You might live in West Africa If...

You know you live in West Africa when you find a gross looking pussy bite on your side and your first thought is “I hope there is not a worm in that.” You know you’re in West Africa when complete strangers invite you to eat lunch with them on the street. When 80 year old men propose to you but are deterred when you tell them you don’t work in fields. When people call you a bean eater and then laugh good naturedly. When children run up to you like you are Mickey Mouse and shout Tobabou or Forteh (Foreigner!). You know you are in West Africa when people hiss at you to get you attention. When men say “You drive? No, where is your chauffer?” If it acceptable to propose after asking the woman’s name. When people ask you how Obama is doing and you say “I don’t know I’ll ask him some time,” and they believe you. When being told your fat is a compliment. When you buy fabric one day and have a tailor made outfit the next day. When people call and take orders for cheddar cheese because it is so cheap in neighboring countries, meaning it is not $20. When bacon bits is a stellar Christmas gift. You know you live in West Africa when you see a moto (Motorcycle) pass with two people and two goats and you think “what a waist, they could have tied at least three chickens on the back.” You know you live in West Africa when your taxi driver stops at the Mosque so all his passengers can go pray. If you are able to get out of a ticket by telling the police officer “I am sorry but I have no husband to teach me how to drive.” When your taxi breaks down twice and has two flat tires and then the driver decides to take a nap and not one of the 9 passengers (in a 7 seat vehicle) say one word of complaint to the driver. You know you live in West Africa when you realize six flags is just a cheap imitation of African back roading. When you hit a pot hole so hard everyone in the car hits the ceiling, when you apologize all the Africans blame the road, while all the Americans blame you.  When a child pinches you to see if she can get through to the black. When you stop breaking for chickens, honk at goats, swerve for sheep, approach cows with caution (noting their number, position and direction), but always stop for donkeys. When seeing a goat at the beach ceases to be weird. If it is raining you know it is naked day/ bath time for all the kids in the neighborhood. When you don’t think twice about scolding someone else’s kid. If you witness an accident and the first thing you hear is “Oh Allah!” When people give you a live chicken as a welcoming gift, and you genuinely get pretty excited about it. When someone hands you a spoon to eat rice and you feel a little offended. You realize your host really likes you because he included the chicken head in your dish. When you drink out of a plastic bag without spilling juice on yourself. When you ask, “is the monkey a pet or dinner?”

God is Never Random

 

 

      Do you ever feel like God is listening to your thoughts. Like those days when I’m feeling so lonely, and I start to have a bit of a pity party and just as I think, “No one cares…” one of my most favorite persons calls my phone just to say hello. I hang up the phone “Yes Lord, I get it, I’m loved.”  Or the other day when the Guinea heat was getting to me and I was thinking I’d much rather take a car then walk, and then I turned down a street and both the people walking in front of me were lame, they don’t have the car option either. “Okay God I got it, I am blessed.”

 

     There are moments like these that I could take as coincidence or providence. But then there are some moments, like in our travels across Cape Verde that I can really only attribute to providence. Like jumping into the back of a Yassi and just happening to meet a girl, who speaks English, who goes to the church we are about to look for and has time to take us there.

 

     Or the time Rita and I are walking out to a street about to catch a Taxi to go wander around an area in town to locate a denominational office. As we approach the road, I start getting creeped out by this man watching us, there are other people around but he has zoned in on us. He walks forward and back and then asks where we are going. We name the area and he says. “Oh I am going there too. Would you like to share a taxi?” He goes through a big explanation telling us it’s cheaper and faster to share a taxi then to take the bus. “Um okay, we can share a taxi.” In the Taxi we find out he is pastor of an Evangelical church and knows the office we are looking for. When we get out of the taxi he insist on paying the cab driver and then takes us the office we are looking for and introduces us to the man with whom we need to speak. The man gives us the name of another pastor who is Guinea-Bissauan and tells us he is a good contact for finding out about ministry among West Africans in Cape Verde.

 

     The coincidences continue as we leave with a church and a neighborhood name on a piece of paper. Walking down the street we are not sure which way to go, we ask a few people and are being directed towards the ocean. “Can we walk there?” “Oh, yes, it’s not far!” So we keep going we pass a bus stop, just as an overcrowded bus pulls up. Rita wants to get on; I don’t feel like being sweated on. The bus leaves and we start to walk again but suddenly Rita stops. “I want to ask that man!” She exclaims and then walks up to a random guy standing with others at a bus stop, except the word random never really applies with God. This fellow not only knows the neighborhood, he is a Maninka speaker from Guinea, the northern district close to the Mali border. Rita lived in Mali for 9 years and is fluent in Bambara. His Maninka is so close to Bamabara that Rita and our new friend have no trouble understanding one another. This man apparently has plenty of time to take us to the neighborhood. He hails us a taxi and we all set off together. He is obviously enjoying speaking is heart language with Rita but despite his Muslim background, he also seems just as interested as we are in finding this church. When we arrive in the neighborhood he pays for the taxi himself and escorts us to the building, he stays with us through the interview and ask the pastor a few questions of his own. After the interview he suggest a few more evangelical churches we should visit, hails another taxi and takes us into some West African communities. We end the day at his place drinking a cold Fanta and making arrangement to meet again when Rita can Bluetooth some Bambara stories into his phone. At our next meeting, he invites two other West Africans over who speak English (so I won’t be left out), one is from lower Guinea his heart language is Koinyanka, I have a friend working on translation for Koinyanka. I call her up and she sends greetings to him in his native language, huge smile on his face. The other is a Mandingo from Liberia which happens to be the least reached people group in Liberia. He gives me contact so that when I move to Liberia in January I can look up his sister.

 

     This Maninka man and the coincidence of running into such an open person, is what I have heard termed as a “person of peace.” You can read about them in Luke 10:5-6. God not only can and does interact with us even through simple things like a timely call, but he has been at work all over the world long before we gain the initiative to walk into an unreached neighborhood. Many people are afraid to take the step of following God’s lead into overseas missions because they believe they will be beginning with hard soil. But God says, “The harvest is plentiful.” God may not be asking you to lead an entire African village to the Lord, he may just be asking you to go find the person of peace that he has already prepared and invest your time and wisdom with him.  

 

     In closing, God is never random. If you think, “Wow that was a pretty big coincidence,” it probably was not. God has big plans and he reveals them to people who are paying attention. And sometimes even to people who blunder through life like me; who don’t want to inconvenience the girl on the back of the Yassi, who get creeped out by the guy staring across the street, who would have rather passed the man at the bus stop. Stop and pay attention; He is doing stuff.

Maio, Cape Verde

      The last island we were privileged to visit was Maio, named by the Spanish for the month in which it was discovered. Maio is the second smallest inhabited island of Cape Verde (next to Brava) and the least visited by tourist. Up until recent years, many of the inhabitants of Maio lived without any contact with white Europeans. As we drove into the smaller villages in Maio, the children reacted in much the same way they do in West Africa, smiling and waving wildly at us. Along our way, we met and expat from Nebraska and travel author, Bert Lane. Bert moved to Maio when he could claim to be one of three white people on the island, there was also a French man and a German. He chose Maio because it was more relaxed and removed from the rush of life. Tourism is also beginning to make its mark in Maio. The Island has few resources to boost its economy so has begun to accept tourist into its less populated beaches. 

     Maio only has one evangelical church for the entire island, however the pastors of this church are passionate and devoted to the people of Maio. Emmanuel and Celita are reaching out of the capital of Villa Do Maio and into two nearby villages Celita glowed as she recounted that they recently were able to hand out Gospel pamphlets to all the school children in Maio. The faith of the two precious people was humbling to behold. At the beginning of the school year, Celita was approached by dozens of students asking for books for their classes, Celtia did not want to tell them no so she asked them to pray. Within the week, they had more than enough funds to buy all the kids the books they requested. Emanuel and Celita are concerned for the people of Maio because of social oppression coming from the dominate Catholics and also because of a recent  outbreak of suicide on the island.  “In the past 8 months there have been 7 suicides and 1 attempted suicide. People are saying that there is a devil possessing people.” Emanuel grew up in Maio and had never heard of a suicide on the island until this year. Pray for the people of Maio that the villages on the far side of the island will receive a gospel witness. Pray that the spirit of suicide will be banished from the island. And pray for Emanuel and Celita that they will continue faithfully and be encouraged and joined by other believers.

