As It Gets Harder, He Shines Brighter

Home sweet home.

The past month has been the absolute hardest month of my life. I’ll try to start from the beginning to paint you a small picture of what the past month of my life in Africa has been like.

We met our supervisor, Melissa, in Niamey June 30th and headed out to the village two days later. It was a nine hour drive from Niamey to Melissa’s house. The roads weren’t too bad, but there were quite a few potholes, detours, and speed bumps along the way. Melissa’s home is quite wonderful. It’s a mud block house with a wonderful western style bathroom! She has electricity and running water at her house most of the time. Sometimes it goes out for hours at a time, but so far it always comes back on. Thanks to the Father!

The 3rd of July was our first of homestay. Melissa’s car was getting worked on in Niamey, so Lindsay and I had the wonderful privilege of moving out to the bush in the traditional African style…riding a cow cart. Our village was five kilometers away from Melissa’s and it took over an hour for us to get there riding on our cow cart. The cow cart in and of its self was a huge culture shock. To begin with, two men showed up at our door with a car and two long horned cows at 8:00am and loaded our cots, foam mattresses, chairs, small table, water filter, plastic mat, bathroom supplies and the three of us on to the cart and off we went down the streets of Guidan Roundji and into the bush. It was like being in our own little parade. Looking back on it we really should have thrown out candy. Everyone stopped their daily activities to watch the three white girls ride away on the cow cart filled with all of their earthly belongings. Many people smiled and waved, some just pointed and started, but we waved at them all. As soon as we got out of town, the dirt roads ended and the sand began. We soon found out that it is very difficult to navigate through the sand when it hasn’t rained recently. It hadn’t rained in 60 days. The cows had a hard time of it. One cow wasn’t pulling as hard as the other so one of the men with us took out a wooden hand for a hoe and proceeded to beat the cow. This did little to increase the pace of our slow cow and at one point the cow fell to the ground and I thought we had killed the cow. However, it was still alive and they beat it some more and the cow got back up and continued to take us the rest of the way. This was wonderful example of what it means to be equally yoked. As we were witnessing this event Melissa told us that if the strong cow continued to pull the bulk of the load it would tire quickly, this is why they continued to beat the slow one because they needed it to pull its share to save the strong cow. It totally made sense why the Father had chosen to use this as an example in His Word. If a strong follower was linked with a weaker follower it would soon weaken the stronger one. Especially when it comes to marriage relationships, the relationship should not weaken anyone, but they should be equally linked together to make the best team. This really impacted me and I think it will definitely change the way I look at certain situations from here on.

Eventually we finally made it to our village of Ly On Kara. It was a lot smaller than I anticipated. Our compound consisted of three mud huts, two grass mat huts, and some millet stalk walls at the back of the compound. We eventually meet our two new mothers and our new dad. The mom’s names were Doodoo and Hajia, and our dad’s name was Gonda. Hajia turned out to be a very patient, lovable person. She was easy to get along with and she smiled often. Doodoo on the other hand was quite wonderful most of the time, but she had her moments. Gonda is very entertaining. Everytime Lindsay and I got our phone out he asked if we could call Obama for him. At one point he even asked us to teach him English so that he could go to America to meet Obama. All together our homestay family had 23 children.

One of the very first things our new moms did when we got there was to give us our new Fulfulde names. Lindsay’s name became Hoe-e-mah which means born without birth defects. I was named Say-u-doh which means without a body. We did a lot of new things our first day. We were allowed to pound millet in a really big mortar and pestle and carry water from the well. Carrying water from the well on our head was harder than we anticipated. Our first mistake was that we tried to carry 25 liters of water our first time. This was really heavy and neither Lindsay nor I could do it without severe pain, so Doodoo gave us her round clay pot that was full of water to carry instead because it was smaller. It was better, but still very difficult. I started carrying the clay pot and before long I decided to try and switch with Lindsay. In the processes of switching the pot we tried to sit it down and it broke. Water went everywhere! All of the women with us began laughing hysterically. I think by the next morning everyone within 5 miles had heard of our little mishap and had come to tell us they knew and to laugh at us. That really didn’t bother us, we just laughed along with them. The next Sunday (market day) we bought them another clay pot, actually we bought two because we figured we’d probably break another before the end of it. To our surprise the big clay pots were only 150 cfa each, which is about 25 cents. We gave it to the but they were upset because Fulani have certain rules that they follow called Pullocko (the Way of the Fulani) which says that if another Fulani breaks something of yours they should not replace it because they are Fulani. It actually was kind of a complement because they were considering us to be Fulani then, but we just left the pot there and eventually they began to use it.

