Thanksgiving In Burkina.

We had a different Thanksgiving than we've had for many years past.

This was our first major holiday in Burkina Faso, and the first Thanksgiving in years and years and years that I haven't spent with my family in Hilton Head. And when I say family, I mean 50+ aunts, uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins, nieces, brothers, sister-in-laws....we're like a small army. We do Thanksgiving big, and it's the only holiday that we ever see family being in the Air Force and always living too far away to make traveling convenient. So Thanksgiving is important to me.

And as I stood in the kitchen the night before Thanksgiving to make pie, it hit me that I was standing in the kitchen all alone. There would be no family in there with me this year. There would be no one coming in to talk to me, or harass me. No one to help me prep. No mom. No sister-in-laws. There would be no chorus of cousins bantering back and forth.

It was painfully quiet. And I couldn't help but cry.

I cried from the absence of noise and delightful chaos that this holiday has always had. I cried at the loss of family time. And as much I as love being here and wouldn't trade living in Burkina for anything....I just resigned myself to the fact that it was okay to be sad and miss family and it didn't mean I loved being here any less.

So, I turned on some praise music and let Jesus fill my kitchen and slowly over the course of the couple hours that I was in the there I found solace in Jesus' presence.

Thanksgiving was also different in the way that Sydaleigh had to go to school. Seen as how we live in a country that does not celebrate or recognize our American holidays...Isaak had the day off from work at the Embassy, but Syd still had school. It was kinda odd. And just felt weird and bizarre waking up on Thanksgiving and having a school day. I think next year I will give her the choice to stay home if she wants too. But her school had a Harvest Celebration that day, which is close to Thanksgiving, so we headed over to her school in the morning to hang with her for a little while.

I received a note saying that Sydaleigh's class was in charge of bringing veggie trays and dip for their feast....but I'm all like, "what kind of veggie tray do they expect me to bring?!!"

A common veggie tray in the states consists of carrots, broccoli, celery, and grape tomatoes.

In Burkina Faso there is no such thing as grape tomatoes, there is no broccoli to be found, I have yet to see celery...and their carrots.....dude, the carrots here are way bendy....what.is.up.with.that? I should not be able to bend a carrot like that without it snapping.

The only veggie left I could think to include were cucumbers. Soooo, I sent a whole plate of 'em!

Sydaleigh's class and the other younger kids singing a song.

When we got home I had some more food to make, but this time I wasn't alone. I had a little helper for the morning. :~)

She is really good at rolling up some crescents, let me tell ya. 

I loved working in the kitchen with that little lady. It was different from what my days normally look like, but it was nice to make some memories with just my family. So, we rolled ourselves up some crescents, got the rest of the food ready, and looked forward with eager anticipation to dinner with good friends.

I made a yummy chocolate pudding pie. It was suppose to be a chocolate torte, but turned out like pudding, which was fine with me because that's really what I was wanting! Really, you can't go wrong with chocolate and heavy cream and even if it turned out like mush, it would have been a chocolate mush and still tasted good. :~)

We had dinner with Jean and Andy and their kids at their home, and feasted on turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, macaroni and rolls, pumpkin pie and chocolate pie. It felt as much like home as we could get!

The kids swam and swung. And we talked and laughed and rested.

So that was our day. I think next year the shock of being so far away will have worn off and it won't be so hard. But it still turned out okay. It was good. And I was thankful and felt blessed.

(Marvelly, little stinker thinks it's funny not to smile in pictures right now. )
(Oh, and a special shout out to Bekah and her dad who I got to skype with on Thanksgiving, and my mom for getting to hear her voice too! Made me so happy!)

This "cool" season ain't so cool.

It's hot here.

This has been our forecast everyday for weeks and weeks.

100's. Everyday. They say that this is the "cool" season, but I'm like, "whatever, man, it doesn't count if it's only cool at night."

But now I know. The cool season is still actually really hot, except at midnight....when it does not count.

The day I turned 31.

Yesterday was my birthday.

It was a humble and modest day.

I woke up sick, not having slept the night before due to a nasty cold. By mid afternoon I had a fever. But one thing I have learned since moving to Burkina is that there is no such thing as, "I think I'll stay in bed today" kinda days.

I wanted to stay in bed yesterday. I wanted to wear sweat pants and watch movies and not move. But Africa does not allow that. You must wake up, and get dressed, and brush your hair, and accept the fact that people will come to your gate that you will have to answer.

So I got dressed. I brushed my hair. And I went about my day as I normally would. 

And it was fine.

I liked this birthday.

It was normal.

Odette arrived for work first thing in the morning.
Our vegetable guy came by bright and early to deliver my basket.
Then the electricity guy came over.
Then some Embassy workers.
Then Joseph came over, our Malian friend who is suppose to be in Mali because we bought him a bus ticket to go back there....and yet he is here. More on that later.....
Next a school girl stopped by needing some water.
Then some friends arrived late in the afternoon to load up the chairs from the baptism party.

In addition to spending the day with Marvelly, doing school with her, playing Pocahontas on the patio, cleaning my large basket of veggies, blowing my nose till it felt like it would fall off, and talking to a couple friends on the phone to receive birthday wishes.

When Isaak got home from work, he went to a nearby ice cream parlor and picked up some ice cream, and a tiny piece of cake, and him and the girls sang "happy birthday" to me. And Sydaleigh presented me with a paper bag book she made me for my present.

