My Mama and Papa!

Chez Yeo Peletian

Ok so I am here in Logokaha, a village just outside of Korhogo. I have been living with my family the Yeo’s for one week now. I just love them! I have two brothers who live here and a sister. Let’s see Elie is the oldest boy, he is 27. Then there are two sisters who live in Abidjan and another sister who lives near here but is married. My other brother is 21, his name is Matthias and my sister is Mischaelle, she is 16.

My mom works at the Dispensary (a hospital that was started my WorldVenture missionaries) just up the road from our house. I have gotten to go to work with her two different days. My dad is an avid hunter so I usually get some kind of meat with my meals. Last night is was rabbit. Yum Yum! Oh last Saturday my sister took me with her to get our hair braided. It took two hours and was a bit painful but everyone here seems to love it.

My house here doesn’t have electricity or running water. It has been such a relaxing experience to not have all the technology bombarding me. Oh and the stars are simply gorgeous! The evenings are my favorite time of day. Everyone is home and relaxing outside. I lay on a mat on the ground with my mama and listen to them speak Tyembara (the local tongue) I don’t understand a lick of it but it is fun just to be included in their lives. I know that it is such a blessing that they would include me. At night I feel like I am one of them. I don’t engage in conversation but I am also not the center of attention or some kind of spectacle. It is dark enough at night that I look black too. I like that.

My French is improving little by little. It is still frustrating that I can not express myself completely but I know it will come with time. Even just a week here I know my French has gotten better. On Wednesdays and Saturdays I am allowed to speak English and I make my brothers practice their English as well.

Last night I got my Senofo name! I am Yeo Kandana. Yeo is the surname but they put it first when the introduce themselves or write their name. I was very excited because the other journeyers had received their names but my family wanted to observe me a little before they named me. So Kandana means “it please me” or “you do what pleases me”. My health has been really good; thank the Lord because I don’t know how it will be being sick with the outside hole in the ground for my toilet.

I live about twenty minutes from church but I am there almost every day for a meeting of some sort. I plan on sitting in on some of the classes at the Bible Institute here so I can improve my French. My weekly schedule still isn’t planned out but little by little I am starting to feel at home. God is truly humbling as I am like a child in this culture. Even the simplest task is difficult for me. The women here are so strong! Just getting water from the well is enough of a workout for me. I have so much respect for the way they live here. They are simple people who love the Lord and who can’t believe there is machine that does my laundry for me.

I see how easily I become frustrated with myself here but I know that this is all part of the process and that God is working in my life greatly.

I miss you all. But I know God is here and with you. He is our bridge and connection to each other. I hope you are talking with Him often. I know I am.

Kolotiolo i mon dèmin (May God bless you in Senofo or Tyembara)

The Journey Continues...

Hey!!!
So I am back in Bouake. Beckie’s CT scan that everything is fine, so her parents were more ok with her staying and not being medically evacuated which I was happy about. But be praying for her, she is still in a whole lot of pain and is still experiencing some vertigo. A whole lot of rest is in order, and as Americans that is a difficult thing to do.

I had a great time in Bamako, pictures to come! :) We stayed at the SIL (Wycliffe) guesthouse in Bamako and we were on the 5th floor!! It was a sweet view of the city and the Niger River, especially at night with the city lights. I realized I kind of miss cities :)

At any rate things are kind of heating up down in Abidjan just because it has been quiet for so long and nothing is happening, I think people are starting to stir up something. Here in Bouake they are having strikes right now. When people strike here, it means don't leave you house and there is no school. I am safe here on campus and things in town are opening up again today. We are leaving for Korhogo tomorrow to begin our orientation up there. We will stay on the Bible school campus in the guesthouse for week to get acclimated to where the market is and such and then a week from this Monday with will have a time to meet our new families!!! We are going to invite them to come for a three day introduction time. We will explain more about Journey Corps to them and hopefully just start to get to know them.

I am excited because I found out yesterday that Devin and Chazz are going to be living with the family that I stayed with here in Bouake, the Bambas. I am super happy for them because they are such a great little family and I think they will really enjoy it! None of the Korhogo families have been decided but it is most likely that the area I am going to be living in has small houses so I probably will be living alone but Alyssa and CJ will live in the same "neighborhood" or cartier as me. Oh and we are all getting bikes!! I am super excited but it will be a challenge to ride in a panya, they are quite
restricting. It is the fabric here that you just wrap around you waste like you would a towel after showering. Not the most secure thing seemingly, but it holds quite well! :)

It is hard to believe the day has come when we leave our little home here on the school campus. It will be so strange, but in a way this is the day we have all been waiting for. Be praying for our families, you know how challenging it will be for them to have Americans living in their homes :) We're a bit wild. Not quite house trained the Ivorian way. So I am about to say au revoir to shorts and pants and hello to panyas and skirts! :) Wish me luck!

