Our last full day in Africa :(

We thought we would have a full day Thursday here at the conference, but our flight plans have changed and now we must leave at 11 am tomorrow to head to the airport. So it has been a busy evening trying to wrap things up, get packed and start saying our goodbyes! It is 11:30pm as I am starting to type…
This morning we again were able to worship with the conference and we should be able to again for the last session tomorrow morning. I know I have said how much I enjoy this time each day – besides the music, they share stories and statistics about the field that are also encouraging. The speaker has also been preaching through Hebrews 11 and 12 as the conference theme is "run with perseverance." During worship today a couple got up to talk about how much influence their volunteer teams have had on their ministry in the last year. Through their teams they have seen 90 people accept Christ and be baptized in the past year alone. They told one story about one of the first villagers who accepted Christ. He then decided to change his name to Paul and a Paul he became. He started going to other nearby villages to share the good news. When the M asked Paul what he said to them, he responded, “I said that if you become a Christian, it will be hard and people will not be nice to you. But it is the truth and you need to follow Jesus!” I thought that was a neat story and an example of the many we hear daily.
I have been wanting to share with you about One Story - The One Story team is a really neat ministry here in West Africa with the IMB. It is made up of 8 different teams of 2-3 journeymen (women) each. 4 of the teams are located in Mali, 2 in Guinea, 1 in North Africa and 1 in Burkina Faso. Their purpose is to create an oral recording of different bible stories in the language of the particular people group that they are working with. In order to do this they must first find a translator that knows some English. They learn about the culture in which they live and try to pick out the stories (besides the basic ones of the gospel, baptism, etc.) that would best apply to that culture. Once they know the culture a little bit they begin writing the stories and have them recorded by the local translator. They often have to find a back translator to make sure the stories recorded are biblically accurate and in the proper context. Once a story is heard by a few people in the village, they hope that they will then go and tell other friends in the village. They also have high hopes of getting these stories put on the radio. Please pray for this team and their ministry. The pictures I loaded earlier include one of the One Story team.
Today we were able to donate all of our left over supplies and medicines to the missionaries. We gave all the prescription drugs and surgical things to the Doctors and Pharmacist from the Baptist hospital in Ghana. We then made 7 different bags of OTC products for each of the guest houses in the countries (where missionaries might stay when in the big city of their country). After that we still had a lot of OTC meds left – so I took them down to the meeting room and set them up on a table. At first I didn’t think many would stop by, but within 10 minutes ALL of the supplies were gone! The missionaries were so happy to have the products and seemed to be in need of the specific things I had.
We saw a few more patients throughout the afternoon and then went out for dinner with 3 other journeygirls. Dad and I decided we good easily miss another meal at the hotel so we asked the 2 Auburn grads and another of their friends to go to dinner. We hopped in 2 taxis and ended up at an Italian/pizzeria restaurant about 20 minutes away. None of the girls spoke French fluently, but enough to get us there, order and get us home without much trouble. It seemed a little risky but it was really fun and we had some great conversations over dinner.
When we arrived back at the hotel there were several patients waiting to see us as well as several things to wrap up with vaccines, follow-ups, etc. We also found out that we would be leaving for the airport at 11 instead of 2 or 7pm as earlier expected. So, here I am in the room and we are all packed up! I can’t believe our time has come to an end here – it has been a great experience. We plan to go to breakfast and worship in the morning and then head to the airport. Praise the Lord the strike ended late morning today and hopefully we will not have much trouble getting on a flight to Senegal since we are getting to the airport so early. Once we get to Senegal we will have to wait for about 9 hours before our flight to Atlanta… We arrive at 8am eastern time Friday morning. Please continue to pray that things will go smoothly with our flights and we(I) will have patience during all the waiting. Thanks for your continued support!! I hope to report from Senegal, but if not it will be from Auburn Friday.
Aurevoir (that’s goodbye in French for you bama grads) from Cote d’Ivoire!