We ended the night playing "Go Fish" in my bed so that I could lay down but still spend time with the family. And I won...which was only fitting since it was my birthday. :~)

Throughout the day I kept thinking....about all the things that we expect from others on our birthdays. We pollute our brain with false thinking that we deserve to be spoiled because it is our one day out of the year to be celebrated. We place our value and importance on how many birthday cards we get, the amount of presents we receive, the cost of the presents, or the thought that went into buying the presents, or the creativity of the gifts. We measure people's love for us based on whether they throw us a party, or we go out with friends to celebrate, or buy us flowers, and the kind of restaurant we eat at....McDonalds or Melting Pot? Which indicates the greater degree of love? We measure our worth based on how many Facebook friends write birthday wishes on our wall, how many family members call us...and the list goes on.

And we think that if those expectations of what we deem adequate celebration aren't met...we are less loved, or less valued, or not important to others.

But that is a lie. I've had birthdays when I've have had flowers, and gifts and parties and cards, and ate at my favorite restaurants, with my favorite cakes with my favorite people. 

I've had all those things.

And then I've had birthday's like yesterday.

Birthdays that are spent at home. Modest. No parties. No restaurant. No presents. Just the quiet celebration of having lived through another year. And it doesn't make me any less loved, or valued, or esteemed to have celebrated without all the fanfare and spoils.

I liked my birthday. I liked the day I turned 31.

I got to spend it living. I got to spend it loving. And I even got to spend it eating my favorite ice creams...mint chocolate chip and my new favorite, Chocolate Crunch (some mysterious African flavor that we have yet to discover what the actual crunch is...but oh man is it yummy.)

And that is more than good enough for me.

Feeling blessed with less on my birthday still left me overflowing.

To my 31st year of life....

 (For the record, Sydaleigh is not starving, she is just ribby :~) )

237th Marine Corp Ball

We went to the Marine Corp Ball on Saturday night. It's the first Marine ball they've ever had in Burkina since getting a detachment here. And since there aren't exactly a whole lot of reasons to get all dressed up here in Burkina Faso everyone was very excited for this formal night.

This was the first time we have ever been to a Marine Corp Ball....normally everything formal we go to is Air Force related. It was special getting to sit and take in the Marine side of our military and participate in something that is so personal to each of them. The Marines are something else let me tell ya. This is not just some party...this event is sacred to them.

Actually, what they do is sacred to them. They protect. And they do it with pride. And it's not just a job. They serve because their desire to protect is stronger than anything. And being in an embassy on foreign soil, surrounded, quite literally, on every side by unrest and turmoil, I don't look at them the same. They are not just another branch of our military. I value their presence and commitment more than I ever have.


I pray that there is never a reason for them to draw their "swords" and defend the Embassy, but I know if that were to ever happen....those faces, they would defend it without hesitation.

We invited some great people to attend the ball with us who work so hard in this country. We wanted to give them a night where they could get dolled up and dance and just, do something different. It was such a fun night had by all.

Our guests.....Mike and Amy, some awesome missionaries who work in Yako at Sheltering Wings. (who happen to have a teenage daughter who so graciously offered to watch the girls while we were away!)

And Becky and Rebecca. Becky is here with Envision and works up in Yako with Mike and Amy, and Rebecca lives here in Ouaga as a teacher for a missionary family.

Ambassador Dougherty, Marine Justin Genovese and guest speaker Col. Bristol

The purple squad! Whoo hoo! Purple's the new black we say!

Me and Jean, a dear friend. The Lord is so good to have blessed us with such a fantastic family and people here. I met Jean while we were both living in DC for our husbands training and we came out to Burkina within two weeks of each other. (Along with Becky down below and her husband Heath! They were in DC with us too!) Our husbands, Isaak, Andy and Heath, work together side by side. We're all here doing life together. I love these ladies.

Blessed to know every single one of them.....we have such fun when we get together!

(Katina, Nicole, Tara, Jayne, Becky, Me, Anne, Sheryl)

To a great night!!

Some friends stopped by yesterday....

Some Garibou friends. Plus a little girl.

They absolutely warm my heart.

Praying they left filled up with something more lasting than crackers, fruit rolls ups and new flip flops. Praying Jesus met some emotional needs for those kids in our courtyard. He is able, in ten minutes time through handshakes and smiles to fill a heart to overflowing. Praying His presence over those children. And that we will never be too busy to stop what we're doing and answer His call with joy.

Pumpkin in my toe.

On Monday morning I was on the patio cleaning up because nine kids were scheduled to come over that afternoon to play.

It needs to be said that while on the patio cleaning I was walking around bare foot. I've never been much for shoes, unless they are boots or heels for a girls/date night of course, but day to day I'm a no shoe wearing sandles if I have to kinda gal.

And in very typical Melissa fashion, as I was walking around bare foot I stubbed my toe.

I have this problem see....I stub my toes a lot. That happens when you don't wear shoes. It is a miracle that they have not become deformed over the years from scar tissue building up for repeated beatings.

You'd think that after all these years of repeated toe stubbings I would be used to the pain incurred from them. But no. Not in the least. There is something about stubbing your toe that makes you think you are enduring the greatest degree of suffering you've ever experienced. (Why then I laugh at other people when I see them stub there toe and curse from the pain....I don't know. I gather I'm a little off. )

Okay so this time when I stubbed my toe, I did not stub it on a door, or corner piece of furniture, or chair leg....I stubbed it on a pumpkin.

Blasted thing.

