Real Living

I spent most of my time in Torogo living with an Africa family in Korohogo (a city a couple of towns over from Korohogo). Let me tell you, it was quite the experience. It was so wonderful at times and so hard other times.  It was definitely a time for me to completely rely on the Lord for patience, strenth, love and energy.

Marilyn is 29. She works at the dispensary in the baby room. She lives with her mom, younger sister and 2 other little kids. These people became my family. They were so great, so generous and hospitable.  Marilyn spoke French to me, but the rest of her family spoke mostly Cebarra. So once I finally felt like I was getting a handle on this whole French speaking thing, I move in with a family who speaks mostly Cebarra..

This is what an average day looked like for me:

Marilyn and I woke up between 5:30 and 5:45. We went and got our water from the well for our morning bucket baths. We both took our baths and got ready for work. Then we had a 30-minute moto ride from Korohogo to the dispensary in Torogo. We worked at the dispensary from about 7:30 until 3:30 or 4. We rode our moto back home and hung out with the family for a little bit. At around 5 we started preparing dinner. We would usually make some sort of sauce with either rice or kabato.  At 6:15 Marilyn and I would go to church because for the week that I was living there her church was having a nightly conference. The conference consisted of music, worship, dancing and a sermon.  It was really fun and I got to meet so many wonderful people! After church ended we would go visit some of her neighbors or friends. Then at about 9 we would go home and eat dinner, take our night baths and then go to sleep!

Spending a little over a week with an African family was probably the best experience I could have asked for. I didn’t realize how “American” the guest houses were that I was staying in. In the African home not only was it physically hard (sleeping on a concrete floor, getting water out of a well, cooking dinner with out a stove) but it was also mentally exhausting. There is so much work and effort that goes into every little thing. Even just communicating with someone. Just trying to say that I want to take a nap or I haven’t washed yet took so much time, patience and work. I know that this week was a true test from the Lord.  Daily I had to rely on Him to get me through the day. There was absolutely no other way I could do it.

I am so thankful to the Lord for being so faithful and getting me through the week. It was an amazing experience that I will forever be thankful for.  The lesson I learned from my African family and the lessons that the Lord taught me, I honestly don’t think I could have learned anywhere or anyway else. I truly learned what it means to pray without ceasing. I love that family dearly. Marilyn even gave me a Cebarra name! My name is Yèlè, which means first daughter. It was so sweet to know that Marilyn thinks of me as her daughter and as part of her family.

the entrance to the courtyard

part of the courtyard (the little room on the left is where i went to the bathroom...)

part of the courtyard

dinner with mom!

the living room

MY WONDERFUL FAMILY

(by the way-ivorians don't really smile in pictures)

The Dispensary

Internet has been really hard to come by so I apologize for the lack of updates! 

On June 25^th I left Ferke and moved west to a little town called Torogo to work at the dispensary there. The dispensary is mostly an out-patient clinic. They do dressing changes, patient consultations, prenatal consultations, vaccinations clinics, diabetic clinics and more.

For the 2 weeks I was there I worked in a different place every day, so I got a little taste of everything.

Mondays I worked in the dressing room doing dressing changes for patients.

Tuesdays I was in patient consultations with a diagnostician. We saw so many patients in one day. Mostly patients came in with malaria or HIV but occasionally there were some other cool things I got to see.

Wednesdays I was in OB-GYB helping with prenatal checkups. My favorite part of that was using the Doppler to find the baby’s heartbeat! I loved that!

Thursdays I worked the vaccination clinic giving babies the needed vaccinations. So many moms came and brought the babies. I was really impressed with numbers! I got to give a lot of shots, which is always good practice! But unfortunately I made so many babies cry. After the vaccination clinic I went to go weigh all the babies in the baby room with Marilyn!

