Humbled!

Ha! Success! Everytime I'm able to get on this site to post something it feels like an accomplishment :)... funny how the smallest thing back home can feel like a pretty big deal when you're in a 3rd world country... Anywho, first I wanna say thank you huge for all your continuous prayers and comments. They are definitely working!
This trip has been pretty amazing & in a lot of ways hard to describe. The best word that comes to my mind right now though is HUMBLING. I feel like we're getting treated like royalty every place we go. And I know I've done nothing to deserve any of it. My wish really would be to simply be a fly on the wall or just an ordinary person here because I know I'm no better than anyone here, and in fact in so many ways I look up to & admire these people for so many reasons. The ones here who know the Lord are obvious. They shine the joy of Jesus Christ. They are such hard workers, yet they make hardly anything. But the fact is, I haven't heard one person complain or ask for anything (except the folks on the street). Our friend Salomon (a pastor & professor at the Bible College) put it well, he said that here in Burkina there is no lack of will or desire, just a lack of resource (money,food,supplies, etc.). But in America I think it's many times the opposite. We have all the resources to do the work, but the people with the will & desire are what's lacking. There's so much we can learn from these people & there's also so much we can do for them. It's a beautiful thing, a win-win if you will :) We can provide money to the hundreds of new churches popping up all over, praise the Lord! We can help by giving them money for the materials, such as plaster, concrete for the floors, paint, roofs, windows & doors. They are all willing to do the work themselves, they simply don't have the money for the materials. There is also a surplus of men who want to be pastors but need sponsorship to attend the Bible College as many of these men have families & need money for food, medicine & tuition. I think you get the idea, the workers are many but the resources are in short supply. We can help with that by simply sending money to the right people.
In many ways, these people are blessed to have so much faith (a muscle these people exercise daily) because they have so little. In America, I think it's harder for us to depend on the Lord because most don't have to depend on Him to feed the hungry mouths of our families. Total dependence on God brings forth that uncircumstantial joy that comes only from God. These people know that prayer works because they see it work on a daily basis in their practical lives. I'm so blessed to get to see this in action, and wein America are so blessed to be in a position to be the answer to these peoples prayers when the Lord puts it on our hearts.
I feel like there's so much I have to learn from these people, from their attitudes to their simple lives. For the ones who know the Lord, their list of priorities is short & in the right order, God first! And the ironic thing is that they keep asking us to teach :) I feel like I should be learning from them. God has a sense of humor :) I've been stretched on this trip to say the least, I definitely don't consider myself a Bible teacher, but Jesus tells us to go out into all the world & preach the Gospel, and in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul says that God uses the foolish things of this world to put to shame worldly wisdom. God uses the weak things so the glory goes to Him. I couldn't do it without Him, nor would I ever want to! So thank you for your continued prayers, I'm out of time :)
In the palm of His great big right hand,
Ryan