Issue #19
May 3, 1999
Dear Friends and Family,
Hi! This past week was busy, and I have several interesting things to tell you about.
This week was elementary Spiritual Emphasis Week. Each day a different African Folktale was shared and then it was related to the Bible. I also told the missionary story Ti-Fam throughout the week, which was a lot of fun. All of the kids were divided up into six different teams. Throughout the week, each group worked on coming up with their own folktale. My group decided we wanted to do something a little different. Our story was "How the Peach Got Its Hair." We used the saying the coffee will give you hair on chest. Instead the peach drank Nescafe (an instant coffee) and got hair on its head. We ended with (You'll have to be familiar with VeggieTales for this to make sense.) with Bob the Tomato coming in and seeing Peach's hair. He then returns with a hairbrush, and about that time Larry shouts, "Where's my hairbrush?" Then the song, "Where is My Hairbrush" started. It was a lot of fun, and I think the kids really enjoyed it. We did have a bit a problem trying to come up with the Biblical theme for ours so we let the rest of the kids do it. They decided it was sharing since Larry let the Peach keep his hairbrush.
Thursday was my birthday so it was a fun day. The singles had a surprise party planned for me. All I knew was that we were going to eat at my favorite restaurant in town. It ended up that we started out at my house with appetizers, and then we went to Black and White to eat. Afterwards we went to Kathy and Peter's house (My roommate from last year that got married.) and had ice cream sundaes, cake and prizes (our word for presents). Since it was my 29th birthday on the 29th day of the month, they said it was my golden birthday, and they focused on that. I got a lot of 29 of things, like 29 bags of tea, 29 M&M's(they were even the new kind with the rice crispy things in the middle), 29 toothpicks, stickers, 50 franc coins, erasers, notecards, face cleaner squares, pennies, root beer barrel candies, toilet paper squares (hey, you never know when you might need those in Africa), packages of kool-aid (I was excited!), pieces of assorted candy. It was a really a lot of fun.
This week was also the Little League Tournament for the 4th - 6th graders. So when I wasn't doing something else that needed to be done, I was down watching baseball games. They only practice for one week and play for one week here so there is a lot crammed into that time period.
We definitely had an interesting snake event this week. First of all some background information for those of you who don't know so it will all make sense. I live in the "high-rise." It is a two-story building with two apartments downstairs and two upstairs. Mandy and I live upstairs, and Brenda and Lizzie live right below us. On Friday just before lunch Mandy was on her way upstairs, and she looked at Brenda and Lizzie's screen door and saw a snake on it, on the inside that is. When she got closer the snake took off inside the house. Mandy yelled for help. A couple of the African workers showed up and looked around for it, but couldn't find it. They finally killed a lizard thinking that was what she saw, but Mandy knew it wasn't a lizard. Those workers left and a little while later Paschall, the worker over all of the rest of them, came by and asked Lizzie what had happened. She explained to him about the snake, and he said they would find it. He left and came back with 3 other workers. They searched the entire house and couldn't find the snake. They were back in the living room. Paschall said, "No one has seen the snake leave so it must still be in here so we'll just start over in here and go through the house again." At the same time he picked up one of the wicker living room chairs and gave it a thunk. Out fell the snake on the floor. He killed it. It was a green mamba, which is very poisonous. God's protection was definitely there. The fact that Mandy saw it and that they were able to find it again. We are still watching out around here because mambas usually travel in pairs. I think I'm glad I live upstairs. The other apartment downstairs had a cobra in it last year.
This past weekend was Outreach Weekend for the high school students. They weren't sure how this weekend was going to turn out. There was potential for there to be a lot of resistance in the village they were going. The village has a school that trains witch doctors, and some offshoot of Catholicism. There is no evangelical church and very few Christians. There was a lot of time spent in prayer before the team went out. Throughout the week it was even questionable if they were going to get to go. First one of the buses broke down and couldn't be fixed in time. Then the students all of Cote d'Ivoire are on strike, and it was getting violent in some areas. One of the towns they had to go through could have been bad. They were finally able to go. They had to take two extra vans and drivers. They left Friday afternoon with 5 vehicles, the bus, 3 vans, and a truck all filled to capacity with people and supplies. The arrived in Abengourou with no problems to stay at 2 different missionaries homes. On Friday evening they went out inviting people to come to the service on Saturday night. There was a funeral in the village that night, but they were still able to talk to quite a few people. Some were even able to witness and lead some people to Christ. On Saturday morning, they went to a Teacher Training College. Some of the kids who don't speak French very well were able to share in English. There were also several people who were saved here. On Saturday evening they had the big service. They did encounter several problems. After all of the equipment was set up, it began to rain. They prayed, and it stopped. In the middle of the presentation, the sound equipment quit working. They prayed while the guys worked on it. It began working again. They showed that video once again after they got the equipment working. Afterward, the kids went out in groups witnessing and several more people came to know Christ. When one of the groups asked the person they were talking to what first made them get interested in receiving Christ, they said when they sound equipment stopped working and they saw the kids gather in prayer. The kids here do have a ministry and many of them really have a heart for seeing people come to Christ. The team made it back safely. God answered prayer for this entire weekend.
Please pray for those that accepted Christ this weekend. Several were Muslim or animists. It is highly likely that the will experience persecution for their decisions. Also pray these Christians will join together and be able to start a church in this village soon. Pray for the Belle Isle's (missionaries with Christian and Missionary Alliance) and the Sikes' (missionaries with Southern Baptist) as the work in this area and with the people of this village.
Remember to keep praying for staff for next year. We have had a couple of more names appear but there are still many vacancies.
Hope you didn't mind that this was a long newsletter.
In Christ,
Traci