OH MY GOODNESS, I don't even have a clue where to start! First off, I'm SO sorry for not posting sooner but these last few days have been amazing, crazy busy, so fun, whirlwind, exhausting, just plain awesome! We did have a little time 2 nights ago to hit the cybercafe but it was closed, no server connection from the weather. We've been having these AWESOME rain thunder and lightning storms where the rain comes down in drops the size of my head, the thunder sounds like the angels are bowling 300's and the lightning looks like God flipped the switch and turned the sun back on for a second... so cool, so we sit out on our front porch and rate it :)
I can't wait to share with all of you how our GOOD Lord has blessed this trip and I can't wait to put the pictures on this blog, they of course won't do it justice but you gotta see em :) THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!! The kids camp went SOOO great. Today at church was the last time we got to see the kids and I can't believe how attached I got after only 4 days, but they really are the coolest kids. I would guess that the majority of the kids were already saved but many were not going into the camp. But by the grace and power of the Lord somewhere between 40 to maybe 70 or more kids accepted Jesus as their Savior this morning at church! All praise to God and I can't wait to play dodgeball with them in heaven!!! I could seriously write ALL night but this place is closing in 4 minutes so I'm off to bed but I love you all and I'll see you SO soon. CAN'T BELIEVE WE LEAVE TOMORROW!!
Bon Nui!
Ryan
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
I even love the smell of this place!
Wow guys; seriously wow; I REALLY forgot how much I love this place and these people... before I get too much into how awesome these last few days have been though I want to share this out of Aug. 23 Streams in the Desert mainly just because I think it' s great:
"By faith Abraham... obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going." Hebrews 11:8
"Too many of us want to see our way through a new endeavor before we will even start. Imagine if we could see our way from beginning to end. How would we ever develop our Christian gifts? Faith hope and love cannot be picked from trees like ripe apples. Remember after the words 'in the beginning' (Gen. 1:1) comes the word 'God'. It is our first step of faith that turns the key in the lock of His powerhouse. It is true that God helps those who help themselves but He also helps those who are helpless. So no matter your circumstance you can depend on Him EVERYTIME. Waiting on God brings us to the end of our journey much faster than our feet. Many an opportunity is lost while we deliberate after He has said 'Move!'"
I liked this passage because I see it as 2 really important things: 1. Wait for God; His timing is perfect so don't get ahead of Him! and 2. When He says move I need to move. So good and so challenging!
Well gang let me tell you just a couple of reasons why God is SO GOOD today:
1. By God's grace we've got a healthy team. Everyone here on our team is holding up and doing great.
2. Let me just tell you how humbling it is to be part of such an AWESOME team that truly the Lord has assembled for this trip. We are having an awesome time so far; tons of laughs and I REALLY cant tell you how pumped I'm getting for the actual kids camp to start tomorrow night (and goes through Sunday)!
3. God delights in the details and He covers even the ones we forget as we prep for this camp.
4. He answers prayer! Thank you so much for your prayers back home! They are felt and they're working.
5. Mom thanks for sharing Phil. 2:1-2; so great: "Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ if any comfort or love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any affection and mercy fulfill my joy by being like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind." (sorry i can't find the comma button on this keyboard and that verse had lots o commas :) ); this verse completely reminded me that the real joy the joy that comes from the Lord is a result of J.O.Y. Putting Jesus first; Others second; and Yourself last. Boy I pray that I do that on this trip!
So just a quick recap of the last 2 days as it's waaayyy late and i need to get to bed :)
Yesterday: We got to go buy enough Sorgum (kind of like maise or corn) to feed approx 40 families for one month; praise God! We also got to use the money that many generous people donated to buy 62 of the newly translated Moore Bible (the native language here in Burkina) which we will most likely give to Pastor Daniel to distribute as he best knows the need of this incredibly important gift; the Word of God. Pastors we are told often will save for over a year for one of these Bibles! We also had an awesome dinner at Pastor Daniel's house last night with his whole family eating the native food Sagabo (along with lots of other good stuff) and we had a blast.