Boa Vista Cape Verde, West Africa

     We finally found them. Since stepping off the plane into this different West African country, where Taxis are clean and yellow and women wear pants, we had been looking hard to see any semblance of the West Africa we find familiar. We found it in Boa Vista.  Probably the most visited island by tourist, Boa Vista holds many beautiful spectacles. But because of the recent influx of tourism, many native Cape Verdeans have left the island and been replaced by West Africans from the continent seeking a better life. They can all be found in a ten block by ten block neighborhood off the main strip in Sal Rei. As we approached the neighborhood, it was like stepping back into Conakry. Little kids ran up to us immediately and put their hands out, expecting something from the white women. People shouted their greetings to us; we begin to shout greetings in French again. There are no cute potted plants out front of these buildings. They are all half-finished, grey, trash in the streets, and everyone is sitting outside on their stoops. I can see people cooking over their little coal burners, probably pepper soup, yes this is West Africa!

     Our first morning is Boa Vista, we head out to the only evangelical church in the city. It is several blocks from out hotel. We walk around the building and can see that the lights are out and it is closed for the day. We talk to bystanders, “oo est Nazareno Pastora maison?” Puzzled looks. Then a boy passing by is motioned to, chattered at, and we are soon following this young man around. “Nazareno Pastora?” we ask quizzically to the woman whose door we are brought too. More chattering, pointing, gesturing.  Soon we are again following this young man down side streets, past shops and to a building clearly marked, “Nazarene Pastor Counseling” I look down one more door and there is the sign for our hotel. We literally made a circle from our hotel around the entire town and back, if we had turned left instead of right, we would have been at his door in two steps.

     Inside we met with a young pastor anxious to bring the truth to Cape Verdeans as well as immigrants into his country. Pastor Ivan played the voice of Jesus in the recent production of the Jesus Film in Cape Verdean Creole. Ivan tells us the West African community we walked into is called Bash Proenza but is better known by the name “Barraca” meaning shanty or shack.  Ivan’s congregation is doing what it can to reach out to this community by holding small groups within this West Africa n community. Please pray for the people of Bash Proenza, both for their living conditions and the conditions of their hearts. Pray that believers will reach out to this predominantly Muslim neighborhood with the truth found in God’s son.

Sal, Cape Verde

     Imagine the purest aqua blue that you can, this was better. I have simply never seen this color so brilliant and so consistently gorgeous with each new out pouring. As I watched the waves hit the white sand beaches of Sal, I cannot believe that color could be more pure than in that moment. And there is sand, I took for granite that beaches meant sand, until I arrived in West Africa. Around Conakry beaches mean black scum, but here clean, powdery, white, sand.

      Sal is the word for Salt in Portuguese. There are salt beds on Sal caused by… well I don’t know what, let me try to explain, there are these pools of water that have been captured from the ocean, so they are salty. And the ground beneath the pools are real hot, so the water evaporates and leaves salt. Also these pools are ridiculously fun to play in. Rita and I visited these salt flats not understanding quite what they were. As we approached the pools, I could see, a bunch of middle aged people acting very serious about their turn about the pool. To the side was some weird, tree-hugger couple they were scooping mud from the bottom and coating themselves with it (ew), they were also being very serious. The water in the pools acts just like the dead-sea and turns ordinary people into buoys. How could I not giggle? The ground beneath was sooo hot, it burned my footsies! So you’re hopping around trying not to burn your toes and you lose balance and that’s it… beached whale. It is so hard to regain composure, after your feet go bobbing to the top, involuntarily. I giggled a lot, okay I laughed out loud and the serious people gave me menacing looks.

      In Sal, we acted like true tourist and headed to the African trinket market but we were not looking for souvenirs. We went in search of West Africans from the continent.  Tourism is big business on the Islands of Sal and Boa Vista, and the draw of making quick money brings hundreds of West Africans to these Islands. Senegalese, Guinea-Bissauans, Nigerians, Togolese, Sierra Leoneans and many other have moved to Sal and Boa Vista in hopes of sustaining themselves and to send money back home to their families. Many of these West Africans can be found in the little open air souvenir market. Senegalese are especially prevalent, if you are approached by a salesman in the street a majority of the time he is Senegalese.

      In one of the kiosks, we met Leo, a Senegalese man from Dakar. Leo had been around the tourist game for a while; he was a tour guide, in an area called the Pink Sea outside of Dakar, before he moved to Sal hoping to make a bigger profit on the Island. Leo real name was Moussa (Moses), but he found his traditional African/Islamic name too hard for his European customers to remember. “I told them, I am Leonardo De Vinci! Then they remembered my name.”  Leo’s English was beautiful; he said he learned from an Irish woman down the street. Leo also speaks, Italian, French, Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese and Wolof (and more than likely some other Senegalese languages). I had been in Cape Verde for almost two weeks, two weeks and not a single proposal I was beginning to feel I had lost my charm. A young American woman in West Africa can count on being proposed too multiple times each week. “Hello, what’s your name? Are you married? NO! (With genuine shock on their face) Well then you can marry me!” Leo didn’t let me down; his offer was especially attractive because his came with a promise to let me travel, “Yes! Yes! You can be my wife and go where ever and just call I will send you money.” Hmm tempting, I got his number just in case I change my mind. I didn’t even use the “you’ll have to talk to my father” line (btw Dad have you been receiving any long distance calls?)  Leo is a fairly devout Muslim. The Cape Verdean government has been fighting the influx of Islam into the country and has denied the Muslims the right to build any Mosque in Cape Verde, but Leo still meets every Friday with other Senegalese to pray. Rita asked what he did for prayers during the day, and he said he always closes his little shop and walks down to a meeting place to do prayers with other Muslims. Leo’s shop is one block away from an evangelical church, spatially he is close to the truth, but culture has built a strong barrier between Leo and truth. Many evangelicals are afraid even to talk to Leo because of the cultural difference. I pray that the Churches in Sal continue to push past the cultural barriers and reach out to the growing Muslim population, that they do not view Muslims as people to be feared but instead as people to be loved and brought to a saving knowledge of JC true nature.

Brava Cape Verde, Island of the Brave.

     Brava, Island of the Brave. This quaint little island received its distinguished name from the hardtack sailors/Bravians, who once whaled in its waters. I think Brava has earned its name for another reason, the first evangelical missionary to Cape Verde, Jon Dios, was a Bravian and established the first congregation on the island of Brava. The church Jon established through his dedication to Christ call even in the face of fierce persecution, still stands in Brava’s capital, Nova Sintra. Jon’s bravery has brought hundreds of Cape Verdeans to the truth and cleared the path for future believers. The congregation Jon founded no longer meets in the building built in 1908 which was converted to a museum, now they meet in a newer building at the center of town.

      Brava is out of the way and seldom visited by the tourist that flood the more popular Islands in the summer months. It retains a homey feel mainly due to the small population (8000).  It has another title, “island of flowers.” It is indeed covered in many different varieties of flowers, but especially orange lantana, which means, many butterflies flitted about among the shrubs. There are two Nazarene Churches a few Adventist congregations on the island but there are some villages on the outskirt of the island that have no evangelical witness.