Stupid pumpkin was just sitting there, waiting for me to run into it. Being busy cleaning and distracted from it's position right in front of my nose, it's skin not being a bright enough orange for me take proper note of it's existence and potential for disaster.....I slammed my toes into the side of it, taking off the pumpkin skin as I dragged my foot away.

It needs to be said, that stubbing your toe on a pumpkin is comparable in pain to a normal toe stubbing. Definitely hurts.

But, stubbing your toe on a pumpkin and having the skin of that pumpkin forcefully shoved under your toe nails, and not just the tippy top of the nail either, but shoved all.the.way down to the bottom of your toe nail bed.....

is comparable to child birth. Or something equally as painful. Torture perhaps.

It was a NINE on the 0-10 pain scale you see at the doctor's office. Zero being no pain, 10 being worst pain you've ever experienced. 9. Maybe 9.5. For reals. Pumpkin in the toe hurts.

It hurt so bad I started crying.

I hobbled my way inside the house, doing the lamaze breathing I never had a chance to do while pregnant to try to mindfully manage the pain.

I sat at the table and looked at the damage.....

my smallest three toes had orange crap sticking out the top of my nails.

I hobble to the bathroom and got the tweezers and successfully manage to remove all the pumpkin I could see. I figured it would be like a splinter, hurts real bad while in the skin, but once removed, immeditately feels better.

That did not happen.

Which led me to believe that I had pumpkin way down deep and the only hope for removing it would be to amputate my toe nail.

Oh mercy Jesus, why couldn't I have been wearing shoes.

There was no way I could do toe nail removal surgery on myself, so I chugged some ibuprofen and waited till Isaak got home from work. I can't believe I survived that long.

But, luckily, by the afternoon I had 11 kids at the house to watch and distract me and soon thereafter Isaak came home from work and I had him examine my toe.

He could see orange down further under neath the nail, but in order to get to it he had to cut the nail down half way, to the middle of the nail bed. And once he cut the nail down shorter than it's suppose to go, I noticed he stopped, and sat for minute staring at my foot. I had my face buried in the couch cushions when I heard him say,

"You do realize that you have pumpkin coming out of your toes."

Yeah.

"You realize you stub your toes more than anyone I know."

Yeah.

"You might want to consider wearing shoes sometimes."

Yeah. It hurts as bad as child birth.

"You had c-sections."

It hurts like my c-sections.

(It may not look like much, but don't be deceived, it's the little things that hurt the worst.  That little bit of pumpkin had me contemplating cutting off my own toe for relief. I figured it would be comparable to that guy who cut off his own arm when he got trapped while hiking, and in the end I could at least have a movie made from my experience.)

So Isaak then took the tweezers and pulled out the remaining pumpkin he could see.

Ahhhhh, sweet relief. For like, 3 minutes. And then it started hurting again. Just as bad as it did before! Burning, throbbing, feels like my toes gonna fall off kinda pain! What the heck?! Pumpkin out=no more pain I thought! Except I still had some major pain action goin' on. Isaak assured me that this was a different kind of pain....the healing kind of pain when a foreign substance has been removed from somewhere it never should have been.

I looked at him like he was flippin' mad....trying to tell me this was healing pain. Healing pain my keister.

But I hobbled off to bed in hopes that by morning it would feel better.

No such luck.

I could hardly sleep it hurt so much. I was sure during the night that my toe was sprouting a garden under the blankets. But when I looked at it, it looked perfectly normal, which then made me consider that the bacteria from the pumpkin rind had somehow entered my toe blood stream and was getting secretly infected and would actually need to be amputated!

This was not good for my hypochondriatic tendencies.

So I walked to the bathroom, got the smallest pumpkin removal tools I could find, and set to work on my toe. You wanna know what I found....more pumpkin in my toe!

Isaak was wrong. There was still a major piece of pumpkin trapped very closely between my skin and toe. The only way to get it out was with a needle. It was the only thing small enough that could fit in there. So, I took a deep breath and carefully forced that needle down under my toe nail and started moving it back and forth to try to move the pumpkin up enough to pull out.

I'm not gonna lie....it was bad.

Real bad.

Just awful.

But I did it. I removed the rest of the pumpkin in my toe! The remaining piece was so big it was fitted under the skin all the way down to the bottom of my nail. So nasty!

But such sweet relief! Until the next day when I stubbed that same toe on the corner of our metal bedroom door. Dude! What the heck is my problem!

I'm gonna seriously have to work on my Africa stories. While everyone else is carrying on about how, "I slept in the bush for a week on the dirt ground with nothing more than a mosquito net." Or, " I came this close to being eaten by a hippo!" Or, " I once had malaria, typhoid, meningitis, rabies, yellow fever, and dengue fever all at the same time!" Or "I strangled a lion with my bare hands!"

I'm all like, "There was this one time I got pumpkin stuck in my toe." Doesn't exactly scream hard core.

In the meantime, while I work on my hard coreness, here are some things I have taken away from this experience.....

# 1. try not to stub your toe.
# 2. if refraining from toe stubbings is not an option, consider wearing steel toed shoes.
# 3. pumpkin in the toe hurts.
# 4. African pumpkins are harder than anywhere else in the world (that's my opinion and I'm stinkin' to it.
# 5. just avoid pumpkins at all costs, they are from the devil.

Uncensored: My heart 12 weeks later

It's hard to write this out.

It's hard because, there is so much going on, there is so much happening and so much that has happened, sometimes putting words to heavy heart matters seems impossible.

But I will try. I will try......but this is not going to be pretty......

We have been living here in Burkina Faso for three months now. I look back and wonder, "has it really been that long? I'm pretty sure that was us just yesterday running through the airport frantic to make our flight with mere seconds to spare."

But here we are.

Three months later.

These first three months have been a balance of hard and good. Not really one over the other. Not more hard than good or vise versa. Both equally hard and good.

My heart these past three months has gone through and is still going through a range of emotions. I'm told that's normal. If only the fact that it was normal made me feel better about it. :~)

One of the things my heart has been struggling with is American life. There are many days where thinking about American life makes me angry. I look at friends and family and I get mad. Okay, scratch that. Melissa "censored" would say mad. I'm gonna go out on a very lonely limb here...I'm gonna go uncensored, and say, actually, when I think about America and my friends and family living back there, and just American life in general....

...I feel disgusted.

At western culture.
At the lives I see people living.

And then, feeling disgusted, I feel guilty because I am being judgmental. And overly harsh and critical.

I said this wouldn't be pretty.
But it is reality.
It is the reality to how I, and many other people feel when they are plucked out of their cushy culture and thrown into a third world country.

It is reality.
And one thing I've learned is that reality ain't always pretty.
And when I look at America, my country, I do not see reality. I see isolation, ignorance, delusion, shallowness, and blissful distraction.

I think it's pitiful. Absolutely pitiful.

And it's really hard struggling through feelings like this. It doesn't exactly scream,  

"Hey, come talk to me, tell me all about the new two hundred dollar boots you just bought! Eek!!!"

It's more like this, "I kinda hate you right now, but please don't be offended that I can't stop rolling my eyes and gagging when I hear about 'home', and love me through this."

Because there is a part of me that is still deeply longing for the trivial familiar shallowness of home. There is that part of me that wants to hear and talk about boots, and new outfits, and movies, and talk about Jessica Simpson's parents gettin' a divorce, say what?! and laugh at random stupid things and talk about pinterest and the newest this' and that's.

Because sometimes talking about new fashion trends and celebrity gossip is just easier than talking about the man who came to my gate today begging for money to go back to Mali. And how he's been sleeping at the market and knocking on people's doors for food and water because he can't find work to buy it himself. Showing me the scars all over his body from only God knows what. Seeing him cry and beg and plead.....

...it's this reality that makes me want to talk about boots, and it's this same reality that makes me pity and roll my eyes and get angry at those who do.

I can't reconcile those two sides yet.
They are at odds.
They are at war in my heart.
I don't know if there can be a world in me where those two realities co-exist. 
I'm not sure God wants them to.
I do know that this is going to take time to sort out, and a whole heck of a lotta grace. Grace from others. And grace towards others.

Grace towards others as they continue living their lives, and grace towards me as I relearn how to live mine. Grace as I work through trying to figure out who I am now.

All the things I was. All the places I fit. All the things I did. The clothes I wore. The shoes I walked in. The stores that I shopped at. The people I talked to. The kind of church I worshiped at. The car we drove. The way I decorated my house. The language I spoke. The jewelry I wore. The food I ate.....

All the things that I have allowed to make me, me.....is being stripped away.

All of it.

The person that I was, the identity I had, the life I lived.....it's disappearing. The whole dying to self is no easy business. And I've chosen to do it. And I'm sorry, but coming to such extreme living conditions as these requires a whole lot more dying than when we lived in America, or were maybe instead stationed in Japan at an Air Force base with a commissary and BX and base housing and many other western conveniences.

This is a totally different ballgame.

In the United States I had the luxury, yes, luxury of going through my day and never seeing anything hard. Of saying to myself and God, "I'm just gonna wait on you today Lord. I'm gonna sit here and go about my life today until you speak a word to me to do otherwise. That homeless vet I see on the side of the street standing next to my car as I sit at the intersection...I'm just gonna keep on sitting and pretending that I don't see him unless you tell me to reach my hand out and help." Or maybe there is no homeless vet that day. Maybe there is no one. So there is no need to even direct a prayer toward God.

That life for me is gone. I don't have to luxury anymore to wake up and go about my life like it's just me and my family and nothing else exists outside that bubble. I don't have the option to just sit back anymore and wait on God to tell me to do something.

Living in such extreme conditions as these you have to make moment by moment decisions. Fast decisions. Poverty and suffering are everywhere. I no longer have the option to just stand in front of it all and say, "I'm just gonna pray, and wait on you God.....". I am having to learn to act. To think faster. I have learned that God is ALWAYS talking. Even if I don't hear Him. Even if He's not saying anything new to me in a particular moment. His WORD is clear. And when I see something that stuns me, and I'm frozen with shock, and my mind is scrambling with what to do, or how to respond, and I don't hear God tell me point blank, "Help this man in this specific way", I know what the Bible says, even while I'm relearning what the Bible says.

And I have failed at this so many times since moving here. While we were in Bobo right before we left we were outside a pretty nice ice cream parlor eating our ice cream on another 100 degree day. As we walked outside to eat I noticed two boys walking along the road up front. I turned to stand in front of the table the girls were eating at and I had my back to the parking lot. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the two boys approach from behind....two Garibous, carrying their red tomato cans. Ragged clothes. Dusty and dirty. Hot from the heat.

