Here are some pictures from Togo and life in general. (To get pictures of the blog sites...right click on the picture and copy to your desktop.)

This is the Otter and I at the Togo Baptist Conference Center. The otter has now been to three countries: France, Burkina Faso and Togo! He says Hi to the Sunday School Class!
See all the green in the background! Awsome! Love seeing trees! This is Otter with African houses in the background.

Otter did get a little air sick on the way back from Togo. The overhead compartment was a little crowded and the pilot said there would be slit turbulance and it felt like we were traveling though a hurricane! Also he didn't have his yellow vacination card showing he had had his yellow fever shot...it was a few minutes delay at Ouaga imigration!

So how many missionaries does it take to get a T.V. to pick-up a soccer game?! The guys are trying to watch the African Cup of Nations and the T.V. intina is giving them problems!

They finally got it fixed and nothing can distract them from the game! The comentary is in French...but that does not stop them. No one takes their eyes off the T.V.!

Things are going good. French is progressing. Emily and I are joining the American Club pool today!

On Wednesday...our language helper invited us over for a Congolize meal! We had foufou! It is mixed vegies, fish, and a bean sauce over rice or manika...and lots of fresh fruit! It was sooo good! (I will post pictures later!)

Mostly things have settled into a routine of sorts. Get up at 7, go to class at 8. Class from 8 to 12 than lunch. Study or walk around town to practice French.

There is a huge missionary community here in Ouaga and we have fun hanging out with everyone. It great!

The West Africa IMB trustees were in town this week and they traveled all over Ouaga and Ghana to see the work going on in the area. I got to have breakfast and dinner with them yesterday, Friday. There were 5 of them and they had the whole experience, rough roads, different food, dust, and heat!

Thank you to all of you for sending e-mails to encourage me while I was sick and for all the prayers. I am almost to 100%. I still have to watch what I eat…but so far so good.

AFRICAN CUP of NATIONS
As I am typing this up…I am halfway watching the final game of the Africa Cup of Nations. (For all of you in the dark—this is a soccer tournament for Africa countries, played every two years.) Cote d’Ivoire is playing against Egypt and if you know anything about anything you will hope Cote d’Ivoire wins. It will mean good things for us when we move to Abidjan!

All radios and TV’s are tuned into this game. Everyone who can is going to be watching this game. I have learned so much about culture!

TOGO
Togo was GREEN! It was wonderful to step off the plane and breathe in moist air and not choke on dust. All of us brightened up and felt better. And meeting all the leadership in West Africa was fun. They are all wonderful, Godly people.

VISITING A FRENCH CLINIC
So…about being sick…I got to visit a French Clinic here in Ouagadougou Monday. I had all the symptoms of having Malaria so we thought it would be best to go get tested. Without going to much into detail the French have very little to no modesty and the lady doctor I saw like to practice her limited English. (I hope you are already chuckling!)

So I had to have a translator and even then it was interesting to find describe my symptoms. Well she interviewed me and then pulled me over to the other side of the room for an exam. She felt my heart beat and listen to me breathe deeply. Then, apparently the French lay down when they have their blood pressure taken. She told me – in broken English – “Stand up and take you clothes off.” Well I looked around and there was no little sheet or paper cloth to put over me and so I asked. “All of them?” She looked at me and laughed! Saying, “No, no…take your shoes off and lay down!” I was thinking there is a big difference between clothes and shoes!

The lesson of this story is to always double check when you go visit the French doctor who wants to practice English!

SWIMMING IN AFRICA
Yesterday, Emily, Mary Beth and I went to Isabelle’s flat, (a Parisians girl Emily met on the plane to Burkina) to have lunch and get to know her better. (Emily and I had met her for dinner one night before we went to Togo.) She had a pool and we went swimming! Swimming in February!

Here are some things to remember this week.
--IMB trustees are visiting Burkina Faso this week to travel around and see the work. Pray they keep safe in traveling and for the workers who are with them and who they are going to see.

--French is going well. We have added 4 hours of class time to our schedule. Pray I retain…my brain may be like a sponge.

--Also, our language helper’s father is very sick and in the hospital. She is here to go to the University and he is in the Congo. Pray for him and for her as she is so very far away.

--It is starting to heat up here and the dust is getting heavier. Pray for my health.

I will post pictures this week!

An African Believer.....