Fridays I worked the diabetic clinic. I checked in patients, took their blood sugar, weight, blood pressure and handed out the sugar free oatmeal we give them.  After the clinic I would usually go help Marilyn in the baby room or go to the injection room and help give injections.

the dispensary

the vaccination clinic

the diabetic clinic

the chart room

Friendship

These are my wonderful friends Catherine and Naomi. I love when I get to spend time and visit with them!!

Wedding Dance

Last Sunday afternoon, I got to go with Diane to a Wedding Dance. A week before a woman gets married, there is a huge dance in her mother’s courtyard. All the women from the village and church come! It was so much fun!

The women get up and sing in all these different languages!  The person who is singing sings one line then everyone else responds while dancing. 

Naomi taught me how to dance! She told me that I didn’t do to bad for my first time! 

naomi & me

I kinda stick out, don't I?

The Tiepogovogo Village

Sunday morning I got to go into the Nyarafolo Tiepogovogo village. This is the village where Linn and Glenn do their ministry. Originally I was supposed to ride down there with Rebecca on her moto but the moto ended up breaking down with in the first 5 minutes of our ride. But that’s ok because my 5 minute moto ride was awesome! (Pictures coming soon!) So in light of the moto breaking down, I got to ride into the village with Linn, Glenn and the other 3 girls.  Linn and Glenn have been doing ministry with the Nyarafolo people since the 80’s. There is a church pretty well established in the Tiepogovogo village and there are other church plants in the works in other villages. It is really amazing to sit down and talk with them about their ministry and their hearts for the Nyarafolo people. Linn is the head of the translation team that is working on getting the whole bible translated into Nyarafolo.  My first day here in Cote d’Ivoire I sat down with her and got to talk with her all about the translation project. It is absolutely incredible. There is so much work that goes into translating the bible into another language. It blew my mind. So with all that said, I was really excited to get to see this village where Linn and Glen do their work!

Once we got to village we had to go around and greet everyone.  We got to walk around the whole village and see everything! It was so cool. We even got to go into one of the huts! The women live in round huts and men live in rectangle huts. All the huts of a family are centered around a middle courtyard. After we met and greeted everyone, we walked up to the church.

Worshiping with the Nyarafolo people was so amazing. It was such an amazing feeling to know that the God that they are singing to in Nyarafolo is the same God that I sing to in English. After we sang some songs, prayer requests were shared and announcements were said. Me, Lindsay, Heather and Sarah were then all introduced to the whole church! Then the pastor came up and preached out of Number 22. Linn was so kind to translate all of the songs and the sermon for us. After the sermon was over, me and the other 3 girls got to be the first to leave the chapel. Everyone then came out and shook our hands, welcomed us and thanked us for coming. It was really sweet.

After church was over we were invited to stay and have lunch with the village. We had rice with a choice of a peanut sauce or a green leaf sauce. I chose both! They were both very good!

This is the church

Inside the church

Lunch after church

Picture outside the village!

The village

 On our way back into town we stopped and had our picture taken with a termite mound. Pretty crazy, huh?

The Market

Last Thursday, Linn took me and the other 3 girls to the market because Thursday is Ferke’s market day! The market was filled with people selling fabric, vegetables, fruits, meats, crafts and so much other stuff! We all bought fabric for pangas. A panga is basically a piece of fabric that you wrap around your waist as a skirt. You also use them to carry your baby on your back.

There were so many choices to choose from! They were all so pretty!

So we all bought a couple different designs and now we all have our own pangas!!

The Hospital

  These are some pictures of the hospital in Ferke where I am working!

This is the offices on the left and the chapel on the right

This is the waiting area for the clinic in the hospital. Further to the left patients check in. The green doors are consultation rooms and the pharmacy is on the far right.

Any patient who has to stay overnight in the hospital must have a guardian with them. The guardian is responsible for washing their clothes, all the patients hygiene and also cooking for the patients. Most of the time people end up having to move their whole family onto the grounds of the hospital. They will sleep in the hospital courtyard or on the sidewalks. This is a picture of where the guardians do their cooking.

