The Struggle for a Higher Education

Education is West Africa can be hard. If a family is able to afford to send a child to school, that child may be in a classroom with up to 150 students. If a child has trouble hearing, seeing, a learning disability or just processes information in a different way, the chances of succeeding are low. Repeating classes in the norm.

Many children may have an opportunity to attend primary school, but as they get older and the school and supply fees increase, there is a significant drop out rate. Many children are in school, but are not succeeding and would be better served going to a specialized school to learn construction, sewing, soldering, wood working, hair.

Those children who excel and are able to complete all thirteen grades and the three pass/fail exams are now left with the question, "What now?"

There are Public and Private Universities as well as schools that train students to become Nurses and Teachers, but the number of graduates that are able to attend any such school is staggeringly low. The fees do not seem very high by Western standards, however to your average African family it is an impossibility.

Jeanne is 22 years old. She came to live at the Sheltering Wings orphanage four years ago after her parents died. She was living in another country so, even though she had passed her 10th grade exam, she had to repeat 10th grade and take the exam again. She is a very hard worker and very helpful. She is like a big sister to the children at the orphanage and has worked each summer helping our baby caretakers with our babies and toddlers. She sends the money to her extended family to help put the younger children in school. Last year Jeanne was taking her final exam, the BAC. This is the exam you take to finish and graduate school. Unfortunately Jeanne did not pass and needed to repeat 13th grade. She was devastated and ready to give up, but we encouraged her to give it another try. This year Jeanne passed! It is Jeanne's dream to become a nurse and help people. Jeanne would often accompany the staff nurses to villages and help clean and dress wounds.

Juliette is 25 years old. She was in the Sheltering Wings sponsorship program. When Juliette failed the 10th grade exam two times, we could see that she was a hard worker so we gave her another change to try that class again. Unfortunately Juliette did not pass again. The success rate for this test is 25% for the whole country. Impressed by her spirit, determination and responsibility, we invited Juliette to work as an assistant alongside our nurses in our clinic. For the past three years, Juliette has worked hard and a passion has grown inside of her for nursing. Despite Juliette not passing the test, there is a program that will allow her to work on a nursing degree and finish traditional education at the same time.

The cost for Nursing School is $700 per year and it is a three year program. Consider helping Jeanne or Juliette achieve their dreams and have a brighter future. These girls can help the growing need for medical professionals and help lower the rate of children who die from preventable, easily treatable disease. Right now the number of deaths is 1 in 5, under the age of 5.

How can you help?

Click here to help Jeanne

Click here to help Juliette

Saturday Morning Fun!

For the next few Saturdays we are invited classes from our school and kids from the neighborhood to participate in a Bible Story and crafts and activities to re-enforce what they are learning.

Today's lesson was the Creation Story. It was interesting having the children identify with God as a creator who made them to be creative. Children here do not often have the opportunity to use their creativity, so they really enjoyed every activity. Britney, Ashley, Jenna and Lazare all made this a very special day for the children.

Learning about Creation and our Creator

Ashley had a special game for the kids

Britney had the kids use their creativity with stamps

Jenna helping kids make wordless story bracelets

Golden Nuggets of Joy

In a week where we saw children with severe leg deformities, terrible rashes that covered the whole body and neck injuries causing paralysis that happened by falling into a gold mining hole; where we heard about a mother who took the lives of her two children and tried taking her own life because her husband took another wife…it is a small golden nugget of joy that we cling to.

Idrissa is about 17 years old. As a small boy he came to live at the orphanage because he was not cared for well at home. His father is blind and his mother is not mentally well and he was not going to school. As time went on it was evident that Idrissa was battling the wounds of his life. He would run away for periods of time, but he would always return. 

When he was about 13 we found a pastor willing to take Idrissa in and we enrolled him in a special school where he would have a basic traditional education and learn how to construct things out of wood. Even under this care Idrissa ran away two different times. He ended up back at the orphanage where we talked him through what this opportunity could mean for his future and he returned to the school. Unfortunately, the third time Idrissa ran away, he lost this opportunity and he simply disappeared.

In the past two years, Idrissa has dropped in to say hello once and just recently came back again. He told us how sorry he was that he did not take advantage of the help that we offered before and knows what it is like to truly have nothing. For the last year he was finding work some days doing odd jobs and was living on the streets with little to eat and was sick very often. He came to us to ask for any help we could offer. Idrissa came back to us time and time again because we were his safe place. He knew that he was loved and could have a meal and a safe place to sleep.

