to pick her up. We encouraged one another with the ways God had provided for us, bubbling with excitement for the ways that we could share His provision. Next Saturday, we are going to visit Zahatia with the other young women from our church, to work in her field and make lunch for her family. 
Lea is one way that God has provided for me. Who would have known that I would find such a good friend, with such similar visions, in a 24 year old Senoufo woman from Cote d’Ivoire. Only God could have planned such a friendship.

“Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously," (2 Corinthians 9:6)
Above: Lea and I

Some pictures from the past few weeks:

Mangoes!

The Korhogo market

Pekaly, Florence and I.  Pekal is in his last year of pastoral training!

Baby on my back!  Katie Frazee - her parents are missionaries in Mali.

Jess and Tricia.  Crazy kids.

Steve, Jess's hubby.

Two Worlds Collide

Family. I have two of them. Why? Because I moved to Cote d’Ivoire, and an Ivorian family took me in as their daughter. It had been 16 months since I’d seen my American parents. Then, in February, my real momma came to visit me here in West Africa. My two worlds collided.

When my host dad first met my mom at church, he lit up. In the greeting line after church, he gave her 3 kisses on the cheek. I introduced her at church, and everyone applauded. It was, I imagine, a little like winning a Grammy. My friends called her “momma Stephanie!” saying that she is now their mom as well. My little brother, Emmanuel, ran across the school yard to greet her, and then embraced her with all his might.

She came with me to Centre Providence and helped lead art classes, to visit a few of the widows in our church, and to see many of my friends here in Cote d’Ivoire. She tried all the foods: alloko (fried plantains), ignames (a large potato), attieke (think couscous, but stickier), and even futu (pounded ignames). She got to see Bouake, Korhogo, and Ferke. It was a jam packed 2 weeks.

The best part, I have to say, was when she met my African family. My host mom prepared a feast of alloko and fried ignames. We sat around a table, eating off the platters. My host family had asked about my real family for months, never imagining they’d get to meet my mom. Bakary, my host dad, told me that now he knows he has a family, a home, in America too. Mom unpacked the backpack full of gifts: knives, a soccer ball, clothes, jewelry. A few days before we left, my host parents came to visit and presented traditional, woven, Senoufo outfits for both of my (real) parents.

I went back to the US with my mom and spent 5 weeks traveling, support raising, and visiting friends. Now, as I write this, I am back in Cote d’Ivoire. It was all a bit of a blur - though a well enjoyed and refreshing blur. I miss it A LOT, but somehow, I am sure that this is where I should be right now - wearing a pagne, sitting on a foam mattress on the floor after a bucket bath, anticipating the dinner of rice and sauce that’s waiting for me outside.

This past week, I moved in with some friends here in Bouake. I’m in the adjusting period, trying to figure out where I fit in the house. Today, I visited my Ivorian family. It felt like going home - somewhere familiar, comfortable, safe. Talking to Bakary and Kari, my host parents, felt a little like sitting in my parents house in the states. I felt so at ease, taken care of, without worry. It wasn’t always like that. I remember that moving in with them felt so uncomfortable at first. Today, it is the opposite. In a place where I sometimes long for home (in the US), having a family in Cote d’Ivoire is such a grace, such a gift.

Just like in the states, here in Cote d’Ivoire, I have a home that I can always run to. It’s somewhere that I know I will be taken care of, somewhere that I feel loved.

My mom and I with my host family

 My mom, my mom, and I

Ferke!  Visiting Linn and Glenn Boese

Visiting the Tuo family, a widow in our church

Pile-ing corn in a village near Ferke

My mom and I with Mai

With Tim and Lea

Her first moto-taxi ride!

I am His and He is mine.

Five weeks spent in the US have left me craving more, yet hopeful for what God has in store when I return to Cote d'Ivoire. I couldn't do any of this without His strength, His unfailing love, His power that overcame the grave. This morning, in church, we sang In Christ Alone. "As He stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me. For I am His and He is mine. Bought with the precious blood of Christ." I am His! Sweet relief. I don't belong to fear or sin - I belong to a victorious God. The song goes on to say, "No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me." As I get on that plane tomorrow, I go out in His life giving power. Praise Him for that.

Blessings. That is what these past 5 weeks have been full of. Here are a few of them - my family.

My brother, Hunter, and I.

Bear, the newest edition to our family.

My mom and I. This lady is my superstar. She came to Africa to visit me (next blog!)

I love my dad.

Pappy and Nanny.

Hunter's pretty cool for 13.

From life's first cry to final breath..

Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand.

'Til He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand.