-----Some of y'all emailed and said y'all didn't get the first email. It was probably because I was filtered by a junk mail filter. I sent this email in groups of five so hopefully it didn't catch it. Just mark me safe in your filter if you didn't get my last email----
Well, the last time I emailed some plans as to which village I was going to and what I'd be doing. Those kind of changed a little. I was in the bush for about 13 days before I came back to the Kaya house. For the first half we were in the Sagtimbila village and the second half we were in the Tafgo village. I have never experienced anything like living and the bush before and nothing can prepare you for it. It is almost the complete opposite of living in the U.S.
After a three hour moto ride we arrived in Sagtimbila. I walked up to a scene that was just like National Geographic. There were about ten huts in a circle with chickens, goats, cows, dogs running around everywhere. The people were congregated in the middle of everything around a fire preparing the night's meal. The meal is the same every time and it's called to (pronounced like toe). It's a mix of millet and water. It looks like refried beans but it feels like you're eating dirt and grass when it's in your mouth. The first couple of times it was tough to put down, but now I can eat it. They are essentially giving you their best, like if someone came to America and we gave them a steak. So one does his best to suck it up and eat it.
A little about Marense culture. Women are given away to marraige through no choice of their own. A man can also have as many wives as he can afford. The man lives in his own hut while his wife or wives live with their children in a separate hut. The men work during harvest time while the women and children spend the day preparing the next meal. The people, however, are very kind and hospitable. In Sagtimbila they took me in as one of their own as they did in Tafgo. Every three days there is a market day where everyone in the village goes to the market and sells and buys.
My first night in Sagtimbila was pretty rough. I don't think I slept one bit. There were roosters about three feet from me and they would not shut up. It also gets cold at night and I wasn't prepared for that. After that first day though, thanks to many prayers from home, I was reasonably adjusted. I was ready to see what God was going to do. The Marense language is not very complicated, but there are some cool things about. Instead of saying "I'm happy" in their language one would say, "My heart is sweet". So instead of saying becoming a Christian the phrase here is to follow the Jesus path. There was a twenty-year old girl named Haneesa in Sagtimbila. The team had been praying for her for a while that she would enter the path. When my teammate Jay and I were there she told us early in the week that she was thinking about entering. One night before dinner we heard cries from one of the huts. We went over and saw her on the ground crying. She said she had a vision of a man with a knife trying to kill her. We prayed over her with the other Marense believers. The next day she entered the Jesus path. It was truly awesome to see the power of prayer triumph over the Enemy.
I have a lot more stories (helping put out a fire in Tafgo that burned four people's houses down, introducing Tafgo to the limbo and many more) that I'll hopefully address in the future, but I wanted to tell y'all that the gospel is advancing within the Marense. It is mainly a time of discipling the Marense believers and handing the ministry off to them, but we are still witnessing to them as well. Your prayers are felt and seen.
I will be going back to the bush from the 3rd to the 13th. I will be in Koatla until the 9th when we will go to Bagade. Here's a link so you can see where I'm at:
Please pray for the discipling off the believers, oppourtunites to share the gospel and my retention of the Marense language. I am taking my camera to the bush this next time so I will have pictures to show. When I come back from the bush next time I will begin training on researching the next unreached people group. I'm excited and I'll have more info on that in the next email.
It was great to have so many emails when I got back. Thank you for telling me what's going on or for the encouraging words. It costs around 30 cents a minute to use the Internet so if I didn't respond don't think they went unread. I appreciated them all.
Also, I mistakingly listed the wrong address last time. If you already sent something I should still get it. But here it is:
Clint Kirby
B.P. 49
Kaya, Burkina Faso
West Africa
