It's Been a Good Day

I took my two warm crepes and prepared them just right. One with a thin spread of Nutella. One with lime and sugar. It's gonna be a great day, I said to myself and smiled.

When the interns were here this summer, they joked with me because of how much I loved eating crepes. Whenever there were crepes for breakfast, I would light up and say, "It's gonna be a great day!" The phrase stuck, I guess, because I still uttered it to myself this morning when I sat down with my lovely, perfectly rolled-up crepes. 

What made my breakfast even better was that I ate my crepes over an open Bible and received great and applicable encouragement from Colossians 1:11 in the Message. 

"We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul - not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is a strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy." 

As my time left for this first term in Burkina is coming to a close and I head back to the States for furlough in November, I needed this encouragement. I don't want to just grit my teeth and finish up; I want to have this glory strength that spills over into joy. 

With that in mind, I biked to our office to work on a little project. Although the office is less than half a mile away, I arrived covered in sweat. It's kind of like biking to the neighborhood pool on a hot summer day - you bike there so that you can get nice and hot and then the pool feels really good when you jump in. That's exactly what it was like, except the pool part never really happened. 

Just a few minutes after arriving, I was greeted by a knock on the door and a woman entered who was very happy to see me. She immediately handed me her infant, placing her in my arms with a beaming smile on her face. It took me a second to recognize them and realize what was happening, but then I remembered that this was the family and the baby that I sent to Gaoua last week for a life saving blood transfusion. When I met the baby a week ago, I didn't know if she had the strength left in her to make it to Gaoua. Now, here she was in excellent health, her life preserved because of the grace of God. They had come to the office to thank me, but together we thanked the One who deserves it. I snapped this adorable picture of baby Genevieve.

With a warm heart and the assurance that God had used us to save a little life, I went back to work and finished a project that I have been wanting to finish all year: all the data on every infant in our program has been entered into the computer on excel spreadsheets, ready for organization and analysis. (This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it was a huge accomplishment for me. Hooray!) 

That afternoon, I shared the Bible story and taught the lesson for our weekly kids' club. Sometimes I feel really clumsy and ridiculous with my French, and I often have to look at notes when I am talking with the kids. But this afternoon, I hardly looked at my notes at all but rather just flowed with the story.  The kids were engaged as I told them about how sin entered the world through Adam and Eve and how Jesus is our savior from sin.

Immediately after kids' club, I biked on over to a local conference center where our leadership formation is taking place this week. Around sixty village church evangelists have gathered here in our city for spiritual revival and leadership training. This is to help accomplish the number one objective of our team's mission - to strengthen churches and develop strong leaders in the church movement. Our vision is to have a vibrant body of Christ in every Dagara village that transforms their communities from darkness into light. 

Stanislas asked me to come to the formation for a few minutes to share my testimony with the evangelists. I spoke in French and Stanislas translated in the local language of Dagara for those that don't speak French. It's not every day that you get to address 60 church evangelists, and it was a great joy for me not just to share my testimony, but also to encourage them with words from Matthew 9:37-38 and Galatians 6:9.

"The Jesus said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.' " 

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

Since October is the harvest season in Burkina, these passages really resonated with the men, and I was able to encourage them to be the laborers and harvesters for the glory of God. 

As I was biking back to the house, I remembered a journal entry from February 28 of this year, which I have copied below just as I had written it. 

I just want to have a written record of his fact: if I am ever able to speak and understand French, it will be by the grace of God. Right now, it seems impossible to do no matter help hard I try, and I know this is true. When I CAN understand and speak well and am able to minister through language, let the world know it was by GOD'S POWER AND GRACE and not my own. It's a miracle, and HE HAS DONE IT. 

Today, for the first time, I felt like God fulfilled that promise to me. From accomplishing a project in the office to meeting baby Genevieve to sharing the gospel at kids' club to sharing hope and truth with the local evangelists...today has been a great day. 

I have noticed two big changes that have happened this month. The first is how I spend my time. When I first arrived in our city, I didn't know how to spend my time and often just asked the Richters what they were doing and how I could help them. Those days are now few and farther between because my days are full with my own ministry activities. The second change is how I spend my money. I used to just buy gas and groceries, but if you look at my little pocket register this month, you will see that four out of five entries falls under the benevolence and ministry categories. Medicine for a sick child. Wound care products for a medical case. Buying items for children's ministry. I think I am going to have to rearrange my budget this month to compensate for how much has been spent on ministry. Isn't that a great problem?! 

I think back on the verse that started out my day. Colossians 1:11. God has given me glory strength, even though it wasn't too long ago that I was in gritting-teeth mode. You have prayed for language acquisition. You have prayed for me to adjust. You have prayed for God to use me. Today I am here to report, God is doing it. He is helping me find my place, and not just find it but love it, with every challenge and adventure and ministry opportunity that comes my way. 

It's been a good day. And it's not just because of the crepes. It's because God has invited me to Burkina Faso, and I am delighted to follow him here. He is showing me just how much he loves this place and these people, and I think it's rubbing off on me.