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We walked in the police station, and my escort immediately began talking to the man behind the desk like he knew him personally. They shook hands and snapped their fingers when they released, a common symbol of friendship here in many west African countries. By the way they were talking, I realized that they were expecting us, and so the guy at the desk just waved us through. We walked past the line of people and directly into the visa office.  Again, my escort used his many connections, calm speech, and confident assurance to walk me through every aspect of the visa process. What I was expecting to be a huge hassle ended up being an in-and-out affair of less than 30 minutes. But trust me, it would have been an ordeal if I hadn’t had that man to get me through it.  By the end of the process, the visa officer let down his serious, business self and lightened the mood by joking a little bit. “I’m giving you a visa for one year,” the officer said, “so you have to stay longer.” Wi

When the bus pulled up to the station, my heart started pounding hard. Maybe because this meant the actual goodbye was near. Maybe also because I’d never traveled alone by bus in west Africa.  With ticket in hand, I pushed my way onto the bus with the other passengers in a total unnecessary hurried frenzy. Everyone acted as if there weren’t enough seats on the bus, and you would have thought the driver was about to take off, yet everyone found a seat and we waited a good ten minutes before departing, which made me wonder what in the world all the rush was about.  Stanislas, Valerie, and Rebeca climbed up into the bus one last time to make sure I had a seat and to inform me where they had placed all my luggage below.  They take such good care of me. With final hugs and words of blessing, they climbed down and I drove away, wiping tears off my cheeks.  Before me lay a five hour commute to the capital city, another bus ride the next day to Togo, a border crossing, and a taxi

If you hold the base of the moringa branch if your left hand, you can then run the fingers of your right hand down the branches towards the tips, stripping the leaves into a neat little pile in the palm of your hand. It took me a while to figure it out, but after watching Juliette and Delphine do it like pros, I was starting to get the hang of it.  “This is work that old ladies usually do,” Delphine said with a smirk.  “And here we are, all young women doing it!” I added playfully and everyone laughed.  It’s worth it for the orphans and malnourished infants in the program to have this nutritional bonus in their diet. We harvested the moringa this morning in the garden, but it has to be stripped and then the leaves washed, dried, and crushed into powder before it is divided into little sacks and served to the babies as a rich, vitamin-filled superfood.  As we worked, we talked. The pile of unstripped moringa branches got smaller and smaller as the sky fell darker and da

It all started with one pastor who wanted to evangelize. The Lord put a certain village on his heart, so he went there to plant a new church.  In that village lived a woman who believed in Jesus. But she was the only one and she felt very alone, so she asked God for other people to pray and worship with.  And so the church began in that village with just two people - a prayerful sister and a pastor who wanted to plant a new church. Once they started growing in number, the village leaders took notice and held a series of meetings to determine whether this new (and frankly foreign) church could continue to meet.  Although most of the village leaders were opposed to the existence of the church, one person convinced the rest by reminding them that no harm had come to the village thus far because of them. It also helped that the chief’s own son had been attending regularly. In his words, he was attending not because he was interested in faith, but rather because he wanted to “p

He has a big mango tree in the middle of his courtyard, and it provides the shade we need to enjoy a cup of hot tea on a hot afternoon. He is wearing his traditional Muslim garb, and he leans forward in his chair to pour the tea back and forth between the small pot and the even smaller shot glass. This allows the sugar to mix and the tea to cool a little at the same time.  Tea time is an important symbol of friendship here in Burkina Faso. It takes place in the late afternoon, and it serves as a time to gather and talk about life while waiting for tea to brew. I’m all for the Keurig machine, but I’ve officially decided I will never own one. For I’m really learning to appreciate the time it takes for tea to properly brew in the traditional sense. There is such value in what takes place in the time it takes to make, for that’s when you sit down and look each other in the eyes and make conversation matter.  Since this tea tradition is often shared between men, I’m honored to be c

Twenty years ago, a team of passionate believers, missionaries, and translators began a work. And today, the world changed because of it.  For the first time, the dagara people who speak the wulé dialect have the gospel of Jesus Christ, the New Testament, in their heart language. And on this day, a crowd of over one thousand men, women, and children young and old - including the authorities and even Muslims - gathered to celebrate the publication and distribution.  Although every part of the ceremony was significant - the worship, the exhortation, and testimonies - one thing moved me more than anything else.  Ninety readers had been chosen to read three chapters each, and they dispersed themselves among the crowd of people to read the entire New Testament in one sitting. All of it, that is, except Revelation 22, the last chapter which Stanislas read aloud from the pulpit as a climax to the reading. Thus the New Testament was read in its entirety for the first time in the d