See Something More

Opening my journal to the most recent page, I find a small blank space at the bottom of the right hand side. I pause, tempted to turn the page and start a new entry and dedicate a whole page to what I am about to write. It feels significant enough. I have been waiting to write this since the moment I started this journal back in the summer. I began writing at the same time that I began feeling that God might be leading me somewhere different, somewhere unexpected. Since writing the first Scripture on the first page, I have embarked on an adventure of seeking God’s guidance for my next steps. That’s why I have been waiting for this moment, this monumental entry. I finally get to write about how God has spoken and how he has guided me. Instead of writing questions, I finally get to write answers. He has revealed the steps I have been asking him about over and over again; he has opened doors for the future. He has responded to my prayers and been faithful in my waiting. I turn to a cl...

I tried to place myself in her shoes, and I got a pit in my stomach. She was entrusted with the Son of God. She would raise the Savior of the world. Holiness, growing in her abdomen, birthed into her home, raised under her watch. I bet she imagined what the birth would be like. Maybe she played it all out in her head. Had Joseph already made a beautifully crafted wooden crib? Had she sewn a blanket? Had she saved up to purchase some quality soap and clothes so she could wash him and dress him? How do you welcome the Son of God into the world? I’m sure she did her best to start right. And I sure a stinky barn and a dirty manger in a city not her own were not a part of the plan. As she laid Jesus in the manger, did she feel guilty? This is not how I wanted it to be, God. It certainly wasn’t the start she had planned for. I wanted his birth to be like I prepared for, like I envisioned in my mind. I wanted his welcome to be special. You’ve entrusted your son to me, and I’ve alread...

“When did you get back?” is always the first question people ask, and I’m okay with that because I know the answer. It’s the second question that gets me.  “And when are you going back?”  This shouldn’t be a difficult question, but this year I feel like the college senior in May who still doesn’t know what she’s doing after graduation and is tired of everyone asking.  But actually, it’s a great opportunity to say, “I don’t know and it’s okay.” And then I explain why.  We live in a society that emphasizes planning. Even from a young age, kids are taught how to plan and organize - from color-coded binders to chores to-do lists and rewards charts with gold stars. At the university level, we are trained to set short term and long term goals with a pathway of how to accomplish our ten year plan. These are high cultural values: setting goals, making plans, and being organized because that leads to success and wealth and long happy lives, right? I’m sta...

I rubbed tired eyes and stepped over small children sleeping on mats as I made my way out of the small two-roomed house that was sleeping all eight of us. It was barely light outside, and these are the quiet moments of African life when everyone is still resting before the sun comes up. Glancing towards the sky, I noticed it was slightly ominous, but I was also stubbornly determined. And I didn’t get up before dawn just to be rained out. A few drops landed lightly on my skin as I made my way up to the hillside, but then they stopped and I just knew God would hold off the rain so that I could spend this time with him.  Here, in this quiet place on a hillside overlooking a water reservoir below and a lush plain that slowly ascends into rolling hills, I have met the Lord many times. It’s a hidden place, one that many people who live in my city don’t even know about, so I can get away to this little sacred place from time to time, just Jesus and me.  On this morning, I didn...

“What is the main food that people in Burkina eat?” Many ask. I can’t answer for all of Burkina, but I can answer for the people group I live among. “Tô and sauce,” I say. “Like leaf sauce, tomato sauce, onion sauce, fish sauce...” “Did you say toes and fish sauce? Fish and toe sauce? Sauce and fish toes?” I laugh and explain. “Tô is their staple food made out of corn flour that is boiled to a certain consistency. But they rarely eat it plain, rather serving it covered in a sauce made from locally available ingredients, like fresh vegetables.” This seems to make it a little more palatable for most people, although I have to confess that tô has really grown on me in the past three years. So much so that I brought some flour home with me to make it during my stateside visit. What is more, a precious African friend prepared dehydrated local squash, squash leaves, osé leaves (whatever that is), and ground local peanuts to send with me to America so I could make my favorite sauce to...

Immediately upon arrival to the Chicago airport and the world of fast internet, I called my mom using FaceTime since I didn’t have a phone that worked in the United States. “Mom, I’m in America!”  She squealed with delight. She is always the first one I call, even though this year was a little different in that she wouldn’t be the first one I would see. Or so I thought.  After a year in Africa, I was flying into my hometown of Little Rock which is no longer where my parents live. There, I would do three weeks of visiting and reporting before seeing my family for Thanksgiving.  However, I was in for a great surprise when Mom panned the phone around to show me who she was with - her best friend who lives in Little Rock .  “What? This means that...that...” I was speechless and almost didn’t want to say it for fear of being wrong.  “I’m in Little Rock!” She exclaimed.  And sure enough, just when I thought that I wouldn’t get to see my m...

