living hope ... back again!

We love, love, love having our home church come to visit. They have seen the entire process of what has happened in Ayorou & been a vital part of all of it. They helped us lay the groundwork of prayerwalking all the Songhai areas of Ayorou. They came back to help us evangelize those areas. And after many have come to faith since their last visit, they returned in June to help us in discipling these new believers. They were a blessing to us & our believers.

The week started off to a rocky start with Isabelle being hospitalized due to anemia. Izzy & I had to stay back in Niamey for most of their stay which meant all the cooking responsibilities were heaped on Mark plus his other duties. Luckily, I had done some prep work in cooking ahead of time and all the team had to worry about were the sides or fixin's. They were so flexible & understanding of our situation & went above & beyond to help out. The week really couldn't have gone any better.

It is always "scary" to do disciple trips with a volunteer team. With evangelism, you are hitting different houses each day & you visit whomever may be home. With discipleship, you are asking the same group of people to meet more than once a day for multiple days. In a "schedule free" culture, this has proven difficult more times than not. However, our believers were so committed to coming & studying the Word together. Again, the week could not have gone better. Thank you so much Living Hope!


Joneo, Dwan, Mary Beth & Amanda


Yeah for Living Hope!


Joneo & his African Christian brothers


The ladies helped prepare a traditional African meal for our believers during their last evening in Ayorou. They did everything from cutting the meat to chopping the veggies to cleaning the rice to pounding the spices. And if you know any of the team members, you would understand just how much out of their comfort zone this is ... especially handling the meat! Mary Beth adds the pumpkin to the sauce before ...


...Joneo gives it a taste test...


...the ladies dishing it out...


...the finished product...


...and it is gooooooood!


Of course, after eating one must dance!