A challenge / Friends are here

Work is moving again, this week the parapet wall was finished, which is the low wall surrounding the roof terrace. Soon we will put a topping of concrete on the slab and slope it to drain water. Next is the installation of the waterproofing membrane. Recently we had to renegotiate the contract and scope of work with the contractor. Although we raised the full budget for the project, due to inflation, the weak exchange of the dollar, and a few other factors, I am over budget for the finishing the building. I have been going through the budget and remaining work, and have been coming up with a few ways to cut costs and save some money, to meet the budget. We will still need to pray for Gods provision to build the enclosure wall on the property. We are not too far off, but things have been a challenge lately. On another note the team from Syracuse is here and God has been doing some really great stuff. So far we have prayed through six villages near Oussouye. We also spent two days in Diembering ministering to the church there and many people in the village. We had the opportunity to pray for many sick people and also see many people come to Christ. Some highlights were, one man came for prayer walking with a cane, and after we finished, he got up with a big smile, and walked away leaving his cane behind. Also a number of people who received Jesus took off their charms and amulets, which are used for witchcraft in the Animist religion. So many cool things have happened already and we have a full week of ministry planned. For the next two days we are going to a rural village called Youtou. We have to take a boat to get there, it should be an exciting adventure. Pray for us and that many people would come to personally know Jesus!

Good news

God did a cool thing a few days ago. I was asked to go to the hospital to pray for a sick baby, so I went with a couple people from the church. The baby had a bad fever, and I put my hand on her head to pray, as we all prayed I could sense God was dong something. After we shared the gospel with the mother and encouraged her to seek Jesus. Before we left I touched the babys head again, and the fever was totally gone! The little girl was healed and left the hospital the next morning. God is so cool. Yesterday I went to Okoot, the village of Damien. We had a great time, and just hanging out with some of his friends. We had an oppoortunity to share the gospel and I was really encouraged. Damien stepped up and shared his new faith with passion. I was amazed at how he just came alive and flowed with the Holy Spirit. We had an opportunity to pray for two of his friends to begin a relationship with God.

At last!

At last, we have progress again! The water company finally came through on Wednesday, and there is now running water at the site. Yesterday was a busy day of work. There were around 20 men working hard to finish the roof slab, and they did it all in about 12 hours. Pictured here you can get an idea of the process. There are no machines to mix or move the concrete; everything is done by hand. The mixing process was difficult, but even more interesting was how they got all that concrete to the roof. There were three teams of men working in sync. The first shoveled the concrete onto a scaffold halfway between the ground and roof. The second team moved the material from the scaffold to the roof. The third group, on the roof, mixed in more water and poured it in place using wheelbarrows. The slab is finished and will need to cure for about 25 days before we can remove the supports. I am happy to see things moving again, next I will need to purchase a material we will lay on the roof to waterproof the roof slab. Hopefully I will be able to access the rest of the money recently provided, the banks here are always an adventure. Within a week the short-term missions team from UCF will be arriving, and I am looking forward to this very much. I think we will have a great time of ministry here. I recently had some really awesome opportunities to share my faith. One was with a popular musician here named Ya-tenga, we prayed together and I was able to give him a bible too. He seems really excited about God right now. Another cool conversation was with Moussa, he asking questions about having a relationship with God and this is the first time he has really expressed such an interest with me. Please pray for these guys and of course continued progress on the project.

Not much happening

Well, it has been a long time since my last post. I was hoping for something more to say, but I am afraid I am stuck in the muck of African burocracy again. The water company assured me they would finish the work 15 days after I payed them. As of now it has been almost a month. I am encouraged by my improvement in French though. I was able to go the the office of the SDE, the water people, and chew them out, and they understood. They were apolegetic and called the director in Dakar, and they assured me materials were coming on Monday, and work would commence on Tuesday. We will see, I am not holding my breath on this one. So, for now, no progress. We wait for water, so we can pour the concrete roof slab. Here is a photo of some women in the church making jam. They have a pretty cool little business making confectures, as they are called here, from all the local fruits. My favorite is the mango. Soon they will be moving the whole business venture to a new building near the center of town. It has been really cool to see all the progress with this endeavor. I did get to preach at a church in Ziguinchor on Sunday and it went pretty well. Many people expressed they were really encouraged by the message, and I had an opportunity to pray for a number of them individually after the service. The church meets in the pastor Uffi's living room and is really too big for the room. They are praying for their own building, and are really the only evangelical church in the downtown area of the city.

Africa time...

Here is a shot from the roof. The wood planks are being supported below by slender trees trunks. Here you can see some men fastening the steel reinforcing together. When they finish, it will be time for the pouring of the concrete slab that will become the roof terrace. Things have been moving so slow lately, with very little progress in two weeks. The reinforcing finally came, which was part of the hold up. The guy I bought it from kept telling me "It will be there tomorrow" and this went on for two weeks. The water company is doing the same thing. They have not put the pipe in yet and it has been two week since I paid them. They keep saying they are waiting for materials. In addition the money machine is not working right now, so I cant access the necessary funds. So this is really typical in Africa, things are normally pretty slow and I am not surprised by too much. While on my way to Ziguinchor yesterday the bus ran out of gas and we just sat there for hours. I was finally able to hop on another bus passing by after paying another fair ($1). Most of the others had to wait it out because they didnt have money for another bus. I needed to get to Ziguinchor to buy shells. (They mix sea shells in with the concrete, they are strong reinforcing and less expensive than gravel). Well as I suspected I arrived too late to get them and stayed overnight. Now they dont have any left so I am waiting for the next shipment. I am not really surprised or upset or anything like that, I just felt like sharing a piece of African life. It is just the norm. I find I have way more patience and my normal mentallity of "I want it now" has finally died! I just get more time to pray or enjoy the company of others. Often there are many opportunities for evangelism while waiting here. Please pray for me I think I will be preaching in Ziguinchor this Sunday.

