Burkina Faso: The Place to Be and where God Continued to Work on our Hearts and Minds

As Lindsey said we arrived safely back to the US last night. Thank you God for the safe travels. Sorry everyone that the last few days have been a little sporadic with the blog posts. The last few days were extremely busy wrapping up their project work and experiencing their last few moments of Mahadaga and Ouaga.

The trike team was able to accomplish all the work we had planned on doing. We worked on Yempabou and Debedi’s trikes getting them updated with new designs and fixing any problems his or her trike had. We got Etienne’s trike up and running. We added a double sided support for the axle, so that the wheel is supported on both sides of the wheel axle. We are interested in how this design performs on the dirt and bumpy roads of Mahadaga. We were able to get Malligiwa’s trike up and running. The frame had been previously built, but we needed to add the electric components to the frame and add wheels, brakes, etc. John worked closely with Diergou, our fabricator, on building a hand-powered tricycle for an organization called, His Wheels.  We cleaned up took some inventory and wrapped our work up. Taking time to look back at the work that we did I realized that we accomplished a lot in the past two weeks. At times there was definitely frustration when parts didn’t work how they were supposed to or we didn’t have the tools we would if we were back Messiah, but we were able to persevere and get the work done that we set out to do.

The rest of the team was able to wrap up their remaining projects. Friday we did the bumpy, dusty and long ride from Mahadaga to Ouaga. The Johnson’s drove us in the van. So 2/3 of the trip the back of the van got to entertain Joel and Caleb, we sang Veggie Tales songs, looked out the window at the animals and napped. Yesterday we headed back to States. Our flight left around 10 PM and we got back to Dulles Sunday afternoon. It was a long travel day/night. I am excited to see everyone and share my experiences, but I am definitely going to miss Burkina. Culturally this place is very different than back home, but I have enjoyed experiencing it and gaining more knowledge of another place outside of my normal bubble. There are so many faces of people I have met, people from the center, our clients who we work for with the trikes, the kids I got to play with, their faces and names linger on my mind. I would like to thank everyone who was praying that re-entry into the US was smooth. We didn’t have any plane problems or issues with customs. I would like to ask that you would all continue to pray for our re-entry mentally. I know that everyone on this trip has been affected by what we have done on this trip and I think that each of us don’t want this trip to be just another distant memory that we think about from time to time, but that the things we have seen, heard and experienced will continue to shape our lives and that we will be ever more trusting God to show us what’s next, where does his plan lead us. Even now I am feeling some culture shock for sure, just from the cold weather and seeing white people everywhere haha.

 I want to thank you to everyone who has been reading the blog and keeping us in your prayers. I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Love,

            Seth