     Cachaco is one of these villages. Transport only goes to Cachaco twice a day, we just happened to catch the only yassi heading out there carrying a single high school student home for midday break. As we walked from courtyard to courtyard, we followed up on a lead that there were some Adventist in the area. “Adventist?” “No, no Catholic, only catholic here.” Finally one person said no but then changed her mind and pointed down a hill. This was a majestic walk down through fields of corn lined with lantana by the road sides. At the start of our walk we passed two very old women puttering about their porch they smiled and greeted “Bom Tarde” we smiled and waved back. At the end of the road we asked again, “Adventist?” “No, No there are only Catholic.”  We leisurely made are way back towards where the yassi was parked; he would not be going back to town for another hour. As we passed back by the old ladies they invited us to come up on their porch out of the sun… this is what I love about Cape Verde and West Africa, you don’t have to know them, you don’t have to have a purpose, you don’t even have to speak the same language, you can just come into their courtyard, sit and enjoy the shade with them. As we sat Rita commented on the heat of the day, and fumbled through a few sentence in Spanish maybe. The women laugh and their wrinkled tan faces beamed at us. Rita asked if they knew of any Adventist in the area and one of the ladies smiled broadly and motioned to herself and made some joke about her old catholic friend beside her not knowing the way. The two women laughed at her joke, you could plainly see decades of friendship were shared between them. We found her, the one old woman brave enough to embrace a religion other than her neighbors. That village was so full of beauty and peace, I pray the Adventist and Nazarene established on the island do not forget little Cachaco. I pray they continue to bring the truth to these furthest villages until they have their own congregation to stand as a witness to G0ds kingdom.

Fogo Cape Verde. Island of fire!

     Fogo means fire. Why name an island fire? Because it’s an active volcano! It last erupted in 1995 and the hardened lava flows are present all over the island. Before heading to the island we were told that some time the island rumbles and shakes because of the still active volcano, “but of course not when there are visiting Americans,” laughed our friend in jest. There is a saying among the islands, if someone is acting strange they will say, “are you from Fogo?” basically “are you crazy?” I don’t know why the saying originated, some say it is because the people on Fogo are eccentric, I think it is because the Island is an active volcano, why are there 40,000+ people living there! Rumbling and dooms day aside, Fogo is beautiful and quaint. There are sweet little houses all around the almost perfect circle of the island. Every house seemed covered in some sort of flowering something; all had potted plants on the patios. Rita and I viewed the coffee plants with the green berries not ripe yet, and we sampled some Fogo coffee in one of the diners. Rita became an instant attic and began demanding coffee almost before we could seat ourselves at every restaurant (exaggeration). Having heard early on that you can hike to the volcano mouth, Rita and I began to train for the excursion. As we visited the other islands, whenever we happened to be taking the stairs or walking up a bit of an incline, we’d turn to each other and shout Fogo! Despite our elaborate training we did not end up hiking to the mouth, it was just too much to be done in our limited schedule. We did however hike the little peak beside the volcano that gave a pretty decent view of the 1995 lava flows. This venture was enough to prove our inadequacy for the actual peak. Walking up a volcano is like trying to hike up a pile of black sand. We were both wearing inappropriate hiking shoes as well, my Chaco’s helped zero in keeping the little pebbles and sand from creeping between the sole and my foot. They did a pretty darn good job at holding the pebbles in place once they crept in there. It was worth it though and fun to watch Rita try to bare foot it before realizing the ground was to hot and putting her flip-flops back on. 

      Our last night in Fogo, I awoke with a start, a loud noise, and did the building just rumble? “Rita did you hear that?!” Rita rolled over and sleepily responded, “Someone slammed a door, that’s all.” I was very awake and sitting up in my bed I was incredulous, “that was a loud door.” As I snuggled back into my sheets, two more very loud explosions shook the building. “That was not a door!” Soon Rita and I were hanging over our balcony listening to the Creole chattering of the neighbor’s and watching men running down the streets. I peeked at the clock, 4 am. We eventually decided to go find out what’s up and we followed the crowed and the smell of smoke two blocks down the road. Apparently a propane tank had exploded in a house (one of those small tanks used for cooking). There was smoke billowing out of the windows. The next morning we could see two explosion marks outside the building on the concrete. We never could get the whole story but the important thing is Rita and I did not get consumed by a lava flow.

     Probably my favorite interview was the one we conducted with a Brazilian ministry called Kyros on our way out of Sao Filipe, the capital of Fogo. It was my favorite because not a single sentence was completed in any one language. After greeting, “Bom Tarde!” we quickly run out of our Portuguese vocab. Then we are left with the French and Spanish words that they might know or that might sound similar enough to Portuguese to pass. Last we try English and charades. It sounds something like this, “Mon Ami, (person’s name) told (gesturing towards mouth), us (Gesturing toward each other) about Kyros.” Everyone around the table shakes head in understanding.  Though I don’t know what we communicated verbally it was like one Nazarene pastor said, “culture can separate us but God can unite us.” I felt close to those Brazilian believers who had also left home and normalcy to seek out God’s plan. I don’t always know what is going on around me, or why things happen the way they do, but God does and He orchestrates things for His own purpose.  And He unites His people across culture, denomination and language in beautiful ways.

Santo Antao Cape Verde

“They may have our lady of light but they live in darkness.” –Nazarene Pastor in Sao Vicente.

     In Santo Antao, the landscape is too stunning for words. Around each turn on this mountainous Island is a new demonstration of God’s incomparable beauty.  Catholicism has a long heritage on the Island as the huge statue of Saint Paul towering over the city of Paul (pronounced Pah-ul) attest too. There is a new movement gaining ground in Paul called Rationalism. Don’t be fooled by the name it is new sort of spiritualism a new way to worship spirits.  A Nazarene Pastor in Santo Antao said about Cape Verdeans,“ They are very religious but not followers of Christ.” This Pastor strives to make a distinction between himself and the hundreds of the traditional Cape Verdean “Christians” who follow a nominal Catholic faith or who use the name “Christian” to veil what is really idol and demonic worship,  “I call myself a disciple of Christ.”

     While in Paul we set off to try and discover a small Baptist Congregation we had learned about through our travel. We had been told that the leader of this church spoke English but soon learned from the lack communication that was occurring over the phone that he did not. Never the less, after a few calls back in forth we were met by two young men outside our hotel and invited up into the mountain to visit their church. The mode of transportation was a bush yassi or what we would call, a pickup truck with wood benches in the back. I clutched the wooded bench, digging my fingernail in, as we bumped along  the winding roads of Santo Antao. We thought the church was in Paul where are hotel was located, but minutes ticked by and we were still swerving and climbing high and high into the mountains. When our friend finally stopped there indeed was a small building tucked under a steep cliff with the words “Igreja Baptista” painted across it in a pine green. We stood about a bit trying to communicate with our new friends through the limited English they knew and the limited French and Spanish that we knew. We asked to meet the leader wife (we had heard a false rumor that she spoke English), at their house we met her and their little baby girl. Their house was situated on the edge of a cliff, a little hovel really but it over looked a vast valley and to the left a water fall was flowing from the even steeper cliffs above, gorgeous. How could anyone live here? How does a place like this actually exist? Throughout our travels around Santo Antao, I would periodically exclaim, “Nope! Rita, it’s just too beautiful, it can’t be real.” Despite their unreal surrounding there was a very real since of hopelessness in this small gathering. As we talked with the church leader and his wife (mainly through charades) we learned that the missionary that had founded the church had left a few years earlier and the church was now struggling to survive. Though they continue to meet on Sundays they have no pastor. In the Catholic and Nazarene churches that surround them, there is a strict protocol to follow in order to be ordained as a pastor. The term “lay pastor” is not something understood in Cape Verde, everything is very conventional. It made my heart sad to see two young men very capable of (and actually already) leading their congregation yet feeling helpless and abandoned. As we found in Liberia, Cape Verde already has the godly men and women who have the vision to reach their nations but many simply do not know how to start or that they can do it themselves. Pray that G0d will send vision to the believers in Cape Verde to go out into their own communities and to lead their own mission movement. Ask God to send them teachers and mentors.

Sao Vicente Cape Verde and Jon Dias

Over a three week period, Rita and I took 11 plane rides and 5 ferries to visit 8 of the 9 inhabited islands of Cape Verde. This gave us about two days on each island to conduct interviews and explore the communities of Cape Verde. After our arrival in the capital of Praia Santiago we were soon off to visit the second most inhabited Island Sao Vicente. Compared to Santiago’s rich green appearance and rolling hills, Sao Vicente was rather flat. Mindelo, the capital of Sao Vicente is another picture of little Europe, cobblestones and quaint pubs around every corner. In the center square, (where free wi-fi could be found, crazy), I began to notice the extreme diversity and acceptance among ethnics .There seemed to be no aversion to inner-racial marriage. Throughout the park I noticed many multi ethnic couples. Among the children there seemed to be no cultural clicks either. Perhaps these couples and mixing of ethnics seem particularly striking to me now only because I have been living these 6 months in a rather confined atmosphere. Driving in West Africa we make a game of calling out the white person or Asian person if we happen to see one.

In Sao Vicente, we stayed at the Nazarene Seminary located in Mindelo.  It was at this seminary that we were honored to meet with Steve and Trina SIL translators who are working on Luke-Acts in the Northern Cape Verdean Creole. In Trina and Steve roof top apartment they have many visitors. Trina has been feeding some Spanish Finches since they were little fledglings and now they firmly believe they have a right to their office area. They fly in threw the open window and door steal whatever seeds or crumbs they want, fuss about and chatter at anyone invading their office.  Trina says if she is slow in getting up they will impatiently knock on the window in the mornings.  Trina and Steve have been working with SIL for many years in various West African countries.  They are now working furiously on Luke-Acts trying to complete it before their deadline. Steve and Trina were a wealth of information on Cape Verdean culture. Steve said though Cape Verdeans are very literate the oral traditions are still highly cherished. To begin a Storying session women will stretch a plastic bag between their legs and beat it like a drum. Many of their stories concern moral issues or lessons on adulthood.  

At the seminary we also met the first of many Nazarene pastors in Cape Verde and learned the history of the Nazarene’s on the Islands. Catholicism was brought to the islands with the Portugal settlement in the 1500’s, no evangelical presence could be found on the Island until 1901. In the late 1800’s a young man name Jon Dias traveled from him home island Brava Cape Verde aboard his father’s sailing vessel to Massachusetts USA. In America he learned began to attended a protestant church, accepted the Lord and had a deep desire to return to his home country and share his new faith. In 1901 Jon, still a young man, returned to Brava and began a small mission. Jon mission face fierce persecution from the zealous Catholic community. Multiple times Jon and his new converts were beaten and mobs shouted and tried to disturb the protestant congregation when they met. Still the church grew and by 1916 there were 87 members in the Brava congregation. This church became one of the first organized Nazarene Congregations in 1908. Because of Jon commitment the Nazarene’s today hold a respected place in Cape Verdean society. “If you are Cape Verdean you are either Catholic or a Nazarene” is a statement we heard from more than one Cape Verdean. Though the Nazarene are recognized and are no longer physically persecuted like Dias, they still struggle against the Catholic bias. Today there are more evangelical missions, without the 100 year history that the Nazarene’s have on their side, they are finding it difficult to push through cultural traditions and find the heart of the Cape Verdean. Pray that G0d will not forget the faithfulness of the Nazarene believers and that they will reach into every community in Cape Verde. Pray that G0d will break down the cultural barriers keeping Cape Verdeans from seeing the truth. Pray that other evangelical denominations will be able to push through and make an impact for the Kingdom in Cape Verde. And pray for unity among the believers from each denomination in Cape Verde.

Santiago Cape Verde

     There was a faint rainbow visible from the airplane as we approached the Island of Santiago Cape Verde. Rainbow have become a bit of a theme in our travels, one greeted us as we crossed for the first time into Liberia (our future home, God willing), one made a stunning appearance through the clouds as we hunted for the East Limba deep in the Wala Wala mountains of Sierra Leone, we’ve seen one gracing the sky above the drab Conakry skyline. They always seem to be something of a G0d wink, a reminder of His grace and salvation to every nation. Stepping out of the Praia airport into the capital city of Cape Verde, Rita and I were both clothed in our traditional West African garb, complete with Ponya and head wrap. I have not stepped out of the compound gates in the last 6 months without my legs sufficiently covered, usually by a Ponya, and my head cloaked in a head wrap. Pastor Emanuel smiling was waiting for us at baggage claim. Soon we were catching our first glimpses of Praia; I sat in the back of Emanuel’s car with our backpacks beside me staring out into this new world. Cobble Stone streets and gleaming yellow taxis. Where were the goats crossing the road? Where were the overloaded taxis with junk piled three times taller than the actual car on the roof? And are we the only ones in the city wearing a Ponya? I had a sinking feeling that our plane must have gotten confused and landed in Europe or maybe Brazil; we’re not in West Africa any more Todo.

     Cape Verde has its history in the Portuguese slave trade. Before the Portuguese came to Cape Verde in 1500’s the ten islands had been uninhabited, when the Portugal ceded control of Cape Verde in 1975, the Islands were home to a new and diverse people group the Cape Verdeans. It’s hard to describe what a typical Cape Verdean looks like, many are black owing their ancestry to the Africans who were brought to Cape Verde during the slave trade years but many are lighter skinned resembling more of a Brazilian than a West African. Often people claim an ancestry of both Portuguese and African descent, the Portuguese slave traders often took second African wives on the Islands while they were away from Portugal, so they had two families, one in Portugal and one in Cape Verde.

     Excerpt from Wikipedia: “The majority of the population is creole (mixed African and European descent). A genetic study revealed that the ancestry of the population in Cape Verde is 15.9% African and 84.1% European-Middle Eastern in the male line and more than 90% West African in the female line; counted together the percentage is 57% African and 43% European.”

     This mixing of different ethnic groups created the need for a central language to communicate and thus the development of Kabuverdianu, a Portuguese based creole found on all the Islands. Each Island has a slightly different dialect of the Creole, some having an English, French or Italian influence on the dialect but all are mutually understandable.
So here we are having just left our base country which only has electricity on good days for about 6 hours and we arrive in another West African country that doesn’t look a bit like the West Africa we just left.
We immediately fall in love with our host, Brazilian Baptist Missionaries Elton and Karan and their two kids and Cape Verdean Baptist Pastor Emanuel, his wife Diva and their three kids Bethel, Rachael, and Jael. Emanuel took us to their mission house, a two bedroom apartment that looked straight out of Ikea. Over the next three weeks this apartment became our base and Emanuel and his family our lifeline. You couldn’t imagine a sweeter family.

     It just so happened (*cough* G0d) that Emanuel and an AOG pastor were touring all the Evangelical churches in Santiago the day after our arrival to promote a day or prayer…. Would we like to come with them? YES! So the day after our arrival, we were escorted to many of the established churches in Santiago which was just what we came to do.
The first Pastor we met was a man named Christian; he was leading a Brazilian Baptist church plant just on the out skirts of Praia. Christian’s congregation is the only Evangelical church in his prefect of ten villages. There are 8000 people living in his prefect but sadly there are only 7 believers attending his church right now. He explained how hard it is for a Cape Verdean to leave the traditional faith of Catholicism and accept Christ grace. In Cape Verde 95% of people claim to be Catholic, many are not practicing catholic but most still attended the monthly Icon celebrations. We were told more than once that partying is definitely part of the Cape Verdean culture, all Cape Verdeans love to party. Each month there is a party that really amounts to idol worship of a different catholic icon. Even new evangelical converts find the draw of these parties hard to resist.

There is a strong bias against evangelicals in Cape Verde, a Presbyterian Pastor on Santiago said, “The Catholics say (about our church), ‘it is the devils church if you go I am going to hit you.’ But we don’t give up, we continue to pray and talk about Jesus. We don’t give up, we don’t give up.”
While there is rarely physical persecution in Cape Verde there is a good deal of social persecution coming from devout Catholics and occasionally from the pro-catholic government. Often parents refuse to let their children attend evangelical churches or there is a break in the family over it. Please pray that this ethnically diverse country which seems so peaceful and tolerant in every other way will be more open to the truth of the good news.

Rat Attack! And My Where Abouts.

It’s 5am on a Friday morning, my teammate and I have woken up early to wish a farewell to our teammate and supervisor Rita as she heads off to facilitate medical team in Mali. I can still hear the engine of 4x4 backing out of our gate, but I also hear another rumbling coming from in the kitchen or perhaps a rustling. I slowly swing the door open and flip on the light, yes there is a good bit of noise coming from above our food cabinet. This cabinet is high with about a foot of space between the top and our drop down ceiling. I stare at the top waiting… at this point I am more curious than anything… “How could a little mouse be making such a big racket?” Cue Jaws music. The scratching seems to be getting louder (as well as the Jaw’s theme playing in my head), that’s when I notice the hole in the ceiling just above the cabinet. “Maybe the mouse is still in the attic and the empty space is magnifying the sound.” Jaw’s music starts to recede a little as I comfort myself with this conclusion… but not for long, the music reaches it crescendo as the largest rat I have ever seen in person makes his debut by jumping on to the wall above the cabinet, apparently in an attempt to run back into the ceiling but he failed and hid behind the cabinet. I may have screamed like a little girl, I don’t really have much memory of the horror of those few moments but I do know in short time my teammate, Alex, and I were banging things around the kitchen listening to the monster “scurry” (if that adjective can be used to describes the movements of a 6 inch behemoth) behind all our dish cabinets, around the room. I could tell by Alex’s nonchalant attitude that she believed I was exaggerating the size of the creature, at one point we could hear the thing inside our stove (a favorite hiding place for our little mice friends), Alex suggested we light the stove and sweat it out. Lighting the stove requires reaching all the way inside the stove to light the starter at the back; clearly she was not understanding the vastness of the critter. I persuaded her not to do that and soon we could hear him making his way back towards the food cabinet. Alex froze in fear and exclaimed, “O my Gosh!” as she got her first glimpse of the monster squeezing back through the hole in the ceiling. “I told you! I knew you didn’t believe me!” “No I didn’t,” was her only reply. We stuffed a metal sponge in the hole in the ceiling and went back to bed to stare at the ceiling and imagine the rat laughing in delight at our faces when he made his escape.

The next night was a repeat of the first; somehow the rat was back, sponge still in place, and was having a party behind our cabinets. I grabbed a broom and Alex and I began to bang each cabinet and listen to the beast lumber around the kitchen. This went on for 45 minutes or more, things started getting hot when Alex did succeed in lighting the stove to sweat him out and the rat realized our malicious intent. Finally we got him out of the kitchen and into the more open corridors of our hallway. He made a mad dash for Rita’s Foot Lockers stacked almost to the ceiling. The Rat climbed the tower and began flinging himself towards the ceiling about a foot and half in the air, like a flipping Kangaroo! This was too much to even be horrifying anymore, Alex and I looked at each other in bewilderment and started to chuckle. We eventually got him cornered in the garage hallway and realized neither of us was man enough to do the job. So I ran out to find a real man, our night guard Dawda, I tried to mime that there was a grotesquely large rodents in our house but apparently my charade skills are not up to pare. I don’t think he had a clue what he was in for until we were all screaming as he was bludgeoning the rodents. As the thing lay there twitching around and doing a pretty dramatic job of dying, I could see Dawda trying not to laugh at Alex and my reaction.

As I wiped up the puddle of rat blood with a Clorox wipe, I couldn’t help but contrast this experience with my experience of the last three weeks. Less than a week ago I was walking on white sand beaches, taking pristine taxis around and chatting with P@stors about their work in the beautiful Island country of Cape Verde. This life is crazy. Since I moved to Africa in April of this year, I have been through 8 different countries and used 9 separate currencies.

This is what my schedule has looked like over the past 6 months:

April 17th – South Africa, Jo-burg. Layover.
April 18th-May 18th – Zambia, Lusaka & Base Camp. 40/40/
May 19th - South Africa, Jo-burg. Layover.
May 20th-23rd – Dakar, Senegal. Getting Visa.
May 24th-June 5th- Guinea, Conakry & Kankan. Volunteer team to Kankan.
June 6th-17th – Sierra Leone, Freetown, Bafodia, & Koidu. Research trip.
June 18th-28th, Guinea, Conakry & Forecariah.
July 1st-17th Liberia, Monrovia, Ganta, Voinjama, & Robertsport. Research Trip.
July 18th-19th Guinea, Forecariah & Conakry
July 19th-21st Senegal, Salle. Cluster Meeting.
July 22nd-29th Mali, Bamako. Packing Alex house.
August 1st-12th Guinea, Forecariah & Conakry. VBS with PBT.
August 13th-15th Sierra Leone, Freetown & Bo. Research Trip.
August 16th-31st Guinea, Forecariah.
September 1st-17th Mali, Bamako & Lakamane . Food Distribution.
September 18thh-29th Guinea, Conakry & Forecariah.
September 30th- October 22nd Cape Verde, Santiago, Sao Vicente, Santo Antao, Fogo, Brava, Sal, Boa Vista and Maio. Research Trip.
October 23rd Back in Forecariah with the mice!


If you have had trouble keeping up with where I am in my blogs, I have had trouble keeping up with where I am too. A majority of this travel, except when we went to Cape Verde and Senegal has been done in our 4 x 4 trucks. Our theme song has been, “On the Road again!” for a while now, and I can’t help but belt is out whenever we crank up the engine to the truck. When I took the position with the company I thought I would be helping to facilitate volunteer teams in Mali West Africa but the coup threw a kink in that plan and left my team starting over from the ground up. Some volunteer teams are continuing to come to Mali despite the risk of the ongoing unrest in the area and we are overjoyed by their commitment and courage to bring good news even in adversity. My team will continue to be involved in facilitating teams coming through Mali (thus Rita’s recent trip) but we have been give the amazing opportunity to research and begin new work in three countries that presently have no representatives from our company. It has been some adventure traipsing through each of these countries, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cape Verde trying to assess the “lostness” of each of the people groups. We still have a bit of a road ahead of us before we can settle in (hopefully to Liberia in January) and begin putting ideas, dreams and plans into action in these locations but I can feel the end of this constant motion in the near future. Please Pr@y for my team’s future in West Africa and for G0d’s vision for these nations to become apparent to us.

Over the next few days, I will be updating the blog on mine and Rita’s adventure in Cape Verde as we visited 8 of the 9 inhabited Islands of this beautiful country

Food Distribution in Mali

We are met with shouts and singing. The Greer towered above the rest beating the drum he had slung around his shoulder methodically. They are celebrating because they are hungry and they are about to be fed. Famine was already sweeping across Central Sahel before the coup d’état hit Mali in early March. Last year’s crop failure mixed with the constant political unrest has left many villages in Mali on the brink. Earlier in the year GBR responded with a food ration for the village of Lakemane. This year the rains have been good and there is a promising crop coming in a few weeks but GBR did not forget Lakemane and again offered corn, millet, beans and peanuts to hold them over until the harvest. An older Fulani woman smiled as she thanked us, “We just used the last of the millet from your last visit, we were going to be hungry but God knew.” All over the village people of Lakemane want to show their gratitude to us but we reminded them again and again that we were not bringing them the food it was JC who had remembered them. Lakamane is a blessed village because JC has brought them more than just food to stave their physical hunger. Two women visit Lakamane every week and are working to translate the Good stories into Kassonke so that they might fill their spiritual hunger as well. For the four days of the food distribution we were able to go out with translators and tell them a few stories in the trade language of Bambara. Many people listened to the stories and thanked us for telling them. Many of the older people said it was good that the younger people learn about JC. I pr@y that our Father opens the eyes of the elder in Lakamane to see that this Good New is for them too.

A new mind-set

“Who could you tell this story too?” Even among M’s this question is always followed by an uncomfortable silence and a fumbling in the mind, ‘who to tell, who to tell?” I remember as a youth, my youth minster would from time to time ask us to think of one person who did not know the Lord and tell them. That produced the awkward silence, the flushing in my face. Guilt. Now I am learning the storying method. You tell a story from the Good book and ask a series of questions the last question is “Who will you tell this story too?” That question always seems so dirty. “Hey now you tricked me! Here I was thoroughly enjoying the story and now you are requiring I tell someone else?” I feel defensive when I get asked the question. But why? It was the last thing JC asked of us. I feel defensive because I come from a passive Xian Culture. I come from a culture of pew sitters. Each Sunday the preacher talked at me, sometimes I felt convicted, sometimes I felt inspired but rarely did I feel responsible. It is because I come from a personal culture. Xianity is personal, right? JC didn’t seem to think so, neither did Paul. JC shared every part of His life. Morning to night He taught His disciple by example. They knew everything about Him, he did not have a private walk with Our Father. That is why they were willing to die for His legacy because He walked with them. Paul says “Whatever is true whatever noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice.” What did they see in him? A man who abandoned all and took the good news to the nations. In Paul’s final letter (that he wrote on death row) to his mentee a young man he considered like a son he wrote, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” It is progression. One person teaches a person who teaches another. It isn’t an easy progression however JC asks us to do it. “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit…” It doesn’t end there. Wouldn’t that be easy enough, to put on massive crusades and go out and dunk hundreds of people and then move on to the next town but that’s not what Jesus commanded. “…and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Weird that sounds like it takes some time and (gulp) study. Xianity isn’t personal it’s communal.

