A lot of Africa happened this weekend.
We left the school around 5 AM in our 14-vehicle long caravan. I
was “lucky” enough to get to ride in a public transportation bus
called a jeg-n-jye. That's how it sounds anyway.. it is probably
spelled more like djigndmfgendjaye. Even if I tried to explain the
glory of this bus or tried to capture its beauty in a picture, you
would not understand. Some of the windows were covered with sheets
of fabric.. some only had half of the window covered. The seats were
all ripped. Every piece of the bus was shaking as soon as the engine
started.. and it only got worse the faster it went. You will just
have to come to Africa someday and try it yourself! I would
recommend maybe traveling for 10 minutes on it though instead of
three hours. Despite being packed in the “jeg” like sardines (I
actually had a whole seat to myself.. not quite sure how that
worked!), I was able to sleep a little bit! Right when I was
drifting off, I heard a big loud noise. I thought we ran into
something.. but it turns out we were going through a toll gate and
our driver tried to just go through at the same time as the car in
front of him. So when he was halfway through, the bar came down on
top of the bus and snapped right off. Thankfully it wasn't a
convertible bus.. yikes! And this was only the beginning of the
trip. We soon realized just how great of a driver our man really
was. And, to make matters worse, the jeg was full of all girls.. and
what do we know? So even when our fearless leader tried to talk to
him, he completely ignored her (good try, Alicia.. I think you did
great!)
After a short rest stop about halfway
to the destination, we got back on the road and were somewhere in the
middle of the caravan. We turned onto a DUSTY dirt road.. this thing
was bad. The leaves on the trees were brown on top and green
underneath.. just caked in dust! The driver decided it would be best
to pass everyone and just go as fast as possible. And the 20 high
schoolers cheering him on probably didn't help! We finally made to
our campsite and shook off all the dust.
We unloaded everything assembly-line
style and then all the different teams were off! There were 14
teams.. medical,well-digging (in two different sites), kids ministry,
roofing, cement, sound, satellite, bricks, paint, mural, benches,
drama and campsite. I got to be on the camp crew so we chopped LOTS
of vegetables.. some of the other members on our team carried water
from the well to our campsite (750 gallons by the time the weekend
was over!), filtered the water, and set up tents and showers and dug
holes for toilets. Let me just take this opportunity to say that the
boys totally got the better part of the bathroom deal.. they had
their potties and showers outside. We had ours inside in the
stinkiest yuckiest bathroom ever. Squatty potties and showers right
next to the potties.. I am so thankful though that it didn't smell AS
bad the whole weekend as it did when we first got there.. they
cleaned it up a lot. I think they were trying to be nice by giving
the girls the inside stuff, so A for effort. Okay, i'm done
complaining! For now.
On Friday, we were able to get most of
the vegetables ready for the whole weekend. After we were done,
Angela and I got to go out to one of the work sites and see what the
other teams were doing! We rode on top of the car and every time we
would go by kids, they would run at us waving and yelling. Sometimes
they would just yell, other times they would say “cadeux!” (gift)
I was told it was because they wanted a gift, but I choose to believe
that it was because they thought we were a gift... ha. Or they would
yell “toubab!” (white person) so we just yelled it back at them.
We were totally a one car parade!
Once we got there, everybody was
working so hard! I was so impressed because I was tired from just
cutting up vegetables (probably more because I woke up so early), so
I can only imagine how tired they were! God supplied the energy,
that's for sure!
When we got back to our camp we
started setting up for dinner and ate African style.. 6 people around
a big bowl. Except our group just had 4 people.. more for us! Don't
worry, we didn't finish ALL of it.
Then it was time to get ready for the
evening campaign! We prayed in small groups for this village which
we heard had a small number of believers. I can't imagine being in a
community with so few believers. It would take a lot of strength and
faith. But, I was able to catch a glimpse of the passion they had
for the Lord, and it was amazing.
The sound crew left early to get
everything set up and we followed them a couple hours later. When we
got there, some of the members of the village were just finishing up
a service of their own and were dancing and singing. It was so fun
to see them worshiping God like that. Right before they dispersed,
they prayed (from what I understood, which isn't much, they asked God
to be present there and to “chase Satan” out of the village).
