A Wicked Awesome Day

January 10, 2009

Wow! What a wicked awesome day today!

We started out the morning a little later today. Bethany and Dr. Hare sat in on a teacher workshop at the Handicap Center with others went to explore a near-by cave in the cliffs right in our backyard here in Mahadaga. We were escorted by a Burkinabe native, Daniel, who is learning English while many of us are learning French. :)

For lunch today we went to the Hunting Lodge with the missionaries here and our team. The lodge was made with a thatched roof and traditional African fabric above our heads attached to the thatched roof. There were antelope skulls hanging on the walls, as a foreshadowing of our meal. We had salad, French bread, french fries, antelope, and an orange for desert. Some of us described the meal as "very tasty game" and others said they loved the fries. :) A team of hunters arrived back from their hunting expedition (uniform and all) while we were eating, with a treat roped in the bed of the truck. a HUGE dead water buffalo! I wanna know who had the pleasure of sitting right next to the soon-to-be-meal. It made our rare meat seem even more authentic.

After our meal we headed over to the cliffs with one of the missionary families, Shannon Jayson, and our new local Burkinabe friend, Daniel. What a gorgeous hike through the African terrain! God's creation is most definitely so breathtaking. We saw monkeys scampering in cliffs ahead, enjoyed climbing the rocks up to the waterfalls, and photographing the scenery along the way. It was a great time to spend together as a team and with the missionaries and local Burkinabe children.

Tonight we will be celebrating Bekah's 21st birthday (Happy Happy Birthday, Bekah!!) with confetti cake, chocolate frosting (ordered ahead of time by the birthday girl herself), topped with candles. Yum, yum!

After dinner we have been invited to participate in the missionaries' game night. It was so great interacting with them during lunch today, and we are looking forward to spend some more time with them tonight. They have graciously shared their stories with us (even the ones about their spider, snake, and scorpion experiences. so thankful for bug nets!!).

We are all looking forward to attending church tomorrow morning and the weeks ahead! We appreciate all your prayers so much!

Love and prayers from the other side of the world.

Katie O for the Burkina team