not our plans...

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,

but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

Proverbs 19:21 ESV

We had ministry plans while our team from Olive was here. They were giving Trey the opportunity to reach out to the surrounding community, to make our presence known there. He was going into the surrounding area, talking to people, sharing Bible stories, making connections, and letting people know he was showing the Jesus Film on Thursday night. Things went well. There was a village to the north that was welcoming and inviting. There's potential there. Everything was good. There was nothing bad about that week...

Registration at first village

Trey with Chief

And then Friday came. Friday morning we set out with the team to host an eye clinic in that village to the north. It was great. They were grateful hosts. Such sweet people and children. My heart broke as a little boy asked me what we were doing here. I explained to him it was glasses for reading and that mainly older people would need them. He looked at me and asked if we could fix this... pointing to his brother's club foot. That's a reality here. There are lots of medical needs and we can't fix all of them. I told him no, but that we would pray for someone to be able to come and help him. And then we continued to talk about their life. The team did great! Everyone who came to get tested for glasses heard the gospel. And all who heard, said they want to follow Jesus. I, being skeptical, don't believe that everyone truly means that... but I know that I know that I know they clearly heard the Gospel that day. And because of that eye clinic, we will be welcomed back with open arms. And we will be going back there.

Andrea checking glasses

Rachel & Tiffany testing eyes

Registration at second village

Friday afternoon we headed to a village to the south, one that our friends at Arbre de Vie have connections with. On the drive we passed a teenage girl walking the opposite direction of us wearing a Baptist shirt. We stopped and talked with her. We were shocked to see her since we knew there was only one Baptist church in this very vast area. We asked her about the church and she said we would see it if we continued ahead. So we continued. And we came upon a teenage guy wearing Baptist cloth. Again, we stopped. Shocked. He was going to same direction we were, so in a very African fashion, we told him to hop in the back of the truck and we'd drop him where he was going. As he got in a moto passed us carrying the teenage girl and her parents... going in our direction. We were confused and excited all at the same time. Finally we reached the church. Ashley, driving the car in front of us, pulled over to make sure we didn't miss it. We stopped, thinking we were dropping our new Baptist friends off there. They said no, we're going with you to the eye clinic!

Danny checking eyes for a pastor

We continued to the school where the eye clinic was being hosted. We got everything set up and then had a minute to talk. Trey quickly realized the two pastors had been at two of his trainings. Before when they told him where they were located, he hadn't heard of the town, so he wasn't able to keep the place in his mind. The teenage boy speaks great French, so he assisted us in the eye clinic. The pastors jumped in and helped share the gospel to everyone who came through. I spent time talking with the daughters and through them, talked with the wives. It was really great. It was not our plans to go to this village. It was not our plans to have someone announce the eye clinic the day before. It was not our plans to pick up random people in the village. But it was God's plan.

Kristen with pastors' daughters

Trey with pastor's son

Because of this clinic, we've developed a great relationship with these pastors. We've talked with them about church planting. They already have a vision for this and have already been working towards it. We are grateful for the opportunity to come alongside these two families in their ministry. We are grateful that we could not avoid His plans that day.

Anthony, Pastor Barnabi, Pastor Michel, Trey, Kristen, & Chandler

Photo Catch Up: June

Just because we've been rather inactive here, does not mean we haven't been active. In fact, that's the reason we've been inactive... so much going on. In an effort to get all caught up, here's some pictures (& descriptions) from the month of June!

We started the month welcoming Anthony! He stayed with us through mid-August, assisting us in ministry, research, and just being a friend!

We assisted with a medical team in Ganvie who helped to plant a Baptist church out there. Here's some pictures from their first service.

Guest Blogger: It's all part of the adventure

Recently we had a team from the Baptist Collegiate Ministries of the University of West Florida. Trey and I met at BCM, so there is a special place in our heart for BCM's. The team was 9 people - 1 leader and 8 college age students (5 girls and 3 guys). One of them was Emily Erland. She did a fabulous job taking you inside a few moments of their trip here. This blog post is worth the read!

Emily is from Nashville, Tennessee and is 23 years old. She graduated from the University of West Florida in the summer of 2013 with a degree in English, while also playing on the women's basketball team. She currently serves as the BCM Associate at UWF. She's been on some overseas mission trips with FCA in Europe leading sports camps for kids, as well as some mission trips in the states. Earlier this year, during Spring Break she went on another mission trip with BCM to Miami. In her spare time she loves to read, write, and go to the beach. You can follow her blog here.


It’s the question that I’ve been dreading answering ever since we got back to America: “How was Africa?”