I could feel them standing there, two feet behind me. Just standing, and watching. You wanna know what I did? Absolutely nothing. I just stood there, eating, never turning around, never meeting their eyes. Never acknowledging their presence. I pretended like they weren't there because I was eating a cup full of ice cream and they weren't. And it made me feel horrible. I could feel God telling me to turn around, but I didn't. I kept my back to them. And after a few minutes, maybe it was just one, they walked away.

Moment.gone.

Literally a moment. Two minutes at best. To decide whether to act, or ignore. To love, or to hoard. It didn't occur to me until I saw them walking back up the road that I should have walked them inside and let them pick out a scoop of ice cream. A treat. An extra. Something they never have.

That moment kills me. It absolutely kills me. I think about it and cry. Because that's how fast it happens here.

I don't have the option anymore to say, "Okay God, this week is like way busy, so how about you give me a really good idea to serve You next week, or ya know, next week is actually busy too, how about the end of the month, I can squeeze something in then." 

Here, it's everyday. And I will have two minutes at best sometimes to decide how to share God's love, and that's it. Two minutes. Sometimes it's seconds. And then the moment is gone. And with it the opportunity to reclaim the spaces where darkness has grown and spread a little bit of God's light into their life.

And when I think about life outside of here, how people go about their lives, living for themselves, being so cavalier with the sufferings happening in the world outside their lives....it's hard not to feel angry about that right now.

And it's really hard that virtually everyone back "home" will never understand. That part of it all is really hard to swallow at the moment. Knowing that the longer I am here, the more that I see, the more that I die to me and all I used to be....the less and less and less people will be able to relate to me.

I remember back in March I was in Pennsylvania sitting in a hotel for a women's retreat I was attending. I was sitting on the bed in my room, just me and Holly, taking a moment to rest and sit before the scheduled activities started up again. She quietly asked me what was one thing that I was afraid of for this move to Africa. I told her, trying to choke the tears down, that one of my biggest fears was, "becoming unrelateable."

I knew it would happen. I knew it would be inevitable. You can't live this kind of lifestyle without becoming isolated from all that was familiar to you, including relationships. Unless you live through this there is no way to know to relate to those that have. And I was scared of that.

I am still scared of that.

Because it is already happening.

I am already in a place of extreme isolation due to distance and language, but now I can see myself becoming further isolated due to my experiences. Because, I mean really, how do you talk about what I see here? People ask, "so, how are you, how is Africa?" How do you tell them, "well, today me and the girls played with forty street kids who's teeth were so rotted they were black and falling out and had ring worm so bad they had huge patches of hair missing from their head." Or, "I just got off the phone with a friend here who found out her Burkinabé neighbor was hit by a car and drove to a remote village to see the witch doctor because they couldn't afford to take her to the hospital and when she got there she had been laying on a dirt floor for a week with a broken femur bone."

Or, "Oh, Isaak's job? It's going great thanks for asking. He visited a prison today and walked through the hallways of the most disgusting place he's ever been, seeing up to nineteen men piled into a 10x15 foot cell. Watched as little kids ran naked through their cell, born into the prison because they mother was incarcerated pregnant, and now that is where they live. In a prison. Innocent and naked."

I'm not entirely convinced people want to hear all that. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they do. Mostly I think they don't. Because what do you say to that? Here's what I've heard people say, "wow."

And that's about it.

Because there is no way to relate to that type of suffering and pain and cruel raw conditions unless you've seen it.

And as a result, the people who do see it, become unrelateable in the relationships they have with those who don't. Either that, or I will be left having to change again, pretend I'm still the old me, to make everyone else comfortable.

Maybe there is another way. Maybe there is a way that I don't see yet to bridge the gap because those who can't be here, and we who are. Maybe there is a way to relate to them all that is happening in the world outside of their own. Maybe. Maybe not. But with only three months here that is not something I have begun to figure out yet.

But what I have figured out, well, am figuring out more and more everyday, is the absolute faithfulness of God. What it looks like to live by faith.What it looks like to love with a love that doesn't come from me.

Despite all the stuff that my heart is working through...as crazy as it sounds, especially after that rant, I feel good. Even on the days that I feel really really bad, I feel good. Even when I cry from the heaviness of it "all"....I love being here. I do, I love it.

Because even though I am daily surrendering myself over to be crucified, I am happy to do it. Even when it's hard and I don't think there is one more change I can make without having a mental breakdown, I give myself to Him still. I do it because there is His promise of Him. I do it because He equips me to. I do it because the Bible makes it crystal clear that that is His expectation of me. I am doing this because there is way too much darkness in this world and I want to be a part of shining God's light.

So I am good and happy and filled with joy....even in the midst of my frustration and messy heart....because His peace makes it so. His peace is what makes it so. It sounds crazy. To be so at peace in the middle of such chaos. But I am. And only Jesus can do that.

And that is a part my heart uncensored, the good the bad and the ugly of it all....twelve weeks later. No telling where I'll be in another twelve weeks....but wherever it is, His peace is comin' with me. For that I know....

Uncensored

A month or two before I moved to Burkina Faso, during one of my morning prayer times in D.C., I heard the Lord give me a word.

One word. Very specific. Very clear.

I didn't share the word with anyone at first, and then over the phone I told it to my mom. This word excited me, because it held unlimited possibility. I thought about the word and dreamed about how God might want to use it through my life during my time in Africa.

But, even though this word was still very abstract and had yet to take on real form because I hadn't yet moved here...the word was clear, as was the challenge that came with it.....

Uncensored.

