Big News!

As most of you know, we had originally committed to serving a year in Thies, Senegal, but recently our plans have changed.  We had our plane tickets to come home at the beginning of January then we received an email from Dakar Academy in Dakar, Senegal which is an American Boarding School for missionary kids.  They recently were in need of filling two spots for the spring semester due to a medical emergency of a couple already teaching.  They needed a PE teacher and a 2^nd grade teacher to fill the positons of the couple currently serving there. 

 

 

We decided to go visit the school to have a better idea of what it would be like.  Although we had never really considered it, it seemed as though the timing of it and the positions they needed to fill fit us perfectly.  We spent a lot of time in prayer and talking about taking the positions.  We decided that it would be best for us to take the positions for a number of reasons. Even though we will be cutting our time in Thies about a month short because we will have to go back to the States to catch up on some doctor visits, refill prescriptions for 6 more months, have some overdue doctor appointments, get more contacts, etc, we still really feel like this is where we were supposed to be. 

 



Auditorium/Chapel

We never dreamt when we left that we would be extending our year by an extra six months or serving in this capacity.  Although we will no longer be serving the Senegalese people specifically, we still are definitely serving in Senegal.  It is always a mission field no matter where you teach, but in Dakar it’s an additional ministry for the missionaries serving all over West Africa who send their children to school at DA to know they are receiving a quality Christian education.  We both will also have the opportunity to serve using sports by helping with coaching different sports at the school.
  

high school classrooms

     We are both excited to see how the Lord will use our talents and abilities in this next step at Dakar Academy.  We know the Lord will use us no matter where we are as long as we are willing and seize each moment He gives us.

 

Neighborhood Soccer

 

Lucas has had the privilege of getting hooked up with playing on our neighborhood soccer team.  It has been a great way for him to build relationships with the guys in our neighborhood.  He can hardly walk around in our neighborhood now without getting stopped at least 2-3 times by guys he knows.  Even the all the little boys know him because all the little boys go to watch all the games.

  

 The team started practicing at the beginning of June.  They play every day except for Sundays.  For about the first two months, they pretty much just went and scrimmaged every day at the neighborhood field.  Then they had games for a small tournament.  But now, there is actually a coach because it is time for the “big” tournament Senegal wide called Navitan (not sure on the spelling).  Each day, they do some fitness, do different drills and scrimmage and practices are usually at least two and a half hours long. 

 

On game days, Lucas has had the opportunity to pretty much spend the whole day with the guys.  They meet usually around 11 in the morning and just talk and hang out.  Then they go to a different house each time they have a game for a typical Senegalese meal. We believe that this is really what has gotten Lucas even more “in” with the guys because he eats what they eat and drinks what they drink.  Then in the afternoon, they will head over to the field and get ready for the game.

 

An interesting twist on the team dinners is that there is actually quite a bit of animism that goes on.  Although at least 90% of Senegal is Muslim and we live in a neighborhood with quite a few Catholics, a majority of the Senegalese people also rely on animism.  The first time Lucas went to a team dinner, the guys used some hot coals and threw a bit of plastic on them to make it extra smoky.  Then the guys essentially let the smoke wash over them. After the smoke, they use this special water with soap in it that they wash over their bodies.  They wash themselves three times throughout the day leading up to the game.  The point of these rituals is for protection during the game as well as against any curses the other team may have cast on them.  They also add to their rituals at the game.  Each time before they sit on the benches on the sideline, they knock them all over and then set them back up.  Sometimes one of the coaches will give them a little twig to eat or sometimes they put a little bead in their shirt for protection.

 

It is a mix of guys on the team of Catholics and Muslims.  Lucas has had the opportunity to explain why he doesn’t need to partake in the rituals.  Our God is a big God and will protect him just through prayer.  Now we have been praying extra hard that Lucas will not get hurt just as a testimony of God’s protection.  One guy said once, “well I believe in God and Jesus too!”  But Lucas was able to explain that he believed that God and God only could protect him from getting injured. 

 

We think it is hard for so many Americans to not think these rituals sound almost “kooky”, but when many of these guys have actually seen witchcraft take place and spirits essentially at work, it would be hard to not want to protect yourself from it.  We just hope and pray that even if we don’t see a transformation of any of the guys hearts now that we are able to just be faithful through the little things of everyday life, playing on a football team (which such a large part of life here) and planting seeds in hopes that someday each guy will see and understand how much our God loves and cares for them.

