YEAH! I'M DEFINITELY IN AFRICA!

So, the other day after playing soccer I was taking a shower. You know the just the same ol’ same ol’. I actually was having a really good shower! I have a hot water heater, but I don’t use it on the account that it’s 150 degrees outside, but it sure is nice. So yeah, I was in the middle of washing my hair and I had my eyes closed. I opened them and I noticed that something was not right - there were colors that were not supposed to be. As most of ya’ll know I’m not really good with colors and my first thought was that it was red because of a big cut and it was blood all around me. After a second look I noticed that it wasn’t red, it was brown!!!!!!! I’m telling you that if I was wearing pants, I would have been scared right out of them!!! I jumped out of the water and stared at it a while. I watch as it turns to a lighter shade of brown and then back to that very nasty brown color again (you know what I’m talking about). After a couple of minutes I started thinking about my options and how I can get clean. I walk to my kitchen and get my 5 liter jug of water that I have sitting around just in case of a water emergency. I get everything all ready for a good old bucket bath, but I decided to wait and give the shower water one more try before the bucket bath. Sure enough, the water slowly turned back to the color that it should be. So…I took a shower.
I know not too long ago I talked about retrieving my cell phone in my septic system. But this one is different. There is a whole different mindset when expecting something dirty. I guess when you’re in Africa you can never let your guard down on stuff like that. I got a picture of that lovely water coming out of the sink and no there is no hidden tea packet or I didn’t get board and have too much fun playing with the photo programs on my computer, this picture is pure Africa!!!!

IT'S OFFICIAL - I'VE EXPERIENCED CULTURE SHOCK

As most of ya’ll know, the two months before I got here I spent training with the IMB. It was a great time where I was able to grow and learn about my job. There was one topic that was stressed a lot and I thought that it was never going to bother me. Yep, you guessed it, culture shock. There were tons of people that came to speak about the stages of culture shock, how to prevent it, how to recognize it in your colleagues, what to do about it, and how to overcome it. There even was this cool little video that a missionary from India made about culture shock. They must have shown it to us like five times.
My Sundays are just like your Sundays. In the morning I usually eat breakfast and then get ready to go to church. It’s probably not just like your church, but me and the other missionaries in this city have what you call “house church”. We sing, pray, someone teaches, all the same stuff that you would do. Anyways, this Sunday was different. When I woke up I remembered that all my colleagues were on a little vacation in a town about six hrs away. They asked me to come but, I thought I didn’t need a vacation. I thought I was fine; I love it here in Kolda! So, instead of going some where to worship God, I decided to worship in my place. I had a real nice peaceful morning. It started to become lunch time and I was thinking about my choices. Usually I just find a place in town to eat or I’ll eat at one of my friend’s houses with them. Today I cooked lunch and started watching a movie on my computer. After, I studied Pulaar a little, read a little and then I put in another movie. It was around six in the afternoon. I looked outside and I noticed that my night guard had already shown up and he was hangin out with some of my neighbors. For some reason I couldn’t get enough courage to get up and go outside to talk to them. So, I cooked dinner, watched another movie and called it an early night. I was not proud of myself knowing that I spent the whole day in my house and never even changed out of the clothes that I slept in.
So the next day was Monday. I wake up do my same morning routine and then go to my Pulaar class. I came home to eat lunch and do the only thing that I know - dive right back into the culture. I decided to leave my motorcycle at my house and walk to the market. I had a few things that I needed so I thought I would go on a little shopping spree. I bought a spatula, a mouse pad, some light bulbs, and I spent about an hour talking with the people in the clothes market. There’s this place that gets these big bags of clothes from America, Europe, and all those places and you just go looking through the piles until you find something that you want. I almost bought this shirt that was from a Doctor’s convention in Houston. It was perty cool with a big Texas Flag on it. So during my adventure I randomly met the chief of my neighborhood. He was a fun dude and was very interested in my job and why I was here. His friend was very curious that I believe that Jesus Christ is GOD. He asked a lot of questions that I was able to answer. I just hope that the door will still be open once my language gets stronger and I can answer some of the deeper question.
I went home, put my stuff away and hung out with my friend, the Sheriff and his family. They were all really worried about me because they knew I spent the entire day in my house on Sunday. They were asking me tons of questions thinking that I was sick or something. I finally said, “I’m white. You’re black. I was tired, and I’m not used to living in Africa!!” I know they didn’t understand but they did understand enough that I’m going to live and that I don’t need to eat some special plant that will make me poop or something.
I love my job. I’m starting to like this language, and most importantly, I love my Lord. And because I love Him, I’m trying to love the Fulakunda. Some days are a lot harder than others, but I’m here for a reason and to do that I know I have to live amongst the Fulakunda. I eat what they eat, I smell what they smell, I’m trying to talk what they talk, and I sweat like they sweat. Please pray that I can remember God’s love for these people. Pray that I will keep my eyes on the only one that can give me the rest that I need. Pray that I will be more like him.

