Photos from our trip

To view photos from our October 2007, trip to Burkina Faso, please visit our website, www.setsailministries.com and click on "Gallery" or click here.

The Dust of Africa (Random thoughts from our trip)

Dear Prayer Partners,

        The longer you stay in West Africa, the more you realize that the dust permeates everything there.  Your hair, your clothes, your feet, your house, your bed, everything.  In the United States, most of us live in a concrete and manicured grass world, and dust is something we wipe off of our book shelves, not something that we get on our feet and clothes while walking to church. 

 

        As we returned home after our trip (almost 2 weeks ago now!) and began to unpack, we found that the red-dirt dust of Burkina Faso was coating our bags, our shoes and even our feet!  Yet even as we wash it off, we are reminded that just like the dust coats the "physical" things, our spirits and minds are coated with the thoughts and memories of our time in Africa.  Every experience in life makes a lasting impact no matter how small, but big experiences sometimes make a more noticeable impact.  Our time in Africa has without a doubt changed us.  The experience is still too new for us to quantify exactly how so, but we know that changes have happened.  We would appreciate your continued prayers as we listen closely to our Father to help us understand everything that we need to know from this trip.

 

        Our time there was difficult in many ways, but primarily because of our "cushy" lives in the U.S.!  With no AC for much of the trip, we were at the mercy of the ceiling fan in our room and a few extra ice cubes in our water bottle to bring coolness.  The food was very healthy (heavy on vegetables and simply prepared) but different than what we usually eat at home.  Starbucks and On The Border were nowhere to be found!  Yet, these delicacies are not essential for life, and we knew that we would return home soon enough and be able to enjoy them again.  And yes, it was impossible to walk around outside without getting dust on your feet, shoes or clothes, but we only noticed it because we don't experience that at home.

 

        The Jewish people in Jesus' day had a saying which translated, meant:  "May you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi."  The implication of this phrase is that a person would follow so closely behind their spiritual teacher that the dust kicked up by the feet of the teacher would begin to cover the person following them.  It's a great reminder that it should be our joy to follow that closely to Jesus.  On our last Sunday night in Burkina, as we walked to church in the dark, Joshua walked behind us carrying a flashlight.  I could literally see the above saying being acted out: that the dust raised from our steps was covering him.  It is a joy to know that Joshua is following in our footsteps as we follow closely behind Jesus.  Soon enough, he will be following Jesus on his own, just as he already is in many ways.

 

        The words of this blog may be long gone by the time Joshua is old enough to read them, but regardless we want everyone to know how pleased we are with our son.  He was simply fantastic on this trip, taking everything in stride.  In fact, many situations he handled even better than Kristine or I did!  The heat didn't seem to bother him as much, he was able to curl up in his seat to sleep on the planes, and he never complained about the food that we ate, even if it was unfamiliar to him.  When we asked him what he most enjoyed about the trip, his first response was "Praying for people."  The second was, "Playing with the other kids."  He did both of those things remarkably well.  He loved shaking hands and saying "Bonjour, ca-va. ("Hello, how are you" in French) to everyone.  Wednesday morning, he woke up sad and crying because he missed his African friends; so we took time to pray for many of them.

 

        We have much to process from our time in Africa.  The people that we met were wonderful, spirit-filled followers of Jesus and we believe that the connections we made were not just for this one trip, but that God will connect us again with many of those same people in the future.  We saw God do many amazing things through us, and yet there are other prayers that we have not seen answers to yet.  We stand firm in faith concerning the things that God has spoken to us.  Numbers 23:19 says, "God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?"  We know that He is working beneath the surface in our hearts to make us the people that He wants us to be, so that He can use us in the ways that He desires.  We remember this is true even in times that we don’t see Him as fully as we would like to.

 

            In keeping with the “sailing” theme of our ministry, I would like to offer the following summary of our trip:  This was our “maiden voyage” so to speak, and the first chance to really test out our “boat”!  We realize that we are not expert sailors yet, and we have the blisters and bruises to prove it!  Sometimes we were unprepared for how quickly the Holy Spirit filled our sails and we got “burns” on our hands as the “rope” pulled through too fast.  Other times, we slipped and fell on the “deck” until we adjusted to the size of the waves.  Yet, the thrill of “sailing” in the open ocean, riding the waves up and down, and feeling the wind in our hair was exhilarating.  Now that we are back in our home “port”, we feel that we are to rest from our journey and begin to “re-provision” for our next journey.  Whether that will be across the street, somewhere in the United States or around the world, we don’t know yet.  We await direction from our Captain.

 

            We will be finishing our official trip summary soon and sending out a printed copy in the mail to everyone.  In the meantime, we have posted a bunch of photos on our website.  There are no captions, but you can at least get a sense of what our trip was like.  Please go to  www.setsailministries.com and click on “Gallery” to see the photos.  If they do not show up on the page, you may have to select “Refresh” in Internet Explorer.  You can also click on each of the small photos to see a larger one.  Once again, thank you for your continued prayers for us.  You are a great blessing to us.  May God richly bless you as you follow hard after Him.

 

-Jeffrey