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I didn’t enjoy my time there. No, the problem is, I just don’t know where to begin. I can’t sum it up in a few words or sentences or even in a blog post. I won’t be able to show you what I’ve seen – a picture isn’t enough. And I can’t make you feel what I felt over there. I can’t fully communicate the things that the Lord taught me while I was there – mostly because they’re things that He is still teaching me and will continue to teach me.

So here’s my best shot at it.

 

We landed in the Cotonou, Benin airport in a haze –we’d been travelling for probably about 30 hours. The drive to Trey and Kristen’s house was surreal for me. Even in the darkness of night, it was evident that I was in a place like nowhere I had ever been before. The poverty was evident: trash in the streets, buildings and homes made of scrap materials, bumpy dirt roads. And there were people everywhere: women carrying baskets on their heads, children mostly naked or in the streets or strapped to a mother’s back. And so many motorcycles – only inches from our car, driving on every side of us.

We spent most of our mornings in the bush – deep in the jungles/forests of Bohicon, a few hours north of Cotonou. The people there were even more impoverished. Most lived in tiny huts side by side. We broke into groups and went hut to hut, where the people would invite us in. I was so humbled by the kindness and hospitality we were shown by these families – though they had next to nothing, they would offer us everything they had. They would bring out stools and benches, giving us a place to sit, while they would sit on the floor. Many of the families passed around a bowl of water for us all to drink from. One man even offered our group money to buy fresh water with as we were leaving his home.

When we were in the houses, we told them that we had come thousands of miles to share something with them. We often started from the beginning – that we were all created in the image of God, but that sin had caused us to be separated from God. We shared about Jesus – and that He came so that humanity could again be in perfect relationship with God. We shared that they, too, could have a personal relationship with God. Many of them believed the message of God and received it with joy.

On the last day that we did evangelism, some of the church people brought instruments and we all walked down the dirt roads singing and dancing. It was so beautiful to hear the high-pitched voices of the African women and to see their strength as they danced, moving their shoulders and their backs to the rhythm of the music. It was such a beautiful worship to the Lord. And, as we worshipped, a crowd would form. Kids and adults alike would run from their huts and begin following us. It might have been both the worship and our white skin – rarely seen in their village – that peaked their curiosity. Excited shouts of “yovo” (which means “white person”) were heard throughout the village. When a large crowd would form around us, we would stop the music and one of us would walk into the middle and begin speaking to the people.

I was able to speak to one of the crowds. I shared with them the simple message of the Gospel. I also told them that we had not come to condemn them, but to share love and life with them. I told them that we hadn’t just come to share with them our beliefs – it was much more than that. We had come to share with them the God-given purpose for all of our lives. At the end, I asked if anyone wanted to believe and begin following Christ. And honestly, I didn’t really expect anyone to say yes. I assumed that they probably didn’t understand what I was talking about – that I hadn’t made any sense to them. But about 25 kids and a few adults, too, raised their hands. But I still doubted. I clarified, telling them that this was a serious decision – that they must live for God and not for themselves now. Still, they looked me straight in the eyes and their hands remained in the air even when I explained the costs of following Jesus – waiting, perhaps, for me to believe with the same simple and childlike faith as they had. So we all prayed together. The Gospel really is simple – we just so often try to complicate it.

We were able to experience the African church while we were there, too. I was inspired by the faith of those at church – many had walked miles just to be there and to hear the message. There were many kids there, too – some of whom had come to church on their own accord, without their parents at all. The worship was really beautiful – much like the singing and dancing in the streets. Some of our group even joined in the dancing.   

On one of the last days, we went to visit an orphanage. I was so inspired by the vision of the missionaries, Jon and Ashley, who keep the orphanage. They have about thirty kids there, all from different backgrounds – some who have lost both parents, some who have lost one, some whose parents didn’t want them or couldn’t afford them, some who have been sex-trafficked. Jon and Ashley said that their purpose was not to pack the orphanage out and fill it with as many kids as possible, but that their purpose was to invest in the kids who were there – giving each of them a real life. They are literally making disciples.

And that’s what Jesus commands us to do – to go and to make disciples. He tells us to go to the nations – and I’m convinced now that the call is not only to spread hope and truth to those to whom we are sent, but it is also to bring a change within us who are going. It’s amazing to be in a place so unlike America and so unlike anything you’ve ever known before. It makes you have to strip away everything you once considered normal. There are a lot of cultural “norms” that we have in America, and so we believe that everyone MUST live this way or think this way or understand this way. But it’s not true. Stripping away all “normalcy” allows you to get to the core – the core of humanity and of life itself.