We came up with a solution for Idrissa. We would help him find an apprenticeship in town with a carpenter since he already had learned some skills in school. He would go to live in his village so that he could help his parents and rebuild that relationship and we would buy him a bike so that he could get back and forth to work. You could see that look of renewed hope in Idrissa’s eyes.

Through a generous donation from Grace Community Church in Canada, we had funds to buy Idrissa’s bike. The day he received it he smiled for a picture, but as he walked away with the bike it became clear. Idrissa, in his 17 years, had never learned to ride a bike! One of our boys spent three days teaching Idrissa, and now he is racing around beaming with pride.

The joy in others in infectious! I thank God for this blessing that he gave us and for his always perfect timing. God knows each of us. He knows our hearts, our needs, our suffering and desires…and he cares! Turn to God in times of trouble and he will be your refuge. Share your joys with God and he will delight in them with you.

Behind the Smile

Today was an awesome day! We had a graduation ceremony for the ten women who have completed the program at the Village of Hope Women's Crisis Center.

These women came to our center because they suffered great loss and found themselves with no family support. They came in with children, many of them with skin conditions and malnourished. All of them frightened.

Salimata and her son David (pictured) had no smiles to give when they first arrived. Salimata is a young, single mother who was rejected by her family. She was married to a muslim man who wanted to send their young son to a marabou who would perform some kind of ritual that he believed would bring him great wealth. In reality it is a form of sacrifice that either results in severe brain damage or death. When Salimata refused she was rejected by the family. She divorced this man and has been shunned. She was to the point of desperation when she came to live at the women's center. Hers is just one of 10 stories.

In the last 9 months we watched these women work hard, soaking up everything they were taught, learning that they have hope in Jesus, receiving love and care. While they learned sewing, weaving, soap making, bread making, hand crafted handbags, math, french and literacy.Their children were cared for by the orphanage tanties, having preschool and playing alongside the orphanage children in a safe and loving environment.

Month by month we watched fear slip away, health improve and smiles emerge. Not just with the children, but with their mothers. The group graduating could not look more different than the group coming in. Each woman has given their life to Christ and when asked if they now know how much Jesus loves them they light up and start praising Him.

We are so excited to see how God will continue working in their lives and in the lives of others that they share their stories with.

Sickness doesn't take a holiday

From the moment we arrived back in Burkina we have been on alert. With polital unrest came the closing of local stores, banks, gas stations and hospitals.

The crisis is still not over, but little by little things have been getting back to normal. Gas stations and banks were open yesterday and we got the cash we needed and fueled all the vehicles and surplus tanks.

Our town's hospital is still not up and running so our clinic at the orphanage has been very busy. With gas in the car we were able to go to one of our village clinics today.

Greeted by thankful moms and fourteen sick kids our staff nurse went to work with the assistance of one of our older orphanage girls who desires to be a nurse one day and Ashley, a nursing student interning with us.

Each child was tenderly greeted and cared for. I am happy to report that all the children were able to receive the medicine they needed to combat ring worm, parasites, coughs and runny noses, as well as malaria. There were no life threatening illnesses.

Today was a great day!

Field Trip!

We loaded up the van and took a short drive with our toddlers and preschoolers today. We headed over to a local artisan for a field trip. The drive in the car was a new experience for most of the kids and only two of them were a little unsure.

All aboard!

When we were arrived we were greeted by the owner who also has done many paintings for us at our orphanage, school and women's center. He led us to an outdoor area and gave all of the children lollipops. While the kids were enjoying their treat, two boys brought over djembe drums and played for the kids. Afterwards they gave a djembe lesson to children and also gave out hand chimes for them to try. This was followed by lots of singing and dancing.

Arriving at the Artisan



Enjoying a treat!

Drum Lesson

Time to Dance!

Before it was time to head back from our little trip, we visited the boutique where handcrafted items are sold and the children received small wooden figurines to take home.
A good day was had by all!

Hello Hot Season!

 

It is the time of year where everything has dried up and temperatures are increasing day by day. This is our first year that we will be here through May. We have always know April to be a particularly harsh month, but have heard stories of temperatures in the 130’s in May. We are talking candle melting, fry an egg on the street, heat! This April has either been milder than usual or we really are acclimating to the rising temperatures. By this time next month we will be praying for the rains to come and cool us off.

