This month has been a good one. There hasn’t been a ton
going on yet and this month was full of progress and fun with friends. This
is the first time in three weeks that I have been online for one reason or
another, which is strange for me. So instead of boring you with general statements
I will move on to the news.
Tabea, the newest Journeyer from Germany, arrived at the end
of January. She has spent all of February learning about Ivorian culture in Bouaké
and moved into her family Saturday (2-23). This, as you know is much sooner
than we moved into our families, but she was the only journeyer in Bouake on
campus and she is leaving a month before most of the Americans are. She is very
excited to move in with her family, who was actually the same family that Drew
had while he was a Journeyer. We see him every once in a while but other than
that he is not in the program anymore. He is now finished with his short stay
and is going ahead with his video production which was the reason he has been a
short termer with World Venture and his main goal.
The whole team has been in Bouaké this past week. We all had
a chance to meet Tabea, take a break from the stress of immersion, learn a
little more about mission philosophy and share with each other what God has
been teaching us. It has been a restful and fun week.
But the real news that I would like to share is a new-found
vision for my time in Tiepogovogo. I am not dead set on these ideas, and am
open to God’s leading in, through or other than them. In Tiepogovogo right now
they only have church meetings on Sunday morning. Many of the Christian women
don’t attend on a regular basis because they have other things to do in the
morning (all the time really). Many of the women in the village don’t speak
French. On top of that, Nyarafolo has just become a written language relatively
recently and only a few books of the bible have been translated into Nyarafolo
and published at this point. They are working on translation and in just a few
years, with God’s help, hopefully they will be done. I have had a heart for
women for a long time and there seem to be less women who follow Christ than
men and they have less of a chance to learn God’s word.
They tell me that just being in the village has made such an
impact, even still it will be a long time (it seems) before I can speak
Nyarafolo well enough to have an indepth spiritual conversation with people in
Nyarafolo. So all things considered I decided to ask someone who speaks French
to translate for me officially. I asked my friend Wayagafoli. Her French is at
about the same level as mine, which is not very high. Sometimes it takes a
while to communicate because we each know different words than the other.
Nonetheless we have already been working together in translation and the more
we talk the better it will be, as we learn French together and encourage each other
in that. My idea for the near future is to get to know the women of the village
through my friend and them me. Many challenges lie ahead in this but as I get
to know them, visit them, help with chores ect, I will ask them why they
believe in Christ if they are Christian and if they’re not share with them over
time why I am and what it means to me, what difference it has made in my life.
We will see what God does with all of this and I know he is faithful guide and
help me in all of this.
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