This is where the guardians take baths, wash clothes and wash dishes 

Patient and guardian bathroom

Laundry

This is the courtyard in the center of all the in-patient wards.

MANGO TREES! There are so many of them all over the grounds of the hospital! The mangos are delicious!! I eat at least one a day!

Visits

Every night here I go with Diane and we go visit people at their houses. It is a huge thing in Ivorian culture to make visits to people at their houses to greet them and talk. It is my absolute favorite thing to do here. We don't even call people to tell them we are coming over. We just drive or walk over and knock on the gate. Ever person comes out all excited and brings you a chair and offers you a drink or food. Then we just sit outside and talk. We usually go and visit people from about 5:30pm-9 or 10 at night! It's really great!

So far I have been to so many people's houses. The first night I was here, I ate dinner at Michael's house. Michael is one of the African doctors at the hospital. I got to eat dinner with his wife and 2 little girls Rose and Grace. They were so cute! I don't know why I was worried about what I was going to eat here because the food is SO good! And people love to feed me! Later that night Diane and I went to visit Dahiri and his family. He is a nurse who works at the hospital. When we got there Basson (another nurse at the hospital) was there too! The two of them are so funny! They were cracking jokes back and forth all night! They both speak english pretty well so we got to talk quite a bit. They both love to practice their english any chance they get!

Then second night I was here I ate dinner at Dahiri's house. His wife cooked us rice with this sauce that is made out of some seed and then put a sardine on top of it all. I didn't think I would like the sardine but when you mixed it in it wasn't too bad! She gave me SO much rice! I couldn't even finish it all! We sat and talked in the courtyard with Dahiri and his family for about an 2 hours. Then we went over to Basson's house and talked with his family for a little bit. I got to meet his wife and their 2 kids.

My favorite house to visit though is Tanti's house! Tanti is Diane's closest African friend. I love going over to her house because she has a daughter Naomi who is 18, a son who is I think 16 and a 21 year old niece who is living with them named Catherine. I love getting to hang out and talk with them. They don't speak a lot of english so we do a lot of guessing and hand motions but when we can't understand each other we just laugh! It's really fun! Catherine loves to braid and twist my hair! They also taught me how to dance to this song (i hope this link works)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTUIlOudlHI

The Drive

Here are some things I learned on Monday during the 10 hour drive north from Abidjan to Ferke.

1. I thought I knew what a pothole was. But boy was I wrong. This is a pothole-

        These ginormous pothole are the reason that what should be a 6 hour drive took almost 10 hours!  You have to go so slow most of the roads we took were filled with giant potholes like these one!

   2. Moto drivers are scary. 

       This is a moto. People who drive them zip in and out of cars and don't even look where they're going. I can't even tell you how many times we almost hit one!

3. Cote d'Ivoire is so so pretty!

    It is SO green here right now because they are in the rainy season. There are so many different types of trees, flowers and plants all over! 

4. There is diet coke in Cote d'Ivoire!!! 

     This is probably going to be my one and only diet coke I have here. I found in a gas station on our way up north and bought it! It was so good and really cheap! 

first day

So today was my first full day in Africa! What a busy day it was!

Diane and I woke up at about 9 this morning. When I went out into the living room of the guest house I met Sherri, one of the other missionaries and nurses who works at the hospital in Ferke. She was staying in the guest house with us last night but our flight got in so late that she was already asleep when we got in! So Diane, Sherri and I all sat down at the table, talked and ate some banana bread.

We decided that we would all get ready and then go eat brunch at this place called Pako. We all got ready then called a taxi to pick us up from the house. This is where I experienced my first taxi ride in Abidjan. It was crazy! People pretty much just do whatever they want to do. But don't worry, we made it to Pako in one piece. We walked into the tiny little restaurant and it smelled SO good. There we fresh croissants, pain au chocolate and so many other little pastries and desserts. When we sat down at our table and looked at them menu I started to get real nervous and wished I would have paid more attention in French class freshmen year of high school when we pretend ordered food. But thankfully, Sherri guided me and I successfully ordered all my food! We all got the breakfast special which included a glass of jus d'orange, un croissant, un pain au chocolat, thé, and une omelette du fromage. Check out that French! It was so much food but it was so so good. Especially the pain au chocolat!!