We had language study every weekday morning from 8:00am until 11:00am to work on our Fulfulde. Our language teacher, Ishmael, had come out with us from Niamey to teach us. He’s a 23 year old university student from a fairly well off family in Niamey. He happens to know Eastern Fulfulde because he has some relatives out that way. He’s very much a city Fulani and has a hard time living out in the bush. He has been taught in the French style most of his life and apparently it’s a very different style then the American way of teaching. This made many of our class times extremely interesting. I’ve learned a lot about myself during these classes. I get frustrated quite quickly because I ask straight forward questions (Ishmael calls them American questions) and he does not give me a straight forward answer (an American answer according to Ishmael). I realize that this is just a cultural difference, but it really really frustrates me and it makes it hard for me to continue class in a civilized way. I know this is a textbook case of ethnocentrism, but it’s a lot harder to deal with than I anticipated. Usually at this point Lindsay steps up and starts answering more questions because she can sense when I’m getting stressed out. I am convinced this is why the Son sent the followers out in pairs because otherwise no one would ever be able to learn language. Lindsay has been quite a blessing and I could not imagine being in a foreign country under such stressful circumstances with anyone else. We have accomplished so much in our month of language. We have been able to translate our stories and we have been able to translate a series of stories from how the world began to the death of the Son. Linds and I haven’t been able to memorize them yet, but that’s our next goal. We are doing more than I ever thought possible with less language than I ever thought possible. The Father is AMAZING!

As for the food, we quickly learned that though millet may be the most nutritious grain available, it is not the most delightful when it comes to its taste. During the typical day we are offered chutum in the afternoon. Chutum is a mixture of sour milk, millet, and well water. It has the consistency of Mylanta mixed with sand. The taste is very unique and it’s really hard to swallow. Then in the evenings we are served millet paste with okra sauce. This is like sandy raw dough covered in a sauce with the same consistency of snot. Oh and the okra sauce is often green, which adds to the snot image. And that’s it. That’s all they feed us each day. In many ways we should be thankful, because it’s hard enough to swallow the food twice a day, but we could never eat enough to satisfy our hunger. This was the first time in my life I can say I’ve ever actually been hungry where I’ve gone to bed hungry and woken up hungry and had very little relief all day. We ended up having to add in some snacky foods to our diet during our language learning each day. We usually had some combination of fruit cups, pudding cups, peanut butter crackers, oranges, beef jerky, trail mix and dried fruit. Towards the end of homestay we even began to take pouches of tuna, salmon, and even spam out each week and eat the meat on crackers, Pringles, or straight out of the pouch. Turns out I actually like spam. I never thought I’d say that. One day we added up our daily caloric intake and found out that outside of the small amount of millet we were eating each day we were eating about 600-800 calories. That’s a little less than the recommended 2,000. Our diet was really hard to control during our homestay because we were unable to cook anything for ourselves and though we ate every time they offered us food, it was difficult for our bodies to handle large amounts of the food they gave us and they only offered us food twice a day. I was able to use this as a learning experience as well. I had never considered food to be a stumbling block until our homestay. I learned how difficult it was to concentrate on anything when your stomach hurt because it was hungry or was not digesting the food it was given properly. This made me think of all the starving people we try to share the good news with that can’t possibly be making informed decisions on empty stomachs. This makes the concept of “Rice Followers” very real to me.