Passion…Burkinabe Believers have passion for Christ. They boldly profess their faith. A young woman and I were paired up together after the service Sunday to walk around the neighborhood and share about Chist and Bon Burge Baptiste L’englis (the Baptist church).

Friday night we heard church would start an hour earlier Sunday, so after the service they could go out into the neighborhood and evangelize. Of course the pastor had told the congregation all this last Sunday…but in French. None of us had picked this up. Guess we have a ways to go! Needless to say – we were very thankful Kathy had understood and told us or we would have walked in an hour late to church!!

I didn’t know if the church would want four Americans to go with them to tell the neighborhood about the church…but they did. The pastor came up to us after the service and paired us up with someone from the church who knew a little English.

She knew a little English and I practiced what little French I remembered! The first house we stopped at rejected her and told us to leave. So we walked on – speaking broken English and French, learning a little bit about each other. She is studying communications at the university and was excited when I told her I studied journalism in school.

In the third compound the men invited us in to talk. They all gathered around the burkinabe and the white girl. I told her to not worry about trying in English…to talk with them, not me. Most of them were Muslim. I followed the conversation fairly well. She started off with the story of Abraham and Isaac moving to the power of the Holy Spirit and then finished with the story of Jesus. She then asked if they had any questions.

One guy asked her to explain the differences between Catholics and Protestants. I thought “Good luck!” I didn’t understand her answer…it would have been interesting to know what she thought.

She didn’t back down from there questions, challenging them with her answers and even stopped to pray over one guys food. (He was a Muslim—but understood the blessing!) So we prayed in the power of Jesus for the food to be a blessing to him! She left a note card about the church with them and got their names so the pastor could do a follow-up!

She is coming Thursday with another girl from the church to help us with our French.

Here are some more random pictures from Africa!



Me sweeping African style. They do not have wooden handles for the brooms so they bend over and sweep everything…even dirt. (Every morning at 6 a.m. I hear the night guard sweeping the dirt outside my window)

My African afternoon snack…crackers and cheese. The cheese is called The Laughing Cow and is really good with crackers that are almost like ritz…but not quite.

Thought requests….

Emily is sick…we think with sinus’

Deron is also sick…a head cold.

We leave for Lome, Togo on Saturday for a regional leadership conference. We will meet the Regional Leadership Team and learn and plan the coming year. I hope our flight is smooth and our week off from French does not hurt us.

Blessings to you all from West Africa!

Jesse Lyautey
Mission Baptiste
01 B.P. 580
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Packages can be no larger than the size of a VHS tape
Send air mail
I will only be here until the end of March and it will take about 2-3 weeks for something to get here.

If you want to send something I'd love it!
Here are some items to get you started.
Kool-aid (can never have enough here!)
individual packs of grits and oatmeal
hard candy
pictures
notes
CD's, DVD's
letters
Blessings to you All! Thanks for the thoughts and e-mails!

Walking around town!

In the market we slowly walk through the vendors, looking for fabric for new “pana’s,” African skits that tie around the waste. This market is different. The vendors are laying around napping, occasionally calling out to us, “Madame, Madame!,” but for the most part we are not bothered. Everywhere else people circle around us like vultures in the desert wanting money for goods. One of the missionaries explained this is because this market is not a tourist market.

Against their dark, African skin, the colors are beautiful and bright. You can fin any color with any design. Hanging against one wall is one fabric with bright red birds on a green background anther has orange and yellow butterflies with a multi-color blue and tan backing.

Women walk by with large metal fruit bowls on top of their heads, asking people to buy the fruit. The fruit is placed towards the front of the bowl and even thought the bowl is four times the size of their heads only the front half actually sits on the head. Somehow she beats the pull of gravity and is able to balance 10’s of pounds on her head.

Everyday is a new adventure. Yesterday we braved the crowded streets to go by groceries. We try only to get out during the siesta (less people asking us to buy their goods)…but the Marina Market is closed from noon until 3.30. We got their early and walked around the mosque in front of the market. Many people were begging for food and money. The little kids all come up to shake our hands. (We use lots of hand sanitizer.) On our way back to the market we watched as Muslims did their prayers on the side of the road. They literally put their mats down and begin kneeling.

Here is a lesson in French.

Bonjour! Comment ca va? (Hello! How are you?)

Bonjour! Ca va, et vous? (Hello! Doing good, and you?)

Je va bien. Et famille? (I am good. And your family?)