“We by nature are receivers. Even if we have a desire to learn Our Father’s word, we still listen from a default self-centered mind-set that is always asking, What can I get out of this? But as we have seen, this is unbiblical Christianity. What if we changed the question whenever we gathered to lean Our Father’s Word? What if we began to think, How can I listen to his Word so that I am equipped to teach this Word to others?” (David Platt, Radical)

We are given to give. We are poured into to pour out again. Just as JC our example (Philippians 2:3-11)

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as JC:
Who being in very nature Gd,
Did not consider equality with Gd
something to be grasped;
rather he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore Gd exalted him to the highest place
And gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of JC every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that JC is Lord,
to the glory of Gd the Father.

Made it to Mali

From Senegal Salle to Mali Bamako! After the retreat in Salle we had an opportunity to go to Mali. Finally. The cliffs surrounding Mali are gorgeous. Waterfalls emerge from the rocks and flow down the sides of the red and sand colored walls. In Bamako, we enjoyed the hospitality of fellow teammates stationed there. We only had a very few days but we managed to pack up the rest of Alex’s house and visit some very delicious restaurants.
We also had the opportunity to attend the translator class to see what it was about and whether we could get one going in Guinea or one of our other West Africa locations. Ms. Glenda asked me to tell my story to the class in English (Duh my only language) and then she would test their comprehension. This worked as a dual lesson; for their English and for my understanding of how to speak so an African can hear me. It went something like this: “Vickie will you please share your testimony with the class now? Wait, Testimony… Let me write that on the board” Wipes off board, tries to avoid showering the students with chalk dust, scratches the word “Testimony” on the board. Me: “Okey dokey.” Glenda: “Well that’s a southern saying! Okey Dokey! Has the class heard that one before?” Smiles all around the room. Then I tell my story from childhood to the moment of surrender in my front yard. And I say things like “When I was a child my parents were blvrs but I was not,” I learned that one in training. In Muslim countries, you do not become a Muslim you are born one. I want them to know that I was not born a blvr. I said things like, “When I grew older I realized I not only needed to be saved but that Gd wanted control of my life.” And “After I gave Gd control it has been a step by step journey that brought me here, He never spoke to me with words but rather he guided me little by little.” I completed the story and looked up awkwardly at Glenda to see what she would say. “Did you hear what she said about when she was a child class? Was she a blvr?” A blvr in the class answerers with an excited smile, “No, she was not, her parents were.” And then he tells the class you have to give your life to Him. Then Glenda writes these words on the board, “Give Gd Control.” “What does this sentence mean? We know what all the words mean but what do they mean together?” As the discussion follows, things are pulled out, other words emerge, like “will.” Gds will, my will, surrender. To give Gd control, is to surrender your desires, your will, the things that you want, and instead desire what Gd wants. Really? Is there all that meaning in those three words? Did I really do that? That sounds a lot harder now than it did a few minutes ago when I tripped over those three words and claimed I had done them. “And then on the night when I was thirteen, I gave Gd control of my life.” I felt embarrassed as the class continued to discuss the words, that statements seems so final and resolute. What about this morning, when I woke up and my roommate was rushing me to walk out the door and I knew it was “God’s will” that I should answer calmly and with kinds words but instead I snapped and scowled… I did what I wanted to do. Liar. Yes, I am a liar, I lied to that class, I live a life of lies. And I lied to the one that matters most to me. I said, “Gd you do whatever you want with me, I am yours,” but then I say, “well I didn’t talk to him because I don’t really know him that well” or “I tried to be nice but did you hear her tone of voice?” Could I really ask these people to do what I have been unable to do myself? They understand the meaning of these words better than I do. “I gave Gd control of my life.” No it’s not right at all, it should be, “I am giving Gd control of my life” or “On that night I started giving God control of my life.”

I wrote a song about this once, do you want to hear it? Well I’m sorry I get too embarrassed so you’ll just have to read it and imagine my squeaky voice praying it to my God.



I say I’m going to save the world
But You know that I don’t mean it
I pray like a warrior
But I act just like a baby

I pretend to know Your ways
I make the world think I’m okay

But I’m a failure, I’m a failure, I’m a failure

You put this passion in my soul
But my fear lets it grow cold
How often do I choke back words
That needed to be heard

You can tell me not to fret
That I’ll save a sinner yet
But I know I’ll just turn away
Just like I’ve done every other day

Chorus: Cause I’m a failure, I’m a Failure, I’m a failure

When will I do right
God in your sight?
When will I prevail
Make my God’s heart swell

I want to save the sinners heart
Give them all new starts
I want to speak Your name loud
And make you proud

Chorus

The good I want to do
I do not
But my sinful desires
Control my mind
What a Wretch!

Chorus

What a Wretched man am I?
Who can rescue me?
Thank God through Jesus Christ
His life has set me free

Mandingo

“Who is the most unreached people group in Liberia?” The answer rung forth from a dozens of blvrs all over Liberia, “The Mandingo.” The Mandingo? They were not even on our list… no they were not there once but twice and neither entry said “Mandingo.” Errors are made while collecting information about people groups, each group has several different names for themselves, some people groups have sub-groups who cannot even understand the original dialects, some groups go by the name of their language others do not. It gets confusing, and sometimes people make mistakes. But what a mistake to make! To write off an unreached group as reached or to allow them to be forgotten because you mistook their language name for their tribe name and then entered a non-existent group on to your files. That’s a pretty sad mistake. I pr we are diligent in our work, for those who come after us, for those who glance at stats to find out where Gds work is needed. The Mandingo live in the north-eastern section of Liberia. They migrated there from bordering Guinea. They are Muslim, staunchly Muslim. The native Loma tribe in the region welcomed the enterprising Mandingo’s in gradually. Slowly they migrated down, married Loma women and then asked their fathers for field to provide for their daughters. Soon the Mandingo people owned large portions of land and now are considered one of the 17 tribes of Liberia. Since the Liberian civil war there have been tense relations between the Muslim Mandingo and the surrounding “Xian” tribes. We met with some Loma pators in the north-east and they told of us the past “massacre” between the Loma and the Mandingo. Through a series of misunderstandings, and a missing person hunt, things were said, rocks were thrown and in the end several Mandingo Muslims were killed inside a mosque by their Loma neighbors. This event brought in more Imams and stauncher Muslims from other countries to help fortify their brothers. Since the event which occurred in 2010, all outreach to the Mandingo had stopped. “We were afraid to speak to the Mandingo, but we are not afraid anymore. We need to teach them.” The pastors in Voinjama know it is their duty to teach the good news to their neighbors. A young evangelist has begun to set up preaching points in the Mandingo villages. “They want us to come, the older people say, please come and teach our children and build them schools and build a church. All the surrounding villages have churches and schools, why shouldn’t our children?” The young evangelist, John, speaking at 5 different villages, he goes to a different village each Sunday and teaches the good news. But because he is just one person and the villages are spread out, he only makes it to each village about one Sunday a month. John does not speak Mannya (Mandingo Language)as a result many Loma Muslims living among the Mandingo have come to faith but very few Mandingos. In all the 50,000 Mandingo people, the pastors we spoke with could only count less than 20 Mandingo blvrs. Many times, when older Muslims hear the truth, they understand and they know it is true but all of their heritage and family is tied up in their old beliefs so they refuse to change but many are willing to allow their children to be taught the new way. One of the local pastors in Voinjama has started a primary school in which the truth is being taught, he is proud to be teaching both Loma and Mandingo students about the Way. The Mandingo need to be taught the way in their own language, I am pr that Gd sends more people to teach them the way. I am pr that Gd sends them someone committed to teaching them the truth in their own language.

