Blessings!

I got home around 10 on Tuesday night and slept until 1 the next day! When I got up I unpacked my bags and got settled back into my house! After that, I got on the internet because Tech's website was not working in Africa for some reason so I checked it! Then I got on my hotmail account to check my messages there! I was so excited to already see 2 messages from readers in Senegal!!! While I was reading those emails, another one of them sent me an email!!! I was so emotional because I already miss them so much, but it was so great to already here from them after only being home for 2 days! Siitso, Theirno, and Lamine were the readers that I have heard from!!! Theirno and Lamine are of the Islamic faith, and Siitso is a member of the church in Senegal! I loved all my readers, but Theirno was very special because he loved to talk and answer my questions very in-depth! Although he seemed interested in Christianity, he has deep roots in Islam, and he would never really admit to Jesus being our foundation and savior. At the end of his email he ended it with "may god and the holy jesus christ be on your side". Now I still do not know what he meant by that, but it seems to me that he is recognizing God and Jesus as I recognize them! It just gave me such great hope and excitement to know that God is working in him!!! I have been praying and will continue to pray that the seed I and the others planted in the people we met will continue to be watered and God will give the increase!!! I ask that you will also pray for them and their hearts to be pierced and transformed by God's word!!! Praise God because he always gives the increase if we decrease so he can increase!!!
<>< Nikki (Fatou-my Senegalese name)

We are back in the beautiful USA!!

Hey Y'all!! I haven't said that in a while! We give God all of the glory for our safe trip back from Dakar! Our lovely parents met us at the airport and boy were we glad to see them! I wanted to share with you the picture of our return! Thank you for bringing to God thoughts and requests for us! He heard everyone! Thank you! We are tired, but very excited to be home! Praise his name!

The next generation of believers!

This is a picture of our group after our worship service with them.

They love to sing and we knew a song and could sing along!

It was such an amazing excperience to spend time with them.

They have so much passion for spreading God's word.

They pray for the ability to plant churches all around Senegal.

God will provide for them! I believe it! I just wish I could give them all the money in the world, but God can so let us pray!!!! Would you help by praying for them!

The Village

This past Sunday we went with our missionary Arnold along with Joseph to his village N'Diangnao where he will be the preacher when he finishes training in two years. It took about 2 hours to get to the village to worship with them! It was so encouraging to worship with the people there! They speak another language called Sarai( may not be correct) because all of the surroinding villages speak different languages! There were alot of children in the church which was encouraging to see because they are the next generation of Christians, and they are learning about God in the village, and more than that they will be learning God's word from Joseph!!! You could tell they had never seen a white person before so they stared at us the whole time! They love to sing, and they even sang a song that we sing in french at our church in Dakar! We were singing along with them because it repeats itself, and the kids looked so surprised that we could sing a song they knew-singing and smiling really is a universal language!!! Waamack preached that morning from 1Kings 12-13, and Arnold translated from English to French and the preacher there translated from French to Sarai! It was very exciting to hear a sermon in 3 languages in the same service! We bought the village some rice and cookies for the children, and they were so appreciative- Praise God! After church, we took a group picture and gave the cookies out to the children!!! They were so excited to get them, and it was like Christmas watching them open them! Then we spent time with them playing, singing, and drawing!!! God blessed us with a great trip and experience in the village! I thank God for that opportunity! After that we went by the Pink Lake(Lac Rose) on our way home! It is supposed to be a very salty lake that is pink! It was a blessing that it was not sunny in the village, but not so much when we got to the lake! The sun has to be shining on it for it to look pink, so it was not pink but we took pictures anyway!!! Well, please keep praying for our last week to read and share Jesus with these people!!! Thanks and God Bless!!! <><

Sharing Jesus

Today was our last reading day for this week. We only have one more week of reading with these people, and it made me sad to think about it today! Everyday I go to our chuch where we read, and I get so excited about seeing my readers scheduled for that day! I also get excited about the possibility of seeing someone new come in just to talk or to sign up to read! I have the best readers here I think-hehe, I may be a little byist!!! I just love knowing that I am going to get to know them more as a person while sharing Jesus with them also; it's amazing to see how God works through simple conversation! Everyday I read the lessons I also learn something new that I didn't see the time before; it's just so exciting for me! I really want to continue to do this with people at Tech when I get home! God is just doing so many great things in my life and here in Senegal, Africa! We have been teaching one of the leaders in their youth program ( which includes ages 13-25) some songs that we sing in America at the UCSC!!! We taught him "Someday" and "As the Deer", and believe me he loves to sing! We plan on teaching him more next week before we leave! I love to sing with the people here, well, I love to sing with people anywhere! It's just really exciting to teach them some songs we sing!!! Well, be praying for our team as we get ready to go into the last week of reading! Please pray that God would speak through us, and that we would leave a lasting impression on these people because we shared Jesus with them and that they will take it and share it with someone else!!! Thanks so much!!!

<>< Nikki

A seed is planted...

I had some really good conversations today with several of my readers, Alioune and Gabriel. With Gabriel, we read John 14 and 17, Titus 2, Philippians 2 and Matthew 28:16-20. He was asking some great questions about Jesus being God, the Holy Spirit, the saying "trinity" and Heaven. I was very excited to read with him. It is challenging to my faith to be able to explain what I believe and why I believe it. I really didn't know what to say other than showing him the scriptures where I get my belief.

With Alioune, we read the parable of the sower (Luke 8). Some seed fell on the rock, some on the path, some on the thorny weeds (side note: the readers always ask me what the word thorny means, this is when I motion for them to follow me to this tree right outside the church. It is what they call a citron tree or a lemon tree, but in America we would call it a lime tree. Anyways this tree has huge thorns on it- haha! so it is a good teacher to be able to see it), other seed fell on good soil. We always ask the reader what soil do they relate, but it got me to thinking today and I shared with Alioune that I find myself falling in the thorny weeds. The pleasures, riches, and worries of the world keep me from growing in my faith for the Lord. Not only have I come to share the Gospel, I believe that God is changing some things in my heart while I am here.

He is working on me and it is not always easy to realize that he is purifying me to be more like his son. (Malachi 3:3) .

I praise God for this team as well. God uses each one to teach me. (Proverbs 27:17) well it is 11:20 here so I am headed to bed! Goodnight our sweet African blog readers! Thank you for your support and prayers! Jenny

God is amazing!!!

I was just thinking yesterday at the end of the day about my readers and the opportunity God has given our team here, esp. me! I wish we had more words to describe God and his works, but amazing, awesome, and fantastic are all I can think of! We have been reading with people for 2 weeks now, and it is extraordinary to see how God is working through us to reach our readers! He has opened my eyes to how much he can do with the faith of one of his children!!! It is all about faith! Faith that God will bring you readers! Faith that God puts certain readers with you for a reason! Faith that God will take care of you in a foreign land! Faith that God can do anything!!! We read from this book called Jesus Habits every morning for devo, and this morning's habit was faith! One of my readers yesterday wanted to read Hebrews 11, which we know as the faith hall of fame! We have two guys that take care of us while we are at the church, and they take us around the city! We have to have faith that they know where they are going, and that they will do what is in our best interest! It is just amazing so far...Thank God!!! All of the brothers and sisters here say thank God after you tell them anything about your day- I love it!!! It is so encouraging to see their faith, and to see them live it out day by day because we are in contact with them on a daily basis!!! Reading is going great; we are having some great conversations with our readers which is wonderful b/c most of them are of the Muslim faith! So far God has just shown me to have faith in him, and to not put limits on what he can do!!! Also keep the students inyour prayers over here b/c they are going through exams right now! Signing off for now!!!
<>< Nikki