Speaking of “Rice Followers,” we have some pr*yer requests. Lindsay and I have been able to translate our personal stories into Fulfulde and have been able to share them with the women here. One day after hearing our stories our neighbor lady told Melissa that she had heard about the Way of the Son and wanted to follow, but she had to ask her husband first. Melissa tried to tell her that this was a personal decision that she needed to make, but the lady insisted that she needed to ask her husband because she was afraid of him. Melissa pressed on and as it turns out the woman’s husband seems to be abusive. That is one of our pr*yer requests, but the story goes on. The family that we’ve been staying with has received five 100 kilo bags of millet to pay for our rent and our utilities (the women helping us carry our water), there were two bags of rice for each of our moms and one bag for them to share. Yesterday morning our neighbor lady, the one I just shared with you about, walked by while we were in our last day of language learning and informed Ishmael that she was hungry. She also informed him that she had been listening to the stories about the Son and had been following what Melissa had shared and she was very upset that she had not received any millet. First off I should mention that Ishmael is not a follower. When Ishmael had told Lindsay and I when our neighbor had said it really upset us. She believed that we had given our host family a very large amount of millet because they were listening to the stories we had been sharing and following the Way of the Son. This is not at all true. For one thing, in our home family there are no followers. The fact that she was suggesting that we were bribing people to follow the Way of the Son was highly offensive to us. In so many of our classes we have been warned of doing such a thing and we were trying our best not too, but it was still interpreted as such. I want to plead for your pr*yers for this women. She is obviously open to the good news, but we don’t want her to be falsely open just to get food. This has put me in a very hard position too. Part of me really just wants to give her some food because she truly does not have any food, but I know that that would not be culturally appropriate. The family that we gave the millet to is part of her support network and I know that they will share what they have with her until they run out. Its part of the culture here to share what you have with your support network. Family and friends are like insurance to these people. If something bad happens you can always fall back on them, and when you get back on your feet and something bad happens to the next guy you are obligated to help him out too. I envy their sense of community in this respect, but this leads me to our next pr*yer request.

There have recently been some new followers in some of the villages Melissa works with. Almost all of these people have family and friends that are not followers, but still support them. However, one of the followers is a single man with no family to fall back on. This time of the year a lot of people’s millet is beginning to run out and people are starting to become hungry. The next crop of millet has been planted, but it will not be ready for harvest for many months yet. This particular follower has come to Melissa asking for food or money. He has already asked the chief of his village and some other people for food, but they are refusing to give it to him because he is a follower. This has put Melissa in a tough position because she has no work for him to do and we haven’t been able to come up with a way for him to make money himself because so many people are out of work and are hungry too. They have not been able to form a body of followers yet, so he has no support network of other followers to fall back on either. Melissa has given him a very small amount of money (enough to buy him basic food for a week) and is trying to come up with a way for him to become independent. So, please remember these things in your pr*yers.

Now for some more good times during our homestay. Since Melissa’s car has been in Niamey, every time we go into Melissa’s house we have to ride moto’s. This are motorcycles that we ride through the bush in up to 6 inches of sand. They are quite exciting to say the least. I’m positive it’s only through the Father that Lindsay and I did not die on them. Apparently it’s really difficult to ride a street bike through the desert, who knew? Lindsay’s driver was a better driver than mine and he had a better bike, so they went fast and never got stuck. My driver on the other hand was less experienced and we had quite a few issues. We almost crashed each time I rode with him and I had to get off at least once each time because he was not able to get me and the bike up the hills in the sand. My driver was a real sweet man that spoke no English and no Fulfulde so we would greet each other in French, but my driver was a horrible driver. On two different occasions his bike completely stopped and Lindsay’s driver had to take her in and come back and pick me up and take me the rest of the way in. I guess in a way it’s a blessing I had the worst driver, because I’ve had experience riding with my dad and my brother in the past. My dad always prepared us for the worst case scenarios so I knew what to do if we did crash.