From there we went to the Abidjan "mall". It looked pretty much like an American mall, with just way more people in it. We stopped and picked up some books in the bookstore and then went to the supermarket which was also in the mall. We mainly got food that isn't available up north in Ferke, including cheese, jelly, tuna and chocolate.

After we got back to the guest house, a missionary couple named Glen and Linn said they wanted to stop by and pick me up so I can do a cultural orientation with other short term three girls. Glen and Linn are in Abidjan for a couple of days living in another house. They came down to pick everyone up from the airport. The other three short term girls who are here for the month are staying in the house in Abdijan with Glen and Linn before we all go up north.

Linn really wanted to teach us about the culture we are going to be living in the for the next month. She had this whole typed up packet ready for us. It was really really awesome. We learned so much about the culture, how they view elders, how to greet people, how to dress, different mannerisms, different sayings and a lot more! It was incredibly helpful.  And Glen and Linn's friend Abdu came and helped us with the cultural orientation. He is really funny! When I told him that me name is Kim he said, "Ahhhh, Kimmy!" I loved it!

Then we all sat down and ate dinner. We had this stuff that looked like bread crumbs (I can't remember what it was called), with chicken and chopped up onions, cucumbers and tomatoes all on top. And the funny thing is that you just eat it with your hands. Literally, you take your hand grab a handful of the food and squeeze it into a ball and then eat it. AND get this. You aren't supposed to eat with your left hand. And since I am left handed this was quite the experience for me. Imagine how funny I looked. It was great. We were all laughing because the other three girls and me were making such a mess trying to eat!

Glen and Linn are so awesome. I got to talk with them about their story, how they met and how they got here. Linn directs the Bible Translation Project for the Nyarafolo people group. They are the least evangelized people group of northern Cote d'Ivoire. Hearing her talk about the Nyarafolo people was absolutely incredible. She has spent most of her life reaching these people and working on getting the Bible in their language. Ah! It was so awesome to get to talk to her and pick her brain about all this stuff! I will definitely be writing more about this later!

Tomorrow morning we are leaving the guest house at 6 a.m. to make the 10 hour drive north to Ferke where I will be living for the rest of my time here! I can't wait!

This One is For You, Mom

Well, after 2 days of traveling, 3 plane rides and almost 22 hours spent on an airplane, I finally am in Africa! I made it! So mom, you can rest your head tonight knowing that I am here safe! And all my luggage made it too! Praise the Lord. Right now, I am in Abidjan. It is VERY humid...kinda feels like Houston. Diane (the missionary I met up with in Chicago) and I are staying in a guest house here. Another one of the missionaries, Glen picked us up from the airport and took us to the guest house. It was about a thirty minute drive from the airport but I couldn't really see much of the city because it is almost midnight here! But anyways, I'm here and safe and tired!

It's Almost Here

Wow. It’s almost here. I leave for Cote d’Ivoire in less than a week! Can you believe it? I know I can’t. I could have sworn that a couple of days ago the countdown on my phone said thirty something days left. And now it says 5. Where has time gone?! 

I have a complete mix of emotions going through my brain right about now. First, I am beyond excited! This is something that I have been praying about doing for almost a year now.  As I am beginning to start the packing process I literally have to pinch myself because I still can’t get over the fact that in a week I will be overseas serving with missionaries and working in a hospital.  The Lord is so faithful. That is one thing I am continually being reminded of! From the application process, to interviews and to support raising, He has done more than I could ever imagine.  