A LOT OF LESSONS IN ONE DAY!

Alright, I knew that this story would be hard to believe so I got some pictures too. This first picture is my back yard, (I guess you would call it that). I got a bunch of those squares all over the place and I never really investigated them, so I thought I would take a peek. And as you can see it’s my drainage system. I played around a little and found out that this is all the junk that comes from my kitchen sick. I was done playing and I grabed the cover to put the lid back on and my phone falls out of my shirt pocket and down into the yummy water. I stood there like five minutes staring at the water trying to figure out what just happened. I learned a lesson: shirt pockets may be convenient, but when you least expect it, they will turn on you. So I’m standing there, and since I was also in the middle of me lunch I quickly returned but to my food. During lunch I decided that the phone might be dead but if I got it back, I could get the sim card back and save the hassel of changing numbers. After about ten mintues of debating with myself I got enough courage, put on my swin siut and went after the phone. It took my a while to climb down. It was hard with just that little hole and small space, but as I got down there I was very lucky (yeah, I’ll say lucky), The water was only about two feet deep and I only had to put one leg in that water. I found my phone and climbed back out and took like a ten minute shower. I was happy because then I didn’t have to tell everybody the embarssing story about how I lost my phone while I’m giving them my new number. I learned a lesson. I got my phone, took it apart, as much as I could, and told myself that I would try it out tommorow. The next morning I put my phone back together, and it worked!!!! The thing dried out in less than 16 hours. I learned a lesson, the African heat has some uses!!! I was all happy about my phone, but then the next day I found out that it was too good to be true. My phone didn’t charge. I looked up in my books all the words that I needed to know to explain the story and off I went to see if anyone could help. I go to one place where the dude speaks some English, but the guy sends me about two streets over where the dude is a specalist on batteries. That dude sends me to someone about a kilometer away. After a lot of help, I found the right place and tell the story. He said to give him 8000 CFA (about 8 or 9 bucks) and he would fix it. I knew I was giving him too much, but I was just happy that he said he could fix it. Anyways I sat there and watched him take the thing apart and put it back together like three times as he was looking for what was wrong with the phone. He was also fixing three other phones at the same time. He never found the problem but he gave me a charger that would work. Now when I need to charge my phone I take out the battery and connect to the charger. I got a picture cause it’s real hard to explain.

It made me think back to when my phone back in America broke and no one wanted to help me. My African experience was ten times better. I learned a bunch of lessons on this adventure…. STUPID SHIRT POCKET!

