In the Middle of the Story

I woke up to the same rooster, I think. The same rooster that woke me up every morning in Yako almost two years ago. 

Our summer interns wrapped up their seven-week trip with a one week stay in Yako, where there is an orphanage called Sheltering Wings, a medical clinic, and a safe place for abused women called Village of Hope all on the same compound. I happily got to accompany them, for Yako holds a very special place in my heart. Sheltering Wings was the orphanage where I spent my first seven weeks in Burkina Faso in 2013.

My rooster friend woke me up as well as all the children outside our window playing with a bouncing ball and laughing. That's why we are here, and that's what got me out of bed. 

On the schedule for today was a pediatric medical outting to the village of Kabo. First we found Bea, the nurse who works for the orphanage. It didn't take us long to recognize each other, for she wrapped her arms around me in a great big hug. Two years doesn't change too much after all. 

Having rained the night before, our trip out to Kabo in my Nissan Patrol was an adventure filled with slipping, sliding, and splashing. Let's just say we might have gotten the car a little muddy. And we might have hit our heads on the ceiling once or twice. Needless to say, we got a good use of the four-wheel drive. 

When we arrived to the village about 40 minutes later, they forgot to tell us that they weren't having the medical clinic that day, so we turned around and went right back. After eating some shea butter nuts from the hospitable pastor. Welcome to Africa, where plans change and things don't go as planned, communication is sometimes lacking, and you often feel like you are wasting time. But really God never allows anything to be wasted in his kingdom work. 

Back in Yako, I quickly discovered that I could not get my car out of four wheel drive. It was entirely stuck, and I tried every combination possible of pushing, pulling, and changing gears until I was frustrated beyond the point of being able to do anything decent whatsoever. 

So we returned to the orphanage and spent the afternoon loving on kiddos. We plopped down in the baby area and snuggled babies in our laps. We tickled the toddlers until we could tickle no more. We sat around with the older kids, trying to cross the English-French-Moore language barrier and finding that language is really only a barrier if you let it be. Love has no language barrier. 

And just like old times, I let Barto, one of the residents at the orphanage, borrow my guitar and we took turns singing in Moore, French, and English different praise songs to Jesus. 

To end the day, the interns and I cooked our own dinner community-style with ingredients we had found and bought in our local stores and markets...something we haven't gotten to do a whole lot of this summer, but definitely something that bonded us together. 

At the end of the day, it didn't seem like we really did that much except go all the way out to Kabo to eat shea butter nuts and get the car stuck in four-wheel drive. And then I remembered the same lesson that Yako taught me two years ago. 

Yako taught me to slow down. I came to Burkina with such great intentions of doing all these great things, only to find that each day was not about accomplishing something but rather about loving someone. It's not about being on task but about being in relationships. It's not about doing projects as much as it is about living life with people. 

And so I was perfectly content to fall asleep with my car still stuck in four-wheel drive, because we had spent another wonderful day in Africa loving people and living life alongside them. 

By the way, the next day I took the Patrol to an African mechanic who proceeded to put the car back into two-wheel drive, doing what I had tried to do for at least thirty minutes in a matter of seconds and making me look like a complete idiot. But I didn't mind. Sometimes I realize that Africa doesn't need me; I need Africa. 

Two years ago, when I first came to Yako, God began a work in me - a work that would lead me to commit to longer term mission work in Burkina Faso. Now here I am, two years later, in the same place but yet not the same person. I see myself two years ago and I see myself now, and I see that God is writing a beautiful story and filling in all the gaps. 

Being in Yako is like being in the middle of that story.

Being able to look back at all he has done to bring me this far.

Being able to look forward and know that this is still only the beginning. 

That's just another normal day in Burkina: waking up to rosters, going mudding, running into changes of plans due to lack of communication, falling asleep with a peace even when everything is not perfectly in gear, and seeing God's faithfulness to write a story out of it all.