I try to describe it, and add things to it, to expand upon what this word means for me and will mean for me....but there is nothing else to add. God's word is perfect. God's Word is perfect. It stands alone.

Uncensored.

I don't know in all the ways that God wants to use that word in my life. I get little flashes of this at times, but nothing whole. I will be riding in the car, and all of a sudden I will hear the Lord say, "see that! right there! UNCENSORED."

Or as I'm walking, again He will whisper, "Look, uncensored."

Or in our home, "uncensored."

Or in my heart, He tells me, "this right here, what you're feeling, uncensored."

I have been bucking this word though lately. I have been hearing Him encouraging me to be "uncensored" in a particular area, but it is hard. God rarely challenges us with the easy. But He knows me, and He knows what I need, and what others need, and somehow He merges those two together. For His glory.

So, with His grace and strength I hope to begin to be obedient to live out this word.
In whatever way it is going to look like.
In whatever way He challenges me to use it.

So that is my word. My one word challenge that God gave me even when I didn't ask for it. With a plan and a purpose in mind, even while it is still abstract to me, it's not to God, because He has a vision and a course for my time here in Africa. And I know that part of it has to do with this word.....

uncensored.

SIAO is here!!

Before we moved to Burkina Faso one of the things we were greatly looking forward to doing was going to SIAO (Le Salon International de L Artisanat de Ouagadougou) in October. SIAO is one of the largest and most important art trade shows on the African continent held every other year. And it takes place in the city that we live in.....what are the odds?! So awesome!

Vendors come from all over the continent for ten days to sell their art and it is a huge boost for the economy in this very struggling country. 

You can pay for two different admittance. One ticket will get you into the "air conditioned" buildings, and the other ticket will let you walk through the artisans set up outside.

It really is just like an American fair, like Arts in the Heart of Augusta that we would go to in GA every year. Or any other one in any other city in the states. There is food, and vendors, and music, and people. The only difference is that they are all African here. Selling African food and African art with African music. Otherwise completely the same. :~)

So we set out yesterday to experience the grandness that is this fair, leaving the kids at a friends house and headed out with a group of friends to shop for a few hours.

 

Isaak enjoying some refreshment. It's called Fandango. And it comes in a bag. So gross. The ingredients are literally water. And sugar. It's like adding a pixy stick to water and drinking it. But dude they are so cheap, about $.25, and in 100 degrees even cold sugar water is refreshing (except for me, I did not drink that. I have no desire of becoming a diabetic).

Our group stopping to drink some freshly squeezed pineapple juice. The thing with glass bottles on this continent, is that regardless of whether you buy a drink in a glass bottle, you can not just walk away and keep that bottle. You must drink it there and give it back. Your money only covers the cost of the fluid actually inside. Because they reuse your glass bottle for the next customer. Everything is recycled here!

Me and a gal from Ghana. We stopped by her booth to buy some clothes. I picked up a really cute skirt and dress and Isaak got two shirts (one of them seen here, so very African of him!) Obviously there are no dressing rooms to try on the clothes so they just took the dress I was looking at and all of a sudden my arms were in the air and two ladies were pulling that thing down over my head on top of my clothes! Ha ha! She was so tickled that we bought clothes from her she asked for a picture.

Some of the stuff was....very different. A very wide range of styles, as seen in the chairs with the people feet. African's like some different stuff. I, personally, would not buy a chair with weird people legs, but hey, kudos on creativity!

Most of the stuff was really cool though. Tons of masks, and sculptures, and jewelry, fabrics and clothes, art work, all kinds of nick knacks, baskets, and furniture. I picked up some kid sized purse/backpacks from Madagascar, a change purse from Togo, some Touareg earrings from Mali, and some clothes from Ghana. Shopping success!

We stayed for three hours and only saw half of what was there. By the time we left the concerts were starting and a lot more people were starting to come in. It'd be fun to go back in the evening and experience it then...but at this point, I just want to go back again! Love that one of the first things we learned about this country after finding out we were moving here....we got to do! What a fun time.

Afro gone bad.

So I tried to give myself an afro.

This afro, specifically. I was motivated to turn my white-girl hair into this awesome spiral mess for the embassy's Halloween party tonight. Gosh, I love her hair. I dream of having hair this big.

So before I left DC I asked the African American gal who was cutting Sydaleigh's hair if she could give me advice on how to give myself an afro. She kinda squinted her eyebrows together and looked at me like, "You do know you're white, right?"  To which I was like, "Oh am I? Sometimes I forget." :~)

Anyways, she told me that I could find these styrofoam thingy's at most beauty stores to wrap my hair in overnight and by morning it would be all spirally and to tease it out and voila....afro.

Well, I never got around to buying those styrofoam things she told me about, so I had to improvise.

I took about fifty strands of hair and braided each piece really tightly up to the scalp, and then wrapped each piece around a bobby pin and tucked the end through it. Same concept. Way less comfortable for sleeping purposes.

Ummm, to say that I looked ridiculous would be the understatement of the century. It looked like I had worms coming out of my head. Not my best look. :~)

By morning I couldn't take the bobby pins poking me anymore so I took them out and started the process of unearthing my hairdo. This is without the bobby pins before I took the braids out. Still looks like I got worms. Not my best look. :~)

An hour later though, with the help of Isaak we undid all those braids to reveal...

hair like this. It was the biggest scariest puffiest hair I've ever had. Shoulda taken a picture of it then. It was awesome. For the moments that I had it...it was awesome. I lost a crap load of hair in the process, but it was totally worth it.

