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I opened my eyes during the prayer, which I grew up thinking you weren't technically supposed to do, but I'm so glad I did. Juliette was beside me, on her knees on the floor with her forehead pressed into the carpet. Rebeca was in front on me, kneeling with her hands spread towards heaven. Charlotte sat on the couch, leaning forward with urgency as she, too, lifted her hands and her voice to heaven. Right outside the door, charlotte's mother-in-law (we affectionately call her "Mami") sat as close to the door as she could without actually coming in. She wanted to participate, but she didn't want to interrupt. I heard her praying, too, in Dagara like Rebeca and Juliette. I prayed in French for a while with Charlotte until the prayers grew so sincere that I reverted to my heart language and prayed in English. I closed my eyes again and remembered a prayer I had prayed - that God would turn my house into a house of prayer, worship, and the touch of the Holy Sp...

Greeted by a wave of children running excitedly towards us, I could barely park the moto in time before ten little hands were reaching out to shake mine. I pulled up under the shade of a mango tree in the front of the courtyard, whose limbs hung low with ripe fruit. Mango trees are pretty amazing actually, the way they produce the most delicious, sweetest fruit in the middle of the hottest, driest season of the year. Because there is such little rain, the tree directs all its water and nutrients into producing its fruit. The mangoes are therefore concentrated with sweetness because of the lack of water. In fact, too much rain during mango season dilutes them and takes away the richness of their flavor. After parking, we did the culturally appropriate thing by going around to each person to shake their hands, including each of the children who wanted to shake multiple times. It was pretty much the closest I've ever been to feeling like a celebrity. These kids know us from kids c...

When leaving office of Social Action one month ago, I was amazed at how God provided. Just a few days before, I heard the story of this orphan baby named Fleur and how no one in her family seemed to want her. Then one morning, I learned that the lady who was caring for her was refusing to do it any longer. Fleur needed a foster home, an she needed one quickly. Due to Social Action's limited resources, our Infants In Distress Porgram stepped in to help, and Rebeca stepped up to care for the child. We walked out of their building with a baby, and I was amazed at how God had provided. I called a village pastor, told him about our need for a foster family for Fleur, and encouraged him to engage the church to help. A few weeks later, he called me back with the story of a woman who was willing to take the baby, and I was amazed at how God had provided. So we went out to visit her in her home. We learned her name is Joceline, and she is an extraordinary Christian woman. Not only doe...

I slid the cardboard box in front of me so that all the girls surrounding me could see inside of it. We had already spent an hour playing Uno and singing worship songs, two things that I have found that these 18-21 year-old young ladies love to do. This was our third front-porch devotional, and we had spent the last two times talking about the value at we have in Christ because of his love for us. It's a message that all women need to hear, but especially these young ladies who live in a culture where women aren't worth anything except for their work in the kitchen and in bed. I want them to know how valuable they are, how precious they are in the eyes of Jesus. That's why we've been talking about listening to God's truth instead of the lies of he world. That's why we've been teaching biblical truths about who we are in Christ. That's why we've also discussed modesty, purity, and believing God to provide a future husband. It's all related to ou...

First he stole his brother's birthright, then he stole his blessing. His brother wanted him dead, his mother wanted him to flee. So he left home as a young boy to go and live with his mother's family. It was a long journey, and he was all alone, so I bet he had some time to think. Did he realize how terrible he had been to his brother? Did he feel guilty? Did he wish he could turn back and do it all over again? What was he thinking about as he placed his head on a rock to fall asleep alone in the middle of a wilderness? As I told the story of Jacob, their little eyes were all fixed on me. They were still and quiet, which is quite honestly unusual for these guys. Normally we have a hard time getting all of the children kids club to behave and not cause distractions for the others, but not today. They were hooked, either because they were tired from the games and the heat, or because the Holy Spirit was touching their hearts to listen. Either way, there was an important lesson ...

I've been reading "Anything" by Jennie Allen, and I got to a certain part that ended up with stars handwritten all over it, so that when I'm flipping through the book I'll find the page easily. It is for when I have moments that I need to be reminded of what I read all over again. She wrote about sea turtles. When it's time for a female sea turtle to give birth, she climbs out of the sea, digs a hole in the sand, and then lays anywhere from fifty to two hundred eggs in the hole. She covers them up and goes back to the ocean. When then little turtles hatch, they find themselves in a dark, crowded hole in the ground. No mother. No idea where they are. However, it's like they have an interior voice telling them what to do, telling them that they weren't created to live in a hole forever. So they push out of the hole in the sand and use their awkward sea flippers to scoot across the beach towards the ocean. It's a treacherous march with obstacles to ...

Sliding my sunglasses down over my eyes, I plugged in my iPod to the speaker and took off down the road towards the big city, where a swimming pool and ice cream awaited us.  Emily and I had a mini-vacation to-do list, which mainly involved hanging out with one of our missionary friends in the city. When we asked her what "touristy" things we could do with her, she didn't have much to offer. "We don't have a lot of tourist stuff, but we have a Marina Market and a Bingo," which are two large grocery stores that carry American and European items. You would have thought she invited us to a theme park with roller coasters. It's kind of sad when going to the grocery store is your idea of having fun, but hey, this is Africa.  To mark two months in Burkina Faso since our arrival in January, Emily and I withdrew to get a little rest and relaxation. It was a much needed break, something that we probably don't do often enough. At least it's so...

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but he Lord delivers him out of them all." Psalm 34:19 promises suffering. Afflictions are a guarantee. In a place ranked the seventh least developed nation in the world, where over half the population cannot read or write, where families live on less than $2 a day, where people die of preventable diseases because they do not have access to the most basic medical care, where mothers are too malnourished themselves to breastfeed their own babies, where girls and boys grow up without parents because of maternal mortality and the corruption of gold mines, where young women are exploited for sex, where Christians are persectuted and cast out of their own communities and families for believing in Jesus and abandoning their idols...people understand that suffering is a guarantee. That's not the question. The question is how we handle it. Just a few verses before the one written above, Psalm 34:5 teaches that the way of a Christ-...

Rosaline is a widow with a heart for orphans. Since her children are all grown, she takes in orphan babies and cares for them like they are her own. She has previously welcomed in two orphans and raised them, and now Sandrine, a twenty-two month old girl, is currently under her wings. She brought Sandrine to us this week because she had a large, fluid-filled growth on her chin that had advanced rapidly over the past four days. After taking her to a generalist in our town, he recommended further testing in another city, suspecting either an abscess or Burkitt's lymphoma. Rosaline was ready to do whatever it took for Sandrine. I'm not sure there is a limit to her love. Rosaline needed a day to prepare for the trip, so the following day we returned to the hospital to get the reference that would allow Sandrine to be seen in the nearest pediatric center in Gaoua. We waited, and waited, and waited. In the 105 heat. While the baby cried. Just when our patience had been tested t...

I saw her picture for the first time two weeks ago, and what I saw broke my heart. She is an orphan whose mother died in January when she was only 16 months old. After the funeral, the aunt took the child to our local social services to ask for help. Noticing that the child was frail, they referred her to an inpatient nutrition center right here in our city. Since our infants in distress program collaborates closely with both social services and the nutrition center, Rebeca heard about this child and went to visit. That's when she took the picture that she showed me. "Her name in Fleur," Rebeca said, which means Flower in French. She was sitting in the photo all alone, expressionless, like a sack of skin and bones, her eyes bulging from her emaciated face. To say this baby girl was "frail" was an understatement. The nutrition center helps monitor these babies and teaches their caregivers how to feed them according to their needs, but they do not provide around...