The speed of the progress has been truly amazing to me. There has been a large team of people building the walls and working on this phase of the project. This is about where things are at right now. There will be a little break until after the new year and then it will resume again. We still do not have a water line at the site, so one of my activities was filling up barrels of water using the neighbors well. It has been interesting. It looks like it will be pretty expensive to get a water line to the site, due to the remote location. The village will officially expand and include our neighborhood as part of its master plan. This would be when they would extend the main water line. Unfortunately this could be a couple of years away. I got an estimate for the work and the piping and it is around $3000. Much more than we planned in our budget. No worries though I know it will all come into place. In the pictures here you can see the concrete frame I was talking about in my last posting. They will still put more blocks on top of what you see here. Next also is the columns for the veranda. I will need to travel to the capitol city, Dakar next week to buy the rest of the materials. This will include the roofing, electrical, plumbing, tile, and all the finishes. Pray this goes well. Dakar is not a fun place.

Some cool stuff

Well its been a little while, so for a brief update: I got to speak at the Oussouye church this past Sunday. It was a little strange to speak before Christmas but I had a good time with it and felt God gave me something to say. Christmas here was very different for me. I have been busy with the project and with the weather in the high 80s and no sign of Santa I almost forgot about it. They do not give each other gifts, and there are no elves or reindeer or even decorated trees! It was nice. I had dinner and lunch with Marcel and his family, it was really good. I forgot to mention that I have started doing a bible study here at my house. It is every Thursday night, and I run it the same as the kinship meetings we have at UCF. So far we have had two meeting and it has been really encouraging. I am trying to lead worship in French, but there is translation for the teaching. Everyone there is pretty much a new believer too. They two young guys I shared about, Ishmael and Damien are coming out. I wanted to also share that my last outing for evangelism was really cool. I went with Gerard again and Ishmael wanted to come. We prayed with one of Gerards friends; he has been sharing about Christ with this guy for a long time but has been hitting a wall. God gave me a word of knowlege which spoke about something that was keeping him from God. This guy shared that it was true and wanted us to pray God would continue to speak with him and he would have a personal friendship with Jesus. We also got to revisit with a family we prayed with a month ago. The last time we were there God also gave a word that a little girl there was having terrible nightmares. She confirmed it was true and we prayed for her. Well this time she shared how the bad dreams stopped and she was healed of the sickness she had for a long time! God is continually amazing with all He does.

Much Progress

There has been so much progress in the last few days, and it will continue at a rapid pace. Right now the foundation work is complete and the walls start going up tomorrow. The building process is very different here, but simpler. The weather is always warm here so there are no worries about freezing and thawing. The foundation is only a few feet deep. Reinforcing the walls in also different. The structure is basically made as a concrete frame, and the bricks fill in the frame. Pictured here you can see foundation wall which is 2 courses of brick. Next on top, there is a poured, reinforced concrete beam, pictured here with the form in place. The reinforcing sticking up is for the concrete columns of the frame. Also pictured is what it looks like now, with the earth filled in. Walls and more coming soon.

Reinforcing

Well, things seem to continue to go smoothly. Pictured here is the mason from Dakar on the left. He is working on getting the reinforcing bars prepared for the footers. They will be finishing up with the bricks tomorrow as well. I uploaded a video of the brickmaking process to my myspace page. If you are interested in seeing it just click on the link to the right of this page it should be easy to find. I have also had the opportunity to share my faith with some of the brick makers. I got to pray with one and God healed him when he was sick! God is cool. He wants a bible as well. It is cool because these guys dont speak English, so it was a trial for my French. I am still terrible, but I fell like I am getting a little better. They are helping me work on it.