 

WAWA

We recently made a trip to Dakar to accomplish 3 things.  1) We needed to attain a piece of paper called a Carte Consulaire for Lucas to play on our neighborhood soccer team.  2)  We were going to go to a grocery store there as there are many more options of items to buy in Dakar than Thies. 3) Bekah had a doctor’s appointment in Dakar.

 

Now it doesn’t sound like that complicated of a list of tasks to accomplish, and it shouldn’t be.  However, we quickly found out that it may be slightly more complicated than we anticipated as ordinary tasks can regularly become here.  Lucas’ soccer coach for the neighborhood team wasn’t even exactly sure what the piece of paper was that we needed to attain for his license to play.  He was just passing along information, but the coach said we needed it, so we were off. 

 

We got to Dakar and started asking around to several different Americans as to where we needed to go to get this mystery piece of paper.  Unfortunately, we found very quickly we weren’t sure we would be able to find it because we asked three different men, who combined have lived in Africa for over 100 years, and none of them had even heard of it.  But we decided to be optimistic and start our search anyways since that was one of the main reasons for our trip.

So we headed to the police station where they just pointed us to another station.  So we got in a different taxi and headed there.  While we were there, we were sent to six different offices and even the sixth office sent us to another office, but obviously we didn’t see this cycle ending soon or with us actually getting the correct piece of paper.  At this point, we were at a bit of a time crunch since Bekah had an appointment, and we still hadn’t made it to the store, so we decided to give up.  

 

Then we headed to the store in a taxi, but since we aren’t in Dakar too often, we weren’t sure exactly where it was and decided to just have the driver drop us off and walk.  We ended up walking more than we had bargained for, and about 25 minutes later ended up at the store, which was closed.  Why?  Well the store doors were open and the guard was there like normal, but he informed us it just wasn’t open today and would be open tomorrow.  That didn’t help us much since we were leaving later that afternoon.

 

Then we headed to Bekah’s appointment which was the only successful part of our day thus far and for that we were very grateful.

 

However, then we had to begin our trek home.  We had to catch a taxi to a suburb of Dakar where we then would catch a sept place home which is basically a 7 person station wagon.  We sat at the station for about 40 minutes in the back of the car waiting for our car to fill up.  Then we started our way home basically through a town that would be like driving on Lake Shore Drive during rush hour. 

 

Unfortunately this was probably one of the hottest parts of the day, and there was no wind whatsoever.  So we were just inching along, hoping to catch a tiny breeze somehow as everyone in the car is beading up with sweat in literally every nook and cranny on your body.  Finally after about 45 minutes we started moving and started to get some air movement which was exceptionally exciting.  After about another hour and a half we had successfully made it home! 

 

Lucas was then off to soccer practice, and Bekah started making dinner.  Bekah was very thankful she had planned a casserole so she could just throw it in the oven pretty easily.  However after about 20 minutes, she went to check on it, and the gas bottle had gone out.  Usually our landlord has a few spares sitting downstairs so it wasn’t that big of a deal, other than when Bekah got downstairs and there weren’t any full bottles.  Cereal all around for supper!

 

Obviously some days go better than others no matter where you live.  It seems here in West Africa though, many days can go like this.  You can’t rely on much or be too upset if the things on your “to-do list” don’t get done.  Some days you just have to say WAWA (West Africa Wins Again) and go to sleep hoping tomorrow things will work out better!

 

African Time

We have mentioned how much longer things take here several times.  We thought we would share a couple of stories that demonstrate how much time is not a pressing matter here.

Bekah was supposed to play in a basketball game with some of the Thies University girls.  The plan was to meet at the gym, where they normally practice, at 3:30.  Then they would take a bus and play at 4 at a stadium in town.  Well needless to say, it didn’t exactly go as planned. Shocker.  Bekah was there on time at 3:30 (just in case something did happen on time).  However when Bekah arrived, there were only 2 girls there.  Eventually all the girls came around 4 and they took the bus to the stadium. Once they arrived at the stadium it was discovered that no one actually had keys to the stadium. Classic. So Bekah and the girls waited for over an hour at the stadium until someone eventually came who had keys.  Then once they actually got into the stadium, they had to set the portable hoops up.  The game didn’t actually end up starting until almost 6!

