All of my life You have been with me

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September 25, 2012

All of my life You have been with me

All of my life you have been with me,
My comfort in loneliness,

My hope in the dark.

All of my life, Lord, please stay with me;

Be my sustaining breath,

Guardian of my heart.

As I drifted off to sleep, these words from a Fernando Ortega song kept coming back to me, as I had been listening to them. And how true. God leads, we follow, and see where He is at work. I feel as if I have stepped into such a situation, here in Guinea Bissau. Catel is a smallish village, of uncertain numbers of people, on the main road from the capital to other parts in the country. Most of the people have houses made of mud brick, with multifamily dwellings being the rule. Thin tin roofs dot most of the houses, although back off the road, many more are thatched. It is primitive, and yet quintessential Africa. I am staying at the house of Beryl Forrester, the founder of the work here. The house is attached to the church, and so often it reminds one of Grand Central station. There is solar power at the house which allows a light at night, and computer, and internet, but no appliances other than a small fan which has been a blessing to me. No refrigerator, no running water, no hot showers, but we do have a small propane stove and our own well which is handcranked, as opposed to the villagers who get water from a couple of wells around the area. My room is 12 x 12 but cramped by shelves on two walls, and other things stored there, but adequately screened from mosquitos. Due to the heat, I check the room for mosquitos at night, kill those, or burn some insect killing incense, and then sleep out of the mosquito net. Beryl has plenty of chickens, so we have plenty of fresh yard eggs, and today, I bought my first Kanja (okra), so for someone from South Alabama, I have it made. A typical day in Africa goes like this..for me

Up at 6, it is still dark. Time for coffee and a quick breakfast of eggs or French toast, or oatmeal, and devotional time, then for a quick run of 30 minutes or less, due to the dark. Back by 7:30, I take my shower, and head down the path to the clinic. I love seeing the people going about the business of life in small village Africa…people heading to get a caro to go to the city, some heading to the rice fields, or their gardens of corn, okra, beans, and all kinds of cucumber. Some of the men go to work in the cashew orchards that are everywhere in this area, although right this time, there is not a lot of work being done there. Clinic is held from 8 – 12 everyday, and we see from 12-24 patients, although in the busy season, it is more like 40-50. Luckily, since I am starting here, I am glad for it to be a bit slower. There are two nurses in the clinic, Terriann, from EMM, and Tenig, a local church leader who is one of the pastors, and who is planning on going to nursing school this fall. I follow one of them around, as they both speak Kiriol well, and English too. So they translate what is going on, although I am able by this time to understand much of what the patient is saying as well. We are treating a lot intestinal problems, as well as malaria, and body aches and pains, which are common where people work very hard. The clinic is nicely painted, with a limited medicine supply, but no electricity as of right now. So we can not give vaccines, although at some point, that may become possible….

Home by 12, it is time to get a snack of something. Sometimes that is not as easy as it looks. It is traditional in Africa to offer anyone at your house something to eat to, and we have a lot of people here it seems like a lot of the time. There is one fellow, Domingus, who has the ability to show up at whatever place the meal is. He is an attender of the church, suffers from seizures, and is even looked down on by the people around here. He certainly is “one of the least of these.” Last night, the whole EMM mission team gathered at the mission house to celebrate the birthday of Chad Kilheffer, one of workers here, and at the time we sat down to eat, there was Domingus. What to do? You pull up another chair, offer him food, and celebrate together….It was the first time that I have had dessert in a couple of weeks, chocolate cake that was baked in one of the local bread ovens by the team! Delicious.

Afternoons are spent in visiting, seeing patients who wander up and need some immediate attention, and then my Kiriol lesson at 4 pm. I joined 2 people who have already been here for a month, so I feel lost a lot of the time, but probably learning faster that way. It also the end of Futbol season, the local soccer teams vying for the ´campion´ title. They play on a field with holes so deep, you could break a leg if you landed the wrong way, and ruts that would trip up normal people, but I didn´t see any serious injuries while I watched…3 or so games.

Evenings it gets dark early, around 7 pm, with gorgeous sunsets to cap off a day of clouds and rain on most days. It is getting towards the end of the rainy season, and they say it doesn´t rain nearly as much as it did. However, it mostly rains every day, so I don´t know how they tell that it is slowing down.

The other night, we had an adventurous couple, Pedro and Flora Neto stop in and spent the night in the church. They are traveling from Morocco to South Africa by motorcycle. They spoke English, but he is from Portugal, and she is from Canada. Their blogspot is whichcountry.blogspot.com Interesting to hear of their adventures…

Well, one of my new friends, Ebrima, is here. He is not a Christian, but seems open to the gospel.. I will stop and visit….. Na bai. ( I am going–traditional way to say that you are leaving…)