In the last blog I said that I would talk about the different ministry opportunities in this blog. To be honest I have yet to start my projects. The committee that I have to meet with has been busy getting ready for their General Assembly Meeting. Heidi and I did, however, meet with our Pastor, Keo, to talk about the churches different ideas and what they are already planning for this next year. Their ideas are far more exciting than any idea I could ever come up with. Téguéré church (my church here in Korhogo) is located on IBB (Bethel Bible Institute) campus. Pastor Keo is also the director of IBB. So a lot of ministry will be happening on campus with pastors in training and their wives. We will be potentially helping with the pastor’s English and mostly focusing on their wives. Some of the women can only speak their mother tongue, Tyembara, they cannot read nor write. So alongside their husbands these women are enrolled into classes to help prepare them to be pastors wives. Some of their classes include learning French and how to read and write, nutrition, finance management, natural family planning and I think counseling. I will have an opportunity to participate in these classes and even teach some of them.
Some other ideas that are away from campus that Téguéré church would like to see happen in the next year are super exciting! For starters they would like to see a church started in a village. Right now there are 4 villages surrounding Téguéré that do not have a church. They would like to start evangelizing and focus on one of these villages and help start a church there. This is perfect, because this is a huge passion of Heidi’s and what she went to school for. Another plan has to do with the 6 schools around Téguéré. Right now due to the crisis here only 4 private schools are meeting. However, when the country isn’t in the beginnings of civil war and all schools are open, we have young Christian followers and connections in each one of those schools. The church would like to see a small group/bible study happen at each site. It would be something to feed and fuel these young believers and in return, it is also an outreach opportunity to their friends and classmates who wouldn’t otherwise go to church. And the fun part about this is that this is a huge passion of mine. I am a firm believer of kids leading kids and bringing them to know the Lord. So I am pretty stoked to potentially be an unseen helping hand in this.
These are just a few of the churches ideas. I should be meeting with the committee relatively soon since the General Assembly was a 5 hour meeting after church on Sunday! So there will hopefully be more updates on these thoughts a little later.
As for more of an update on what I have been doing with myself in RCI, last week was the annual AEBECI-Korhogo’s women’s conference. 500 women from all over Korhogo took part in this weeklong conference. Heidi, CJ and I also attended with our host moms. This was an overwhelming experience. Majority of these women were from surrounding villages in Salem and only a handful could speak French. The entire conference was in Tyembara! People would speak to us in Tyembara! And then when we didn’t understand their questions and demands (because they were in Tyembara) we’d get yelled at in Tyembara!!! The funny thing was that the little Tyembara we do know we were asked to repeat over and over and over and over again and each time we said it everyone would die of laughter. Another interesting part of us being there was the fact that we are white. For a lot of the women this was their first time seeing a white person. Tons of them came up to touch my skin and as they did I touched theirs asking if it was different or the same. They all said the same. The children that were with them were terrified of us because in villages they tell young kids that if they don’t behave, the white man will come and eat them. It gets disheartening after awhile, always making children scream and cry for their moms. So we had to make a game out of it so we didn’t get depressed about this. [Please don’t judge :)] Heidi got 3 kids’ to cry, I got 2 and CJ didn’t get any. Heidi was the winner, especially since one of those times was in front of all 500 women in a seminar. That was kind of funny. At first it was hard being the freak show, there only for amusement, but at the end of the conference the women said it was encouraging that we were there. Although we are different, we are still the same in Christ. We are sisters and worship the same God but in different ways. I like that don’t you?
Scripture of the Week:
“In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourself instead with the beauty that comes from within the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They trusted God and accepted the authority of their husbands.” ~1Peter 3:1-5
Since I could not understand a thing being said in the conference, I thought it would be a good idea to pray and reflect on things that would make a godly woman. There’s some interesting stuff.
Prayer Requests:
*our service projects
*strength and energy
*patience
*against spiritual attack
*the healing of many people for many things
*our friends and families at home in the states and homesickness
Well this was just a super quick update and there will be more, later. Please check out the new pictures online and I hope you enjoy :) Miss you and love you guys!
Until next time…
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