God is cool

I went to a small coastal village on Sunday called Jemboran. I went with a kid who lives there, but is going to school in Oussouye right now. I had a chance to preach at the church there. It was really super cool. God gave me a specific message before I left from Acts 19, and I felt inspired to pray that they would receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit and power. Then He confirmed it. In the scripture passage it says how Paul went to a village and met with some believers and prayed they would get filled with the Spirit; it says there were 12 men. At this church I went to there were exactly12 adults, which God brought to my attention. Also during worship they began to sing and I felt the presence of God strongly; then they all started singing this chorus of a song in English! Very few people in this country even speak English, so it was a big surprise to me. They were the only words I understood, and they were "Come Holy Spirit fill us with your power" It was awesome. I shared the message, and took some questions and got to pray for each person one at a time. God showed me specific prophetic words for each person, and His presence was strong. One woman at the front began to weep and I was not sure what was happening. After we finished praying they had a time for people to share what God did. Many of the people confirmed the prophetic words were from God and specific to what they were going through. The coolest thing though was the womam who was weeping. It turns out, when she was on the ground weeping, she had a vision and Jesus appeared to her and told her not to worry or doubt; and he was healing her! How cool is God? He really impresses me. I hope I get to see more of His stuff. I also hope I do not get in the way of what He wants to do. Please pray for this church. Thank you GOD!

Good momentum

We have over 2500 bricks now. Pictured here is one of three piles of bricks on the site. The pace is good and we should have most of the bricks done by next week. We need 4000 for the building itself, plus a few hundred more for the septic. We are acquiring an excellent mason from Dakar in the north and he should be here soon. We still need a water line to the site, so we can make concrete for the footers. Pray for this to happen soon. I have to add that I was not aware of the magnitude of the miracle God did in securing us the permit. After talking to Marcel again he told me that the paperwork and getting the right people to sign off can take two or more years! He has seen this in the past and had other bad experiences. And here I was impatient when it took longer than a week! Before I didnt understand why he was so excited when we got the paper work done.

The guys from Harlem

I wanted to include a photo of some of the guys who live in Harlem. The training center is in the same neighborhood, only a couple minutes walk from where they live. A couple of them have seen the site and one kid comes there to hang out during the day. The kid in the middle on the bottom is Moussa. I am closest with him and we spend a lot of time talking. He is pretty funny and his English is really quite good. Pray he has an encounter with God.

More Bricks

The process is slow and tedious. All the mixing of sand, cement, and water is done on the ground by hand. It takes careful, measured work. Packing the moulds and arranging the bricks is an interesting art as well. Here are some pictures of the latest progress. I am again in Ziginchour, trying to get more money to buy materials. While here, I have a good fast internet connection so I will try to add some pictures to my previous messages where applicable...

Progress

Well today we started construction once again. Things worked out with the permit after a few days; there were a couple of snags but all seems well for the moment. Yesterday was spent negotiating prices for materials; we will purchase most of the materials in Ziguinchor, which is about an hour drive from where I am living. It is not an easy process, and I had some trouble getting money from the bank. So for now I bought 4 tons of cement and three trucks of sand, for brick making. The workers cleared the site more thouroughly removing weeds and brush to make room for all the bricks. They will use a form to make each by hand and lay them in the sun to dry. Then they must pour water over them once in the morning and once in the evening for three days. If they do not the bricks will dry out and crumble easily. I will be there later to make sure all is well; now I am in Ziginchour trying to get access to more money. It may take some time, but thenI can purchase the rest of the materials. Please pray everything goes well

New disciples

There are a few guys in particular I have been focusing my evangelistic efforts on, and God has been doing some cool things. When I was here in March I made a couple of contacts with two guys in high school. They both came around because they were interested in learning and practicing English. (I kept touch over email while in the states) One is Damien and the other Ishmael, and I see them almost daily. They stop by to talk between classes, as I live across from the school. I have been sharing Christ with them and they both prayed to start a relationship with Jesus. I gave Damien a bible and told him to start reading the gospel of Mark, I encouraged to be asking God to speak to him through it. The next day he came over and shared how God spoke. He got a really cool revelation. As for Ishmael, God talked to him in a dream, and said he was not to be a part of animistic worship, or following the Mirabou (which are Islamic holy men) So we have started going through the bible together.

