Tuesday

Being here is a whirlwind of activities and emotions. When I sit here and think about what has happened or what I have done, all I can think about it how God is carrying me. I would be nothing without His strength.

Our team has moved to the church/district center here in Boabob (the name of the neighborhood) where we are on our own comfortably residing in a one room apartment with bunk beds and a little kitchen. I killed two cockroaches today (sorry to all of you bug lovers. I am not one of those people). It made me want to cry, but only for a second. I overcame my fear with success. We are not completely on our own. There are two guys that work at the church that are upstairs. They are our guides for most of the time that we will be here. It has been so fun getting to know them. There names are Salomon and Eh-chin (not sure how to spell that). Salomon grew up in the south of Senegal and he moved here to go to school. He is now studying theology. Saloman loves to laugh and he loves music (but not country music haha). Eh-chin is going to art school. He plays many instruments and loves volleyball and soccer.

Over the past two days we have moved in and started our french classes with our friend John-Jacque. He knows English very well and is so fun to be around. We are trying to learn enough French so we can get around the city and just know the basics. We have been introduced to some popular Senegalese dishes. Poisson is fish. We have a lot of that with rice and onions. It is difficult to explain. Only a picture could do it justice. That has been fun. We have also gotten to explore the neighborhood. There is a soccer field and basketball court that we played volleyball and babyfoot (Foosball) at the other afternoon. It was fun to interact with the kids. Today we went to an orphanage type thing where they have school and they are provided with food and clean clothes. The lady that ran is was a joy. She was so happy. Everything makes me smile here.

Tonight we learned a few songs in Wolof and French so we can sing them on Sunday. They are so fun. I will copy what a wrote down as the words or sounds I guess you would say to the tune of "Awesome God": Ya la, a jee kaw waee gee mow de. soo noo by mome breck. la new woo loo die toe poe toe so peh-ee. Of course that is not the real language, but just the sounds to remember it by. Then Pastor Danny, the Pastor here at Boabob did his bible study with the singles of the church. It was about three hours long and mostly in french, but I learned so much. I learned about their culture and they learned about ours. It was so interesting to see some different perspectives and then to talk about them. The main verse was Genesis 2:24 which talks about leaving your family to be one with your spouse. I never knew that this same verse is mentioned three other times in the bible. Must mean it is important.

At night we took a walk. They do prayer walks a lot where they just walk around and talk like on a normal walk, but you also pray for the church, the neighborhood, the community, the people. There is so much power in prayer and they take it seriously here. To be frank, spiritual darkness surrounds this place, but we must take heart for "You're is the God of this city." Keep praying for the hearts of these people.