Friday, December 05, 2008

Africa Update #1

Not sure if many of you know that I am helping with missions at our church now. I have a huge heart to see people know Jesus and missions are a secret passion of mine. For the last 5 months I have been working on sending a team to Africa and here is the first update I received from the team:

Friday morning, 7:05 (8 hours ahead of you)

It wasn’t really all that long ago that missionaries had to travel here by boat (2-3 months)....Becky Nehlsen’s parents did that. Now we can get here in just over a day from the west coast! And communicate instantly.

Our team is doing GREAT. We spent our first day getting oriented and getting our bodies somewhat used to the time adjustment— not bad so far. We checked out the city and saw where the work here is progressing and what we can do while here. Our flights over (30 hours of straight travel) went great. My dream of leaving the airport and getting out into a French town came true. We ran up to Senlis and had lunch and looked around the old part of that town — a cathedral dating probably to the 13th century.

Our team will be working this week on a new Youth Center out at the edge of the capital city where the villages are being gobbled up by the growing city.

It is encouraging to see how God is working in this country but the challenges here are great. Islam is being funded by national governments in the middle east. Christianity is funded by individuals from the west.

50% of this country is Muslim. 10% Christian. 30% hang on to traditional tribal beliefs. The battle is on to win the hearts of those 30%. I feel like a spiritual soldier out here.

Pray for our ability to work hard and glorify God and enjoy Him in this place.

We may head out to Victor’s (South Hills) family and give them their gifts from Victor and meet all of them.

We’ll keep in touch.

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I'm praying for you guys!