Reality check

I think at first the progress of things was deceptive. Now is a taste of reality in Africa. As I have been trying to take care of the details to get a building permit, some interesting things have hindered the process. We quickly got a man to do a survey of the land. He then needed to do a drawing and send it. Although he did it in two days and sent, there was some miscommunication with the mail or something and Marcel never received until a week after it arrived here in Oussouye! Next we needed a letter from the church to go with this document. That was done the same day, however the power went out, so we could not make the necessary copies needed to submit it. The next day power came back on and we were able to submit everything. As Joe followed up to see if everything was approved, he talked to the guy in charge, and he said everything looked ok. All he had to do was type another document and sign it and send it off. However, his printer was out of ink! So he could not do it. Then he went out of town, so here we are. If all goes well he will be back Tuesday morning and I will get a copy of his file and print it from a different computer, where there is a printer with ink, and then bring it back to him. This is of course no guarantee. The whole process is confusing to me and helping me develop even more patience. The reality here is time is not too important, they do not believe time is money, time is one thing they have in abundance. Pray things can get moving. Of course I have had more time to build relationships, do evangelism, and minister.

Spur of the moment...

I was going to pray for a sick girl with my friend Gerard, but got stopped along the way. We ware talking about evangelism, and then we met up with a friend of his. I felt prompted to share about Christ with this kid and we prayed he would start a relationship with God. God gave me a word for him that was encouraging too. We didnt make it too much farther when we reached another of his friends, and he asked if I would talk to him too. I was able to share and pray with this man as well. God gave me a word of knowlege for him, and Gerard said it was true, because he knew this kid for many years. When we finally made it to the sick girl, it turned out she was not sick anymore, she was feeling fine. It was cool because I was talking with Gerard about joining me for evangelism, then it just happened and he was really excited about it, and wants more.

Feasting requires killing!

Well the church here had its official dedication ceremony. The new building looks great and there were over 200 guests in attendance. They invited all sorts of town officials and Christians travelled from all over Senegal to come. Remember there are not too many, so this was a big event. I think this is the biggest Christian church here. It was cool to see how God has provided for them in this whole endeavor. Almost all the money for the project came as donations from outside sources, as the people here are poor. They shared the testimonies of Gods amazing provision and the service was an exuburent time of celebration. They had a huge feast for everyone that lasted a few days. They killed 2 cows, 2 goats, 2 pigs, and 2 chickens (sort of a reverse of the Noahs ark story!) I was a witness to all this butchering, it took place on the grounds where I live. It was a lively time of fellowship, as everyone joined in the process of hacking up meat. I had an opportunity I could not refuse, they asked me to kill one of the goats, so I did. It was an interesting experience and I even skinned and butchered it, with some help of course. I continue to try and fit in and make the most of my African experience. The feasting was really really good. Now lets hope the project moves ahead this week....

Harlem

There is a large group of kids in their twenties, some younger, that live in a section of Oussouye called Harlem. Except in French you never pronounce an ‘H’ so it is sounds like Arlem. Anyway, since UCF has been taking trips to Senegal we have taking time just to hang out with some of these kids, just talking, playing games, and sharing life. Most of these kids are muslim or animists, and really don’t know anything about Christ. Since I have been here, I have just picked up where we left off. There are two guys in particular who speak English well, so I have been able to connect with them. When I go to the neighborhood, we just sit around and one of the houses in the area, and play cards or just talk. Usually someone makes some strong, sweet tea that you drink out of shot glasses. It is part of muslim culture to drink this tea. Anyway, one day in particular we were just sitting around talking and I was talking to God (silently of course) I asked ‘God if you want me to talk about you, show me the time and how’ About when I finished that prayer, out of nowhere a girl asked me if I had ever seen God. I took this as a sign and opportunity to share. At first we were just talking, because she really wanted to learn English and practice. Now my two friends, were in on the conversation and translating. They were also very interested in the topic. There was a small group that entered the discussion and a cool door was opened. They know why I am here and they wanted to see the building site. I got to take them there and show them and we just sat there on a stump and talked for a long time. A few days later they introduced me to one of their friends who was deaf, I asked if I could pray with him and he quickly agreed. I am not sure if anything happened (thats up to God) but the kid was happy I prayed for him and I know I will get another opportunity. I would love to see him hear ! As for my two English speaking friends, Moussa and Fabacary, things have opened up. After I prayed for the deaf kid, Moussa said to me ‘I want to talk more with you about speaking to God’. A couple days ago Fabacary left to go to University in Dakar for the year. Before he left I got to pray with him, and give him a bible. He just emailed me from there and said he started reading the bible and really liked it, he also asked me to keep praying for him. After the first time we talked about God he had a powerful dream. I continue to spend time with Moussa and all the other kids in Harlem. I am teaching them some new card games and they are teaching me some as well. As I mentioned in a previous email these are the kids that gave me a nickname in ‘Jola’, their local dialect. The name is Ehoum-ba-lay, it roughly means someone who brings joy. I thought that was pretty cool, I hope to really share the gospel with all of them. Pray for Moussa and Fab and all the kids in Harlem to be open and hungry for Jesus.