Today: We did a lot of camp planning but also got 2 great and unexpected visits from Pastor Marcel (the saying around here is 'everybody loves Marcel' cause he's awesome) and a visit from 2 of Daniel's sons Asher and Nathan. We introduced them to the games of dodgeball and UNO; it was sweet. OK for serious it's time for bed. more later but I love you guys. Thanks for reading and thanks for praying!
In Him
Ryan
"By faith Abraham... obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going." Hebrews 11:8
"Too many of us want to see our way through a new endeavor before we will even start. Imagine if we could see our way from beginning to end. How would we ever develop our Christian gifts? Faith hope and love cannot be picked from trees like ripe apples. Remember after the words 'in the beginning' (Gen. 1:1) comes the word 'God'. It is our first step of faith that turns the key in the lock of His powerhouse. It is true that God helps those who help themselves but He also helps those who are helpless. So no matter your circumstance you can depend on Him EVERYTIME. Waiting on God brings us to the end of our journey much faster than our feet. Many an opportunity is lost while we deliberate after He has said 'Move!'"
I liked this passage because I see it as 2 really important things: 1. Wait for God; His timing is perfect so don't get ahead of Him! and 2. When He says move I need to move. So good and so challenging!
Well gang let me tell you just a couple of reasons why God is SO GOOD today:
1. By God's grace we've got a healthy team. Everyone here on our team is holding up and doing great.
2. Let me just tell you how humbling it is to be part of such an AWESOME team that truly the Lord has assembled for this trip. We are having an awesome time so far; tons of laughs and I REALLY cant tell you how pumped I'm getting for the actual kids camp to start tomorrow night (and goes through Sunday)!
3. God delights in the details and He covers even the ones we forget as we prep for this camp.
4. He answers prayer! Thank you so much for your prayers back home! They are felt and they're working.
5. Mom thanks for sharing Phil. 2:1-2; so great: "Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ if any comfort or love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any affection and mercy fulfill my joy by being like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind." (sorry i can't find the comma button on this keyboard and that verse had lots o commas :) ); this verse completely reminded me that the real joy the joy that comes from the Lord is a result of J.O.Y. Putting Jesus first; Others second; and Yourself last. Boy I pray that I do that on this trip!
So just a quick recap of the last 2 days as it's waaayyy late and i need to get to bed :)
Yesterday: We got to go buy enough Sorgum (kind of like maise or corn) to feed approx 40 families for one month; praise God! We also got to use the money that many generous people donated to buy 62 of the newly translated Moore Bible (the native language here in Burkina) which we will most likely give to Pastor Daniel to distribute as he best knows the need of this incredibly important gift; the Word of God. Pastors we are told often will save for over a year for one of these Bibles! We also had an awesome dinner at Pastor Daniel's house last night with his whole family eating the native food Sagabo (along with lots of other good stuff) and we had a blast.
Today: We did a lot of camp planning but also got 2 great and unexpected visits from Pastor Marcel (the saying around here is 'everybody loves Marcel' cause he's awesome) and a visit from 2 of Daniel's sons Asher and Nathan. We introduced them to the games of dodgeball and UNO; it was sweet. OK for serious it's time for bed. more later but I love you guys. Thanks for reading and thanks for praying!
In Him
Ryan
Sunday, August 24, 2008
41 short travel hours down and we made it...
Well hello everybody. First and most importantly thank you everyone for all the prayers. They were most certainly felt and they absolutely worked because we are here in one piece and surprisingly well rested and well fed. So a special shout out to those of you who prayed for good food and safe travels.
Please forgive this first post but I have not figured out any of the punctuation on this French slash African keyboard... normally there would be exclamation marks and smilies all over this because it really was a great trip over here, which included a 16 hour stay in Casablanca where we got hooked up (like a tow truck) with a free voucher for transportation into the city, hotel rooms at Le Zenith Hotele (really nice), and 2 free meals, thank you Lord! While there we got in a couple of taxis and cruised the city, getting out to check out a palace, a huge mosque, the beach and last but certainly not least, the worlds stinkiest and craziest fishing port. I cqn talk more about that later.