Along with being so so excited, I am starting to get nervous.  So many questions and thoughts are going through my head.  Have I prepared enough? Have I spent enough time in prayer? Am I going to get along with everyone? How am I going to communicate with my patients in the hospital? I really don’t speak much French…bonjour?

WHAT AM I THINKING?! No. But seriously! What am I thinking?  What did I just say in the second paragraph?!

Has the Lord not been faithful from the beginning?  Has He not already provided? I know that He has been preparing me for this trip for a long time now. I know that He is going to be with me the second I leave my family and get on the plane in Houston. I know that He will be my strength, my peace and my comfort throughout my time in Cote d’Ivoire.  All I have to do turn to Him and trust Him. It’s as simple as that.

Sometimes I just love it when the Lord just slaps me in the face with truth like that. Most of the time, I really need it! But as simple as that truth it is, it is something I am daily having to preach to myself.

All of these thoughts, emotions and stuff have been reminding me of what I have been reading in Joshua. After the death of Moses, the Lord went to Joshua and told him to arise and take the people into the Promised Land.  Over and over again, the Lord told Joshua to be strong and courageous, to depend on Him, obey him, follow His word and He will do the rest. The Lord wasn’t going to leave Joshua. All Joshua had to do was to be obedient to the Lord, find his strength in Him and leave the rest up to Him.

Well man, what more truth do I need than that! I know that the Lord has called me to spend the next month of my life in Cote d’Ivoire. I am joyfully obeying His call! Now I just need to keep trusting that He will take care of me! He’s got the rest!

So with all this said, I am beyond excited to get on that plane to Cote d’Ivoire. I have faith in the Lord’s plan. I can’t wait to see how he uses me and grows me during my time overseas. Good thing I don’t have to wait much longer! 5 days!! Eeeeeee!!!!

Good Thai-m

When talking about his close friends, C.S. Lewis said, "Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire?"  I'm pretty sure I could argue C.S Lewis here and say yes, there is something better than that! You know what it is? A circle of friends, crammed into a tiny restaurant, eating Thai food, in support of missions. 

This past Thursday, my friend Lauren and I hosted a fundraiser at our favorite restaurant in Temple, Taste of Thai. Both of us are in the process of raising support for our summer mission trips and Taste of Thai so kindly agreed to donate 10% of the nights proceeds directly to our trips! This fundraiser is something Lauren and I just dreamed up when we were driving from Houston back to Belton one day. I don't think either of us knew how much of a blessing it would be!!

The whole night Lauren and I were so overwhelmed with the love that our friends showed us! It was so amazing to see our friends excited about supporting our trips and feeling like they were a part of sending us. I can't even begin to express the appreciation and thanks I had to everyone who came.  In all my times of going to Taste of Thai, I have never seen it so packed! It was so wonderful to know that every person who walked through the door was there because they loved Lauren and me, loved the Lord and wanted to support us. Our hearts were so full of joy and thanks that multiple times during the night Lauren and I just had to stop and squeal with each other!

delicious cashew chicken

   

The picture above is Lauren and me with Ann, the owner of Taste of Thai. What a blessing she was to us! She is a woman who loves the Lord and strives to serve Him in any way she can! The whole time we were in communication with her, planning the fundraiser, she just kept saying how this was a way that she could serve the Lord. She and her staff worked so hard! It was such a blessing to work with her! 

everyone waiting in line to order! i've never seen this place so packed!

some of our wonderful friends!

I have never felt more loved by my friends than on that Thursday. To Lauren and me, it didn't even matter how much money was made towards our trip that night. It was enough that our friends showed up because they believe in what we are doing and are behind us in prayer and love. Driving home, I was overwhelmed by how faithful the Lord was through this whole process of dreaming up the idea, presenting it to Ann, advertising, the event itself and everything in between! He is SO good! Thank you to all my friends who came out to eat Thai food in support of my mission trip! It meant the absolute world to me! I think it's safe to say that we all had a good thai-m!