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I wish we had a cameraman following us around to do a Fixer Upper: Burkina Faso edition. We have been looking for a new house that will better accommodate Emily and I plus the visitors and teams that we plan on hosting beginning this year. Since there is no real estate service here, we went by word of mouth, asking people we know if they know of a house to rent. We then followed their recommendations and went house-hopping with criteria that were harder to meet than you might expect: a single house with a wall enclosure, electricity, running water, an indoor kitchen, and a toilet. My favorite moment was when we were following a man who was leading us to a house he wanted to show us. As we were driving through the neighborhood, I couldn't help but notice a house up ahead. "Whoa! Look at that place!" I told Emily. It was literally painted baby blue and bright pink on the outside, like a giant baby gift, Emily noted. It kind of glowed. "I think that's where we are

I stood behind the crowd of people and stood on my tiptoes to see over them into the deep hole that everyone had gathered around. I could hardly believe that this was where we were going to do the baptisms! Instead of a beautifully build baptistry with pristine holy water inside, we had to search for any water we could find in this hot, dry desert in the middle of dry season, when all the rivers and drain-offs have dried up. But here in this hole in the ground, God had provided just enough water for two people to crawl down into - a milky brown mud puddle that was the only available water for miles. The crowd pushed in close, everyone looking down into the pit as the preacher and the first new convert entered in. They sunk into the mud, the water came up to waist-level, and as the church sang songs of praise, the preacher dipped the man into the water and he totally disappeared under the creamy gray water. He resurrected to the sound of cheering and singing, the he left his sins in

I walked softly and delicately into the courtyard and gently approached the elderly woman laying on her mat. When I came close, she sat up slowly and extended her hand to greet me in a beautiful expression of Dagara hospitality. She was wasting away; skin clung to her collar bones. Her cheek bones jutted out, making her sunken eyes even more noticeable. It was like all the life left in her shone through those brilliant, bulging eyes and in those white teeth that glimmered when she smiled. I didn't know what to do when I saw her. I wanted to weep at her frailty, I wanted to shout in anger at the injustice of her poverty. I wanted to scoop her right out of her suffering. But when I saw the way her eyes sparkled and the way her cheeks wrinkled up when she smiled as she talked about the Lord, I wanted to wrap my arms around her and praise God with all the joy in my heart. The unwavering faith of people in poverty and suffering astounds me. It washes over me and transforms me from t

He was bent over at the waist, partly from his old age but also partly from his sickness. He was a fragile and frail old man with a lifetime of stories written on his face and an undeniable light shining brightly in his eyes. The wrinkles had been there for a while, but the light was like a new fire that had just been kindled. He was known in his village as a man with special connections with the mystic world. He was feared by many people, and even he himself was aware that he had unique power. He was consulted as a village fetisher, intensely associated with the darkness of traditional religion known as animism. Until he met Jesus. Then everything changed. On this Easter weekend on Saturday night, he was baptized with over forty other new believers from his village and the neighboring villages. And although he could barely stand, he could not wipe the joy off his face. He looked like a man set free. The mission of our Streams In Burkina Faso team is to see a vibrant church in

Have you ever wondered why it's called Good Friday? I'm sure there is a technical, even religious reason, and I'm sure you can find another blog article that will explain everything you ever wanted to know. But my question is this: how is the day that Jesus was killed called "good"? The Son of God murdered by men. The Good Shepherd betrayed by his own. The Bread of Life torn into pieces. The king in a crown of thorns and a blood-stained undergarment. The pure and holy lamb of God unjustly accused and sacrificed. The living water became thirty. The man who welcomed children was abandoned. The one who loved sinners took the sins of the world upon him. The one who did nothing but heal and save and love was rejected, spat upon, stripped, shamed, beaten, mocked, abandoned, and crucified. How does any of that make a good Friday? When I read the story of Jesus crucifixion this weekend, I wept. This is not normally something I do, thanks to my calloused heart that has

46 kids. 5 days. And at the end of it all, we produced an hour-long musical. Call it talented, call it amazing, call it crazy. All were true. But one thing is certain - we had tons of fun! This past week, our team helped out with the International Co-Op of Ouagadougou (ICO), a week-long school activity for missionary kids to get together, enjoy community, and put on a musical. Being around children brings out the child in me, too. I will confess that I may have had just as much fun singing and dancing along with the kids as they did. The songs got stuck in my head, too. I played tag with them, did Zumba with them, and ate rice and peanut sauce with them. I got to be a child again, and I found out how much I love missionary children. I realize that raising a family overseas is a hot topic and a lot of people have a lot of different opinions. I also know that I, a single gal, have absolutely no expertise in the matter. However, I do know a lot of missionary families, and I have spe

In the middle of Sunday afternoon lunch, my phone rang. "Hi Ashli," a missionary friend greeted me, "I'm here at the hospital with Mo and he is not looking too good." Mo is a little eight pound, six month old boy with a heart condition since birth that needs immediate surgical correction that cannot be done in Burkina. My missionary friend has been working hard to jump through all the hoops to get him to the United States as soon as possible. In the meantime, he has been staying at a hospital awaiting his ticket to the States. On this Sunday afternoon, she went to visit him only to find him ashy, limp, and almost completely unresponsive. Over the telephone, I walked her through a few instructions and started to make my way to the hospital to be at their side. Mo had actually been fine and stable even with his heart condition until last Friday when he came down with a respiratory infection. With his respiratory function already compromised due to a hole b

The idea of children's ministry began back in the summer of 2015 just after I arrived to my new mission point in Burkina Faso. Since we had summer interns, we put all of our heads together to organize a weekly kids' club in our neighborhood. On that first afternoon, we had about forty kids show up. I have a picture to document it. I flashed the picture up on the screen so that the small group sitting in front of me could see it. They were a group of 19 men and women from village churches who are leading (or interested in leading) children's ministries in their churches. I continued the picture slideshow and showed them how kids' club has evolved to how it is today - a bunch of 60 to 80 children who come each Wednesday to play, sing, pray, hear a Bible story, learn to apply it to their lives, and practice a memory verse. The success of kids' club gave us the momentum to carry the ministry to village churches. I showed pictures of all the villages we have visited

The sun shone hard and hot on the dry, thirsty ground as the team worked for hours on the pump installation. This particular well in the village had been used for years, but it had an open top, meaning that the well was susceptible to contamination from the buckets the women use to draw water and from anything that falls into the well. Not only was the well not clean, but it was also not safe. Three years ago, a woman fell in while drawing water and died. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated event as we have heard of other similar stories of women falling into open wells in other villages.  That's why this well repair was so unique. Closing the top and installing a pump would not only provide clean water, but also a safe environment for drawing water. The team doing the repair worked tirelessly, and the rest of us observers were all getting hot as the sun rose higher and impatient as the team faced problem after problem, forcing them to put in and pull out the pipes several

Having just built a new church building, one might think it strange not to meet there on this particular Sunday...until you hear their reason for doing so. The church in Bisserké has changed a lot over the years according to many locals and other Christians who know the area. The church has come alive, the people are different, and the village is transformed because of it. To show the importance of the church in their village, they built a building as a sign of permanence and value. But only after a few months of meeting there, they wanted to host a church service somewhere else. "We see that there is a certain part of our village has not yet been evangelized," the leader of the church said. "There is still a lot of darkness there, so we want to go as a church and encourage the people in that particular neighborhood." Thats why when we passed their church building on Sunday morning, it was completely empty, and so we kept going straight ahead towards the desig