PICTURES TELL STORIES

The other day I was hanging out at the same compound where I almost passed out from dehydration. They were showing me a bunch of pictures that they had. It’s really interesting that in their photo album this family had, they had the regular pictures of them staring at the camera or making a really funny face, but in the mix of their pictures were two other white girls. They told me that one was from Germany and was here 5 years ago, and the other was from Switzerland from about 3 years ago. It made me wonder about this family. It is very uncommon for a family to have a white person as a friend and this family has had at least 3. Please pray that THIS white guy will be different. I have no idea who those people were or why they came to Kolda, but I hope that this family will see more than just another white guy. Pray that they will see that Jewish carpenter that wants to know them. Anyways, let me get back to the pictures. They were showing me pictures so I thought I would pull out some of the pictures that I have. I had a bunch of pictures of my family, and they were very impressed with the pictures and that I could describe who everyone was. I knew I would need to know all the words for family so I’ve been practicing them a lot. This one girl in the family, I think she’s 8, asked for one of the pictures. I asked her which one and then she showed me a picture of me and my nephew Sam. “Bbiddo jaja am – baby older sister mine.” It’s this picture right here.

Then her mother asked her “Why do you want that picture?” and she responded “It’s a picture of Erik.” The mother then said, “That’s not Erik. That guys is huge!” I then shook my head yes and said, “That’s me!” She had to show the picture to everyone in the room again and ask what they thought.
Here in Africa it’s too hot to wear tight clothes, you wear big baggy clothes that don’t show off your physique. Ok, Ok, maybe I have lost a little weight, but not that much! It sure does make you think, right? I know that I’m eating more than I did in my college days, but I guess when rice is over half your meals your body starts to adjust. Or maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t had a Whataburger in over 3 months! MAN, I really want one of those right now!!!!!

SOME THINGS ARE CULTURE and SOME ARE COMPLETE ACCIDENTS!

The other day I’m in language class and my teacher is introducing me to some new verbs. We get to the verb, “saltaade”, which means “to refuse”. My teacher says the word, and then I look it up in my dictionary, and say, “to refuse”. My teacher then repeats what I said and flaps one of his arms like a chicken. I’ve never seen that before so I try my hardest to figure out what it means. My teacher would make the motion and then say “to refuse,” then do it again and say “saltaade”. He did that like twice and in the middle of one of the times, he turned his head to the side and blew a snot rocket (snot rocket - to blow your nose without a tissue). In my mind I just thought that blowing a snot rocket was another African way of saying, “I don’t want it” I’d never seen the flapping one arm thingy so I didn’t think the snot rocket would be that different. Anyways, I figured out what I wanted and we went on forward to some more verbs, or should I say “dandols”. About 30 minutes later my teacher blew another snot rocket and thinking about his earlier lesson I said, “saltaade”. My teacher then says “I’m sorry” and gets up and walks about 10 ft away while continuing to blow his nose. Now I can tell he thinks that I don’t like it when he does that. If you know me, then you know that blowing a snot rocket does not bother me at all. It’s actually on my top ten list of things to do when I’m board.
Some people say you learn something new every day, and I’m also finding out that you learn something wrong every day. So….yeah, if you’re ever coming to West Africa, remember, blowing a snot rocket doesn’t mean that you refuse, it just means that you got buggers in your nose!
Quick side note, my teacher’s best friend, just became a believer. So over the next few months he will be in close contact with two Christians. Pray not only for the witness of the new believer, but for the witness that I will be on my teacher.

