State Side

I came flew back into Orlando Tuesday night. I am glad to be home but I was not eager to leave. On July 12 we drove back to Ouaga for debriefing and shopping before going home. It was really hard to leave Leo. I had tons of fun with the kids and our English class. I met lots of amazing people and beautiful children that I hope I will never forget. In Ouaga I enjoyed hanging out with my team Liz, Leslie, and Katina and shopping for souvenirs. It was such an awesome trip. It seems like it wasn't that long at all and then at the same time I felt like I had been there forever. Its really hard to explain how I feel about everything and all that God has taught me because I don't understand it all completely. But trust me when I say there is a change in me and I have learned a lot. Ive learned a lot about myself, the world, God, and my future. I truly am richly blessed. I recommend missions trips to all Christians. One thing God has shown me lately is the importance of His call and our obedience. God gave us a call. It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone should go to Africa but we are all called somewhere. The world needs missionaries, people need to hear about Christ. "the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' 14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'" Romans 10:12-15. It is a privilege to be an ambassador for Christ We should take hold of the power the Holy Spirit gives us to share the gospel. It is humbling to think that God wants to use us when we are so sinful and unworthy but He does. I always doubt that I am worthy to be used by God but He continually shows me that He uses the willing. Therefore, with the goal of pleasing and honoring our God, I am will to go and do what ever He calls me to. I am confident that God will lead me where I need to go and am eager to serve Him. Through this trip He has shown me many awesome blessings that come with following Him. He has been faithful with every step by providing me with all that I need and more. I know I will only be truly happy and satisfied on His path. This is just one thing God has shown me clearly through this trip. If you want to know more please call me I am always eager to talk with anyone about the awesome things I saw and learned in Africa. Also, I took over 800 pictures while i was gone and i have posted several on facebook. Thank you all for your overwhelming support and encouragement for me before and while I was in Africa. All of the prayers, messages, and emails helped me feel connected and loved while I was away. :-)

Burkina Faso

Friends and Fam
Sorry it has taken me so long to right. I am super busy here and we have dail-up so this maybe the last one I write. I went to Waga for 4 days with Elsie to pick up the other members of our team from the airport. Katina, Liz, and Leslie are the new comers. Lord has blessed me with some more amazing people to work with. We all get along really well and have fun together. On Thursday we came to Leo and did a few days of orientation and planning. Monday we started our typical schedule which is morning with childrens ministry, lunch break, and then english teaching in the afternoons. Unfortunately our first week is over but we had tons of fun. I love everything:-) With the children we play games, sing songs, and learn a bible story every morning. The children are adorable and love white people, well most love us some of the little ones are really afraid of white people. In the market the other day we say a baby who has never seen a white person before and he did not stop screaming until we were out of sight. His mother and grandmother were laughing. It was very funny. But in general the children just want to be huged and played with. Yesterday we taught them heads up seven up and red light green light. Needless to say we are worn out by lunch time. Our afternoons are for the english class which I suprisingly love. I was relaly nervous about teaching english becuase i dont know any french but it is going really well and and the students say just hearing us talk is helpful. We have been teaching them lots of english words but we also introduce a bible story and american culture into each lesson plan. The age rang for our class is from 17 to 45 but they are all eager to learn and listen attentively to everyting we say. Thursday we taught them about music and dancing that was my favorite lesson so far. I am having lots of fun and and bunches to tell all of you when I get home. I will be home in 10 days although I am excited to see everyone again it will be really hard to leave. I love absolutely everything here.