Love you and miss you. Praying for you to experience God's love and plan for your lives clearly this day and for you to have the courage to do what He says. Been learning a lot about obeying God's word. That is mentioned a lot by Jesus and throughout the Old Testament so I think it is pretty important. Feeling more burdened to share him with people here, pray for my language learning, and that my life will shine bright when I can't think of the words to tell about my Savior.

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has
prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2: 9

In His Hands,
Heidi Paige <3

Greetings from Bamako, Mali!

So a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. You can guess from the title that I am in Bamako, the capital of Mali. On Saturday morning I was woken up at 7 by Angelika. She had come to my room to tell me that Beckie (our French teacher and my best friend here) needed to go to the hospital so I was to pack my bag and be ready to leave in fifteen minutes. Let the adventure begin. Being half asleep I almost forgot my passport, which ended up being an important item. Beckie was hit by a rolling Land Cruiser two Thursday s ago and is still suffering from headaches and vertigo so they decided she needed to go up north to see the WorldVenture doctor (Jen). Rod dropped Beckie and I off at Hopital Baptiste in Ferke about three hours later. We stayed there in a guesthouse til this morning when we left for Bamako. It was a ten hour drive with mostly the same, after a while, boring scenery but I never thought I would leave Cote d’Ivoire this year so I am definitely not complaining. Another WolrdVenture missionary and Dr. Jen drove us, and Beckie and I are very grateful since we have no idea what we are doing!
It has been fun hanging out with Beckie so much. It is incredible to me how life here is so unpredictable. Bamako is a huge city and the Niger River is huge also! It is crazy how nice the roads are here and there are even traffic lights! If there isn’t a light there is a police man (I haven’t seen one of those since I’ve been here) directing traffic. There are tons of motorcycles but they have their own shoulder on the road separate from the cars. We are staying in an SIL (Wycliffe) guesthouse on the fifth floor. I haven’t been this high since my flight. Bamako has similar city sounds to those I have heard before; cars, people yelling, music, and the call to prayer. I have actually never experience d the call to prayer before arriving in West Africa but it is something that has become a part of each day. It is interesting what becomes common place. Especially things that are normal until you go somewhere else and realize how strange they are. For example, working gas stations. In Cote d’Ivoire there are tons of abandoned gas stations. Another thing is speed limit signs, those don’t really exist in Bouake and they definitely would not be followed if there were.
I am not sure when I will be back in Bouake. Hopefully, tomorrow after Beckie has her CAT scan they will be able to say whether she can come back to Bouake or if she needs further medical help here in Mali or back in the States. Be praying for her, she also only had fifteen minutes to pack up her life in Cote d’Ivoire and she may not get to go back. Be praying also for me, a week from tomorrow I will hopefully be moving up to Korhogo in the Northern part of Cote d’Ivoire to live in a family and get plugged into church ministry up there. I am super excited to get involved in the community and understand the culture more but it will be hard to split up and leave Bouake. The other Journeyers have become my family and I will miss them. Also, it is hard to be gone for the last week together since I am in Mali.
God is amazing. I see His hands working so clearly in my life. He is changing me in a lot of ways. Some of the ways are uncomfortable, but I know that he is molding me into someone he can better use for His glory. My prayer is to be in sync with the Holy Spirit and open to the work and relationships He has for me here.
With Love,
Heidi Paige <3

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It is hard to believe that 2010 is over. I think that this idea crosses cultural barriers. I have talked to both Ivoirians and French people and they say the same thing. 2010 flew by. I hope you are praying for Cote d’Ivoire. Things are looking pretty hairy down in Abidjan. I am thankful to be far enough north not to see the effects of this power struggle but almost 200 people have died since the elections and my heart hurts for this nation. I am not afraid for my own well being here but I am afraid for the well being of Cote d’Ivoire. If Gbago doesn’t step down there will most likely be a war. They have been warring for ten years. It is time for peace.

Over the time between Christmas and New Years I was able to travel even farther north to see missionaries and their work up in Ferke and Korhogo. On Monday we headed to the bus station at 8am only to wait two hours for our bus to actually depart [African time (:]. Not five minutes after we left we were stopped at a rebel outpost. No one was completely sure what we were supposed to do. Some said we needed to get off the bus and some were emphatic about staying on. We ended up getting off and going through the rebel post on foot after having our IDs checked. One woman was highly upset by the inconvenience of having to leave the bus. She yelled at the rebels in Jula. I was a bit worried that she would get hurt [She was in her 60s probably] but she would not calm down. This was a wake up call to the fact that people are sick and tired of the way this country is being run. There are few real laws enforced and no code of conduct when going through a rebel post. Most of the time it seems that they just want to feel powerful and it is a waste of time. A three hour drive took 6 hours so plus the two hours of waiting for the bus, it was a LONG day.