Bien, merci. (Good, thank you.)

A tout a l’heure. (See you later.)

Au revour. (Good-bye.)

Good times in West Africa!

I am a cooking MACHINE!

Emily and I getting things done

(or maybe this is what m's do with their spare time!?)

Neither of us wanted to take out the trash so we had a contest! Who ever lost had to take it out!I won the "who can eat a pancake the fastest contest!"

Me and the Otter making chocolate pancakes for dinner! (He is becoming a good cook!)

The much awaited pictures!

Men begging in front of mosque.




Me on a swing in front of my apartment.







This is an abnormal street in Burkina Faso. Usually you can not see the road there are so many people and cars. We play a game called- dodge the cars/motos and people. Most of the people drive motos.








This is Amilie. She works as a secretary in the office of the Burkina Faso Baptist Convention. She is going to help me practice French.














10-01-06

As I sit on our front porch eating a freshly cut apply, Antonie, our day gate guard, walks by pulling on a stocking hat. I yell “bon jour, Antonie!” thinking how strange it is for anyone in 90 degree weather to wear a knitted hat. Yet this is a cool morning during the winter time for most West African’s and it is not uncommon to see them walking around with large winter jackets on in the morning. Later Antonie will take off his hat as the sun quickly heats the air. He will sit in his chair by the gate all day, getting up whenever a car enters or exits the compound.

We will always greet Antonie and ask about his health, family and his day. This is a custom in West Africa. You cannot just walk past someone with a short “hey.” It is a lengthy process to greet and then move on to the next person to greet. It could take as long as thirty minutes to greet a stranger, but this is only after I learn how to say more than three words in French!

Today is a Muslim holiday, Fet. It is also a national holiday and it is quiet except for the call to prayer coming from the mosque. Emily and I sit listening to the chanting, praying for God to reach down and awaken these people.

We decide to try our first Burkina Faso taxi today. Because of the holiday few taxi’s are in service and we walked a block to find the main road in town. The five of us – Kathy, Deron, Mary Beth, Emily and I – squish into the small car and head for the city park. It was beautiful. It is a large park, with many trails, animals and it also has a kid’s fun park. Kathy said this is the only park of its kind in West Africa, she has never seen anything like it. We walk for a while enjoying the quiet, peacefulness of the morning. We all forgot to put on sunscreen so soon we are pink from bright sun and decide to head back to the compound for lunch.

Tomorrow I start French lessons. I am a little nervous to meet our teachers. This is a shame society. This means we will get little or no praise from our teachers during the next three months. I pray I can be an encourager to the others, as well as doing things to make myself feel good about my accomplishments.

I’ll let you know how they go!

10-11-06

Well, the French is hard but not so bad. I will spend a couple of hours this afternoon practicing and making flash cards. Fun, fun. But I now know how to start a conversation and leave a conversation. I'll show you my classroom next time.

Things are bien (which is good in French and Spanish!!!)

Blessings!

I am having trouble posting pictures visit: Emily P's link and Mary Beth and Deron's link on the side of my blog to view pictures they have posted. Maybe next time.
Thanks to all of you who sent e-mails. Loved getting them. Will write back soon!

Three days in Africa!

06-01-06
The plane lands, anticipation builds. I grab my book-bag, rap my light jacket around my waist and hold my heavy winter jacket in my hand. I can already feel the heat coming from the front of the plane. I am in Africa. As I start to walk down the steps to go into the airport I inhale a mixture of heat, dust, and burning leaves and trash Mary Beth said, “It smells like Africa.” I laugh, thinking soon the smell will be normal, 80 degrees will feel cool, and I’ll be able to ignore mosquitoes.

Between the four of us we have 16 bags and/or trunks of luggage. We caused a small “problem” trying to go through “customs” in Burkina Faso. I use the word “customs” loosely; it was a guy standing at the door wanting to know what hundreds of people had in their bags. We came up and he just laughed and asked what was in them, we had so much he just let us go.

I was able to share Christ on the plane from Paris. It was a random collection of questions and searching. His name is Kevin. Kevin is from Canada, in med-school in Washington D.C. and decided to take time off and visit Burkina Faso. Just wanted to spend six months here and meet people. He doesn’t know anyone here and is going to live with a family in Ouaga. Kevin is a true searcher. He doesn’t believe in God, but does believe something is out “there.” He has traveled a lot lately and I just wanted to tell him, “You are not going to find “happiness” hopping from one country to another.”