Road to Voinjama

After spending several days in Monrovia, we set out towards interior. Our destination, Nimba county, a border county with Guinea. We were in search of the Mano and Gio who resided there. To our joy we found that much evangelical effort has been focused on the Nimba county in the past twenty years and the Mano and Gio benefited greatly because of it. Everyone we met with said the same, “The need is not for churches but discipleship.” Also everyone we asked about the unreached people groups spoke the same names, “Mandingo, Gola and Vai.” All three groups have migrated into Liberia from neighboring Muslim countries and hold on to their traditional African religion with thin layer of Islam sprinkled on top. The Mandingo especially are feared by their Christian neighbors. There is fear in Liberia like in Sierra Leone. The young adults, late twenties and early thirties all grew up during the bloody coup and subsequent war that lasted until 2005. They know the depth of hate and cruelty that man can have. They stood over holes dug by hand with their sons and jumped in whenever they heard a helicopter, afraid they might force their children to fight. The atrocities that ran rampant during the Sierra Leone war were repeated in Liberia. And more recently there has been hostile uprising in the north between Christians and Muslims. Liberians are hopeful about their futures but there is a sense of humility ingrained in them. Their country was broken, they had to flee and hide and an entire generation missed their education because of the war. So there is hope but many seem pensive. Scarred. Like Sierra Leone, they are scarred by their history. We left early on a Sunday morning, we needed to make it to Voinjama. It was drizzly but it’s rainy season so we were glad it wasn’t torrential. We drove an hour outside of Ganta, we had 7 more to go before Voinjama. Ropes in the road ahead…. A police stop? “We are working on the bridge it will be about 3 hours.” In Africa time, 3hours could mean 3 days… we could go back to Ganta. That would be the safe thing to do. Or we could try a back road, that would be fun thing to do. In about 20 minutes I’m standing over a canyon in the road shouting “don’t do it, you’ll fall in the rut!” I throw one log into the pit before Rita floors it and attempts to climb the side of the embankment and not slide into the rut. It doesn’t work she slides in, but miraculously bounces back out. This road is so rough Alex and I elect to walk portions of it so that we don’t turn into scrambled eggs in the cab. Eventually we make it out the other end and on to the main road. We are cruising now. It’s getting close to twilight, we check the GPS mileage, 10 miles to Voinjama, perfect we’ll get there just before dark, hey what’s that? Up ahead on the road, is that a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere? There’s a truck stuck in the road ahead. The rains had turned the road into a muddy slip n slide. We can see 10 or 15 cars lined up in to rows (blocking the entire road) waiting to see if the truck would move. Dozens of people stand around and watch the show, dozens more slide ankle deep in the mud some shoving some shouting. After 30 minutes are so the truck is free and lurches to the side. A split second after that everyone is running to their cars as fast as possible to try and head everyone else off. Little 4 passenger cars with overloaded roofs go careening into mud pits that we wouldn’t even attempt in our 4x4. Stuck, everyone is stuck again. We shake our heads and return to our vehicle, there is no Red Roof Inn, even if we back tracked hours there would be no guest house and now it’s definitely dusk. What is to be done? We drive a bit back to the last village we saw and ask for the chief. He is bathing (on the front porch, awkward), but he will see us after his bath. After hearing our dilemma he offers us his own bed! Would you do that for someone you’d never met before? TIA. We three girls all sleep in the double bed. Neither Alex or Rita like to cuddle and they put me in the center… jerks. I role on my side and my knee taps Alex she scoots closer to the edge I try to make amends by backing up a smidge my elbow touches Rita she promptly squiggles closer to the edge. I think I could have owned the bed if I had just thrown my arms around one of them. The next morning we wake up early to brave the road. The road is free from the collided cars but what about the mud? It had rained all night but somehow that stretch of road looked drier. We still fishtailed our way through it but in under 20 minutes we were finally in Voinjama.

Dandelions

I wrote some poetry while listening to sermons at our retreat in Senegal. That is when I do most my writing, when I’m supposed to be listening… guilty, or while I’m driving alone in the car on backs of receipts.

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I caught a hold of something I thought new

Turns out my grand-parents knew it too

A single thought griped my longing soul

That Christ dear life could make this sinner whole

This flow of grace my heart could not bare

He gave His life to keep me from deaths snare.

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For the next one, I wrote these first two stanzas while in college for a poetry class. The lines have swirled about my brain and I was waiting for the thoughts to be completed. The first two parts I wrote in view of the dandelions that used to grow in swaying masses in our back field in Locust Grove.  

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One thousand swaying suns

In a dark green sky

Each beam a separate petal

Which will change its form and fly

Across the dark green ocean

Into the dust to die

Forming one more sunshine

To sway in dark green skies

Dancing in Your fields

Can I not just stay here?

Do you have to hound me?

I’m panting as the deer.

Your heat is beating on me

My brightness fades away

I do not understand you

You turn me soft and gray

And then you break my strength

You draw me to your mouth

I’m longing for a kiss

You breathe and send me out

Lord plant me in that ocean

With not a speck of light

But remember all my trouble

As I’m growing in the night

Open up new petals

I see your son awaken

You’ve given me good soil

I know I’m not forsaken

Wonderlust

     I miss spelled “wandering” in my blog yesterday; my Mom pointed it out to me. Wandering, wondering, it’s really all the same to me. It’s the wonder that make me wander. And she’s the one that taught me this wonder. Everything I brought to Mom was wonderful and interesting. The slugs on the front porch, the shooting stars we waited out late for in the frost, and every person my Mom met seemed wonderful to her. And every new idea or bit of information was a time to sit and wonder, to sit and think and study it. And I, as a nine-year-old, wandered all over our field and forest off that dirt road in Locust Grove Georgia, and I felt the awe of God’s creation… the wonder.  And, as a 13 year old, sitting on Jackson Lake I thought “nothing could be better than this.” And God smirked and said, “You think so?” God loves me when I awe at His wonder.  He takes me places just so I can look out and be struck by it, by Him. Standing on a riverboat at 18 years old, I was consumed by the massiveness and beauty of the churning waters and the curved trunks stuck out like snorkels. “God I didn’t know something so big and gray could seem so majestic.” He smiled at me, “Do you think so? What about this?” At 19, I stood staring over endless red roofs, from a castle, a real castle. I was struck by awe. “God could You create beings to have such ingenuity?” I could feel His pleasure. He could create them and He did. When I tell people my tales of travel, I try not to smile so broadly but I can’t help it. They look at me and say, “You must have a good deal of wanderlust in you!” Yeah, I guess so wonderlust. Going out to eat with my parent’s I meet a creature full of wonder at the sink in the bathrooms. She is small, her eyes are beaming, she can’t reach the water, I pick her up, and hold her to the stream. She doesn’t know me, but she doesn’t care, she splashes her hands through the stream and laughs. More joy in that laughter then a person should be allowed. I didn’t mean to be a wanderer, His wonder drew me out. I meant to marry young and settle down. But here I go still tripping along. And I sat down with Him, I told Him “You are wonderful.” And I sang to Him on our hill top in Jackson Georgia. He said, “Follow me and you’ll have no place to lay your head.” And I thought of comfort and security, of wealth and self-sufficiency but it did not compare to His wonder. So I packed my bags and I’ve kept them packed, I’m just a wanderer, searching for His wonderful country.