Slowing down

Well, the progress has slowed for now. The good news is it has not been raining, so we should be able to make blocks soon. Also trucks bringing the materials for this process will not get stuck in the mud. There are some other details we need to take care of before we forge ahead. We had a survey done of the land and are waiting for a drawing. We will need this to get building permit. It is not really a permit but that is the best way to describe it. It has to be official with the town here. It was strongly recommended this be taken care of before we forge ahead full steam. It seems they gave a Frenchman a bit of trouble when he built a house here without informing anyone. So for now we wait for African beurocracy. I am hoping this moves along quickly, but hey it is Africa, time takes on a whole new meaning, particularly for busy Americans. Our whole concept of time and being on time and schedule, is not really shared by much of the world. Africans are really not so time focused. Sometimes church here is 2 hours but last week it was 4! I am learning to see things differently. The best way to learn this lesson here is travel, but I wont get into that now. Pray things move.

Cool encounter

This Sunday I preached at the church and it went pretty well. There was some good responses to the message. I also played some worship songs on the guitar and sang them in French. I taught on some of the UCF foundational stuff. Again I went out to do evangelism, in the afternoon, with Marcel, Jerome, and Leopold. There was a sick woman who complained of severe stomach pain. She asked that we come and share about Jesus. As we prayed God revealed that she was involved in witchcraft and idol worship. It is pretty typical here for people to visit witch doctors or ju ju men for cures or direction. It can involve animal sacrafice, giving money, traditional worship, and in some casees sexual things. Well we asked her to share more because God revealed there was much more than she was telling us. She told us more details about how she had been seeking all types of cures going to these ju ju men and different shrines and spending all kinds of money. She prayd with us to receive Jesus and turn from idol worship. Again the Holy Spirt revealed there was more going on she was not saying. When asked she confessed she had amulets tied around her (more witchcraft) and was still thinking of going to a shrine in the Gambia. We talked with her some more about giving herself totally to Jesus and left. This morning she was at my door and shared how she had a dream and someone spoke to her and told her she needed to tell us the truth and ask for prayer for healing and forgiveness! She shared some more details, of what she was involved in, I really dont want to get into, repented and we prayed for healing. I believe God did a mighty work in her.

Ground Breaking!

Well they have been digging for the foundation and the trench is almost complete. I am really pleased with the position of building will sit on the site. It is near some large mango trees that provide shade in the morning. In the afternoon there are some nice palm trees that will also provide shade from the hot sun. We have not had rain in quite some time so it looks like the ground will be hard soon. Perhaps next week we can get some materials to the site, God willing!

Ok for now

Things are progressing right now but I know there will be some slow times. It may take a few weeks before we can actually make bricks. I hope to get the footing dug and soon and perhaps get the concrete poured soon. I went out to do evangelism on Sunday with Marcel. It was pretty fun. We went back to the same village and met a bunch of people. I got to talk and pray with a guy who spoke english, he was very open and wanted to hear from God. God gave me a cool word for him and he invited me back to talk more. Then he introduced me to about eight other guys and I got to pray with each of them as he translated their requests. I was asked to preach at the church next Sunday, please pray for this opportunity. I want to be anointed by God to know exactly what to say.

