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Prayer for Sunday

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Please be in prayer for Living Hope today.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will work in our Adult Bible Fellowships and worship services.  May the Lord open up our eyes as we learn more about His love for us.  Pray for Pastor Matt Haste as he brings the Lord’s message today.  I know I am always blessed when he preaches.

Prayer for Saturday

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Please be in prayer today for Pastor Matt Haste.  He will be preaching this Sunday.  Pray that he is protected from any unwanted distractions.  Pray that the Holy Spirit shows him the direction to go with the Lord’s message.  We are so blessed as a church to have Pastor Matt as a pastor.

Pray for Thursday

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Here is an update from one of our summer missionaries in West Africa:

You can probably guess that we’ve started our language training. 🙂 Today was our first day and man, I feel like my brain might explode already!!! We went over the alphabet (which is pretty much the same as the English alphabet, just with 2 extra letters), syllables, long vowels, double vowels, double consonants, greetings, prepositions, colors, and the human body–as well as SEVERAL random words which we just happened to learn in the course of BB giving us examples and exercises. (BB is our teacher, or “cawundiko!” She was also our translator in Boubon, so it’s really helpful that we already know her.)

We have 6 hours of studying per day with BB. Our first session is from 9am-12pm, and the second is from 2pm-5pm. Of course, that doesn’t include the HUGE amount of studying and memorization that me and Em are attempting! Basically, we will be eating, breathing, and sleeping Zarma for the next week as prep for our move to Boubon!

~Please pray that me and Em will pick up on this language QUICKLY!!!! It is a necessity that we get the basics down before our move so that we can do simple things in “B” like know the time, get around the village, and buy food at the market.

Speaking of the market, we had our first experience preparing market vegetables for our sandwiches today!! I’m happy to report that we didn’t keel over and die. 🙂

I’m learning A TON of new things here in Africa and one of them that is essential to us “anasadas” is how to correctly prepare our food (especially if we buy it from a street vendor!) Today I learned that you have to soak your veggies in bleach water for a good 10-15 minutes. Then you have to rinse them really good in filtered water.

The missionary showed me how to work a gas stove for the first time! It seems easy but I’m really hoping I don’t get over-confident in my stove-lighting-abilities and blow up the guesthouse!! 😉 (Y’all might want to consider that a prayer request…haha!!)

Before I sign off, I thought it would be fun to share some new words and phrases that I learned today! 🙂

~Yesu go ay bine ra! = Jesus is in my heart!

~Yesu kuro kande faaba! = Jesus’ blood brings salvation!

~Ay ga ba how hum. = I like cow meat. (This is the closest translation I can have to I like steak. They don’t really have a word for steak here. Sad day.)

~Coca ga kaanu ay se gumo! = Coke is my favorite! (This was what I repeated SEVERAL times when the missionary brought us some surprise goodies! I had my first Diet Coke in WEEKS today and man was it tasty!!!! The treats and drinks also gave me and Em a HUGE sugar high…poor BB! Haha! But we were SO THANKFUL to missionary!!!)

~Bico go sako cire. – The pen is under the purse. (This was my first sentence that I correctly created/translated today!!!!)

Ok, well that’s all I have time for…we’re about to go make spaghetti for dinner! YUM! Gotta take as much advantage of the stove and refrigerator while we still have access to it! 🙂

Kala ton ton!!

Prayer for Wednesday

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Be in prayer today for the Family Worship at Living Hope.  Pray for direction as the leadership team sets up for tonight.  Pray for the words of all speaking tonight.  Pray for the mission meal as people come to support the France team through their giving.  May God work in a powerful way tonight as we hear His word.

Update from our Summer Interns in West Africa

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With a home in “B” quickly approaching, we are eagerly gobbling up any kind of wisdom and advice we can receive on living in the hot African bush! It has been such a blessing to have the Living Hope team here with us for our first week in Niger as we learn language, get acclimated to Songhai culture (and the heat), and find our way around the village. It’ll be a huge blessing when we actually move into the village. Speaking of, allow me to introduce you to our humble abode, yet to be named:

Isn’t it a beauty?

And of course, true to form, I go to kids like a magnet. I don’t know why I ever doubted that I should be an elementary teacher! One of the most frustrating things about the animism in this culture is that you can’t call children “beautiful.” To those without Christ, it is believed that the demons only come and take the most beautiful children. So, of course, it is an offense to call someone’s child beautiful! This kills me, but it causes me to want to love on those kids even more and show them that “Yesu ga ti ni cado”- that is, Jesus is their gift! That being said, pray for the children- pray that they and their parents will hear and believe the Gospel. My heart breaks for the futures that these precious Songhai children have.

This picture is of some sweet kids in “A”, one of the villages Living Hope-ers are very familiar with! Some of these kiddos have parents who are boldly following Jesus, despite persecution. Pray for them.

If you haven’t noticed, prayer has become a common theme in this blog. We have shared the Gospel (the story from creation to Christ) countless times with over 100 women in “B”, and we have found a few who want to hear more. The few believers who do live throughout Niger are persecuted in ways that make this American girl feel like a wimp! The Gospel is not just some ordinary thing over here, and I’ve come to value it so much more. PRAY that these people will understand the message and will have a desire to learn more! Pray that they will desire Jesus more than anything else. Pray that the believers will be strong and courageous, despite being practically thrown out of their communities.

It has been an encouragement to see the four villages we have heard about for so long. While “A” has about 12 firm believers, “K” and “B” each have only one. Can you imagine- being the only believer for miles around? Satan has his grip on these places, but Christ has conquered Satan. Our prayer is powerful and it can change things through Christ alone!

This parched land needs a bit of Living Water, don’t ya think??