We got in about 4am Ouagadougou time just about enough time for about 3 hours of sleep before church this morning... oh man church. I forgot how awesome of an experience going to church here is! I just found the exclamation mark; it was where the comma button is, oh and theres the comma, where the question mark is, ha! So back to talking about church.. The worship is so great, the dancing, its really awesome to be back here. James did the teaching this morning out of Gen. 37 sharing the story of Joseph, a great word on how God has the perfect plan for our lives, even when it seems beyond crazy, our job is to keep hope and press on because God is faithful!
After church we had a chance to play with some of the kiddos at church which was so fun. A little hot potato with a water bottle, some duck duck goose, and red light green light action, cant wait to show you all pictures!
Well considering that just took me about an hour to type, I think Im going to squeeze in a nap before we go back to church tonight... then tomorrow we get to deliver 220 lb bags of sorgum (food) to some hungry Burkinabe people which is going to be SO awesome!
Im praying for you all back home, thank you SO much for your prayers. Keep em coming and Ill hopefully get a chance to write again soon!
Love,
Ryan
Please forgive this first post but I have not figured out any of the punctuation on this French slash African keyboard... normally there would be exclamation marks and smilies all over this because it really was a great trip over here, which included a 16 hour stay in Casablanca where we got hooked up (like a tow truck) with a free voucher for transportation into the city, hotel rooms at Le Zenith Hotele (really nice), and 2 free meals, thank you Lord! While there we got in a couple of taxis and cruised the city, getting out to check out a palace, a huge mosque, the beach and last but certainly not least, the worlds stinkiest and craziest fishing port. I cqn talk more about that later.
We got in about 4am Ouagadougou time just about enough time for about 3 hours of sleep before church this morning... oh man church. I forgot how awesome of an experience going to church here is! I just found the exclamation mark; it was where the comma button is, oh and theres the comma, where the question mark is, ha! So back to talking about church.. The worship is so great, the dancing, its really awesome to be back here. James did the teaching this morning out of Gen. 37 sharing the story of Joseph, a great word on how God has the perfect plan for our lives, even when it seems beyond crazy, our job is to keep hope and press on because God is faithful!
After church we had a chance to play with some of the kiddos at church which was so fun. A little hot potato with a water bottle, some duck duck goose, and red light green light action, cant wait to show you all pictures!
Well considering that just took me about an hour to type, I think Im going to squeeze in a nap before we go back to church tonight... then tomorrow we get to deliver 220 lb bags of sorgum (food) to some hungry Burkinabe people which is going to be SO awesome!
Im praying for you all back home, thank you SO much for your prayers. Keep em coming and Ill hopefully get a chance to write again soon!
Love,
Ryan
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I'm going back! Burkina Faso Take 2!
Hi everybody! Well, I'm a little excited as a write this... I'm headed back to Burkina Faso, Africa tomorrow morning for a 10-day trip with 8 of my good friends from my church, Athey Creek. As many of you know, I was blessed with the opportunity to go to Burkina this last October for 2 1/2 weeks with my buddy Jason, and now, not even a year later, God has opened the door once again! This time the nine of us going will be helping to put on a kids camp for 320 grade school-aged kids where we'll be teaching the Bible, playing games, and simply getting to hang out with some of the coolest people on the planet!
I'm sorry for not writing sooner, but I really wanted to at least get an email out before we left so you could pray for us. Please pray!
Please pray for the ministry and that God's Word would penetrate the hearts of the kids and everyone we encounter on our trip!
Please pray that the Word of God would spread to those who haven't heard the Good News, that the Kingdom of Heaven would be added to!
Please pray for the travels and for safety as we go halfway across the world into a place that's, well, just about the opposite of the U.S. :)
Please pray that we as a team, and myself as a teammate, would be a blessing to those we're visiting, and not in any way a burden!
Pray that we would go about everything we're doing with the countenance of Christ Himself, that the love of Christ would compel us! (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
I will be praying for all you back home. Thank you for your prayers and support, we could not and would not want to make this trip without that.
Here's also a link to the blog set up for the whole Athey team: http://accfburkinafaso.blogspot.com/ .
In Him,
Ryan
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