It has Begun

Well it is official, we have started work. You can see pictured here these men clearing the land. They took down two palm trees and another large tree, as well as a bunch of bushes and small stuff. The site is now relatively clear and the building is roughly steaked out.

The Road

Here is the miraculous road I was talking. Some big trucks mysteriously appeared one day and cleared this path through the Oussouye terrain. I am standing at the edge of our property taking this photo, so you can see it leads right to us. This will make it easy for large truck to get to the site. We will need to have deliveries of sand, cement and shells, so we can start making our blocks. The ground needs to get hard so the trucks will not get stuck. We need ten consecutive rainless days, and things shoud be ok.

God amazes me again

This is really cool, Marcel came over all excited shouting with some good news. Let me back up, so far we have had no idea how we were going to get trucks to the building site. It is in an undeveloped area, really the bush. There are only narrow walking trails through peoples yards. Well it seems that today trucks came and cleared a road right to our site! Just in time really. This is so cool, I cannot express how huge this is. The site is adjacent to a new school under construction, and they made another back access road to it. Convieniently, it leads right to us.

Progress continues in the planning. I have been having daily meetings with the builder to estimate all the costs of labor, materials, transport, finishes, etc. Many of the details are coming into focus, pray the costs stay low for everything. If it does not rain for 10 days we can get truck to the site now. We may even start clearing the land next week, God willing. I am amazed at how things are moving, God is literally clearing the way!

On another note, the elders have asked if I would teach bible studies and also travel to some of the newer village churches to teach. So I will hopefully be traveling on the weekends. I am excited to get into more ministry here.

I will end on sharing another cool thing about Africa. There are not many lights at night, no light pollution. It makes for an amazing sky. The stars and milky way are so intensly clear it continues to amaze me. Au revoir for now...

much has happened

Well so much has happened in the last few days. First I had a meeting with the elders of the church here, they wanted to hear more details of the vision of the training center. They were very excited and asked me to share this with the church on Sunday. I spoke and it went very well. People had many questions, and were very happy to hear about this. Some offered to help. Before this only the elders knew of the project. Two of the elders Marcel and Jerome said they would fully commit to helping me get the best prices for materials and workers. Marcel was in charge of the recent building of their new church here. He has contacts for the different building trades, and is familiar with what everything should cost. This is a huge relief, and I know we will get good prices for everything.

Also on Sunday Marcel asked me to go out and do evangelism with him. I was excited, but he does not speak English, and my French is still lame. I Agreed to go along an pray and see what God would do. We ended up going on bikes to a nearby village called sengelene. When the UCF team was here in March, we prayed extensively through this place. Well it was really cool, Marcel was talking and I was just asking people what they wanted prayer for? to see what God would do. We ended up praying for around 20 people, most were animists, and most of the prayers were for healing. I am excited to hear what God will do. I hope to return to some of these houses with Jerome to translate. It was so much fun, and I could sense The Spirit was really responding as we prayed.

Some other random things: I have been to two funerals, helped with some work at the new church, and helped put labels on jam jars. (some ladies in the church have a jam business) I think we have secured a builder for the project as well. I have spent more time at the building site and went there with the elders and the builder to measure the limits of the land. I also had two meetings with the builder discussing prices and details. Today we were calculating how mant bricks were in the building and various costs of materials. Things are moving? more details to follow....

In Zig

I have been in a town called Ziginchour yesterday and today. it is much bigger than oussouye. i had to go get money from the bank and check a few things out. i will return today to try and get things going. Marcel is one of the elders in the church in oussouye, and he just got back from england. he was in charge of the church construction project here, so he knows all the contacts. hopefully we can get things started. I will need to buy the materials in Zig to make bricks. I think we have to wait until the rainy season is over before we can make them though. they have to dry in the sun and the rain would destroy them. i think the rainy season will be over in a few weeks. I hope that means it wont be so humid as well. it has been in the 30s Celcius and very very humid. I think that is like the 90s.

