Tyrone Presbytery's Burkina Faso Team

Home Safe

burkinafasoteam — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:39:04 +0000

Quick wee post to let everyone know that we arrived safe and sound into Dungannon at 2:30pm today.

Special thanks to “Home James” taxis for taking us back to Dungannon from Dublin Airport.

Now it is time for sleep…

Last Update From Burkina Faso

burkinafasoteam — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:49:49 +0000

Our work is done! The 18 days have flown by with the team working at Kid’s work and building work in Ouaga, painting, pastor’s conference and more kid’s work in Legmoin.

The team has just finished a morning’s work on the building site and are packing their bags up. After lunch it is straight to the pool before leaving for the airport at 8pm.

We fly straight to Paris overnight, spend 4 hours in the duty free and then catch a flight back to Dublin hopefully landing there for 11:20am. Should be in Dungannon Iceland car park for 2pm…. However should plans change people will phone.

Some pictures…

At the site on Monday. Walls are up!

EPE Church visits us on Sunday and wishs us safe travels home

Pastor's Conference in Gaoua

The girls used all the water in the toilet so the boys had to draw more water.

Kathryn and June whitewashing the wall of the girl's dorm in Legmoin.

Visting the village in Legmoin

Morning Update

burkinafasoteam — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:45:39 +0000

Sitting back in SIM guest house Ouagadougou waiting for everyone to wake up so we can have breakfast.

We all arrived safe and sound back to the captial from Legmoin. The plan today is to split the team in two with one going to the building site and the other heading shopping but it’s Africa so who knows what will happen!

Trying to collect photos off the team so I can show you Legmoin village and our work there.

Update From Gaoua

burkinafasoteam — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:39:59 +0000

Rev Ian and myself (Ben) split from the team on Wednesday to take the Pastor’s Conference in the EPE Bible School. The team will pick us up again on Friday (we hope!!) as they past through returning to the capital for the last leg of the trip.

30 Pastors and church leaders are attending the conference that started on Wednesday and lasts all-day Thursday & Friday. Ian has been lecturing on John, on the origins of sin, repentance and the qualities of a preacher. He plans to talk on Salvation, how to prepare sermons, and how to use the African Bible Commentary. I’ve talked about Luke 15 and tomorrow I plan to talk about Christian Leadership and Daniel 1.

There is a wide range of experience at the conference, we have the Chairman of the EPE church and senior Pastors right through to first year Bible students. Ian has definitely stirred lively debate with the Pastors engaging throughout the conference.

Tomorrow we’ll give the African Bible Commentaries, in French, to all attendees of the conference. Langham Literature generously donated the commentaries for the pastors and we’ll have some pictures of the conference up when we return to broadband speeds in the capital.

I have no news of the other eleven team members in Legmoin as we haven’t been in contact. We trust that no news is good news and they are continuing the painting work and have started the Kid’s club today.

Next update should be from Ouagadougou on Friday evening.

13th July Quick Update

burkinafasoteam — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:08:50 +0000

We had a very productive day! The boy’s dorm with four rooms has been whitewashed and is ready for a coat of paint and the girl’s dorm is whitewashed and has a coat of white paint on it. These dorms were put up by Jeremy Nash to give secondary school students somewhere to live during school term. We started at 8.30am and were finished by 6pm, next on the schedule is dinner and then team devotions at 9pm under the magnificent African sky. Typically team devotions last about an hour with singing, prayer and each night someone from the team shares a prepared word from the Bible.

That’s all for now, tomorrow we go to the main town of the area for a tour and meeting with local EPE church members. It’ll take us about 40mins to get there and about 15,000 people live in Gauoa.

12th July Update

burkinafasoteam — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:48:37 +0000

I’ve found the internet! Or at least a dial-up connection. The team arrived safety down into Legmoin after a day’s travelling on Friday. Four girls are in Anna’s house in the village and the rest are up in Jeremy’s house outside the village a bit beside the EPE Church. We have all settled in quick, life is a bit different than the city, the water has to be pumped, toilets (if you have one) don’t flush the best, and generally stuff takes longer to do. However the village and countryside are beautiful and the people are really welcoming.

Church, in particular, this morning was amazing, the worship was from the heart and there was a great sermon on prayer (after translation). During the service the team introduced themselves and we sung three songs, which all was well received. We also announced plans for the kid’s camp we plan to run on Wednesday and Thursday.

