Here is a very rough and sketchy account of the week...
Saturday...1:00pm local. We had been traveling for about forty eight hours with a 12 layover in Casablanca.
It was in the nineties and we were beat. We set up our tents and tried to rest a little...it was so hot we could not rest...we hung out until supper and when it finally got dark it cooled off enough for us to be able to get in our tents and rest...I was down for the count by eight o'clock...by God's grace it cooled off during the night. In fact it was chilly by sunrise on Sunday morning.
Sunday morning was beautiful. The service began around 9:00 and we had a great worship experience. I spoke in the service and God blessed the gospel. Some people responded.
After lunch we opened the clinic for a couple of hours to treat a few dozen people...it's a little like a trial run to see what happens and what needs tweaking.
I fully expected to be involved in Malaria treatment...I have a passion for it for obvious reasons. (In case you do not know I came back from Africa last January and became deathly ill with Malaria and or Dengue Fever.) After having raised so much money for treatments I just anticipated being involved in that part of the ministry... However, God had a different plan.
Quite by default I found myself in wound care with a couple of our ladies (Angela a nurse and Deanna a volunteer). All I know is that before I could come up with an excuse to get out of it I was holding the limbs of people with the most awful looking sores you can imagine. Almost everyone we treated had some kind of crater shaped sore. The sore descends through all the layers of skin into the flesh. They ranged in size from a pea to a couple of inches across. A few of them even larger.
The God-side of this is that I am usually very squeamish when comes to any kind of sore or wound.
So as I found myself serving in wound care I prayed daily for God to give me power to be strong and able to serve no matter what I saw. Believe me when I tell you He gave me strength because I am not comfortable posting the pictures of what I saw and helped treat.
We closed up shop around five Sunday afternoon and returned to our camp. Dinner was soon served and showers were had. When I say shower I really mean pour. Before we arrived they had built mud block shower stalls for us. Crude cement floors with mud brick and mortar walls. We used a large cup to dip water from a bucket and poured over our bodies as a means of washing. The biggest drawback was that if you leaned against the wall with a wet hand it came away dirty...so balance while pouring was a must.
Because of all the elements of our environment and circumstances most of us were ready for bed by around eight o'clock every night. I'm not sure I made it past 7:30 that first night.
We awoke Monday morning to a beautiful sunrise and temperatures somewhere around 65 degrees. Each morning we would meet at 7:30 for group devotions. The American team would offer a song of worship and then the African partners would offer one. Then a member of our team either American or African would share a devotional thought and then others would offer comments and insights. It was a great experience each morning.
Each morning my responsibilities include a morning message to those who gather at the clinic for the preaching service. Monday morning was hard. I thought I had a great introduction prepared only to find out that I had miss understood the interpreter about an illustration and started with something about which no one from the village had a clue...so in the midst of trying to recover it all went pretty flat. But when things go flat you just move on and we did.
That day we treated dozens of people both in the clinic and wound care. Did I mention I don't do blood and gore? Each wound had to be scrubbed so that it would bleed again and then we would apply an antiseptic of some kind and bandage it. I held feet and legs and hands and arms while Angela scraped. Deanna prepared bandages and supplies for the patient to take home with them to redress their wound.
We would work all morning. At mid-day we ate lunch and then redirected for a while. The girls engaged in ministry to the children in crafts and stories and I would assist in various other places or try to take pictures of what was going on around us.
Each afternoon we would treat wound until around 3:00. At which time the Sun would have reach a point that exposed us to the direct assault of the afternoon sun. We would then pick up the benches and supplies and move to the opposite side of the building. We did that each afternoon. There is one thing you cannot compete with and that is the Sun in the sub-Sahara climate of Burkina Faso.
Tuesday Morning was again Sunny and chilly...up at six, coffee and oatmeal, devotion at 7:30, service at 9:30...every morning between the time I woke up and the devotion time began a big decision had to made...what would the sermon be?
Each morning I was all ears trying to hear what God was saying to me. What experience of the moment or the day before would he call to mind?
Tuesday morning he brought to mind the shrinking moon that I had observed the night before and so talked about the brevity of life and that we had been called to do one thing and that was give glory and honor to God by confessing the Jesus was Lord... I read Hebrews 9:11-14 and shared three things...Jesus came from a greater place...He did a greater work...and that Jesus could do us a greater good.
The day before a woman who was wearing a fetish, a necklace that she thought would help her eyesight. I told them that even if the fetish did her good her eyes would still close in death and that then, only Jesus could help her. About a dozen people came forward in the invitation.
The rest of that day was treating sores and wounds and pain...as much as any where I have ever been or seen...these people live in pain.
Wednesday morning I talked about our wounds and read from Hebrews 2:1-4. I shared that we all start out with wounds that get progressively worse. That much of what we suffer is not the act of God or demon but simply the consequences of our own choices. The final point was that we have a healer in Jesus Christ...he can heal our heart wounds.
What made this morning special was that I did not have my strong partner and interpreter Patrice. Because we had lost our transportation out of the bush he had to go negotiate new arrangements...needless to say we were praying for him! However with him gone I had to rely upon a much less experienced translator. He was petrified with having to try and keep up with me...I was worried that he would struggle to such a point that there would be no continuity in my thoughts and his translation...so we prayed...everyone prayed. The word was shared, the invitation given and more people came forward that morning than any other morning... when we live in a place where the need is God sized...God fills the space!
Wednesday morning was the morning that we met Adia. She is between 6 and 8 years old. Somehow she had fallen into the fire and burned the back of both thighs. She lay silent and motionless while we treated her. We gave her liquid Motrin, a shot of antibiotics and used a syringe barrel to let her sip water from a cup. She was the most pitiful sight I have ever seen in person. She was the bravest little soul on the planet!
Thursday morning was the beginning of the last day. Again God gave me an opening illustration about that was perfect...Joshua had made friends with a little boy. The little boy wanted to do everything that Josh did...it was so cute...I used Philippians 2:9-11 to teach that we have been created to imitate God. I shared four things...We were created in the image of God...we were created to imitate God: lift Jesus above everything, we are called to bow and confess the Lordship of Jesus...my final call was to not see us as anything but that they should give glory to God for the good they had received. While I preached God put a young man in a red hat on my heart...I went to him after the service, shared the gospel and he prayed with me to confess Christ. When I saw him later you could see in his countenance that something had changed...it was amazing.
Well if you have seen the video blog the rest of trip is pretty lame...packing, traveling, getting lost in the capital city because our bus driver refused to go fast enough to keep up with the lead car...not to mention he spoke only French and none of us on the bus could speak French...it was hilarious! But obviously we made it back.
Well this has gone so much longer than I wanted it too, but how do you cover so much in so little space. Thanks for reading. Please keep us in your prayers.
m.m.x.
kenn