Lucas has been playing on a neighborhood soccer team to build relationships with the guys.  They were supposed to have a tournament on July 4^th.  But the first game got delayed a week so they would play on July 11^th.  A girl, Helen, stopped by our house the morning of July 11^th and said the game had been postponed until the following night.  The reasoning was the game was postponed because the teams who were supposed to play on the 10^th didn’t end up playing, and they had to play first.  So the other teams played on the night of the 11^th, and our neighborhood team played the following night of the 12th.  The plan was for everyone to meet at a neighborhood shop at 8 then they would get a vehicle to the game which was supposed to start at 9.  Sounded simple enough, right?  Lucas headed over to the boutique just after 8, and ended up sitting there until just after 9.  Once all the guys showed up, they headed to the stadium.  The game ended up starting at about 10:15 and there was still another game after Lucas’ which didn’t end up starting until after 11:30!

Needless to say, understanding how time works here has been a real adjustment.  It is night and day from what life is like in the United States.  Bekah remembers in college when if you weren’t five minutes early to basketball practice then you were considered late.  That kind of mind set just can’t be used here.  The culture is different, and we have just gotten used to it.

Village Visits

 

 

We have had the privilege of getting out to four villages to do sports evangelism.  We have done soccer three times and basketball once. 

                                            







Basketball presents a bit more of a challenge since we need a court before we can do anything.  There are only two villages currently that have basketball courts, and that’s because a partnering church from the United States came out and provided the funds to build one.
 
 

 

 

     Usually when we go out to a village to do sports evangelism, it is an all-day event. We typically go out to the villages sometime mid-morning, meet and greet people in the village, eat lunch (around 3 or 4), and then play a game.  People don’t really like to do sports earlier than about 4 o’clock because it is so hot.

 

     It really is amazing to see when the game starts, people seem to come out of nowhere to watch.  Literally we are in the middle of the bush, you see no buildings except the different small compounds in which the people of the village live. 

 

 



Then a soccer game starts, and people start walking up from what appears to be out of the wood work, from miles away.  The times we have gone out to different villages, there usually ends up being at least 150-200 people that have gathered to watch.  





The Word being shared at halftime.  It's amazing how many people were packed in that little circle!



 

It really is incredible how God has enabled us to use a simple game to be able to bring people together to hear about Jesus.  Using sports is really an international language, and it can be very impactful as long as you are intentional about it.  Even the most simple of things can be turned into a powerful tool for God if you are willing to surrender it to Him.

 

1 Peter 4:10-11

 

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in various forms.  If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.  If anyone serves, they should do so with strength God provides, so in all things God may be praised through Christ Jesus.  To him be the glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

 

 

 

Here are some extra pictures over the last few weeks.



Bekah with some girls in a village.





Lucas made a friend at a soccer game.

Very popular shoe here in Senegal to play soccer in.

The boys enthralled that a toubab puts his shoes on like everyone else/ hoping that the toubab will give his cleats away.

Notre Dame



Abel

Abel is the head of the church association here in Senegal.  We have had the pleasure of getting to go out to see what he is doing twice now.  He is a very sharp fellow and it is phenomenal to see the things he is doing in his village.  He is doing amazing things here and attributes it all to God!  It is really awesome to see the Senegalese having a heart to help their own people! 

 

 

They just recently had a new church built in their village- which he is the pastor for.  He also help get 2-3 churches built in surrounding villages.  He preaches every Sunday at his own church, but he also goes into a local town each week, before his own service, to preach his message on a local radio station in hopes of allowing others to hear the good news.

 

Abel also is part of a group that runs a boutique in his village.  Boutiques are very common in larger cities like Thies, but not so much in the villages.  These little boutiques are just hole in the wall stores with flour, sugar, onions, some candy, soap, and other basic need items.  Abel first did research to see what items sell best in the boutiques and only supplies those items in the boutique in his village.  He now has something set up in Excel to help keep inventory and track of the money.  A different member of the church, manages the boutique for 3 months at a time.  Then the manages gets a certain percentage of the profits and the other percentage goes back to the church.

 
Abel also helps run a storehouse for food.  Currently there are 60 members of this program which is all they can hold right now, both Christian and non Christians.  During November (harvest time) people put food in the storehouse.  They are not allowed the get it back out until July or August sometime when they start running out of food.  If a person chooses to take out 50 pounds of food then when they bring it back after harvest time they have to bring 55 pounds.  If a person chooses to take 100 pounds, then they have to replenish it after harvest with 110 pounds of food.  At this point, 100 pounds is the most a family can take out.  This way, slowly over time it builds the amount of food they have.   

