Our trip to Africa was not a quick one. It took us over two days of travel and four flights to finally make it to Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire. Although our travels were lengthy, they went pretty smoothly considering the fact we were traveling as a group of 50 Americans. The best part of our travel days was that our lay over in Dubai was long enough that we were able to leave the airport and adventure to see the tallest building in the world- the Burj Khalifa
Here we are as we finally left the airport trying to figure out how to get everyone, with all of our packs, to where we needed to be.
My team, along with four others, is staying on a property owned by one of the pastors who is hosting two of our teams. He owns a beautiful property which has been wonderful to hammock in under the overcast skies.
Here is a typical view from my bedroom window here:
There are cows, goats, chicken, turkey running around everywhere!
Since the weather has been so beautiful and less harsh than the Arizona heat it has been a great opportunity to walk around and see all of the property we are staying on.
“Nothing is impossible with God”
I love seeing French everywhere around me! In high school, and briefly in college, I studied the French language. However, since I was living in Tucson at the time, I had limited motivation to learn the language because I had no practical outlet for using it. It’s been several years since I have studied any French, so I am far from proficient in speaking the language. But it makes me so happy when I can communicate even a little with the French speaking people of Cote d’Ivoire. It’s not very pretty on my end, and conversation is limited, but it is wonderful when a connection is made.
Although I have been enjoying relearning the bits of French I have learned, we have been lucky enough to be partnered with a church with many English speakers. My team is the only team working with the church we have been connected with, called Faith Revival, and we love them! Pastor Matthew, his family, and the whole congregation have been so overwhelmingly welcoming and supportive of us.
This is my team with Pastor Matthew, his beautiful wife Mamanik and their children!
When our church sings, members of the congregation go up to the front and dance in a circle, so naturally we were pulled in to gladly join them.
So far with our ministry we have been sharing stories of our testimonies and leading bible studies with our church. It has been awesome to hear and share stories as well as approaches to scripture with the people in the community here.
Our church isn’t very close to where we are staying so one of the church members James comes and picks us up whenever we are headed to church.
My team leader Joni has a friend who lives in Abidjan, which has been awesome! He and his friend are great company and were a huge help with communicating with waiters and taxi drivers when we went to lunch with them.
Our access to Wifi here in Abidjan has been limited so I apologize for taking so long to post an update about how our time here has been. When I finally was able to get online here I was so blessed and honored to have had several people message me to let me know they are praying for me and asking how they can continue to be in prayer for me. First of all, I am so truly thankful for everyone’s prayers and support for me and my team! Specific prayer requests that I have for me as well as my team are:
– Health! Among the 31 of us staying in the same building, several people have gotten sick. Everyone who has gotten sick has been able to recover quickly and currently I believe everyone is in good health now. Please pray that everyone continues to stay healthy and no one else gets what has been going around.
– We are the first World Race squad to come to Cote d’Ivoire. Please pray that we are creating positive and lasting relationships with the community here.
– A lot of our time here I have felt as though my team has been blessed by our hosts so much more than we have blessed them with anything we have done. Please pray that we are able to use our time here to serve our hosts well and are able to encourage and refresh them.