Yummy Mango

Despite the abundance of juicy mangoes, this is an incredibly hard time for the people of Burkina. Their yearly supply of food is dwindling and so is their supply of water. The majority of water that families use still comes from the small lakes (we call them barrages here) or from hand dug wells. These water sources are dried up. There are still not enough deep drilled wells to meet the needs of the majority of villages. Women and children are now walking, biking and taking their donkey carts miles from their home each day to get water for their families.

Dry Well

Traveling with jugs to get water

In our home we are blessed to have running water. Even so, we share the burden of the people as our water is cut frequently. Sometimes it is for a few hours and other times it is for days at a time. Just like our neighbors, we travel to fill water jugs to cook with and bathe with. It has been challenging, but we know that we will survive. We know that we can afford to buy bottled water to drink if we need to. Our neighbors do not have this luxury. The prayers of the people here is different. Dear Lord, allow the rain to fall so we can drink. So we can grow food to feed our families.
 

Still, you will not see sad faces on the streets and in the villages. What you see around you is great endurance, incredible strength and perseverance.

 

Another miracle!

Over two years ago we met little Landry in a village where we were holding a medical clinic. This village had not had such a clinic in over 15 years. While we saw many cases that day that we could help simply by providing diagnosis and medication, Landry's case was more complicated.

Landry's had an enlarged tongue. This started to occur as an infant, and when we saw him at the age of two it had grown so large that he could no longer shut his mouth. To feed him, his parents had to pull his mouth open from the side and shove food as far back as possible. Landry could only tolerate liquids and small amounts of soft foods. Afraid that his condition could potentially cause him to choke and possibly die, we immediately started seeking help. We brought him to several different doctors and pediatric hospitals in several different towns with no success in finding someone to help Landry.

His family prayed, his pastors prayed, we prayed. Everyone who met little Landry was praying that a miracle would happen. Then, two years later, that miracle happened.

We found out about a mission who takes children to the U.S., places them in host families and then doctors help the children at no cost. We submitted Landry's photo and story and in about four months Landry was on a plane to the United States.

Landry received surgery and is now ready to fly home this week. His family is so excited to see him and they will be so surprised at their son's new appearance. Never again will they have to fear that his condition could threaten his life or lead to a future filled with rejection and seclusion because of a deformity that in this society would deem him cursed.

Landry now has a bright future filled with hope. A future that all four year old boys should have.

Widow Visits and Spontaneous Prayer

Today we went to visit some widows who are newly sponsored to deliver their first months grain and soap. These women had been waiting a long tome for a sponsor so they were so happy to see us and hear about their sponsors. It was really sweet to be able to share in their excitement and talk about the provision of God and how much He loves them.

One of the widows lives with her granddaughter who is in the 6th grade. this is a very important and very difficult year for students. They take an exam at the end of the year and must pass this exam to advance to 7th grade. We prayed over health issues that the widow was having and also prayed for her granddaughter's education.

 

While we were praying there was a group of children who had gathered outside the widows courtyard. As we were leaving, these children stopped us and asked if we could also pray for them and for their education. Afterwards, Pastor Valentin invited them to come by our church any time that they needed prayer. Spontaneous prayer is a beautiful thing.

Ministries Working Together to Change Lives

We have been very blessed to partner together with different ministries and organizations while here in Burkina Faso. One of our partners, "Friends in Action", recently helped us change the future of a handicapped women.

Salimata had an accident when she was young and broke her arm in several places. The only thing the doctors had the ability to do was to remove the bones in her arm. This left Salimata with no use of her arm. Despite this difficulty, she grew up and married, had five children and worked as best as she could cultivating crops.

Salimata lost her husband three years ago. This significantly changed her situation and that of her children. To help keep her children in school, Salimata started to raise chickens. Unfortunately, many of her chickens became ill and died leaving her little money for school fees. She had to borrow from family and the local pastor.

When we heard about Salimata we sat with our local Pastor and discussed what would be the best way to help. He suggested that raising goats would be something that she could do physically and would help her earn the income she needed to care for her children and pay back her debts.

Our buddies at "Friends in Action" drill all the wells that you see us post pictures and talk about. Their ministry gives life saving, clean, healthy water to villages throughout Burkina Faso and into the Ivory Coast. Each year they drill about 40 wells. Often they receive gifts of goats from villages and they keep them in their work yard, not really knowing what to do with them. Recently they gave us some goats to give to people in need.

Immediately we thought of Salimata. God's timing is so good! The guys at "Friends in Action" had no idea we were just discussing Salimata's case, but God did. Today, we went with Salimata's pastor to deliver her one male goat and one female goat. As a bonus, we believe the female is already pregnant. Glory to God!