=Brittany

Prayer request:
-Language barrier with the children
-the burkinabae will see Christ love through us
-safe travel to church tomorrow (its two hours away)
-the muslim people searching for the truth for protection and wisdom
-Jaque (a man from the ivory cost who is working iwth us) his family is moving here

Prayer praises:
-the first week of childrens ministry and EFL has been awesome
-we were all sick but now feel much better
-my team is great
-the power is on - it just turned on after being off for 12 hours


-tiffy and yvy i am reading the first book of the mark of the lion series and it is aweosme:-) im hooked

:-) :-) Smiles (-: (-:

I can hardly believe that it has been over a week since I last wrote. I am getting so comfortable here. At the hospital my schedule has remained the same this week and the rest of last week. There was a group from Shorter College here and I had lots of fun with them and was able to tag along with many of the things they were doing in the villages and churches here. Most days I would spend half of the day at the hospital and the second half working with the Shorter group. God is so good. The students were really welcoming to me and I have become good friends with all of them. They left Nalerigue this morning but God used them here and they were a huge blessing to me. I will miss them. My favorite day of the trip so far was yesterday. I went around the hospital with the Shorter students singing praise songs, blowing bubbles, and giving out stickers to the patients. I see the patients every morning on rounds and they are always nice and appreciative of the care they receive but when we came with bubbles and music I saw a whole new side of them. They were happy and excited and filled with energy upon our entrance into the wards. I am humbled by how awesome God is and continually amazed that He is letting me be apart of these wonderful experiences. The patients were in pain and some had little hope and yet they smiled with just a few bubbles. I have many more awesome experiences like this to tell you about but it would take me hours to write all of them. Just trust me when I say God's grace is swelling over here.

Prayer request:
-God continual strength and direction
-traveling - I am leaving for BF Sunday
-the Shorter students are flying home Sunday
-financial support for the hospital
-more doctors to answer a call to work here long term and short term
-one of the boys who is 3 but only 12 lbs - severely malnutritioned has AIDs. He went home a few days ago but he will never get better and will not live too much longer. It breaks my heart to see such a small, innocent child go through so much pain. I pray that God takes away his pain and comforts his grandmother who takes care of him.
-the man with paralysis and burns is not improving. My prayer for him is that he will not be in pain and that if he is not a Christian that he will become one before he dies.
-there is a little boy, probably around 10 years old, with severe wounds on his legs and he has bacterial infection that is causing him lots of pain. He has been in the hospital since I have been here and I have yet to see him smile. I could tell he liked the bubbles yesterday but even that could not bring him to smile. Please pray for his full recovery but also happiness.

Praises:
-allowing me to be apart of the Shorter group
-the other malnutritioned boy who is 2 and a half years old went home a few days ago and is doing much better. If he continues to gain weight and does not get an infection he will be fine.
-the healing power of music, bubbles, and stickers
-the strong God honoring Churches in Nalerigue and some surrounding villages

