Trip to Dano

This week I made a trip to visit some missionary friends in Dano, a small town in southwest Burkina. The Richter Family has been living and working in Dano for a little over 3 years. Geoffrey works on water/well projects, evangelism, and church plants, and Suzanne takes care of her family and is reaching out to help the orphans in her region.

The purpose of my trip was to see what Suzanne is doing, to meet some of their local workers, and to see how I might help Suzanne to get her projects up and running more quickly than if she had to do all of the start-up work on her own.

We spent time dreaming of what the work might look like, praying together, going out to visit orphans in the village, talking with and encouraging her local workers, and talking with and praying with their team members.

For me, this trip was pure joy! What fun to have time with dear friends and to dream and plan together about how they will help the children in their region.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful opportunity to help someone else who is wanting to help your little ones!

Water for Kimini!!!

As we look back, we are in total amazement at what God did in Kimini. I cannot speak enough about the outstanding drilling team that God sent here from North Carolina. Many of the men on the team have made multiple trips here to Burkina and to other countries to drill wells. They came to work and they took their work seriously. The people responsible for the drilling, Friends in Action, are qualified and professional drillers who led the team with a steady hand and with wisdom. And, at the end of the week, God orchestrated a beautiful thing and may He get all of the glory.

Kimini actually now has TWO new wells!!! If we or someone goes into Kimini to do a project, there is essentially a private well with limited but enough water for their use. The village also has new well, just 42 meters deep with lots and lots of water.

The first drilling was very hard and long. They drilled 300 feet and only reached a small pool of water. After working hard all week and drilling 6 other wells, the team was not content at all to leave Kimini without giving them water. So, they mustered all of the strength and energy that they had and with the help of the Lord, they moved the equipment to another site and started drilling again.

On this second drilling, at about 12 meters, they found water. And as they continued to drill, they found more and more water! Praise to our living God who gives water for our physical and spiritual thirst!

We left Kimini tired in body but so refreshed in our spirits and praising our wonderful God.

Drilling in Kimini--

Just wanted to put a quick note and a picture up. We started drilling in Kimini today. The drilling team worked hard. They drilled for at least 6 hours. They have gone down about 210 feet so far. . . . and we have not found water.

We will start drilling again early tomorrow morning and would greatly appreciate your prayers. . .. to find water.

Wash U Occupational Therapy Students

I would like to introduce Erin Sanborn, Frances Montanye, and Sarah Dacy to you, all Occupational Therapy students from Wash U in St Louis. Sarah is graduating this May with her Master’s degree and Erin and Frances will study for one more year to have their PHD’s.

These young women have arrived ready to work. They are highly motivated and they are full of great ideas and energy.

The main purpose for their trip is research into the medical conditions and needs of the women and children in our region. They prepared a survey of questions in English and French and are working with three different translators who help them to speak to the village women in their native language of Moore.

This week, we have already held two days of survey taking, one in Sector 6 of Yako and one in the village of Doure. Tomorrow, we will go to Kabo, a small village about 15 kilometers outside of Yako.

In addition to general health questions in the survey we are looking for malnourished children and offering to help their mothers get help for the children.

International Day of the Woman, March 8, 2012

Here in Burkina, the International Day of the Woman, is a national holiday. There is a special fabric created every year for this day and all of the women want outfits made out of this fabric. It is said here. . . that a ‘good wife’ always buys enough of this fabric to have a shirt made for her husband as well as a dress for herself!

There is an annual celebration in each province for the Day of the Woman. The celebration includes a parade, special speakers, special musicians, and gifts given by the government to local women’s groups. This celebration is often held in Yako but this year it was held in another village a bit outside of Yako.

Since we were not able to attend the celebration, we decided to have our own little International Woman’s Day party at the orphanage.

Amy organized games which were a huge success. Some of the women were laughing so hard, they were crying. All of our children came from the 4 corners of the courtyard to see what all of the excitement was about.

We played a modified version of hot potato which we called ‘pass the balloon baby’ and when the beat of the drum stopped, the lady holding the ‘baby’ had to answer questions about herself.

Then we divided the group into two teams and each team competed to see how many balloons they could stuff under the shirts of our two nurses. I think that you can see how much fun everyone was having.

A party here in Burkina always includes something to eat and to drink and our party was no exception. We ordered meat sandwiches from a local restaurant and everyone had her choice of coffee or tea to drink.

The goal of our party was to let each of our women know that they are so very special and that they are loved by God and loved by us. By the smiles on their beautiful faces, I think that the message was received.

Training for our Baby Caretakers

This past week, together with the other two orphanages in Yako, we held a two-day training session for all of our baby care-takers. In total there were about 40 ladies in attendance.

The discussion topics were chosen by the ladies and included: health and hygiene, the psychological development of a child, professionalism, how to prepare a child to leave the orphanage, nutrition, and balancing the responsibilities of work and home.
The sessions were taught by our social worker, Ely, as well as by a social worker sent by Social Action and by our nurse, Josephine, and by the nurses from the other two orphanages.

Everyone enjoyed extra cups of coffee, sardine sandwiches, and cups of cold water as we listened to the teaching and worked together in the break-out sessions.