T plus 5 mois, 16 jours

to think, i will have left burkina exactly four months from two days ago and arrived in paris exactly four months from yesterday, oh, doth it loom so near that i wanteth not but to see this world and beggeth of thee that thee wouldst grant yet a day or two upon this great island, for shame that thee shouldst squander such a life such that it blocketh the God that loveth thee truly

three weeks ago i spent the weekend with mamadou, fabé's youngest brother, in samoghohiri, we biked out on saturday morning, arriving just after noon, following lunch we hightailed it to the nearby river for an afternoon of swimming and cool temperatures (in the water atleast), a refreshing change from the high 90's we continue to have, that night we walked around town a little, seeing a part of the jesus film in french orally translated to samogho by a visiting evangelical group and sharing a snack with some of mamadou's friends, sunday morning i attended the samoghohiri church for the second time and afterwards got a djembé lesson and hung around with church people, that afternoon we went to the river again shortly before we left for orodara, both river trips getting some good pictures of the river itself and all the local boys in it, on the way back from the river my left pedal broke off my bike, it was a sunday, but we found a mechanic, got it fixed, and were on our way shortly, though before leaving samoghohiri we did go on quite a hunt for a pump to add some air to my back tire (north american valve stems are rather uncommon around here), though the tire held air for a little while, i soon gave up as pedaling with a flat back tire was too difficult and walked the last 3 or 4 km to dieri, the village halfway between orodara and samoghohiri, after replacing the tube in dieri, the rest of the ride home was much more fun and uneventful, especially since the road is paved between dieri and orodara, all breakdowns aside, quite a fun and entertaining weekend

the following week was punctuated by felix's absence in bobo for a school conference and the women's conference here in the orodara mennonite church, there was quite a gathering for the women's conference, a speaker and many of the female missionaries along with christians from nearby villages, i heard the week went quite well, the final session on friday night included men and had some activities and discussion between the two genders, all having a good time with much laughing

after skipping a week we come to last week and the conference for the oral presentation of the bible, especially concerning evangelism, this conference had two speakers come from mali, converted christians from islam, they worked with missionaries and area pastors in learning how to use and tell bible stories in church and evangelism, a system somewhat like loren and donna have developed in their years here in burkina

skip another week and we have the conference for the young people, starting next monday, a week from tomorrow, kari is part of the planning committee and jeff warkentin, siaka traoré, and abdias coulibaly are the speakers for this event, i will be attending some if not all of it, hopefully most will be in french rather than jula and i can follow along, the theme is something about faith and action and jeff is adding a part about the mennonites, should be quite a week

last weekend was rather more eventful than normal, we had a lunar eclipse on saturday night, the usual first-sunday-of-the-month day of fasting, and tom preaching the sermon on sunday morning

on saturday night, justine sent me downtown on the moto just before 9:00, as i was returning i had to do a double take when i saw the start of a circle being taken out of the moon, when i got home i called everybody outside and then telephoned tom and kay and loren and donna at the mission, the following few hours we intermittently sat and watched the earth shade the moon, all the while listening to everyone around us and in all the other sectors of orodara banging on wood and tin and buckets and whatnot for the whole time the moon was being eclipsed, this banging was, according to felix, to ward off the cat that was trying to eat the moon, in other words, to keep the moon from disappearing forever, i got a few pictures and sat continually amazed at how the blacked out moon looked so much closer, similar to a hot air balloon floating a very short distance away, the moon did come back, when i got up at 1:00, it was about 3/4 of the way lit

on sunday morning tom preached the sermon since pastor abdias had been gone the day before and was planning to be gone that sunday too (however, he was there on sunday morning), he preached in french on how God wants to heal us, using his recovery from polio at an early age as an example and the story of the cripple and his four friends lowering him to Jesus for the bible passage, he also finished the worship time with small group praying (groups of five, one in the center), praying for each other in life and/or healing from sickness, distress, praying for each other in love and faith, it was the first sermon this year that i followed absolutely everything that was said, besides the jula translation, this most likely a result of tom's familiar accent, slower speech, and the franglais thrown in here and there

this past thursday i went to bobo, sent a few more samples to israel and walked around the market for some afternoon entertainment, i also had lunch with blaine warner and got to hear a few stories about mission aviation fellowship (MAF), an option i've considered for future volunteer time, some good stories and a good lunch, all part of time in burkina, all the while discovering where God will lead next

we fear
thus we cannot let go
but God reveals
and we see His light
but we still fear
thus we cannot let go
then God loves
and we drop in to His arms