Blessed and Highly Favored

As my dad would say I am blessed and highly favored. I am overwhelmed by how abundantly God has been blessing me. So many amazing things have happened since i last wrote.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are clinic days. On clinic days starting at 9 am the hospital takes on a good day 600 people who have walked or rode in from surrounding villages. So far on clinic days I have taken blood pressures, weights, observed, and played with kids. The hospital has a lot of student volunteer now from a local trade school so I just try to fill in where every they need me but they usually have things pretty well covered. This is good in a way because I can usually wander where ever I want to. I spend my free time visiting the maternity or peds wards.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are OR days. I have seen lots of awesome things in the OR so far. My first operation was a C-section. God loves me so much. He knew how much I wanted to see a birth and how much I would love it. There is nothing like seeing a baby being born. I am really thinking about becoming a midwife, although I have not seen a natural delivery yet. Hopefully I will see one tomorrow or by the end of the week :-) I am excited just thinking about it. I have seen several other operations most of them were hernias. I am amazed by the miracles God works through surgeons.
Everyday Mon-Fri starts with morning devotionals at 7am (sometimes they are translated into English sometimes they are not but I always like it either way :-) In the mornings after devotional I follow one of the doctors around the hospital from about 7:30 to 9 or 9:30. This is a basic outline of my weekly hospital schedule, i hope it makes sense. I am learning so much at the hospital and its awesome to be around patients, doctors, nurses, and students. I missed that.
So Friday after devotional, rounds, and the clinic for a few hours I went to a village 15 minutes from Nalerigu with a few other short term missionaries. We stayed the night and then walked back to the hospital the next morning. There are two missionaries who are living in the village for 2 weeks so we met up with them their. I know you wont believe this mom but I stayed in a mud house. One of the ones they show on those commercials with the starving children. O by the way I have seen some starving children here too and there are lots of kids with protein deficiencies that have caused their bellies to get distended. Its really sad. Anyways we played with the kids while we were at the village. They all get really excited to see white people. There must have been 75 to 100 kids that followed us around that day. They were all so adorable. We went on a crocodile hunt too but did not find any. That night the women of the village brought us food and they provided rooms for the girls and boys to sleep in. I got to use their bathroom there too it was quite an experience. In the morning we woke up a little before 6 and with in the hour the women brought breakfast to us in our rooms. Everyone in the village was extremely generous. To them we were strangers who pretty much knocked on their door asking for a place to stay, dinner, and breakfast and they willingly provided plenty for us. It was awesome to see such generosity from people so poor. It really makes me realized how greedy I am. My village experience was definitely one I will never forget and would love to do again.
Saturday on our walk back to Nalerigu we decided following the road was too boring for us when there were mountains to discover. Climbing the mountains made an 1.5 hour walk 3 hours but it was worth it. Everything in Ghana is beautiful. I wish we had mountains in Florida. Saturday I also went shopping in Nalerigu and that night all the missionaries got together for dinner and board games.
Sunday I went to a village church with Tommy, the man who took us peanut planting. We were the first to arrive at the church and Tommy honked his horn to signal to the people that it was time to come. Over 40 adults showed up and tons of children. We started with about an hour of singing praise music while walking around in a circle. Then Tommy preached on Acts 27 in Mamprusi which was translated to another tribal language so I did not hear the message but I am sure it was great. It was really neat to see him explain what ships and oceans are to people who have never seen them. Lately I have been reading Genesis and God has been showing me so much. Its amazing how he created every person and knows each hair on their heads. I knew the world was big but now that I am in Africa and there are so many different people, I am seeing that the world and God are so much bigger than I ever imaged. The people in the village were praising my God in there own way and I knew at that very same moment many of my friends and family members on the other side of the world were also praising Him. I am so thankful that I was able to worship with my Christian brothers and sisters in a totally new way that was just as glorifying to God. Psalms 9 "1I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole heart" I am praying for these people because all though there are some who are Christians there are many who are lost. Muslim traditions run deep here. In Psalm 10 David says the devil "sits in the lurking places of the villages...he lies in wait to catch the poor." This verse describes these people so clearly but later in that chapter he says "Lord you have heard the desire of the humble, You will prepare their hears, You will cause Your ear to hear, To do justice to the fatherless and oppressed, that the man of the earth oppress no more." I am confident that the Lord will deliver these people.
I have so much more to write but no time. I love and miss you all.

Prayer Request:
-that I will be filled with God's strength
-that I will be given more opportunities to share the gospel
-that God will use me in the hospital
-Razach to accept Christ as his savor (a man I met in the village who is half way committed to being a Muslim and a christian)
-strength and endurance for the medical staff and missionaries here
-the language barrier
-two little boys ages 2.5 and 3, they weigh about 15 lbs each. they are extremely malnourished but oh so cute.
-one man has severe burns and his prognosis is very dim. he recently became paralyzed so the village "doctor" poored hot water on him to "cure" him but it has left him in a lot of pain and he is probably going to end up with fatal infections

Praises:
-God has blessed me with many awesome hospital experiences - I saw a birth!
-all of the people here, the missionaries and the locals, are extremely nice
-the food is great
-I saw a scorpion and bush babies (I know its selfish but I was praying to see some cool animals)
-the mission group from Shorter college arrived safely


PS. sorry about the horrible typos, i just read my last post and its kind of ridiculous but please remember that I am writing these late and very quickly.

I'm Here!