Yesterday we visited Legmoin village, stopping with the police, town hall, health facility and local blacksmith. It was humbling to see these people living their lives and doing so much with relevantly very little.

Tonight we will plan the Kid’s club for Wednesday & Thursday, painting on Monday and Tuesday and Pastor’s conference for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We will be travelling back to the city all day Friday.

Prayer…
For team health, some are suffering with colds and sickness.
For the week ahead that God would be in all the work we do including the practical work, pastor conference and children’s work.
For the Dagara people, that God would move in their hearts and they would turn from African Traditional Religion with its false idols and fetishes to Jesus Christ.

Team News

burkinafasoteam — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:48:33 +0000

Ok below is a Thursday update from the building site by Gary. In case you were wondering about Wednesday and the rain, we got on the site by 11:00am so that was encouraging. The internet for the captial went down on Wednesday night so that was why there was no update.

The Children’s Club in Boulmiougou finished today and Catharine has promised me an update so when I get that I’ll put it up.

All day tomorrow the team travels to the South-East in Legmoin where we’ll spend a week, there is limited internet but I’ll try to post blog updates, probably no pictures though.

Prayer…

-Give thanks for team strength on the site and kid’s club.
-For safety as the team travels to Legmoin tomorrow, we have already heard reports about the Kenya team and our thoughts/prayers are with them.

Thursday Update

burkinafasoteam — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:41:10 +0000

Gary from the Site

From when we arrived on site we had to fill the inside of the foundations for a sub floor up to the first block level and compact it down with the aid of Derek. The day seemed to be long as the local builders were waiting for clamps to arrive so the shuttering could be clamped to the existing funds. The chief arrived and shouted a few orders and that wasn’t the Rev Fleck. The orders were to level out mounds of clay, which was hard to shift due to the rain the day before but thanks to Ivan and Jeremy on the picks to loosen it up. After that was completed we spectated as the builders were trying to use the handsaw. It was a surprise as we expected them to know how to use a handsaw but I had to show them how to use it and they were surprised that I could use one. It’s all starting to look well.

June on site yetersday

Il pleut (it is raining)

burkinafasoteam — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:51:42 +0000

Well the building team today (June, Ian, Ivan, Gary, Richard, and Ben) are currently sitting in SIM guest house. The rain has finally came and it is heavy so the building site is a bit of a washout until it drys up a bit!

Updates from team members

burkinafasoteam — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:19:51 +0000

Building Site update from Derek

We’ve been 2 days on the site now. We got the last of the foundations done and started laying brick. The work in the morning is fine because it is not as warm, but from 12pm onwards the heat drains you a wee bit. By the end I’d like to see the walls up enough that you’d know the layout of the church. It is very hard to communicate with the Burkina Faso builders due to the language difficulties but they are good craic and we trust by our own actions they can see Christ.

On a side note, we’ve never seen soo many flies during lunchtime. They’d fly right into your mouth!! Speaking of local wildlife, we were shovelling gravel into a wheelbarrow and after emptying it out- there was a small white snake. We definitely knew it was dangerous cause all the local builders jumped back, they very quickly put a iron bar through it. Apparently it was a viper, one bite and you need to be in hospital in 10 minutes!!!

Us on the church building site

Kid’s Club update from Grace

The children’s work is going really well. Typically our day involves arriving just after 8am, when the local leaders of the church do a devotion with the children. Afterwards we teach the children until around 10am, with a story, songs, memory verse and quiz. The children are incredibly attentive and learn everything very quickly. However, in our free time it can be difficult to communicate with the children as our French is pretty sketchy at best and the younger ones who haven’t had a chance to go to school only speak the local language.

When we do crafts we have to explain what everything is used for, from crepe paper to pipecleaners, as the children, nor even the church leaders, have never seen such things before and don’t know what to with them. When we sing, especially when singing local songs in French, the children can go on for hours, energetically dancing and singing in a deafening manner (which the babies sleep through!), despite the intense heat. Whilst the actual temperature is very warm, imagine being in a small room with over 100 other bodies and many leaders with a corrugated tin roof! None of us have ever sweated so much in our life!

We are served lunch before all the children, which is typically beans or rice with a sauce. If there is meat we will get it as preferential to the children. The portions are huge! And actually lot tastier than you would imagine.

So overall it is going incredibly well and the children are having a lot of fun learning about the Bible. Thank you for your prayers!

Singing at the Kid's Camp in Boulmiougou (it was really hot at this point)

Grace's Bible study picture