And then we went to the Halloween party and after five minutes......FIVE MINUTES of being outside in the humidity.....

THIS happened.

It just went, kurplunk. And that is what I walked around looking like all night. Half my head was tightly spun, the other half lay flat and frizzy.

Definitely not my best look.
Definitely not.

I was going for 70's disco era, but it just kinda looked like a bad 80's perm job.

Definitely afro gone bad.

Next time it will be better...... :~) Oh, there will for sure be a next time. I will have an awesome afro. I.will.

Sydaleigh's habitat

A little over a week ago Sydaleigh brought home a clear pink topped box that said "Habitat" on it and directions to catch something and keep it alive for two weeks. She had to do research on what she caught and learn what it needed to eat and the different aspects in their natural habitat and to try to recreate that environment.

Sydaleigh had her heart set on catching a lizard. So, her and Isaak set out one Saturday to catch a lizard. Two hours later....do you think they caught one? Nope! So, Isaak being the great dad that he is and not wanting to disappoint his daughter paid some kids to catch one for him!

And that is how "Slip" came to our home.

Sydaleigh decided that it is a girl, and she shall be called "Slip".  Everyday she had to look for food for Slip, and when I say "she had to look for food" I mean....she looks around for a minute, points out a centipede or fly, and I take the net and catch it and feed it to Slip. 

The habitat was going well for the first week. At least it appeared to be. We watered Slip and gave her fresh leaves and insects daily, but we started noticing that no matter what we fed her, she wouldn't eat it.

And then this afternoon when we went out to check on her, I noticed that she was, dead. Well, appeared to be at first. We took her out and put her in the grass because she was definitely dying but we thought if we put her back outside it would give her one last fighting chance. No such luck. She crawled under a small nearby tree and closed her eyes forever. Marvelly was really really upset. Poor girl. She's a super sensitive kid. She took quite a liking to Slip.

I think Slip just lost the will to live. And totally starved herself which ultimately led to her death. Not eating will do that to ya. 

Dumb lizard. Now we gotta go find another "Slip" for Sydaleigh's habitat so her teacher doesn't find out we killed the last one. I will not have her grade affected because you couldn't stomach eating a freakin' fly.

Our crazy trip to Bobo.

We packed up the kids and drove with two other families and the wonderful Mr. Berry, our adopted African uncle, down to the southwest part of the country to the second largest city here called, Bobo Diolasso (but really just called Bobo).

The guys had some work meetings they had to attend on Monday but we all went down together from Sunday to Tuesday to get out of Ouaga and see a little more of this country we now call home.

What a three days it was. 

The drive alone is an adventure in itself. Driving the highways here, is, bumpy. It's one thing to drive through the dirt city streets covered in pot holes at 20 mph.

It's another thing to drive on a "highway" outside of the city. Isaak is very grateful for the defensive driving course he went to in DC. It's come in handy when you're swerving all over the road at 60mph trying to avoid not only potholes, but the oncoming vehicles that are also trying to avoid potholes on the other side of the street.

I knew this would spell disaster for Marvelly's car sickness tendency so I gave her some Dramamine and she had no problems at all! She slept almost the whole way there, which was about a 4.5 hour drive.

Despite the inevitable brain damage from the roads, we had a very nice drive. This was my first time driving through Burkina Faso, outside the city, and even though I brought my book to read, I found I couldn't pry my eyes off the window. It was just too beautiful. There was just to much to see and take in. Why would I want to miss that for a book I could read when I got home?

So I sat and watched the African world zoom by. 

We passed village after village. Men working in the fields. Women carrying baskets to and fro. People converging together under the shade of a nearby tree.

They are lands untouched by progress.

It was beautiful.

The hotel, on the other hand, left much to be desired. :~) When we arrived in Bobo we checked into our hotel to get unpacked. I'm not sure what we were thinking. I'm not sure what we all were expecting. I think the expectations were this though.....if we're staying at a 6 Star hotel, the most expensive hotel in the city, it's going to be nice. Not great perhaps, but certainly nice.

See, that's the trouble with expectations. You just shouldn't have them....ever. :~) 

*Note to self....stop having expectations.

This 6 Star hotel, the most expensive hotel in Bobo....is the equivalent to an hourly motel in the states. At first I was thinking maybe it was equivalent to a Motel-6....but no. Motel 6's are nicer. This would for sure be an hourly motel in the states. The kind that pimps and crackheads frequent. The kind that American's (including me not that long ago) would tip their noses up at and not be caught dead sleeping in.....because these are the motels in the news that you find dead people in!! Ha ha! Granted, the hourly motels aren't nice, but at least they have water.

Ours had no running water the whole time we were there. :~) Touché Burkina, touché.

Our room was actually one of the nicest out of the bunch too. Ours did not have roaches or a used condom on the night stand like our friends....so I was feeling pretty good!

The pool area wasn't half bad either. So long as you sat in a non rotted piece of lounge chair, and steered clear of the holes on the pool floor with sharp broken tiles....it was great. It even had a kid area where Marvelly could comfortably swim.

However, the no running water for three days was rough. Well, I take that back. At some point the water briefly came on at the exact time Isaak needed to take a shower. So fortuntely Isaak was able to bath one time while we were there. The rest of us had no such luck.

No shower.
No sink.
No toilets.

To say that it was stinky would be a drastic understatement.

