Garden of Eden

From as early as I could remember we would go camping every year for a week or two in April. This was between the hot dry season and the coming rainy season. Since we were at Boarding School for 9 months out of the year in the Ivory Coast, we were on a trimester system. So we had a short 3 week vacation around Easter. It became a tradition for a lot of the Burkina missionaries to come from all over the country to this one place to go camping. This was the "Garden of Eden."

Burkina is a savanna landscape, that means means it's relatively bare with random assortments of bushes, trees and tall grass. There are a few areas, however, where rivers flow through the country and are surrounded by a lush, green landscape. The Ganguette River was such a place, the most beautiful. The river flows from what we called the "source." The source was a shallow area which the water bubbled up from the bottom, through the rocks and sand. It was covered with brush and trees, you couldn't stand up under here. My dad spent hours snorkeling here, looking for precious stones.

The water flowed downstream from there in a heavy current, but pooled in several different areas. We named each pool, one was the Protestant pool, the other was the Nun's pool. The Nun's pool was where we spent most of our time. There was more bank to work with. We would jump off the side or swing in on a vine. One of the dads tied a rope to the big tree hanging over and we would swing from the bank and drop in the middle.

The water was completely clear. You could see every rock at the bottom of the river. It was really an incredible place. Sometimes we would work our way upstream, which was very taxing, then we would just lay back and float back down. In fact we made a whole day's event out of it. We would get on some big innertubes and start at the nuns pool and float downriver for about an hour or so to the bridge, which is where the rest of the crew would meet us with lunch. Then we would sun there for a couple of hours and then drive back into our campsite.

Now camping in Africa is so different from here. We had the macdaddy tents with the screened in porch area, bunk bed cots, a port-a-potty. Some missionaries would dig a hole for an outhouse. That's the part I didn't like. Mom had a whole cabinet just for camping dishes and appliances. Every few days someone would ride into town to get big blocks of ice for our coolers. We took baths and washed our clothes in the river. We mainly wore bathing suits all day.

The only thing we had to worry about were snakes and hippos. I used to be a little freaked about that. The hippos would come out at night, you could hear them thrashing around on the river banks. Some of the older kids would be daring, or maybe it was stupid, and they would go swimming at night. The called it "hippo swimming" or something like that. Random Fact: Did you know that one hippo molar is the size of a saucer? My biggest fear, however, was and still is to this day, seaweed. My mom says that when I was really young she had me on a tube to float down river and I got stuck by myself in a blob of seaweed. That explains itself.

So, I used to think that the Bible was mistaken and God did not forbid anyone from entering the Garden of Eden. Because, to me, this was a pretty perfect place--aside from the grubs, snakes, seaweed and hippos. To little me, it was THE Garden!

What is Burkina Faso?

Well, you can read more factual info. about Burkina Faso online or you can read what I have to say about it and my personal experience (or both). Burkina is a land-locked country with very few resources, therefore making it the 27th poorest country in the world. The average income per year is $1200. Can you imagine? The unemployment rate is so high that there is a lot of emigration to neighboring countries like Ghana and the Ivory Coast to work on the plantations there.

I lived there for the first 6 years of my life among the Bwa people of the Red Bobo tribe. I lived with my family in a village, Ouarokoye (water-koy) on top of a hill. We lived in a cement house with a kitchen and bathroom. But, our water came from a well down the hill, which had to be pumped up the hill each day to fill our cisterns. We had "running" water because it would then be pumped from the cistern to the barrels above the house.

When I was real young, I remember taking sponge baths because we didn't have a water heater, so mom would heat water on our kerosene stove and put it in big tubs. We also had a kerosene fridge, which my mom labored over for hours, refilling the tank and making sure the pilot was lit. We had all of these appliances because we did not have running electricity. Dad would run the generator a couple of hours a night for supper and family time of reading and games, etc. We would also run the wringer washer (anyone seen one of those bad boys?) a couple of times a week for laundry and then hang up all of the clothes. It was a whole day process, wringing from the washer to the first rinse, then ring again for the second rinse, then wring again to hang up. Just writing about it now makes me very thankful for my modern day appliances that make it so much less time consuming.

My days consisted of playing with African friends, rounding up our chickens, helping my mom cook and bake, playing in the dirt and on our little playground. We went on a lot of walks, mostly to pick fruit called, "nya" or "zaba." I remember afternoons, we would take a rest during the hottest part of the day, then we would get up and mom would make popcorn (in a pan) and pop open a couple of cold cokes. This was always such a treat.