We had home made pizza Friday night for dinner at a missionary’s house. Fourteen missionaries and missionary kids we met and bombarded with questions about the area and people. After dinner the guys started watching the Rose Bowl game, someone had taped for them.

We are tired, but content. God has already answered so many of your prayers: safe travel, all of our luggage made it, the people are great, and we are excited about the next three months in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, learning French.

We start our French lessons on Wednesday, pray I am rested and able to learn quickly and remember what I have learned. Pray I will have a willing spirit to get out with the people and stubble through the language.

This is the dry season and everyone is burning trash, pray allergies will leave me alone.

May the Lord bless you!

08-01-06
Yesterday, we went shopping with Kathy. We went all around town looking for different items. I walked down one aisle and saw dove soup in the new fancy bottles! Even though we could get most toiletries, we could not find eggs.

While in the store I saw Kevin from the airplane. I walk over to say hi and he was surprised to see me. He seemed overwhelmed, so I went back to my group.

We meet some Burkinabe (burr-key-nah-bay), the people who are from Burkina Faso, at fruit stands who said they would help us practice our French.

Today we went to the University church. It was a western style with three rows of pews, wooden pews that really are uncomfortable after two hours, and the women sat on the left, the men on the right, and families or groups in the middle. We sat in the middle so Deron wouldn’t be by himself.

It was a great service (in French) and everyone was very nice. We got introduced as visitors, taken back to a special room afterwards and told about the churches activities. We might try to go to youth events to practice French. The workers said the church was a wealthier church and used western worship to draw students from the nearby university.

We ate Chinese for lunch and American ice cream for desert. Things are going really well.

I am having trouble falling asleep at night. Please lift-up this so I might get more sleep and not have feel overly tired during the day.

Also…that I might start picking up some French.

Miss you all!

During the last two weeks:

I decided that I would just pack enough to last one year, on the hope of Mom and Dad coming to see me and would bring the enough to last the next year. Here is just a small example of what one would pack to move to Africa.

1. Lotion (lots and lots of lotion)
2. Ziploc bags (all sizes- these can be washed and reused)
3. Spices (This allows us to flavor our meat)
-Tony's
-Taco mix
-Spaghetti mix
-Mixed spices
4. Jell-O (a little dessert)
5. Ranch dry dressing (even though we can't eat salad's, for some reason we need salad dressing)
6. Toothpaste (two tubes= one year)
7. Sunscreen (haven't really gotten this yet)
8. Converters (for all the electrical stuff I am taking!)
9. Transformer (for all the electrical stuff I am taking that can't use a converter)

While packing to live overseas...one must evaluate their possessions and reject most unpractical things. Like the little knick-knack's, hard backed books, the ten pair of shoes in the closet, and owning more than two pairs of jeans. Since August, I have been going through my possessions and getting rid of anything I have not wore or used this last year. Some things I did keep, the first doll my dad gave me and the key chain collection I started in middle school.


Here are some fun pictures from the last two weeks:

Dad and Uncle Tom in front of the
Elephant at the Smithsonian

The Hope Diamond


Emily and I sitting next to the reflecting pool in front of the Capital






Emily and I on the Metro in D.C.

So a lot has happened in the last two weeks. Needless to say, this is why I have not sent an update.

The biggest thing is it SNOWED for almost two days here in Virginia!!! We received about five inches of snow. It was beautiful and very hard to pay attention in our sessions, when all we wanted to do was have snowball fights and slide down the many hills out here at ILC. I sat in front of the large window our Quads (apartments) have in the living room area and watched the sun radiate off the snow. It is amazing to realize what God means by washing us to make us as clean as snow. I also got to play snow soccer at night. There was enough light coming off the moon, hitting the snow to play. (It was a little slippery and all of us fell multiple times, laughing at each other!)

Only three days left at training. Now looking back time has passed rather quickly. I have made some amazing friends going all around the world. Most of us will never see each other again here on earth, but we have a common bond - answering God's call to serve Him overseas. We have spent time together learning about sharing our faith without destroying other cultures, how to guard our hearts from Satan, had safety training, and learned about our region of the world. We also learned how to teach illiterate cultures the Bible and how to disciple them when they can't read the Bible. It is called Chronological Bible Storying. We also practice during our small group worship times in the mornings. Sunday morning, Emily and I told the story of the angels telling of Jesus' birth in Luke 2. 8-14. I really like this method and hope to use it with new friends. After all the hard work during the day we got together and played hard. You could find me playing basketball, volleyball, dodgeball, soccer or any other activity where I might hurt myself!