The gift Salimata received will help her to help herself and her family. She will no longer need to ask for loans and she can be assured that her children will be able to complete their education.

A Different Future for this Young Lady

We met Natalie this summer when she came to our clinic at the orphanage. When she was a small girl she was washing clothes in dirty, stagnant water. She contracted a disease that would slowly change her life. It was so small at the time that her family didn't seek any medical help. Like any other scrape or cut, they expected it would go away on its own.

Year after year, the muscle and flesh in Natalie's arm and buttocks was being eaten away by toxins. By the time she came to us it had done so much damage, we feared for her life.

We took Natalie to visit a few different doctors, but nobody was able to make a diagnosis. We consulted with American doctor friends that we know and it was suggested that this looked like a Buruli Ulcer. This is a slow necrotizing disease common in West Africa, but it was the first time that the doctors in our region had seen it. Finally, a doctor in the capital confirmed what it was, but we were having difficulty getting treatment for her.

Because she would likely need surgery and months of antibiotics, we asked Natalie's family if she could stay at the orphanage. Since she would be living here, we had our seamstress start training her how to sew. Even with limited use of her arm she has become very good with the sewing machine, making handbags and dresses. We have been constantly amazed at the perseverance that Natalie displays. She does not allow her disability to stop her from doing anything. She is often found doing the other girls in the orphanage's hair and helps our cook cut vegetables in the kitchen.

Today is the day that Natalie has surgery. She will have dead tissue removed and a plastic surgeon will reconstruct as much as possible. After this, Natalie will begin recovery and a treatment plan to be sure no additional toxins are lingering in her system, ready to do more damage.

Natalie's future is changing. She is beating her illness. She has learned a new skill. When it is time for Natalie to leave, she will have what is necessary to succeed.

Please pray for Natalie today!

In the Christmas Spirit

Having fun this week making decorations with the kids. We made Christmas trees, reindeers and decorated a couple trees. Not sure the kids understood what a reindeer was. You may notice one with an extra eye and both eyes placed in the wrong place, but for many kids here having a chance to use scissors, glue and glitter is a real treat. =)

Blips, blunders, and lifelines.

I just returned from a week of drilling wells near the Niger border with the team from Friends in Action. Much like all the missions here in West Africa, the crew at F.I.A. have had many of their teams cancel their short term mission trips here to Burkina due to the fear of Ebola, and the late civil unrest and ousting of our President. But all of this does not change the need. and certainly does not lessen the work to be done. So when asked to help drill some wells this week, I was excited to join in to get the job done.
I make it sound easy enough, but I knew it would be a tough week. My mind and my body are in two very different ages of life. And there is nothing like living in the bush, without bathrooms, showers, or even tents, and working up to 18 hours a day in the 100 degree weather lifting steel rods, and shoveling gravel and sand to help communicate the reality of the body, to the fantasy land that is my mind. They were in need, and with a full staff at the orphanage and school, there was no real reason I should not be there for them.
The first well was at a Bible school in the town of Fada. It had a well, but they had an agricultural project there that helped subsidies the costs of the pastors training there. They also have opened there well up to the local community making it a very busy watering hole! A second was desperately needed. All started fine, we began to dig in the afternoon. Then it happened. We tried to start the compressor, and nothing. After a new battery and new starter brought in by bus the next morning, 16 hours later, we were back in business. We hit water, we put in our pipe, and lined it with rock and started pumping the initial water out with our electric pump. This was FINALLY the last step before heading to Well #2........ until a break in the pipe allowed our gravel to fill in the first several meters of our hole burying the pump 52 meters under the earth under a few meters of gravel. 8 hours later, we were able to remove the pump and we were back where we left off. With over a hundred empty jugs waiting, they began to pump away first thing.

Then we were headed to the bush....... DEEP into the bush. To a village of 1200 people that a pastor has been visiting for 3 years. The village tried several times to ask for a government well, but were rejected each time because the village was "impossible to reach by truck". The pastor said, "God can do this!". The village prepared for months, cutting a path through miles of trees, and building a make shift bridge over a dried river bed. One leaf spring and a few scratches later, we are in a village that has never even had even a in it, let alone large trucks such as these! Back at it, Drilling through the night hours, we are up to our knees in WATER!!!!! God provided one of the most abundant wells I have witnessed to date!