Since my mom is a nurse, people would walk for miles to come and be treated or get medicine. She could basically act as a doctor and prescribe and sell medications at an affordable cost to the patients. I saw some gross things. I helped her count out medications, mostly anti-malaria and put them into little bags. Mom would also teach the women basic hygiene for themselves and their babies and try to vaccinate as many as she could.

Dad was there to translate the Bible into the Bwamu language. It took them at least 3 or more years just to learn the language and develop an alphabet. It was a painstaking process that he worked on for years. He did a lot of traveling on his moped into the "bush" to little villages that had not heard the gospel. They would do evangelisms there and then move onto another village. Sometimes he was welcomed, sometimes not. He always had to get permission from the village chief. Churches would start, but they needed a pastor. Most of the people are uneducated, so who would teach? A Bible School was started to train up pastors among their own tribes. It was so neat to see that process.

So...Burkina is many things. I've just barely scratched the surface. It was a famine-raged and war-torn country in the 80's. I remember several coup d'etats. My dad experienced 17 or so during his lifetime as a missionary in West Africa. But that didn't change the people. Most of the people are the sweetest, most generous that you would ever meet. It's a place where you can focus on what really matters--relationships! I love that I got to experience Burkina Faso. Thanks for learning a little bit about me.

Am I LOST? Or are they LOST?

Yep, I've dedicated hours and hours of my free time to catching up on the past three seasons of LOST. I'm convinced that the title is meant for all the viewers and not the actual storyline. Now that I'm caught up and I've seen the season premiere, I'm more confused than ever. I'm not a LOST junkie, although I am very committed to the show and will defend it at all costs. But I don't join chat rooms or read the LOST magazine to figure everything out. Just when I think, they can't possibly twist it any more, they manage to.

I'm not so sure I like the recent "flash forwards" (who knows, some of the older ones that we thought were flashbacks, are they really?) And maybe they really aren't "flash forwards" because they could do that to us, too. It's like they're controlling us, they're dangling the fresh bacon in front of us like we're salivating, starving dogs. And, we will gobble it up, whether it's really bacon or not because we ARE LOST! Arghh...I didn't think I was that easy.

Same Kind of Different as Me!

I borrowed this title from a wonderful book that our church body is reading. It's about the relationship that develops between a black homeless man that grew up on the sharecropping plantations of Louisiana and a rich white art dealer. It's an incredible book that I would recommend to everyone to read. The book helped to open up my eyes to lots of different issues and harsh realities that I've hardened my heart to. Since I've been going to counseling and dealing with my emotions and feelings, my heart has been softened. Sometimes it's too much to handle.

A friend and I were having breakfast several weeks ago and were talking about the problem of homelessness, especially in the cold weather. The unsolved problems seemed too heavy for a breakfast conversation. We both felt hopeless. But as I left I started to think about what God has been teaching me over the last several months. Number one, nothing is hopeless when we allow God to be in control and we trust Him with our hearts and passions. Also, it is so important to do SOMETHING about the pain we feel for those that are suffering. Whether it's prayer for the earthquake victims across the world, volunteering at a pregnancy care center, supporting a child through Compassion International or serving at Urban Ministries and Salvation Army. I see through the gospels how Jesus had compassion on the poor and suffering. He brought healing, but it was always through relationship. Even the sick woman who just touched His robe when He passed by and was healed, He also filled her need for His acknowledgment by publicly forgiving her sins.

So, even though the Evil One wants to derail us from doing or caring for anyone with a lot of issues or under a lot of oppression, we don't have to fall into his snare of hopelessness and defeat. I'm seeing how much time and effort it takes to build relationships with people that are different from me. Although their situations are not changing, their hearts can be changed by my relationship with them. Because I am the daughter of the King and therefore, through me, they are seeing God's love and freedom for them. Even though it "feels" like I'm not doing much because I'm not changing someone's circumstances, I am showing them compassion, their true need.

My friend Vicky has helped me see the grand picture. She's been an addict for years and has been rejected by her family. It seems hopeless, but a measure of success for her is seeing that she is unconditionally loved and beginning to believe and trust in that. Hmmm....I'm not so different than her. I see my lack of unbelief in that area. Although I don't use drugs to numb my pain and rejection, I fall to other more hidden means to numb my pain. The more time I spend with her, the more I realize that I need and have God's love and forgiveness as much as her. Even though building a relationship with her is not changing the face of homelessness in Greensboro, it is one drop in the bucket. If every believer had one friend like Vicky, think of the impact that would make! Just a thought....