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“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Liberia

It was a bright day filled with anticipation. Rita’s faithful truck Sahara had taken us from Sierra Leone back to Guinea to greet friends and pick up our teammate Alex and then back through Sierra Leone again and now we were on the back roads of S.L. searching for another border crossing which would take us to Liberia. We were filled with anticipation but also weariness, two back to back border crossings in two days is not exactly a day in the park. This border crossing took us into the Gola rainforest with thick underbrush on both sides and many many potholes in front of us. The way was blessed ahead of us, no rain on the dirt road. We gasped and pointed whenever we saw the littlest twig move certain we seen a Hippo or a Lion… just another squirrel.  After another prolonged border crossing, we finally made it to Liberia. The road stretched out in front of us, paved and beautiful just as soon as you cross over and there to greet us, a rainbow arched majestically over our way.  In Sierra Leone, Rita and I had entered into a starvation diet, neither of us was a fan of the hot pepper soup which is apparently the staple in S.L.  We’d both thinned up a little , which neither of us regretted. But as we entered Monrovia our hearts rejoiced at the sight of real restaurants.  P.A. Ribs, love.  Real ribs… there are a few restaurants in Conakry and like one in S.L that offer “American style” food but it’s never really the same. P.A. Ribs is the real deal.  

We got to Monrovia at dusk, we didn’t have any contacts yet, just a piece of paper with outdated phone numbers for the Liberian Baptist office. So we did what we do best, we wondered. Finally we wondered past a building with the word’s “Baptist House” written on it. It was probably 8pm. We stopped and chatted with the grounds keeper, who made numerous calls and finally completely exhausted, still starving (we came in too late to try the new restaurants and hadn’t eaten all day), we  arrived at a Guest House which had been suggested previously. We were too tired to notice that much of the Guest house was still being finished or care that there was no running water, or take note that the holes in the mesh Mosquito nets were too big to keep anything out. Alex slept immediately; Rita and I ate Tuna at like 10pm and then crashed. The next morning I awoke to discover that rather than keeping the Mosquitos out, the net had let them through and then trapped them inside for their Vickie feast. Every Liberian I met after that gasped, grabbed my arm looked at me with great concern and then asked if I took Malaria pills. I do every Monday, Melfoquine Monday. The person most concerned about my bites was the temporary Guest house keeper, she was watching the place while the owners were away. She embarrassed that the net did not work, her name was Nene. After two nights in the mosquito hotel (I bathed myself in bug spray the next night) we got a lead on a cheaper place owned by ELWA, another GCC. Our new friends from CAPRO ( a Nigerian based outreach), drove us to the ELWA compound, right on the beach, real beaches, not Guinean beaches, white sand beaches. The only thing separating the Guest house from the beach was a small road. We sat  down on the couch and waited for the keeper. “Yes, the manager, Nene, will be here soon.” Really? No this town isn’t that small… is it? It was. The same Nene from the other guest house strolled in just as surprised to see us as we were to see her. After some awkwardness we expressed our desire to move into this new location, she smiled and assured me that there were not mosquitos on the beach. Quite times on the beach, beautiful.

We took a day of needed rest and continued our journey of looking for the unreached people groups of Liberia. Our first stop was to the statistics office to get up-to-date census for the people groups in Liberia and a more detailed road map. We had 6  people groups to locate and research in three area, in 2 ½ weeks. We started in Monrovia by visiting anything that looked mildly evangelical. We stopped by, Samaritans Purse, CAPRO, Baptist Offices, Theological Schools, ELWA, Churches, Bible Translators… the works. Everywhere we went we asked about their work, who they felt the most unreached peoples were and also asked what they knew of the people groups who, according to our 20 year old information were less than 2% evangelical.  In all these offices we found a commonality, each organization expressed a desire for unity among believers and an urgency to reach out to the remaining unreached people groups of Liberia and their neighboring countries.

Liberia has a unique history. Back before the civil war occurred, there were freed slaves and this posed many social issues for an America still backwards with slave states and slave trade. Some of these freed slaves had become highly educated and wanted to return to Africa. There were other slaves who were freed on the condition that they leave the states and return to Africa. But these former slaves were no longer African, they were African American, many of them had white American fathers.  Many were born in America and had adopted American culture and received an American education. This is pre-civil war so obviously American culture did not accept or embrace them. So some time in the 1820’s they this new people group landed in West Africa and founded several colonies, they named them things like Maryland and Greenville North Carolina. The settlers which became known as Americo-Liberians, knew little about West African culture and found themselves surrounded by the indigenous peoples of West Africa which they (following that American model set for them) deemed inferior. Soon the Americo-Liberian settlers were exploiting the indigenous peoples and had set up a government that excluded voting rights for the native population. This segregation remained until 1980 when a war spurred mostly by the inequality of a ruling people (Americo-Liberians) who made up only 5% of the population, suppressing the rights of the majority.  A coup occurred, surprise, surprise this is Africa, and in the 1980’s the first none Americo-Liberian president was “elected.” Fhew! Did you keep up with all of that? I don’t know how I did, I got bits and pieces of the story all along the way. In Monrovia, a local pointed to their oldest Church building, a Baptist church, and proudly proclaimed that their declaration of Independence has been signed their in 1847. Liberian culture has not only been entwined with American culture but also Baptist and evangelical culture since it’s foundation. The Americo-Liberian settlers, much like the original European settlers in America, felt it their duty to convert the surrounding tribes. Evangelical congregations are spread throughout the country. But as is common in Africa many of these new believers though they call themselves believers are at best nominal and usually still practicing traditional African religion along with Christianity.  Though the country is considered a Christian nation, still before the coup in the 1980’s (which dispersed most of the evangelical work) there were still 6 of the 17 people groups considered unreached, with very few believers and almost no congregations.

Kamiendo

          After Bafodia we took our little party of me, Rita and Michael onward to Koidu-Sefadu, diamond capital of Sierra Leone and star city of the movie Blood Diamond.  Koidu is where Michael grew up and where his father stayed while the rest of the family fled back to Mali. We met with some of Michael old friends just as they were leaving the mosque from midday prayers. They invited us over to a rather large house with nice tile floors. The owner said, “It took three years to rebuild this house (after the war). Some people hid diamonds in their walls so every building, every tile on this floor, was smashed by people looking.”  

   From our base in Koidu we drove out early one morning in search of the Northern Kissi. We studied the map of Sierra Leone and asked local where they thought the true Kissi villages were located and then struck out again on the back roads of Sierra Leone.  We had a few key villages marked on our map and as we passed each one we tried to guess how long it would take us to get to the village called “Kissi Town” on the map… we figured that was a “nah duh” type of name and we should check there first. Somewhere along the way we lost our way and we stopped passing our marked villages. We stopped in a village and met with a chief to ask about the surrounding villages and if they knew where the Kissi were. After a talk and gift exchange, they told us they were primarily Kono but the very last village (Kamiendo) on this road was all Kissi. They warned us that we would not be able to go that far because the road was too steep just before the village. They suggested we stop at the next village up which was part Kono and part Kissi. Never tell Rita she can’t do something… it only eggs her on. In another 30 minute or so, we came to the infamous hill that blocked are road… they were right.  Rita didn’t care, she prayed out loud for God to push us up the mountain and then put it in gear and floored it. After rolling back down twice, the third time was the charm and God pushed us over the mountain.

 At the top of that hill was the most picturesque village that could be imagined. Dark brown roofs seem to be stacked on top of each other, each house perched snug on the hill. From one side of the village you could see into neighboring Guinea from the other a beautiful view of a Sierra Leone valley. The people here were happy to see us though we did not meet the Chief because he was out in his fields. They said they only see two vehicles at the most each month. Their village is so remote that they cannot even trade in Sierra Leone but have to walk on foot and then ferry across a river to trade at a Guinea market across the border, a woman displayed for us her Guinea Franc to prove the claim. Though the village is remote the people are far from simple, they have a functioning Catholic School and the local nurse was proud to give us a tour of their clinic. They had detailed records of all the sicknesses in their village. But they did not have any evangelical influence. My heart was sad to leave that pretty mountain with their enterprising spirit.  They were full of hope and potential and ready to move forward in their world. But I wonder who will come and teach them about our true hope and future. Those friendly faces, that loving teacher so proud of his classes. I saw, I loved and I left. Just a few hours in their villages, long enough to tour the school and the clinic and then back on the road again. As we left the teacher said to me, “Fatimata,” (That’s my African name). “You did not speak much today, next time you come you will speak a lot?” I hope so. I hope the next time I come I will have the pleasure of saying many things and that I will have the honor of introducing truth and light and other people who will continue to teach  our Father’s way.