The problem here is that if people plan ahead to have food for the whole year they are still obligated to give it if a family member or friend runs out of food or wants to throw a big wedding.  Just how it works.  So this way, the food gets locked up to help prevent a shortage in the village before the next harvest comes.  They can't get to it unless it's an emergency.


They currently have 32,000 pounds of millet stored for just their village.  He says it’s good because it helps them be self-sufficient and not have to go straight to a relief group like WorldVision if famine hits.  They have a back-up plan.  He wants to be able to help surrounding villages build similar buildings. 

It is great that a national realizes they need to become more self-sufficient so they can more easily solve their own problems.  Another cool thing is that word has been travelling about their village and the storehouse.  Evens Muslims have been amazed that the system seems to really work and how the Christians have handled themselves. Many people were very hesitant to join at the beginning for fear it may be more of a loss than a gain.  However there are now Muslim families that participate, and there are even more people wanting to join.  It has been a real testament to us to watch someone who is a very smart individual who could probably move to a larger city and have a “better life” for both himself and his family.  However he has chosen to stay in the village and work with his own community where life is much harder and be Jesus’ hands and feet to them.

Life in Africa

Life here in Senegal has been very different than our lives in the United States.  We knew that our lives would change but didn’t realize necessarily how many things would be different.  In some ways, we have learned a whole new way of life here.  Most things just take longer here so patience is an absolute must.  We wanted to share some of the things that have become part of our lives since we have been here.

Water

     As you can see, the drinking water here is not clean.  Fortunately we do have a water filter.  We never drink water from the tap, but use a pitcher to put the water in the filter. 

 

     Unfortunately most people here do have to drink the water as they don’t have any other option.  Thus it allows different sorts of disease causing bacteria to get into their systems and proves to sometimes be fatal for them without money to pay for access to medical treatment.

 

Eating Senegalese Style

      In Senegal, many families eat using a bowl with about 6-8 people around it.  You are supposed to eat from the section in front of you in a pie shaped piece.  If there are things in your section that you don’t want, then you can put it in the center of the bowl where anyone can take food from.  When we have been to different villages, they have been kind enough to provide us with spoons to use to eat with but many families eat just using their hands.  Also your left hand is considered “dirty” here so we have to eat with our right hand.  Needless to say since Bekah is left handed, she doesn’t usually eat very fast or get very much to eat when we eat Senegalese style.

Meat

     When we buy meat here, we have to package it on our own.  We can’t just walk into Meijer and buy a pound of ground beef or chicken breasts.  We buy our beef from a guy in town at the main market.  He charges an extra 200  francs (about $0.40) to ground it up for us so we have opted for that option.  Meat is more expensive here by about $1.50 a pound for beef. 

 

Once we get the meet home, Bekah weighs it out and packages it to put in the freezer.  When we buy chickens, we have to buy them whole and de-gut them ourselves.  Then we divide the chicken into meal size portions to freeze.  Fortunately probably for your sake, we seem to have lost the pictures of Lucas de-gutting the chicken. 

 

Traffic

Traffic here is a difficult one to explain. The best way to describe it comes from Captain Jack Sparrow, "They are more like guidelines than rules."  People here don’t follow the rules, and they basically look out for themselves and don’t worry about other people.  At times, people here can drive very aggressively.  On the other hand, other times if there are two lanes on the road, they manage to take up both and seem to not have a care in the world. 

 

Movie Stars

 

Many times we feel like movie stars here.  We get stared at pretty much everywhere we go because we are "toubabs" or white person.  Most of the time when there is a group of kids, they yell toubab at us as we walk by.  It sometimes is a disrespectful thing for the kids to do, depending on their attitude when they say it.  However on the other hand, some kids are just really excited to see a white person.  Especially when we are in villages, the kids get so excited to see a toubab.   

 

Our favorite time when we have gotten called a toubab was when we were walking home from the John Huffman School one day.  There was a little boy standing at the community water well in our neighborhood, and he was screaming and crying at the top of his lungs.  As soon as he saw us, his crying took a screeching halt and he gasped and said in a faint whisper, "toubab."  And he just watched in amazement as we walked by.

