Where to begin…
It is safe to say the World Race has started in the craziest way possible. It has been an overwhelming, wonderful, difficult, world-turned-upside-down kind of 10 days and I have spent a long time writing this blog post to try and get all the words down in a way that gives credit to this first week of life on the mission field.
We left Atlanta, Georgia on at 1am on the 16th January and one 2 hour flight, one 13 hour flight, one 6 hour flight, and one 8 hour bus ride we arrived in Man, Cote d’Ivoire. We arrived exhausted, hungry, with headaches and with low spirits but as soon as we arrived we were greeted by members of the church and driven to our first ministry location in Fagnampleu, a local village.
We celebrated in church that evening and finally made it to our location in the village to sleep for the night. I wish I could say sleep came easy, but after a day of the most intense emotions and exhaustion and business, I started to panic that the next 11 months were going to be too much for me to handle. Add in the fact we have absolutely no wifi or phone service in this first village, and contacting my family and Charlie and friends is impossible, it made me feel helpless and so scared. My sweet teammate Rebecca sat with me as I cried and panicked and she prayed over me until I was calm and able to eventually fall asleep. It is so difficult to process feeling so scared and upset, and yet so grateful.
We spent the next 4 days with the local community and it was the sweetest experience to see my teammates absolutely blossom into this role of ministry and living in African village life! And what a sweet life it is. The JOY here is tangible and the church is alive in Fagnampleu and in the Western region of Man. As my friends here would say, Alleluia!! It is incredible to hear their stories and to hear how long they have been praying for missionaries to come to Man and to the local villages to support their church, and what an honour and humbling thing it is to be able to fill that role.
Some brief highlights and low points of the week;
– The entire church come to collect us everyday and walk us to and from the church building (40-50 people)
– The kids walk us from place to place and want to carry absolutely everything for us
– Food has been prepared for us three to four times a day and served and cleared for us, even when we insist we will do it for them
– We were asked to give so many words and songs this week and they so graciously translated everything we said
– We performed a concert with them on our last night and just enjoyed worshipping and fellowship together
– We were gifted with traditional African dresses from the church and as I am team leader of this wonderful group I was made a Chief of the village (lol)
– We are exhausted!
– Alone time is very hard to come by when your home for the week is also an open house for all the leaders of the church, so team time and personal time have really been on hold while we are here
– Things in West Africa are SO different to what we are used to and a lot of the cultural differences are difficult for us to swallow, and it has taken a lot of processing and conversations together to overcome this
– I finally got to call home and spent the entire day crying after speaking to everyone
And this is just the first week!!
This next few weeks in Cote d’Ivoire will involve more village ministry and we know it will be super intense and long and we need your prayers more than ever. We are loving this ministry but it is 12 hour ministry days 5-6 days per week at least and we are definitely feeling the effects of that. We will probably be travelling to approximately 3-4 more villages in the Western region of Man during our remaining time here. And village life in Africa is the real deal; straw/brick huts, red dirt roads, searing heat and hundreds of children everywhere. I am absolutely obsessed that this is the part of Africa we have been lucky enough to live in this month, but it is not an easy way of life.
Thank you to all of my special people at home for being so gracious and loving me so far from so far away, even when my contact is so scant. Pray for us as we navigate a totally new world with absolutely no way to contact the people we love, apart from a once per week trip to a centre with really bad WiFi. This sounds first world I TOTALLY agree, but having no way to contact people you love for 7 days in a row is so scary and new for me, and will definitely take some getting used to this month. I love you all SO much.
EDIT: Since finally finding wifi to post this pre-written blog, my team has been swept up in sickness, with our wonderful Squad Leader Michelle being diagnosed with Typhoid. Pray for complete healing over our team please! We are so grateful to God that the day Michelle became really unwell we had just moved ministry locations and we were literally next door to a wonderful medical clinic. PTL!!!
EDIT EDIT: This post was written approximately 2 weeks ago, however today is the first day we have got WiFi that works enough to post!
Love,
Chloe xo