When it's been 100 degrees outside and you have been walking and sweating profusely in a most unlady-like fashion for the majority of the day, you've gone and roamed the maze that is the Grand Market and been stepping in fish bones and eggs and all kinds of animal poo, had no soap to wash your hands because there is neither soap NOR water here, plus the fact that you haven't been able to flush your toilet in a while......yeah, that don't smell so good after three days.

Isaak had to open the windows while we slept because the smell of urine was making him nauseous. And that says a lot because he doesn't smell anything! (the hotel staff graciously placed a large water pail outside our door, but really, dumping water down the toilet really only pushes it down far enough that you can't see it anymore, you can still smell it though.)

I had to spit clean the girl's faces before bed, cringing every time I put my tongue to my hand wondering what exactly I was ingesting from my own unwashed skin.

Oh Burkina, though you are making me smell the rankest kind of rank....I love you yet.

It wasn't just our hotel that had no running water. It was city wide. Which I discovered when we went to eat at a nice restaurant Monday night and Marvelly had to go poo.

So I take her to the toilettes where I discovered that this restaurant also doesn't have running water so they too left a large pail of water outside the stall door for our use. The problem was this....I couldn't remember just how to flush the toilet using the pail of water.

Luckily Jean was close outside the door so I popped my head out and said, "Jean, get in here! Marvelly pooped and the toilet won't flush!" So she came in and told me that Sophie pooped in the other stall and she just left it because she couldn't flush it either! So now both stalls, the only ones in nice restaurant, contained our daughter's poo. Something needed to be done. 

A week ago when we had no running water at our house I remembered Isaak bringing in some water from the pool and saying it needed to be poured in the tank to flush it.

Okay. So Jean hauls in the large pail and we try to take off the lid to the tank. Except the dang thing is like glued on! Who the heck glues on a toilet tank lid! We could only shimmy it off about one inch and we looked at each other in that moment and said ...."maybe we can just pick up the pail and pour the water in the one inch space really slowly and really carefully."

This is one of those moments where I should have looked at my past history and said, "disaster is imminent, put down the pail and leave the poo as is. "

But I didn't.

So as Jean squeezed into the corner between the toilet and the wall holding up the large bucket of water, I stood neck to the toilet and wall on the other side holding back the toilet lid.

Okay, here's the thing.....when you are holding a large bucket containing several gallons of water and you have a one inch space to pour it in, chances are it's not gonna come out slowly.

Which it didn't.

It came out fast.

And it spilled all over the toilet, the floor, our shoes, and floor length dresses.

None of it made it into the tank to flush the poo away.

So now the bathroom not only still contained rank smellin' poo it was flooded with water. Nice. 

After we saw what we did, we looked at each other, laughed, and said, "let's get out of here!!"

And we bolted outta that bathroom before anyone could see that we were the culprits behind the flood. Though the fact that our shoes were sloshing and leaving behind wet foot prints may have given us away. 

Oh Burkina.....the things I go through for you.

Despite the...difficulties.....we had a good time. We all, kids included, got to spend the weekend with some dear friends. The kids found some fun ways to entertain themselves.......

we explored the city on foot, visiting the Grand Market and a Catholic Church.

We were all suppose to speak to a number of Burkinabé students about American culture, but none of them turned out to speak English (we were told they were all English speakers) so only Jean and Mike spoke, seen as they speak French pretty well. I had planned to talk to them about Motown music since I was born in Michigan and Motown came out of Detroit, but since I wasn't speaking, I got to hang out outside for a bit and race a bunch of Burkinabé kids who were hanging around doing races with Sydaleigh, Marvelly, Luke and Ben. We had the best time!

We went mask shopping. I'm not really into masks so I picked up a necklace and a tablecloth, and we found a shop run by these women who recycle black plastic bags and make everything from dolls, to purses and coaster, you name it. The girls each bought a little doll.

On the way out of town we stopped at a nice ice cream shop. Oh my gosh it had four ice cream flavors! We were so happy!! Most places have one or two, but they had four, FOUR....vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and banana. Happy day!

On the way home me and Isaak were talking about how in the states we'd be so upset if an ice cream shop only had four measly flavors. Most places you go there is at least ten. Baskin Robbins has 30. Even the self serve yogurt stores popping up on every corner have tons of flavors and toppings to pick from. Stepping back from my culture has taught me much about gratitude. Many times having "options" only leads to furthered dissatisfaction. I feel like Jesus is using this land of Burkina to slap the dissatisfaction right out of me. Teaching me to be content with two ice cream flavors. Shoot....to be happy when we can find a place that even serves ice cream! What a sweet treat. That ice cream was good down to the past drop...as Sophie and Marvelly demonstrated!

So that was our first trip through the frontier of Burkina to Bobo. That's what they call the outlying land here. I had been calling it "the bush", but in Burkina it is known as "the frontier".

I liked Bobo. It was smaller and less busy. You didn't have to worry about mowing down fifty people when you backed up in the car. People left you alone when you shopped (for the most part). In Ouaga they crowd and push and live in the chaos that comes with city life. Bobo was a little slower. A nice place to escape to when life in Ouaga gets to be too much.

However, next time I will know not to come expecting the hotels here to be the American equivalent. There is no American equivalent here. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world for a reason. Never in my life would I have looked at water in a hotel as a luxury!! Oh Burkina....I salute you for your continued ability to teach me how to live your way!

Gosh this place makes me smile. :~) No running water and all.