The conference

I had asked you to pray for the conference in Senegal and I thank you for your prayers. It was quite an ordeal to get there and I’m sure that Satan had tried to keep us from arriving. There were issues with the amount of money it would cost to travel. We ended up giving our money to the church leaders so they could go. Gary wasn’t sure if he wanted to try making the trip alone as a team without any locals with us but we were set on going and were sure that we wouldn’t have any problems. So then we had to wait while Gary traveled to the money exchanger to get more funds. We sat on a metal-grate bench for 4 hours until we left. We made it there safely, tired and hot from being cramped in a small car, but safe none the less.
We knew a team was coming from America but I was surprised when I had some sort of connection with everyone there. I knew Elaine and Lloyd Hoover’s daughter Sheila from EMM and Glenn Hoover is from Ephrata and shops at Roxanne’s flowers. Zach Mininger and I had met several times in Lancaster when our groups of friends would hang out. We joked how we never would have imagined that we would be eating with our hands out of the same bowl in Africa! What a small world.
The conference was a combination of the Mennonite churches in Guinea Bissau and The Gambia; with the majority being from GB so most of the people spoke Creole and we couldn’t communicate with them. There were a few who really tried to talk to us but they just kept repeating the Creole and that didn’t make it any easier for us. The time consisted of a lot of sitting on hard benches listening to teachings through 3 interpreters. It was good teaching but it was hard to sit through most of it. I enjoyed when we had the church leaders talk about their culture and customs and had them sift through them to see which traditions were good and which should be stopped. Over all, it was a good time with lots of energetic worship times and fellowship. It was also refreshing and very encouraging to be with a few other Americans.

In the little car

Glenn Hoover Preaching

Lloyd Hoover teaching

Zach Mininger baby sitting

Hello everyone! I hope you all were able to enjoy watching the Super Bowl on Sunday; I heard that is was one of the most memorable of all time. The team here went to a guest house for the weekend. We are now headed to southern Senegal from Wednesday till Saturday. It is a conference for the leaders of the church here. There is a group from New Holland Mennonite coming. The topics will be on marriage and family, culture, transformational development & Evangelism. Please be praying for our time there. That the leaders would be open to the teachings and that God would be working deep in their hearts. Pray also for safety as we are taking public transportation for a 6 hour trip.