From spiritually dry to overflowing

So yesterday we got back from outreach. Once we had unloaded all the vehicles, everyone went home, freshened up, ate supper, and then went to the evening service. The service was a time for the people who went on outreach to share with those who stayed back and prayed about what happened and how God moved. A video will be posted somewhere, but I thought I would put in what stuck out to me from what people said.

• The brick team set a record and and made 1,561 bricks with 50 bags of cement. Some of the teams were so efficient they were spitting out a new brick every 30 seconds - 15 seconds was the impressive fastest!

Some of the bricks

• Part of the medical teams ministry was foot washing as a symbol of the way Jesus washed his disciples feet. It gave such joy to both the person washing and the person receiving the washing. 
• The VBS team talked about how they wanted to do their presentation but they chose to wait until the people in the mosque were done praying before they started the generator and such. As it happened the VBS presentation started right when the men started walking out of the mosque and some of them came over to see what was going on. The team was able to hand out tracts and even a megavoice. A megavoice is a little solar powered MP3 player that has parts of the Bible (usually New Testament, I think) on it for people to listen to in their own language. 
• The mural team did 12 murals - more than they had ever done before. Normally the mural team does a picture depicting Jesus and the woman at the well on the wall of a church, but the churches in this town were of thatch. So instead the murals were done in a school. The teacher in a classroom got to pick what they wanted on their wall. The teachers were told, "Every time you look at the picture, think of God and remember that God loves you. Remember that this is an animal that God created. When you see the picture, think 'Jesus loves me'." 

An antelope

• Each night, besides the regular big campaign there are satellite campaigns. This year, the child evangelism (VBS) team went to a village and it was so responsive that the chief of the village requested that a satellite campaign come out to them so they could hear the gospel once more. 
• Some of the students commented on how inspiring it is to hear the Serer men praying. They pray so vibrantly, really believing God will pay attention. And if nothing happens, they just keep on praying. As one student put it, "They shout to God and bother him, bother him until he has to pay attention."
• The medical team was not always able to heal a person, sometimes all they could do was put saline solution in the eyes and pray. But the medical team is a way of reaching the people in a non-religious way - but the people know that you are doing it for religious reasons. After seeing the work that the medical team did, a prominent person said "We need to make sure this church gets a foundation." 
• The drama team got to pray for people more than they have in the past. During one of the presentations, the drama teacher and her husband, the driver, were approached to pray for someone's healing. And once it started, it didn't stop! There was little girl who was crippled before she could walk who was brought over for prayer. They prayed for her and nothing happened so they went on. But the driver kept feeling like they should go back and pray for her. So they went back and prayed. Then they went on to others, and then they went back to her. The driver kept thinking "This isn't too big for God." They kept praying and then at one point, the translator said, "In the name of Jesus, walk." And she did! A bit later, when the father saw what happened, he told the drama team that if his daughter wanted to become a Christian, he would allow it. He and his wife are both strong muslims, but seeing this touched his heart. The drama team learned later that this was a village that was very restrictive against Christians. 
• Satan and Jesus were boxing during the trip. There were several instances where something would go wrong, but exactly the right person would be around to fix it. For example, the drama team's spare tire fell off their vehicle as they were driving and the person in the next car was DA's maintenance guy. As one student put it, it was as though Satan went to God and said, "Hey, can I mess up the drama team's tire?" and God said, "Sure, as long as I can choose where and when it happens."
• God can use anyone. As the drama team were praying, one of the students thought, "We have a bunch of clowns praying for people in the desert." 

Some of the clowns

• The painting team was able to finish their entire project. Their project was to paint the inside and outside of a little chapel with two coats. They were able to do so with time to spare, so they then went to where the murals were happening and painted the wall around the mural to make it stand out a bit more. 

It says, "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life." 

Writing it on the wall again. 

Hard to tell, but the floor was pretty broken up!

We redid part of the floor because it was breaking up

Overall, the outreach was really great. There were things that didn't go as planned, but God doesn't work according to our plans. We were able to share the gospel and show Christ's love in many ways - and that is what was important. 

Please remember to keep the people of Diohine and the surrounding villages in your prayers. The pastors in the area now have to do follow up to disciple new believers and see how many confessions of faith were sincere. 

As for myself, I will definitely be going on another outreach. For me, the weekend wasn't life changing, but it was good to see the people, to be a part of bringing the Word to the world. 

Food prep - they did a great job keeping us fed!

We were given pigs to have as part of our suppers

The beautiful Senegalese landscape

This kid helped mix concrete for the repairing of the floor and steps

Diohine

Diohine is the name of the village where a group of over 100 people from the Dakar Academy community will be spending the weekend. We are going with the purpose of sharing God's love with the people we meet. This will be done in a variety of ways as we all have our own strengths.

Brick team: There is a brick building team that will create bricks to be later used in building the church building.

Drama team: The drama team will go out to various villages during the day and present the gospel through skits and puppet songs.

Mural team: This team will be painting a mural on an existing church. The mural depicts Jesus in a village setting with children around him.

Medical team: The medical team will go out to villages and do first aid for people. People will come with boils, wounded limbs, fevers, etc and the medical team will do what they can to help. They bring along bandages and medication and malaria test kits.

Painting team: The painting team will be painting a school - inside and out.

Bench team: The bench team will build benches that will replace old ones and eventually go in the new church.

Camp team: This team is responsible for preparing food and pumping and filtering water - a necessity!!

VBS team: This team will go out and play games with children in villages and teach them stories and songs about God's love for them.

Foundation: This is a unique team because they are not quite yet sure what they will be doing. Diohine is a village with an ever expanding population of Christians. There are three cell groups that meet in little shelters - 200 people meet in an 8 by 15 area! Our hope is to build a church for them. Unfortunately, we have not yet gotten the building permit. We are going out in faith. We know that God has a plan for this weekend. So we will create the bricks (what the foundation team will be helping with) trusting that they will be one day used to build a church.

Permission is something that you can pray about. We will go forth no matter what. Pray that the people who have not yet given permission will see what we are doing and will be touched by it.

Pray that no one gets hurt and that we have safe travels.

Pray that we will have good attitudes. We will be living in tents, sleeping on the ground, drinking not that cold water by the third day, taking too cold showers, wearing the same clothes multiple times, and getting eaten by mosquitoes for the next three days. But we do it because we think God is more important than our comfort. Pray that we remember that. When we are tired, when we have sweat dripping down our backs, when things don't go the way we expect... we need to remember who is in control. And if we have bad attitudes, it will be seen. The eyes of the 6,000 people of the village will be watching us.

We leave early Friday morning and start work as soon as we can. We work all day Friday and Saturday and in the evenings we go and have a campaign. This means we sing songs in the local languages, do skits, and the preacher preaches. In addition to the main campaign are satellite campaigns where they show the Jesus film. For the campaigns, pray for the tech guys as they run lights and projectors and sound. On Sunday, we go to church, pack up, and head home. That evening there is a service where we will share with those who stayed behind and prayed for us about how God worked.

As you think of Africa, or of me, this weekend, remember us and take a quick moment to pray for us. Diohine was not where we were originally going to go for this outreach. We were going to go somewhere else, but then that fell through when the missionary who was going to be our contact person had to have major heart surgery and thus stay in the States longer than expected. Then we were going to another village, but the contact for that village also had family health issues. And now, we don't have permission to build the building. With so much opposition we have to wonder why Satan is trying so hard to stop us?! We believe this is where God wants us to spend this weekend, serving him.

“Look at the nations and watch—
    and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
    that you would not believe,
    even if you were told."

Habakkuk 1:5