November 2008 - Posts
So apparently Africa has attack lizards!
As I was walking around with Tom to make a list of items the team would need to bring from the States, we walked outside to look at the generator room and tool room. I was standing just outside, enjoying the sun, when we heard a massive ruckus above us on the metal roof. I stepped back to try and catch a glimpse of what it was, when over the roof ledge flew about a 6 inch lizard in a sky dive position, claws out, and a mean look in its eye, except for a slight smug grimace of enjoyment on its scaly mouth. Of course it seemed like slow motion as the attack lizard hit me square on the left temple, tail striping my collar bone. He slid down my face, leaped triumphantly off my shoulder, and retreated around the corner of the tool room laughing the whole way. I was so stunned at what just occurred that I lost everything Tom was telling me and mumbled some incomprehensible sounds ending in “Damn Lizard!”
Over lunch I learned that when Mamado was the only Christian in this area, he prayed for over a year straight, not missing a day, for missionaries to come and give his language the Bible. In fact, Nohoua and the other two Christians in Tangrela, Cote d’Ivoire are starting to pray the same now since they have no Bible in their language.
So, I’m still sitting under the tree with Douda and Salifou as I read and tend to my bloody blisters. I read in The Shack, “Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.” Why is it that my generation seems apathetic to growth, un-wanting to change and terrified of risk. I’m not talking about the Xtreme movement that swept through youth groups and even the secular world leaving a wake of Xtreme sports, Xtreme energy drinks, Xtreme Baptist whatever youth ministry. I mean the risk that involves eternal significance; spiritual worth-while-ness. Where are the people who will heed the call to battle, take up the banner of risk, and march fearlessly into the midst of darkness, shining the illuminating glory of the One True King? Where are the 1 Corinthians 16:13 men? Where are the armor bearers of God who will give up comfort, “security,” and life to fulfill God’s mandate on this broken world? Who will go to Africa with me; whether by sending sacrificially or going? John Piper said, “Go, send, or disobey!”
Nohoua (pronounced Noah) rode his bike four hours one way from Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to come see me today. Nohoua is a charming young man, still attending high school, and a strong leader in the church that was started by the Requadts in Tangrela, Cote d’Ivoire. A civil war and coup broke out in Cote d’Ivoire forcing the Requadts to flee as rebels marched in ransacking everything in sight. But the Requadts have maintained communication with Nohoua and the church in Cote d’Ivoire. He knows a little bit of English, so we talked in simple vocabulary and occasionally asked Laura to translate into French or English. He then looked at me and asked,
“Bear, why do you refuse to go to Cote d’Ivoire?!”
This question struck me because it is the same question I have been asking since we first started researching Mali and felt drawn to Mali. Why Mali? Why not somewhere else? But being here, unless I’m not really listening, has confirmed Mali in my heart and mind. Of course I will have to confirm this with Justin and Leah and inquire about their prayers for confirmation, but I pray they will be confirmed about Mali as I am. That would really seal the deal! Before dinner, I taught Nohoua how to turn on a computer, bring up an application like Word, typing basics, and how to shut it off. He was passed for an apprenticeship because he didn’t know how to turn on a computer and was sent home in shame. He is going to try again, but if he doesn’t get this non-paid internship… then he doesn’t get a job… and if he doesn’t get a job… he starves or farms, which is just for survival and not for profit… and more than likely could not get a wife. The only reason he is able to attend high school is because the Requadts saw what a hard worker this young Christian man is and decided to help supplement the cost. If he doesn’t get the internship, he has another option that shows the plight of African educational systems. He can apply to be an elementary or primary school teacher that runs from first grade to sixth. He would get two weeks of training and then sent into a classroom. On holiday breaks, he would get a little more training. In fact, out of the twenty or so kids that come to Laura’s Bible club, only a handful can read or write their own name and these are kids in the sixth grade! Laura put up a memory verse for the kids to memorize, which most is done orally, and the “readers” were stumped on a word. So Laura tried to get them to sound it out phonetically (which Laura had to teach them that letters have given sounds), but the kids were still stumped. After further investigation, Laura found out that the kids did not know what a Y or W was, let alone what sound went with it. The kids that come to the Bible club are “excelling” in school because, again sixth graders, Laura taught them to read. In fact, to cover this plight and raise statistics, the government’s survey on the literacy of its people is if they can write their own name, and the statistics are still extremely low! Low as in less than 50% of the population! Oh, what a multifaceted calling God has given the team! http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_lit_tot_pop-education-literacy-total-population; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/World_literacy_map_UNHD_2007_2008.png
“Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship.” – The Shack by William Young
In regards to discovering the landscape of my heart: “I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later… when you’re ready.” – The Shack Could it be that we, sometimes, hide behind head knowledge and cerebral exercises so that we don’t have to deal with the pain and hurt in our hearts, the confusion and muck, the sin?
Douda, Salifou, and I set out for Mamado’s field this morning. I, of course on the awkwardly small bike, the other two on Douda’s bike with Salifou on the back. We hoed several rows, posed for pictures, explained to passerbies on the road why a white man is hoeing in Mamado’s field, and then I made my first of probably a million miscommunications. Douda asked if I was tired and mistakenly I said, “Yes. I’m tired.” I mean, I was tired. The short handled hoes force you to bend completely over and then use all of your upper body, but mostly your lower back, to dig weeds out of the tough ground. When Adam screwed up, he royally screwed up! Sweat mixed with dirt which mixed with broken and bloody blisters on my hands. Seventeen years of schooling has made my hands and back soft. So when I told Douda I was tired, I really meant it, but to them, it was as if I said I was finished.