I got up at 3:45am and warmed up a cup of tea only because I knew some people were doing the same thing half way across the world.  Sleepiness was heavy on my eyes as I dipped the tea bag up and down and watched color seep out into the water. I was tempted to just get back in bed, but the warmth of the mug in my hands crept up my arms and beckoned me to wake up. I took a deep cleansing breath, and I dialed and called Africa.  When Charlotte answered, her picture came through fuzzy and pixelated on my small cell phone screen, but I could see her white smile beaming in contrast to her dark skin. She bounced her four month old baby boy on her lap, who cooed as if he wanted to say hi to me, too. Rebeca must have quickly grabbed the phone from her because the screen turned blurry with motion and then her smile, too, popped out as she cradled her 2 month old - an orphan daughter that she is caring for - in her arms.  In an instant, I totally forgot that it was an u...

I delicately unfolded the green and purple dress and pressed out the creases from it being in my suitcase all the way from west Africa. I wouldn’t normally pick green and purple together, but Juliette had picked it for me, and because of that, I loved it.  Africans love to dress in bright colors, which works for me because so do I. Africans also take great pride in dressing themselves well, which doesn’t come so naturally for me. I have had to learn, and my African women friends have been happy to help out.  Africans also don’t normally buy ready-to-wear clothes. It is actually much cheaper and economical to buy several yards of fabric and then take it to a tailor with a pattern in mind. Like this, you can have a beautiful authentic African complete outfit (skirt, top, and head scarf all in the same matching pattern) made for about $20 USD.  For the last couple of years, I thought I was doing pretty good to buy an occasional piece of fabric and have a skirt ...

Three cities. Three weeks. And about ten times that many Starbucks visits. Since arriving to the United States three weeks ago, I have actually accomplished all the visiting, reporting, and furlough-related tasks that I set out to do. It's been jam-packed, fast-paced, and honestly quite exhausting yet incredibly good. So here is another big thank you to everyone who came to one of either supporter dinners. Thank you to Searcy's Fellowship Bible Church and Russellville's West Side Church of Christ for their hospitality and generosity. Thank you to everyone who joined me for dinner or coffee and listened to me tell stories. Thank you to those who let me sleep in their beds or drive their cars. Thanks for the sunrise pinnacle climb, bike rides, sleepovers, walks in the park, and prayers. Every moment mattered. Next to being in Africa, talking about it is my next favorite thing. Thank you for listening. For the past three weeks, I've been a reporter. A story teller....

"You should come to my yoga class with me!" she said, and I figured there is a first time for everything, so I agreed. I'm not the yoga type, but if anything, I could laugh at myself or be a source of comic relief. Except I learned that people don't really laugh a lot while doing yoga, so perhaps I just helped the rest of the class feel better about themselves by watching my obvious novice attempts. She warned me that it was a "hot yoga" class, and that I should be ready to sweat a lot. Then she proceeded to read a description that they heat the room to a balmy eighty degrees.  "Eighty degrees?" I exclaimed. "I'll need a sweater!"  I thought about that time I woke up (in Burkina Faso in the rainy season) to a nice cool rain. It was so chilly that I put on pajama pants (those only get worn on the coolest days!) and socks, heated up a cup of coffee, and sat on the porch with chill bumps on my arms. Just out of curiosity, I go...

I stared down at my cup of coffee and wondered what is wrong with me. It tasted sweet because I had already put two spoonfuls of sugar before I added the flavored creamer without knowing that it too was sweetened. I was giddy making it - the Kurig machine, the sugar, the flavored creamer - it was all so luxurious compared to the simple Nescafé instant coffee that I had gotten used to over the past year. When I sat down to drink it, it was sweet in my mouth but slightly bitter in my heart. I wanted to enjoy it fully, but I couldn't.  It's a weird thing - coming back to the United States after a year in Africa. This is my third time to do this in the past three years since moving to Burkina Faso, and I search each time for the words to describe it. In a way, it's like going to Disney world. It's magical, it's unreal. It's like everything is manicured and people are wearing costumes and everyone is walking around trying to have a good time. It's a world of i...