Despite the difficulties of getting there, and a few small problems, the 2nd well was relatively easy, so we head to the third site where we are told is right off the road.......... guess I should have asked HOW far off the road. As we continued back farther and farther into the bush, We soon came to realize that any village this deep into the bush had it's share of challenges! Once we finally arrived we found a large gathering of excited villagers, who again has never had a vehicle in their village. This was a tough place. The nearest hand dug well where they could get dirty water was 6.5 km away. Because of the heat of the day, and their responsibilities, the women generally left the house at 10p.m. and started their journey to the well where they would walk, and then wait in line for sometimes hours, and the make the long journey back carrying 10 gallons or more of water the entire way! Yes, I was intimidated! We began drilling late morning, our hopes were to drill and finish that night. But you never know when you are drilling. After an hydraulics failure that could have been devastating, and late drilling that seemed like it would never end, we found ourselves 270 feet down into the earth without water. It's difficult when you see such need, and run into a situation like this. I was out of time, and my responsibilities at the orphanage demanded me to return, but that's part of missions. You need to know without a doubt that God is in total control, that He loves these people more than I, and that all things happen according to his will and timing. The great news is that the team of F.I.A. has commited themselves to return tomorrow, and make the necessary repairs to take another crack at bringing water to a village that man said was impossible, but we as Christians know so much better! Through all the blips, blunders and mishaps....... God is always there.

Sometimes it's hard to understand

Took one of our older girls to the hospital today because she had a headache. Did we think she needed to go to the hospital for this? No, but our staff nurse thought she should go and we wanted to be sensitive and let her make the decision. After all, although likely uneccesary it couldn't really hurt. We figured they would run the normal tests they do checking for malaria, typhoid, parasites, meningitis..regardless of the lack of syptoms. And in the end prescribe Tylenol and Vitamin B. Vitamin B seems to be the cure all here. They ended up admitting her and will probably run these tests tomorrow.

This week we had a widow get bit by a carpet viper and go to the hospital. They gave this long list of medications for us to locate and bring back to the hospital. Everything was available in town except the anti-venom couldn't be found. More than 24 hours after she got bit we finally located anti-venom. Talk about cutting it close.

The roughest thing this week was a boy with a life threatening illness was being treated in a pediatric clinic, but his mother became impatient with how long it was taking and left withh her son so she could get back to her bean field.

We are constantly shaking our head. We ask God to show favor in these situations and help us rest in the knowledge that He has it covered. It's just hard sometimes.

Feeding the Hungry Scientifically with Aquaponics

Over 80% of the population in Burkina relies on farming to provide food for their families. The growing season is about three months long and if the rains start too late or too early this can devastate crops and leave families short on food.

The main component of most people's diets is a starch and a sauce. Very little protein is eaten because it very expensive. Protein will usually come from dried fish ground up and added to sauce, beans and a peanut based sauce. Because of the lack of protein many children are malnourished and wounds have a difficult time healing.

With these facts in mind we were very excited when we caught up with a friend in the U.S. who has an aquaponics farm. We took this idea back with us in hopes that this could be something used here in Burkina to extend the growing season and to make a plentiful protein source. Aquaponics is a system where water from tanks is pumped through tubes and back into the tanks. In the tubes are plants that grow in a medium that uses no soil. In the tanks are fish. The fish fertilize the water, the plants soak up the nutrients and clean the water and the filtered water goes back into the tanks.

We knew that this was going to be an experiment and that we would be learning along the way. We had many things to take into consideration as the nearest Home Depot for us in on another continent thousands of miles away. What energy source are we going to use to pump the water? What medium are we going to use to grow our plants? How are we going to construct our tanks? What are we going to feed our fish? How are we going to keep the right balance of Ph, ammonia, nitrates, nitrites...well, you get the idea.

Checking on plant growth

Trip to catch starter fish

So every day we feel like we are in science class and every day we learn something new. We are using solar power and car batteries to pump our water. We are seeking out the man who sells coconuts so we can get the husks to try as a growing medium. We are saving egg shells to help regulate the Ph. We have started a worm farm to feed the fish. We are figuring out the best way to construct a tank for holding water. We currently have cement, but that messes with the alkaline so we have painted the inside of a tank to see how that works. In the village we are thinking of something totally different for holding water...maybe animal skins or holes lines with plastic sheeting.

Worm Bed...Fish Food!

Painted tank in front. Unpainted in back.

In the end we hope to have a system that is inexpensive, uses all materials found in a village and runs using wind power. We have a long way to get from here to there but we are driven by the fact that this could be a life changing thing for the people here.

What might we learn tomorrow?