It makes the Gospel that much more real. Africa opened my eyes to the poverty of the world – not just physically, but spiritually. It may look a little different in America than it does in Africa, but we are all desperate for love, for purpose, for truth. We all want and need something – Someone – to put our hope in.

The Gospel transcends culture. It allows a privileged American girl from Florida to connect with a poor African child from Benin. Nothing and no one but Jesus can bridge that gap.

There’s a lot more I could say – I could talk about the African cuisine, not least of which was the pounded yam and the goat and the bush rat. I could mention the underground village and the king’s palace and the “fetish” market, where they sold voodoo statues and animals to sacrifice to the voodoo gods. I could talk about the boat ride in and through Ganvie, a village built entirely in the water. (Yes, IN the water – all of the houses and buildings are on “stilts.”) I could also mention the 40-hour trip home, which included renting a big, white church van to drive from Houston to Pensacola after 30 hours of plane rides and little to no sleep.

But, as we learned to say – it’s all part of the adventure.

Hiland Park Team in pictures - part 1

I had wayyy to many pictures of our March team from Hiland Park to include in our newsletter. So, I figured I'd post many of them here along with a few stories. Note: if you don't get our newsletters and would like to, please comment with your email address or talk to a minister or staff member at Hiland Park and they will get your info to us.

The team arrived on a Monday night after a long trip. They came with 7 bags of goodies for us!!! How awesome. Our cabinets were (and still are) stocked with yummy American food! And since it was Chandler's birthday, she had lots of goodies in there too. The first two days we stayed in Cotonou and did touristy things - Ganvie, Artist Village, trip around town, Touraeg tea with a friend, and a birthday party for Chandler.

 

Thursday morning we headed to Ouidah. Thursday afternoon, Friday, and Saturday, David and Carl lead a Pastor's training on Baptist Doctrine along with Trey. The others on the team went into the surrounding areas sharing stories from the Bible and the gospel. Chandler and I went back and forth between the two groups. On Saturday, we visited a slave fort together. While Trey, Chandler, Carl, and I ran some errands, the others visited a snake temple and the "Point of No Return." We believe it's important to see these things while in Ouidah. Ouidah is one of the birthplaces of voodoo, and where they worship cobras. When one is found they are brought to the snake temple. Also, it's where all the slaves were put on boats to head to the western world, which is why it's called the "Point of No Return."

 

While out and about on the first day, I spent time with Sally and Savannah. The first fisherman village we stopped at Savannah shared an overall story of the Bible starting with the fall and all the way to Jesus. At the end, the group had grown tremendously in number. Some were trying to cause problems, some were distracted by other things, but there were still those few who were very focused on the story. One asked about faith. Sally did a great job explaining how we have faith in the chairs we sit in, not knowing where they were made or who made them. At the end, one man said he wanted to follow Christ. We prayed with him and for him. Today, we pray that God will continue to work in his life.

We went further down and found a group of men pulling in nets. The women were sitting by waiting. Here, the men fish and the women buy the fish from the men and then sell it in the markets. This was a perfect opportunity for us women to share with the women waiting. Sally started sharing a story with a group of women. One was very intently focused and listening, while the others were there and listening, but really just waiting for the men to say they're ready. And then it happened... the men were ready and the group of women ran off... all but that one. The one woman encouraged Sally to continue sharing and catch up with the group. As the group was getting their fish the woman explained that she is a believer, but her friends weren't. She's tried sharing with them before, but they didn't want to listen. After the women had their fish, some came back over. They were there to be nice, but weren't really hearing what Sally was saying. We finished by praying for the woman, her health, her family, and to continue to give her boldness to share.

Kristen and Cory had similar stories from that day where the numbers started out with two or three people listening to the story and ending with 15-20. That day was an eye opener to the entire team. They saw how sharing stories from the Bible can lead to a gospel presentation. They saw how people would focus, stop what they're doing, and listen. And they also saw how many distractions can pop up while sharing.

The next two days were similar. The team got to meet some people who are very wrapped up in voodoo. They got to meet people who thought their religion saved them. It was a great time of sharing Christ with the people of Ouidah, encouraging the church there, and learning how to better pray for the people of Benin. We finished the weekend attending a local, small Baptist church. Carl and David shared the sermon that day and did a great job doing it by way of telling a story. It was awesome to see them learn the culture, and then share a sermon according to that culture. Telling stories is a huge part of peoples lives here. To hear a Pastor share a story encourages the church members to do it as well.