The drama team set up a stage for the
puppets and sang songs and did some skits. Then, one of the pastors
preached a short message in French, there was a translator who gave
it in Sereer.. but not a translator for English, so I don't know what
the message was ;) Then, we left and they showed the Jesus film.
I was so exhausted by the time we got
back to camp, I didn't even care that I was sleeping on top of a
rock. I slept soo good.
The next morning we woke up and the
teams went to their sites after breakfast. We didn't have much work
to do since we had done most of the chopping on Friday. But, we did
have some things to prepare. Like some hot water for showers... one
of the GREAT privileges of being on camp crew. I am so proud of
everybody who took a cold shower.. but I just couldn't bring myself
to do it. I would rather smell like garlic and onions the whole
weekend. I'm sure everyone was thankful that I did decide to wash
that smell away though. :) After lunch, we got to go out to the work
sites again, and it was so fun to see the changes that had happened
in such a short amount of time!
After dinner we prayed for the next
village we were traveling to for the evening campaign. The
missionaries we were working with said that this village had been
spiritually oppressed for many years and was very animistic. We got
a little bit lost on our way out there... trying to decide whether to
believe the African guide or the GPS... who knew GPSes even worked in
the bush of Africa? It turned out the GPS was right, and after
driving through one village who caused a traffic jam for us because
they were so excited to see toubabs, we made it to our destination.
The drama team did the same thing as
the previous night and the people were really into it. A group of
little girls started singing along and at the end they said they had
a song to share with us. They sang “Jesus is my friend” in
french. It was soo precious, and so neat to see God's presence
there, even in an area that was known to be so against Him.
Apparently the sound crew had some trouble setting up that night, and
was unsure if they would be able to get everything up and running,
but God worked everything out, and the night was wonderful!
Sunday morning we got to go to an
authentic African church service.. it was sooo neat. I didn't
understand anything that was said.. except for the few times the
Missionary pastor spoke and prayed.. but I could tell the people were
worshiping from their hearts and God's presence was definitely there.
I even got to see the inside of a real village hut! Very simple..
just a bed and a trunk and lots of bags of something.. I think food.
But it was nice and cool in there.. no air conditioning needed!!
I said goodbye to the squatty potty..
so sad to leave it.. NOT. We got on the bus and started the LONG
adventure home.. I think it took us about double the time to get home
as it did to get there. First of all, the crazy man (dont worry, it
WAS indeed the same man we had on Friday) was going SO fast on the
washboard road. I looked over at Angela at one point and thought she
was going to barf.. but later I found out she just thought she was
going to die. The whole bus was shaking.. I thought it was just
going to fall apart. The only good thing was that we got to the
front of the caravan so there wasn't as much dust. Then, they pulled
off the road and checked the tire. We thought it had to be flat..
but they kept driving on it so we hoped it wasn't!
Then we got on the paved road! Had a
15 minute rest stop and then kept driving. Pretty uneventful for the
next couple hours.. dead horses on the side of the road, people
throwing mandarins in the window (just a slight exaggeration).. you
know the usual. and THEN we come upon construction. When they do
construction here, they go all out. Just stop everybody. Don't let
any cars through. So our bus driver decided he was too good for that.
He pulled into the gas station, turned around (on a train track and
BARELY made it before the train slammed into us.. just kidding!) and
then got stopped by the police officer. Some very unkind french was
exchanged, and the police took the driver's papers. At first, I
thought the driver was paying him off, and that would have made the
rest of the drive MUCH easier.. but no. We pulled off to the side of
the road and waited while the driver and his two assistants ran back
to the police man and chased him to his police car. Why does he need
assistants, you ask? Well, to get out and push the bus when it
doesn't start.. or to hold the brake when the driver needs to get out
and do whatever, no emergency brakes on these puppies. (yes both of
those things happened) Angela bought some nice $2 sunglasses at this
point though, so that was one good thing that came of it. Our driver
came back and wasn't satisfied. AND only one assistant came back..
where did the other one go??? We FOLLOWED him to the police station..
pretty sure that it should be illegal to stalk a police officer.
I don't know what happened in there,
but our driver eventually came back.. without the OTHER assistant. He
lost both of them in the process... how did that happen?
Anyway, I loved that weekend. And even
though I came back exhausted, I am so glad I went! God was at work
in those villages, no doubt about it.