KNOWING THE TRUTH

One thing that’s hard to believe is that I’ve been living in Africa for 2 months. If I ever wonder if it’s true, all I have to do is take a look out my window and … I’m in Africa!! Almost every time I’m watching a movie, right in the middle of it I will hear the call to prayer, a donkey braying, or any other random African noises and I tell myself, “Oh yeah, I’m in Africa!!”
I want to give you an update on my friend Bob, and thank you for your prayers for him. He is just one of the many over here that are blind to the truth. If you haven’t been keeping up with my blogs, I gave him a bible about 3 weeks ago. I try to hang out with this family at least once a week and the last time I was there Bob told me, “I read the whole bible and I didn’t see where it says that God is three.” My response was, “OK, that’s fine, so do you believe that the bible is true?” …. “Yes” … “So do you believe what is says about Jesus is true?”…. “What???”… “Do you believe that all those miracles? Do you believe Jesus died on the cross and came back to life three days later?” By his response and the look on his face I don’t think he ever read the Bible, but I don’t go there. We talked a little more about some of the miracles that Jesus did, and then he asked me, “Who killed Jesus?” Bob has asked me some good questions so I know he is searching for the truth, but it also seems that he wants to stay where he is.
We all know that you can’t change the truth. Some people here flat out reject it. Some of the people know the truth, but don’t want to believe because it means that they will have to change. Some people, like my friend Bob, have the truth within their reach but can’t take that first step and take hold of it. Sadly, there are many people here in Senegal that have never and might never get the chance to hear the truth. Pray for the truth and pray that the word of God and the word alone will convict these people. Pray that I remember that my job is not to make them believe; my only job is to present the truth and leave the rest up to Holy Spirit. Pray that the Fulakunda, West Africa, and the world will quit hiding from truth. Like I said earlier, you can’t hide from the truth for too long!
Hey, if you haven’t gone to www.gowestafrica.org you need to. You can find info on the Fulakunda, or about the many other people groups in West Africa. April 4th and 5th, there will be a big convention in South Carolina that tries to connect the many people in America with the many opportunities to serve the Lord over here in West Africa. Many times missions start because of events like this. Please keep it in your prayers.

The Language of PULAR

As I’m spending my time here in Kolda my biggest prayer request is still my language. There’s a parable here in West Africa that “Slowly, Slowly, you catch a monkey in the bush.” When I say it they seem to get a big kick out of it. I hope they’re laughing at the parable and not at me, but it wouldn’t be the first time. And that’s just what is happening…I’m slowly getting this language. Now that I’m here I have been told that Pulaar is probably the toughest language of West Africa , so yeah, I do mean slowly. There’s only one way to eat an elephant, one bite at a time!!!!! I really do appreciate the prayers for my language and I thought that I would spend this time and just tell you some cool things about this language that make it so “fun” to learn.
NOUNS: A lot of times the singular and plural words are completely different. For example, Man – gorko Men – worbe
ARTICLES: If you look up the translation for the word “the” in the Pulaar-English dictionary you won’t find one – not because they don’t have a word for it, but because they have 23!!!!! Each noun has its own article and you basically have to just remember the article along with the word. And yes, it’s different for singular and plural nouns.
VERBS: In Pulaar, verbs aren’t necessarily conjugated for the subject. Instead, it depends more on when the action occurred. To conjugate, you get the stem of the verb and if it is present tense you add –ii; if it is present negative you add –aani. There is also a past tense and 2 future tenses that both have different negative forms (One of the future tenses is for when you know what will happen and the other is for when you aren’t sure what will happen).
MULTIPLE MEANINGS: There are a lot words in this language that are hard to translate and/or have two meanings. You just have to know the context of what they’re talking about. For example to read and to learn are the same word in Pulaar. Another example is the word Nande which means to hear and/ or understand (because many people in Africa can understand a language but they can’t speak it). The word that I gave you earlier, gorko¸ doesn’t just mean man it also can mean husband if it has a possessor after the word. One of my favorite things about this language is the many words for wash. There’s a different word for washing clothes, washing yourself, washing your hands, and washing your feet. I don’t know why, but I think that’s awesome!!!
As I said before I don’t expect to learn this language over night and I plan to still be taking language classes 6 months from now! As you can see, I almost have to totally re-wire my brain to be able to get this language. So please continue to pray for my language learning. Pray for my teacher. As I start learning more language I will start to bring out my Pulaar New Testament and translating them and using the bible as my lesson plan for learning Pulaar. That’s perty deep…lesson plans of life…I can go on for hours. I will not only share with my teacher but please pray that I will be able to “practice” these stories on my friends and eventually for the many villages and people that I will visit.