"Where are all the children?" I asked when we arrived to the site of the kids' camp. We were late, so I thought everyone would be waiting for us to start, by instead, only a small number of children had gathered under the shade of a tree.  "They will come," I was told with confidence.  I have found this to be a very common and normal occurrence here in Africa. Since time is basically irrelevant, people wait for an event to actually start before they come. And somehow, once things get rolling, the word spreads. And the people come.  So when he said "they will come," even though it seemed unlikely, I thought about all the times I've heard the same response and how every time, they are right.  So we started worshipping, and the kids started coming. We started out with about about a dozen and ended up with around two hundred. Some kids crossed a river to come. Some rode their bikes over thirty kilometers on dirt roads. Some walked all ...

I ran my fingers along the rough surface of the bricks as I walked alongside the wall. A line of people preceded me, almost six hundred people to be exact, and I was one of the last ones to take my place in the line and walk around the wall while praying a prayer of dedication and blessing.  "Over 25,000 bricks were used to construct this wall," Geoffrey explained to the church on this Sunday morning. Each one of those 25,000 bricks is unique because it was hand cut from the local laterite rock quarries. "As you walk around the wall, think of each brick as a person." A person impacted by the church and the ministries of the church that will take place on this property.  The brick wall encloses the rather large church property, which currently includes the church hangar and will be the future site of the infant rescue center, a teaching and formation center, a diagnostic medical clinic, offices, agricultural and development projects, and more. It will be a h...

I haven't used a toilet or a shower in six weeks now. Don't worry, I've washed, I just use a bucket and water that I've drawn from the well, just like everyone else in my African family. My diet has consisted mainly of tô (congealed substance made of millet flour) and leaf sauces with an occasional delicacy of rice, beans, fish, or peanut sauce. I've slept on a mattress on the ground under a mosquito net, waking daily with the sun to start daily life with Africa.  It's funny how little I miss and how much I've gained from this experience of living with an African family. I'm finally learning about real Africa life. Seeing how hard they work. Hearing parts of their stories that I've never heard. Watching how they live and interact. It's true what you hear about Africa - people love to live in community. You are never alone, and people never want to be. Everything is shared between neighbors, family, and friends...from possessions to food to m...

The building isn't built yet; in fact, the temporary hanger isn't even finished. Piles of gravel and sand and leftover construction materials surrounded the meeting place, but that didn't stop the people from coming. Around 90 people - a fairly equal mix of men, women, children, young, and old - came on this first Sunday to celebrate the opening of the church here in our city.  It just goes to show you that the church isn't the building anyway; it's the people. And just as our church building is still under construction, so also is the Lord building his church here in Burkina Faso.  The original church planting team of missionaries started planting churches among the dagara people thirteen years ago, and they intentionally focused their efforts in the villages, and rightly so for the villages had not been evangelized. Now that there is a large number of operating churches in the villages, the time came to plant a central church in our city for a couple of r...

The pictures hung on the wall in a row all in black and white, motionless yet seeming to come to life. I looked at their weathered faces that at first glance seemed emotionless, yet the longer you looked, the more emotion you saw. Each face reflected a story of profound strength, hard work, and resilience in suffering.  There were three rooms in the dagara museum - one told the story of women, one told the story of men, and one told the story of religion. Each room exhibited objects, photographs, and descriptions that told a story that many in the world have never heard. Even our team of dagara people meandered slowly in and out of the exhibits, pausing, pondering, and learning the story of their own people.  When we stopped in front of a display of clay pots, one team member remarked that his very own mother possessed only pots like that, which she used to carry water from the well and to cook over an open fire. Another team member's father was a slave to the French,...

"How many people do you think will be there?" I asked Rebeca as we came near to the end of our road trip. She said she didn't know, so I offered a guess. "One thousand?" She laughed and said, "No, there could be as many as ten thousand. You are going to be amazed!" And she was right. When we pulled up to the public square of the capital city, the whole park was full of onlookers with standing room only.  We had arrived to the "crusade". To be entirely honest, this is not the kind of event I would normally attend in the United States. It was very charismatic and dramatic, like imagine what you've seen on television when a so called "prophet" touches people's foreheads and counts to three and then proclaims "Power!" and the people roll on the floor screaming and then get up healed. Yeah, that kind of stuff. But before you make any judgements, let me tell you something.  My African friends - the ones who love...