Speaking of my dad, I had to call him one night for medical advice. Lindsay and I were setting up our cots and mosquito nets like we do every night when as I was adjusting one of the legs to one of the cots a child started screaming bloody murder. As it turns out I had caught his finger between the leg and the rest of the cot. It was sliced opened pretty bad. I didn’t realize it was that bad until I noticed a pool of blood collecting under his hand on one of the water containers. I then began to freak out more than he was. He stopped crying as soon as we started to wash it out and he never shed another tear. I, on the other hand, started crying at that point. Had we been in the states we would have rushed him to the emergency room and he would have gotten stitches that night, however we were not in the states. We called Melissa and she told us to keep it clean and bandage it and really that’s the only thing we could do. This really hit me that we were no longer in America anymore. There was no clinic open and absolutely nothing we could do. I called my dad because he is on the Quick Response (medical) Team in my home town and I figured he might know something else to do. He told us not to take the bandages off the next morning, but just and more and to wait until it had healed enough (probably at least 24 hrs) then take them off clean it and replace the bandages. I think the biggest thing he did was reassure me everything was going to be okay. The next morning we took the piece of fabric that we had wrapped around his finger off and added another Band-Aid. It was a good thing we hadn’t taken the other ones off because the one we added instantly filled with blood because the wound had not closed yet. By that afternoon the kid had ran around enough that the bandages were beginning to get loose and the bleeding had stopped. Lindsay and I decided to cut the bandages off and clean it out. When we were able to look at it in the light we realized that the skin was not going back together and there was over a 1/4 inch gap between the pieces of skin and there was sand inside of the wound. The skin was also beginning to turn gray which we figured was not a good sign. We call Melissa and she came out that afternoon and took the kid in to get stitches at our local clinic. I felt much better about everything then. Since then when we wake up every morning we change the bandages on his finger. He gets the stitches out tomorrow!

Here’s another only in Africa story. First off I’ll start by describing our bathroom situation. We have a grass mat that is about shoulder high that is attached to one of the millet stalk walls of our compound to make a round little area. Our toilet consists of a plastic crate flipped upside down with a whole cut out of the bottom and a toilet seat screwed to it. Inside of the plastic crate we put a bucket to hold all of our waste. Our second week of homestay Lindsay wasn’t feeling well so we went into Melissa’s a little early and completely forgot about disposing of our waste. To dispose of our waste, we borrow our dad’s shovel and dig a whole then dump our bucket into the whole and cover it up then, we pr*y that no animals or children get curious and try to dig it up. However this particular week we forgot to dump it and while we were away it rained…A LOT! The fields really needed, but it filled our bucket up so high we couldn’t carry it without running the risk of spilling it, and that wasn’t a risk we were willing to take at the time. So, we kept using our bathroom while we tried to figure out what to do. One morning, after we had put our cots away I went to use the restroom only to find that a baby chick had gotten a little too close to our bucket and had fallen in and drowned. Lindsay and I had no idea what to do. We finally told Melissa the whole story and she recommended that we just dig a whole right in front of our bucket and just tip it over that way, so that’s what we did. We still did not know how to explain to our family that we had killed one of their baby chicks in our waste in our limited language so we just overlooked that small detail and we are pr*ying they don’t ask about it. Needless to say we never forgot to dump our waste again.

Oh and I can’t forget to mention the children. They have been such a blessing. They are so precious. The run and jump and play just like every kid in the states. They are what have kept us sane the last month (well the kids and coca cola on the weekends). Each child has a very unique personality and it’s been fun getting to know each child and how to love each one in their own special way. Some kids like their picture taken, others like raisins, and still others love to be chased and hugged. Lindsay has even taught them how to give high fives and we’ve taught them to say “it’s all good.” I have completely fallen in love with our family and Africa. At the beginning of our trip I never thought I’d be able to say that I’m in love with Africa, but the thought of leaving makes my eyes tear up.

Well I have so much more I’d like to say, but this is getting quite long. This truly has been the most difficult and challenging month of my life, but looking back it has also been one of the most rewarding months of my life. When we began our homestay I was very upset at every past ICS major because I felt that no one had told us how truly hard it was going to be, but as we are now at the end of our homestay I understand why. It was difficult, it completely changed our definition of what hard is, but we survived and if given the opportunity I would do it all again (I would however pack more food, but that’s minor). There is no possible way I could have ever done it on my own. On more than one occasion I wanted to quit and get a plane ticket home and I knew if I got on a plane back Linds would be in the seat next to me. But I’m so thankful I didn’t, but it’s only through His power and His strength. I am an extremely weak person. I don’t like to get dirty, I don’t like to sweat, I don’t like to eat with my hands, I hate bugs, I’m a picky eater and I don’t like blood. But through my weakness He is made strong. If I was naturally strong and brave I wouldn’t see the need for the Father, but the fact that I am by nature a very weak creature (as my high school cheerleading coach would say I’m a “delicate flower”), His power and strength through this whole experience is undeniable. As it gets harder, He shines brighter.