Here are some more pictures of things I have done in the last two weeks.

Eat African food!
(hang-out with journalists)!

Celebrating Spencer's 23rd
Birthday! (guy in middle)

God has been good to me. One of my Bible verses to memorize while here at ILC was Psalm 16. 2 "I said to the Lord, "You are my Lord; I have NO good besides you." May I remember all of my life is in God's hands and I will rejoice in the life he has set out before me.

Praise: I have been cold free for two weeks!

Prayer: For the hard good-byes here at ILC and then a smooth transition onto the field.

Thank you for your prayers during this time. God has truly blessed me to take in an enormous amount of information to prepare me for his work.

MERCY ME AND
STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN!!!
A couple from training goes to the same church as a guitarist with the Christian Band--Mercy Me. This Sunday night the couple got 14 of us from training free tickets and back-stage passes to meet the band and Steven Curtis Chapman after the concert in Fairfax, VA. We loaded -up into three cars and drove the two hours to George Mason University and had an awesome time worshiping and singing Christmas Carols. This is us with Mercy Me and Stephen Curtis Chapmen. The guy kinda in the back (you can only see a little of his head) is not part of the band, the rest on the back row are and Steven is on the right next to the girl in blue.

This is Steven on stage.











This is Mercy Me and Steven.











This is a close-up of the lead singer for Mercy Me, Bart. (this one I couldn't get to save right.)











If you were at the concert and want more pictures ask and leave me your e-mail address.

Heart Language Worship

Every Sunday night the whole group gets together and worships in different cultures. So far, we have done Spanish and African worship. Tonight will be Arabic. Both have been amazing times with the Lord and I truly look forward to tonight.

Last night, we got a group together to do some American culture worship. Afterwards, I really understood how we, as Americans, can not force our cultural worship onto other cultures. It means so much more to worship God in your heart language than to have something interpreted from another language.

We talked about Counting the Cost...found in Luke 14: 25-35. Verse 33 says: "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions."

We were given an index card to write out all the things we would be giving up while serving overseas. There were very few dry eyes last night. All of us have experienced times during the last four weeks were we realize more and more things we will miss out on while we are gone.

Weddings, births, deaths, family, holidays, nephews growing up, friends moving away. Personally for me, I will miss seeing my brother come home from Iraq.

Yet, what are these things compared to my God. Each of us have counted or cost as Paul did in Philippians 3:7-11
"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have couted as loss for the sake of Christ.
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
in order that I may attain to the resurrection form the dead."

This is one of my favorite passages. Paul was truly a man of God. Over the next two years my goal is to count all of my things a loss for the sake of Christ.

I challenge you to look at your own life. What do you see holding you back from God?

Blessings in his name...

Well, where do I start.

The whole group (all 200ish of us) went to Washington D.C. today. At 8 a.m. we loaded onto charter busses, got to the Union Station a little after 10 a.m. My group, the West Africa team, met up with the conference leader and his daughter and got to visit a mosque during their Friday prayers. We were their for more than two hours. All the females were down-stairs in the cold lower floor with our heads covered, and all the men were up-stairs with the warm sun shining in the windows. To watch the women pray...There are no words to describe the ache in my heart. This other girl and I sat at prayed for them. We also got to hear a sermon (mainly in Arabic) and a lot of chanting. After the sermon we met two women from Cote d'Iviore who work in the Embassy.

We went to an Ethiopian restaurant for lunch and then rode the metro back to Union Station. It was a long but educational day.

Yesterday, I was able to visit my great-uncle and great-aunt who live in Richmond, Va. My parents and two of my friends from training also came. GREAT food.

The picture at the top is of me and my mom. We are sitting on my late great-grandmothers swing. This swing used to hang from her porch. I remember swinging on it as a little girl. It is now at my great-uncles house. (love you mom! you too dad!)

Tomorrow we learn how to kill a chicken, drive stick-shift and some light cooking. I am going to watch the chicken killing and learn how to drive stick. (pray for me!)

We have two and a half more weeks. Pray I will retain all the information and be prepared for the work God has for me.

In his name...