My vacation was overall super fun. It was just us 9 girls. We had the opportunity to stay at the Bible school in Korhogo and visit the translation in Ferke, the WorldVenture Hospital in Ferke and the WorldVenture Dispensary in Torhogo. We also played lots of games [I solved the mystery in Clue!] and rested! There is a mountain in Korhogo [If you can call it that]. We hiked up it Thursday morning [about half and hour to the peak (:]. It was gorgeous and God is amazing. French is coming along little by little. Hopefully at the end of this month I will return to Korhogo to live and help out with different ministries for two months.

New Years Eve we had an epic pig roast with a ten foot bonfire! It was a great celebration and time of worship and dancing of course! I love the people that God has placed here with me. Today [New Years Day] we played soccer on an indoor court for two hours, til it got dark. This week we will be learning about the Church history of Cote d’Ivoire. The president of the Bible School is coming down to teach us this week. I am really excited to learn more about the church because my passion is in church planting!

I love getting emails from you even though I can’t always respond because of the internet. So send me an update on your life!

Praying for peace <3

Joyeux Noel!

Je Suis Ivoirian.....well not quite

I have just returned from my first weekend away from campus!  On Friday afternoon we were sent off in pairs from our safe haven of the Mission Baptiste campus to stay with families in town.  I was paired with Jamie Youell from Arizona and we went of to Belleville.  This is a kind of suburb (used loosely) of Bouake.  They call them cartiers and it is like a neighborhood.  Around all of the paved roads are huge webs of dirt roads where most of life in Cote d’Ivoire happens.  This weekend I was able to be apart of this life, and what an honor that was.  Mr. Bamba Golohafon was gracious enough to welcome us into his two bedroom home.  I know that I won’t be able to describe this experience to you very accurately, because I am still processing most of it.

When we arrived on Friday both the Americans (us) and the Ivoirians (the Bamba family) were nervous about communication.  Our French is still sub par.  But after Rod left we realized that although it might be more difficult to convey our ideas it would for the most part be possible.  Upon returning to campus and talking with the other Journeyers about their experiences in homes, I realized that we had a dream experience and others were not so lucky.  The food was great and we were not forced to eat more than our fill.  We had many visitors and the whole area seemed to have heard we were coming and were excited.  Jamie and I were able to spend time in the market with Madam Bamba and play with their two daughters.  The youngest is only eight months old and the first day she cried every time she saw us.  But I won her over by Saturday! 

Most of the families I met this weekend, including our host family were Senafo.  Most Senofo are from the North of Cote d’Ivoire.  They are majority animist in belief and have many interesting ceremonies.  Their main instrument is the Balefon.  It is like a wooden xylophone and is used in all of their celebrations.  My favorite part of their culture I observed and participated in this weekend is the dancing!  The women are great dancers and it is quite the workout.  The men also dance but normally the dancers where full outfits including a mask.  It is startling and almost scary at first but they are performers sometimes acting out a normal activity like hunting.  I am excited to learn more about this culture and I hope to work with them more during my time here.

I am still figuring out how to relate to people with animist beliefs and Muslim beliefs.  It is the same kind of difficult balance in the states of standing firm in your beliefs and building friendships.  One visiter this weekend was very excited to come greet English speakers.  He is majoring in English and we were the first native speakers he had ever spoken with.  One of his first announcements was that he heard we are Christian and he is Muslim but that is okay because it is the same and we all worship the same God.  EEK!  What do you say when you are just meeting someone for the first time with such strong a claim that you disagree with.  Luckily you can get away with just an “mm huh” here and move on.  He is interested in meeting with us to speak English so there will hopefully be an opportunity to share Christ with him.

It was great staying with a Christian family.  We would pray before each meal and at night before going to our rooms.  Mr. Bamba also prayed a beautiful prayer before we left today, asking God to bless Jamie and I and our time here in Africa.

Soooo all in all I just loved my time with the family and can not wait to visit them again.  They were so hospitable.  Bucket showers were nice and hot.  Meals were great!  We had our OWN room (a novelty here) and a toilet!  I know it was the life of luxury.  I even watched two soccer matches and had my favorite treat Aloco (fried plantains).  Everyone was so excited that we were there and very welcoming.  They love our attempts at French and Dula (the largest ethnic group in Cote d’Ivoire and the language of the market).  I wore my first African pagne (pron. panya) today to church and people just get so excited.  I am working hard to be able to communicate better in French but their patience is amazing, they even try to speak English.  This weekend I fell in love with Ivoirians.  It’s official.