They collected the hoes and our water bottles and started to walk. I stopped, confused, and pointed to the remaining rows left to be weeded and said, “We finish?” Douda enthusiastically replied, “We finish!” and kept walking. Again, “Weee fin-ish?!” pointing more enthusiastically at the unfinished rows (because apparently if you slow down and speak loud with frantic hand motions, everyone understands [sarcasm]). Again the reply was, “We finish!” and more walking. So, we made our trek home, stopping off to buy some tea, sugar, and roasted peanuts. We grabbed Mamado’s tea set at his house and peddled home to face the uncertainty of us returning after only 2 or 3 hours of work in the field. We rode up to the house to an outbreak of laughter. Jokes were thrown out and deep belly laughter was shared. I tried to make them blame it on me and showed my blistered hands, but to no avail. So the only thing to do was to sit under a tree, make tea flavored sugar, eat peanuts, and be in each other’s company. Since we couldn’t talk past simple greetings, which get old fast in a “conversation,” and random vocabulary lessons in Bamabara and the Senoufo dialect, Douda studied the next few memory verses for the kids Bible club, Salifou dutifully attended the slow process of tea making, and I wrote about both of them without their knowledge. Then came the slightly less potent 2nd round of tea flavored sugar.
“Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit one’s self – to serve.” – The Shack
Just as I read this, Salifou poured the tea into the two little shot glasses on a serving tray, walked over to Tom and Mamado, and served them the tea. In fact, in the Senoufo culture, when something good happens to one person, that person’s first reaction is to share with all, or at least the one’s around him. Even the children practice this at a very early age. When one gets a cookie for reciting a verse from memory, he instantly breaks it apart and divvies it out to the delight of the others. They purposefully limit what they get and share it to others. What a picture that sadly American Christianity lacks, perpetuated by the all powering “American Dream.” I can’t help to wonder if the New Heaven and the New Earth wouldn’t be a little like this: A sweet labor, not tedious or hard which came with the Fall, in the fields of the New Earth. Sitting together speaking one tongue that all could understand because the Fall at the Tower of Babble had been reconciled with the triumphant return of Jesus in the end times, and everybody serving each other with peals of laughter rolling like thunder in this, literally, glorious place.
After the deadly viper was extinguished, Douda proclaimed (as if the snake didn’t even phase him), “We finish!” We then set out on a vocabulary hunt. We would stop randomly, walk into a field and Douda would point at an object (plant, cow, plow, creek, valley, stump, axe, bike), whatever was new and say the word in Bambara and then in his Senoufo dialect. I would repeat each word several times until Douda and Salifou were satisfied with my pronunciation or laugh and say, “Let go!” The word for creek is very challenging in Senoufo. To say it, it seems that you have to swallow the word in the back of your throat and voice it at the same time, while the vowel is nasalized. This word took three tries, some laughs and a “Let go!” Justin would be in heaven with our vocabulary hunt. Justin is the linguistical brain of the team. In August 2009, he and Leah (his wife) are moving to Dallas to study in the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics put on by SIL/ Wycliffe. God has really put this team together because his strengths are my weaknesses and my strengths are some of his weaknesses. I praise God daily for putting Justin and Leah in my life!
We finally arrived back at Douda’s village where we stopped to greet the whole family. To be polite, they would serve me tea that had more sugar in it than water. We did this several times at different huts and I felt as if I just drank 6 gallons of sugar that had tea flavoring. I like this custom though because it takes a very long time to make the tea in which you sit and talk. Then there are several rounds of the tea, each round getting progressively weaker, which there is still more talking. I could really see the team going from courtyard to courtyard, sitting through several rounds of tea each, and slowly learning their language. It might be awkward at first when we really don’t know the language, but with as much sugar as we will consume doing this, we will have all night to talk and learn since we won’t be able to sleep.
Douda said, “We finish. Let go!” and we set off back to the Requadt’s for lunch. Along the way, we passed some carved sticks implanted in the ground and found out by Salifou and Douda that these sticks are where the fetishers offer sacrifices. Over all I think Douda took it easy on me, but these people struggle and work harder than any American I know; just to survive. Without my say or having an option, I have been recruited to work in Mamado’s field tomorrow.
The thunder storms out here are marvelous, powerful, wondrous, and awe striking. As the storm rolls in, it reminds me of an angry ocean inverted in the sky, breaking in waves, producing horrible deep screams from within its grey and green billows. Tom and I just got back from our walk, when God allowed the clouds to take its wrath out on the dry red ground. Lightning swirled through the sky and flashed to the ground, striking utter terror in the small children, which had no problem cowering under a filthy rag for a sense of security. A storm of this magnitude reminds me of God’s awesome power and wonderfully beautiful creativity. Piper’s words from his sermon Don’t Waste Your Life (you can hear it free on www.desiringgod.org), rolls through my head with each peel of thunder, “Our lives are held by a slender thread of God’s sovereign grace!” How is it that God would call me first for salvation, which is infinitely more than I deserve, but secondly for the privilege of serving the King in Mali. Oh the adventures and life that God has allowed me thus far and I pray for the rest of the time He would give me. My life has been one streaming adventure, full of twist and turns; of foreign and exotic journeys. Why is God so good to me?! Why has He provided so much?! Why has He seemingly kept me since my miracle birth for Him and His service, despite my stupid rebellion and laziness?! Such mysteries of His goodness and grace! I’m overwhelmed!!
Laura made snicker doodles which are fabulous and since the humidity is so high, the cookies go soft, so we have to eat them fast. Yet another example of God’s grace. Note to self: have wife learn how to make snicker doodles from scratch.
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