BF 2012: Day 7

Picking up from yesterday...

Last night, we went to church at La Vie Nouvelle. It was so good. Dr. Dan preached about living and walking by faith. It was a beautiful message to hear and apply to what we are doing. After he finished, Pastor Ouida got up and went African style on the sermon. He said, "You say you're living by faith, but where are you on Sunday morning or Wednesday nights?" "You say you have work at night, but you're watching TV" and (my favorite) "You don't volunteer to teach Sunday school or sweep the church". So true. Another fine example of "people are people everywhere". We do the same thing in our churches. It's easy to walk into church, sit, lend an ear for a few minutes, and leave. But what does living really look like? It is something ordained by God and can be seen by all everyone. I felt motivated to go home and "outlive your life" (Pinelake plug...) because it is the real deal. Being passive is easy. Being a Christian is not easy, and I knew that when I accepted Jesus. My prayer is to give up the easy life and really live and walk out my faith.

We had dinner at a French restaurant. It was 3 hours. We got home at 12:15 (yeah, after midnight). But, boy. Some laughs were had. At one point, I was in the bathroom and I could hear our group hooting and hollering.

This morning, we woke up early and went to the women's shelter. It is a shelter in the works by the local Burkinabe women's ministry. The girls (Susan, Joyce, and me) were going to make curtains, but the sewing machine wouldn't work. Mrs. Kathy brought a projector and the ladies traced the logo of the shelter. After lunch, we painted the logo. Seth and Aaron (and some African bros) moved a huge pile of dirt, dug a ditch, and leveled the land. Ya know, man stuff. Physical serving is so encouraging because you can actually see the work being done. Always a healthy thing to do. 

Seth and I spent some time this afternoon riding around Ouga with Mrs. Kathy and looked at some parts of the city. It was fun! Mrs. Kathy and Mr. Jay have taken such good care of us and truly gone above and beyond. I am so thankful we got to share such special times together with them this week.  The team also went to dinner at their house tonight. It was a wonderful time of fellowship. 

We just finished our team meeting. It was a powerful of reflection of the week. I really loved it. So blessed to have gotten to spend this week with these awesome people. God has a way of carefully knitting a mission team together, and this team is no different. Everyone's gifts are used and NEEDED. I will always cherish the special times we got to spend together.

I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is our last day in Ouga. We leave tomorrow night to head back. I'm too tired to upload pictures tonight, but I'll try tomorrow. A demain!!!