I have done lots of stuff in the last 4 days since I wrote. During my layover in Paris I left the airport for a 1.5 hour metro ride to see the Eiffel tower and to eat real French food (which I didn't eat) and then headed back to the airport by metro. I took tons of pictures but I was really sick the whole day in Paris. I never get sick so I blame it on a combination of getting no sleep, airplane food, malaria medicine, and metro rides. I threw up on the metro ride home, which was actually really funny. The people sitting in front of me were really afraid when I started to gag and one of them gave me a bag. But besides that I love Paris. Everything is really small there.
When I arrived in Burkina Faso I was exhausted. I didn't get to Mission Baptiste (guest housing for IMB missionaries) until after 11. I slept in the next morning and went around Ouaga later in the afternoon with Elsie, the career missionary in BF that I will be working with. BF is really different than the US, as I expected but it is still much different from what I imagined. I absolutely love it here though. Its hot and the humidity is really bad but the weather is much more bearable then I expected. The people are really friendly too and little African children are adorable. My biggest struggle is with the language. In BF the people speak French if they are well educated and the rest their tribal language. In Ghana only the children who attend school and the educated adults speak English as well.
I left BF for a 6 hour drive to Ghana Wednesday morning. I love it here too. Everything is much greener in Ghana. We are staying at the Baptist Hospital in Nalerigu. Here is there Weblink: http://bmcnalerigu.blogspot.com/ There are a few short term missionaries my age and two families who are staying here now. Everyone is extremely welcoming and genuinely happy. Today I went to the hospital for an hour to shadow the doctor during rounds and then took an hour drive to a village to plant peanuts by hand for 5 hours and then come home. It sounds like hard work but it was fun because we got to interact with the locals and they really appreciated our help. Tomorrow night I am going to spend the night in the village. This is just a quick overview of what I am doing. Tomorrow morning will also be my first real day at the hospital.

Prayers:
-my hospital day goes well tomorrow
-I have fun in the village and am able to show the people there Christ love
-the language barrier would disappear
-I will meet people to witness to at the hospital, in town, or in the villages
-the other missionaries coming would arrive safely

Praises:
-God has completely taken away my fear of loneliness.
-I made it through the Ghana border
-I saw the Eiffel Tower
-I love the people I am working with
-God already gave me the opportunity to share my faith with a man on my trip over here

Waiting

I am currently at the Atlanta airport waiting for my next flight. I have just finished my first two hours of my trip to Africa and only have 25 hours left yay! I would normally be really annoyed and grumpy about sitting around airports and on planes all day but I am too excited to be annoyed at anything right now. Next stop Paris. salu :-)

Please pray that I will be able to leave the Paris airport to see the Eiffel tower

One Last day

I leave tomorrow and I feel ready to go. I am getting really excited. I took my first malaria pill today, my passport and visas came yesterday, and I'm packing. I just realized that my flight has a 10 hours layover in Paris so I may be able to leave the airport for a few hours to see the city. Visiting the eiffel tower would be an awesome bonus to my trip. My plane leaves in 27 hours.

Getting Ready

So this is the first blog. yay :-) I am very excited that I figured out how to start a blog all by myself. Its one of the many things I am learning through this trip. As most of you know I am leaving Sunday at noon for Burkina Faso. While I am of course extremely excited to go, I am also experiencing a lot of anxiety, mostly over missing everyone here. I never like to be alone. I don't even like to go grocery shopping alone so the idea of spending 6 weeks without my friends and family is driving me crazy. Honestly being by myself is the only thing I am worrying about for this whole trip. I guess in the end it is just something I have trouble giving to God. Well I trust that His strength and love will help me not miss everyone too much. I feel incredibly privileged that God has called me to do missions this summer. I am confident that God is going to use me there.

Things to pray:
- that I will not be lonely
- my visas and passport arrive safely and in time
- for Katina's trip preparations - financial needs especially
- that I do not forget to pack anything
- for God to start preparing the people I meet to hear the gospel and feel the love of Christ through me and the other missionaries