 

 

What is Success?

We had the privilege of going to our organizations retreat this week.  It was about an hour from Thies.  A team from Northstar Church came from a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio to serve the WorldVenture Senegal Team.  It was very nice to just get away for a few days with no cooking, no ministry, no cleaning, as well as being able to hang out with other Americans.  It is the first English teaching we have had since we left the states so that in and of itself was a huge blessing.  The team from Northstar brought a pastor, worship leader, children’s leaders, and a cook to help at the retreat.   

We had the pleasure of getting taught by a pastor named David.  He really challenged us in his teaching to ponder the question, what is success?  So many of us get caught up with being concerned with how much money we have or climbing the corporate ladder.  For us the questions we often challenge ourselves with are: how effective is our ministry?  Does it really even matter if we are here?  How many people have accepted Christ because of us? 

Ephesians 6:12

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

David really challenged us that Satan often feeds us lies.  Often times we face the daily challenges, and we have a tendency to ask ourselves what we have accomplished today? We need to take a step back to realize that we are fighting a battle that has already been won.  Christ did that 2000+ years ago when he gave his life for all of us. 

 

We as Christians, no matter what “mission field” you live on, are called by God to be just a piece of the puzzle in His story, not to try to create your own story by yourself.  Being successful isn’t how many digits you bring home in your paycheck this week, what promotion you are up for, or what kind of car you drive.  However, success is defined by obedience to God in whatever realm he has called you.  As long as you are being faithful, that is all God has called you to do as a follower.

Joshua 24:14a

Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. 

 

Job 36:11

If they listen and serve him, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness.

The John Huffman School

We have been going over to the John Huffman School a couple of times a week.  The school is pre-K through middle school.  It has been good to put the skills God has given us to use and to be able plant seeds to ultimately further His kingdom.  We are still in the process of meeting a few more people in hopes of getting some more sports activities going as well.   

The John Huffman School is run by the local church.  There are some Christian staff and students who do work at and attend the school, however the majority of the students are Muslim which is no surprise since 95% of the population in Senegal is Muslim.  It has been a pleasure to come alongside fellow Senegalese believers to use sports to get kids to come to the afterschool program.

We have started going earlier to the school because we have found if we are there playing, the kids will come.  We aren’t exactly sure how much of it is because they like us or we have a ball.  We will just keep telling ourselves it’s because they like us J.  But this has been a great way for us to actually get to build relationships with the kids and learn more about them. 

The afterschool program begins with an opening prayer and followed by a warm up which is usually done to Christian music.  Then we split up into two groups: soccer and basketball.  Usually there are about 60-70 kids that come some of which don’t attend the John Huffman School but just live in the neighborhood.  At some point during the program, we have a “moral” lesson for the kids which is usually Biblical without mentioning the Bible. Being subtle here is key since the majority of the kids that come are Muslim. If we just started preaching about Jesus each time then many of the kids would not be allowed to come back.  It is a matter of being patient and trusting that we are able to show Christ’s love through our actions.  After all, actions speak louder than words, right? 

Below are some pictures of the program at the John Huffman School.

Bonjour from Thies, Senegal

We have now been in Thies for almost two weeks!  We have been very busy meeting different people, adjusting to the culture, and learning how to do life in general here.  Daily tasks in general just take so much longer here.   

For example, we went to look at an apartment a couple days ago which in the states would take easily less than 30 minutes because most places require you to make an appointment. However here it took us closer to three hours by the time we met the person showing us the apartment, drove across town in a taxi with him to introduce us to the owner to talk about the price, and then going back and saying our goodbyes! 

Needless to say, being flexible has become a very large part of lives because if you aren’t willing to be extremely flexible here then you will probably end up feeling stressed a majority of the time.

Last week we were able to meet, George, the president of the church association in Thies to receive his blessing and permission to do ministry during our time here.  We also had a meeting with Alouise who is one of the people we will be doing ministry with while we are here.  We will be helping him with an after school program on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays where he does a bible lesson then also works on both soccer and basketball with the kids.  He seemed very excited we are here to help!  We are hoping to help with ideas and possibly get other nationals involved so once we leave things will continue to move forward.  He also has different days that he would like to do activities and wants to work in different villages so we are hoping to be able to be extra hands in any way possible! 

Here are some pictures of Thies and some of the things we see on a daily basis.