Big trench

It may be hard to see the details, but this is the trench for the water line. The clearing for the new road to the high school was extremely key for us in many ways. As you can see it made it possible to extend the main pipe and get water to the site. Although it is still pretty far, over 200 meters, and it is quite costly, it is truly a blessing. I am happy to say, if all goes well, we should have running water at the site next week. Another great thing was today the men from Senelec, the electric company, came and started putting up poles to extend electricity down the new road! This is so awesome, and timely, we will be able to get a line for electricity very soon and quite inexpensively. I am continually amazed at how things are just coming together. When I arrived in October, it was a remote and isolated piece of land. I had no idea when or how utilities would get to us. I was prepared that these things may not even be possible for now. How cool. There has not been much work on the building lately though. We have been waiting for a delivery of steel reinforcing bars. Not much can happen until we get them. The next step will be to make a grid work of reinforcing for the roof slab. Hopefully the timing should be just right getting the water too, because we will need lots of it to mix all the concrete. As far as other stuff goes...I was sick, really for the first time since I have been here. I think I ate something unclean! Perhaps some nasty bacteria? I made frequent trips to the bathroom and rested for two days. It cleared up pretty good, I feel much better. Please continue to pray for my health. On Sunday morning I was asked to preach at church, Joe had to go to a funeral. I was still unsure if I was stable in the bowels to hold out through the service. I was picturing a gurgling eruption while preaching! Well...there were no problems. God healed me up, and gave me a cool message too. His presence was there powerfully and He touched many people. The Holy Spirit touched one woman, noticeably as she fell to the ground and wept. God is very cool! I was also prompted to pray for all the sick people. Evangelism was really fun too. I went with Gerard again, and he has some friends that had some questions. Their questions led us right into an explanation of the gospel, and they both wanted to begin a personal relationship with Jesus. They also asked for prayer to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and as we put our hand on them and prayed God touched them and they described a heat sensation, and connection with His Spirit. Gerard is so excited about evangelism now; he said it has rekindled a passion deep within him. I am enjoying this adventure with God.

Roof slab preparation

As I was explaining in the last email, here is the wood form work for the roof. It is basically wood planks supported in place with wood props. The cement will be poured on top and the forms removed when it has set. The underside of the slab will be the ceiling of the rooms. This will give us higher ceilings making the rooms cooler. It will also eliminate the need to construct a plaster ceiling, which was part of the previous plan. The change to make a roof terrace has improved the functionality of the building dramatically. On a different note, I got to travel again to preach in the coastal village Diembering. [In my last posts I spelled it wrong and called it Jemboran] It was another really cool experience. The people there are very nice and extremly receptive to the work of God. God gave me a specific message for them as a church and also for the pastor. It related to the story in the book of Judges about Gideon. As a bonus, after church I got to go to the beach and swim for the first time since I have been here. This is something I have really been wanting to do. It was a perfect day, and the waves were awesome. I had the beach entirely to myself as well since the only time the Africans go to the beach is when it is unbearably hot in July and August.

Everyone Poops

Pictured here is the septic. It took a few days to dig the hole, and another few days to build the walls. There are three compartments to it, and the walls are parged smooth with cement. The excess water will flow out into a sepatate compartment and drain off as it fills up. According to the contractor the waste should not have to be emptied for 10-15 years!

A terrace

Progress continues, but after much consideration, I made a small design change. Instead if the large sloping metal roof, the building will have a flat roof that will be a large roof terrace. There will still be a small metal roof over the veranda. I was thinking of this for some time after enjoying the terrace on Marcels house. The other main factor involved in this change was the option for future expansion. I didnt want to be limited. With this modification we can easily add a second floor and double the floor area with very little cost. So soon you will see what I am talking about, as I keep updated photos coming. I am very excited about this, and I pray we can keep moving forward.

Happy New Year

Things have been pretty slow here over the holidays. All the workers took off between Christmas and New Years Day, and a few extra days added on. I did enjoy the rest and went to a few feasts as well. The guys in Harlem invited me to a muslim feast called Tabaski. We just went from house to house and ate a lot of mutton. Which is like sheep or lamb or something. It was really good. Pictured here is the work of the electrician. If you can see the fine details, note how he broke open the wall to place orange tubing, which is the conduit for the wires. You can also see his patch job. In finishing stages all the walls will get covered with a layer of cement parging, leaving a smooth paintable surface. Work is moving again today, the masons have buit scaffolding and the walls are getting higher. I will try to get some updated photos posted soon.

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.