Some cool news, i found out that that sick baby we prayed for was healad. The family is muslim and the mother said the baby has been sick for over a month and always crying. the next day after the prayers the crying stopped and she is doing very well. God is cool. I am still praying for Gilbert the crippled boy. I really want to see him get healed. Also while in Zig Alain introduced me to a man who is the chief of a village called Kagnout. It is not far from Oussouye, near a town called Mlump. He invited me to come there to pray and share the gospel, because there is no church there. I hope to be able to do this some time.

I am getting adjusted to life here, it may take a few weeks. some of my favorite things are: the people, they are very friendly and love to talk. they are poor but generous, always inviting you to join them in a meal. i love the food as well. there is rice and fish in every meal, i have eaten more rice in the last week than i have in my whole life. Yesterday I ate crabs African style, which means you just crunch through the shells suck out the meat and spit the shells on the ground. Another awesome experience is the bathing from a bucket. after being hot and sweaty all day pouring on cool water is an exhilirating experience. of course so is watching out for monsterous spiders. two days ago as i was about to bathe i saw the biggest spider i ever saw crawl out. it keeps you on your toes.

Also today I got my first ever african haircut. i went into the place and was asked which style I wanted. I looked in awe at the posters of dozens of styles to choose from. they were mostly rappers like P diddy and 2Pac. I asked where was the "toobob" which is Wolof for white man. he just laughed and shaved away. a small crowd of kids gathered around for the show. It was an experience. I have more to tell, but later for now....

A good Day

It is really hot and humid here, the last two days there has been heavy rain at night. everything turns into a mud rivre, nothing is paved. The pace of life is very slow, just walkng through the village can take a long time because you have to greet everyone. Today I walked around with Alain and I got to pray for a sick baby and a really crippled kid. Pray God would heal Glbert compmletly; mm

I made it!

Well I made it to Oussouye on Saturday morning, after many hours of travel. Unfortunately the only place here with an internet connection is randomly open and the connection is very slow. If I do not respond to your email, forgive me it is impossible to do anything on the computer here. It took over 20 minutes just to log on. Ok well i arrived in Dakar early Friday morning. I thought someone might meet me but no such luck. With my pitiful French and an Address I managed to get a ride to Roger Diatta's house, our friends in Dakar. One of his sons took me downtown to change money and but a ticket for the boat to Zigunchour. It took most of the day a very slow process. We went back had dinner and a short rest. Then back to the dock to wait to get on the boat. The boat was an interesting experience to say the least. Many people packed on a large ship along with various goods. We left at 9:00pm and arrived in Zig at 10:AM the next day. I slept most of the time. Once off the ship it was a battle to find my bags amidst the throngs of rummaging Africans. I managed to get my stuff and hoped to see a familar face. Well it didnt happen. Again my frech and bargaining skills were put to the test and I found a ride to Oussouye. It is greqt to be here and see everyone. I am excited to get the project started. Today I spent time walking the site and praying. I am looking at the placement of the structure and I want to make sure it is right based on the sun. It is very hot and I want it to be shaded properly. OK hope to keep you posted, but you never know when that may be

Off To NYC, and beyond...

I will be driving down to New York City with Dean this morning. My plane leaves at around 6:00PM and is a direct flight to Dakar, Senegal. Pray there will be someone there to meet me. Communication with our friends there has been difficult to say the least. Once in Dakar I have to find and take a boat to the southern Cassamance region. I think that will take around 24 hours. I will arrive in Ziganchour, and hopefully meet some friends to take me to Oussouye, where I will live. I will try to keep you updated...

a word from zac.....

"Day by day the LORD will take care of you, and you will receive a reward that lasts forever. You will survive through the hard times; and even if there is a famine you will have more than enough. Being someone blessed by the Lord, you will inherit the land. Your steps are being directed by the LORD, and He delights in every detail of your way. The LORD holds you by your hand and you will not fall. (Psalm 37:18-24 - Adapted from New Living Translation)

Senegal