Here are a few things I have learned since Asher started his kindergarten year in school.

Random Allergies
According to one of Asher’s classmates, it is possible to be allergic to raccoons… because Ashe’s classmate is. Who knew?

Storytelling
Five-year olds’ stories make a lot more sense when you actually know them. Until kindergarten, Chele or I have been with Asher during the majority of his waking hours. That meant we saw what was happening daily and could help “translate” the stories he was trying to tell. When Ashe started kindergarten, he obviously began spending the majority of his waking hours away from us. And he had just as many stories to tell.

Chele and I now work to put the storytelling puzzle pieces together when Asher tells us what went on during school. That is a much larger task than I had originally thought.

Losing Control
Another result of Asher spending the majority of his time in kindergarten is that we lose a lot of control we used to have over him. This was not totally unexpected, but it can still be difficult at times. We still work on guiding, instructing, and disciplining Asher, but many of the day-to-day decisions are now his.

Asher now chooses his own friends. In fact, I cannot tell you how many times Michele and I have used David Chadwick’s “friends are like elevators” line since last August. He also now chooses how he is going to behave. Ashe is learning there are consequences as a result of his actions, but he definitely has more freedom to make those daily decisions on how he interacts with others.

These are just a few of the lessons I have learned over the past six months since Asher started kindergarten.

I look forward to the lessons Michele and I still have to learn as both kids continue to grow and get older.

My friend, Nick “The Duse Abides” Dusenbury, is starting to write a new financial blog.

Nick used to write about finances and budgeting for an online publication and I would often read his articles there. After taking a writing hiatus Nick has decided to begin publishing his own blog. (Incidentally, he is using WordPress as his blogging platform of choice. Excellent choice, Nick!)

Nick has a background in accounting and finance. He currently works with with finance (and IT) at Forest Hill Church in Charlotte, NC.

Nick wraps up his first post, We Give Because It Was First Given To Us, by laying out his intentions for the Generous City blog. Take a minute to read below and to check out his blog.

What follows in these posts will be a combination of ways to be wiser with our money and our spending. Some of you may use that information so you can stretch your dollars and do more with your money. That’s not a bad thing at all, and it can reap some very good dividends. Mixed in with these posts will be other posts focused on generosity, mostly because I constantly need to challenge myself with reminders to live generously, and I would be greatly humbled if any of these posts were able to help you in your journey as a giver.

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. (Acts 2:42-44 NLT, emphasis mine)

For the first time this trip, we headed to our partner village, Ndjemane. Today we had the opportunity to celebrate Sunday worship with the Ndjemanese Christians in their new church.

I say “new” because the church is less than eight months old for the village and completely brand new for us. Many people in our church prayed for Ndjemane for many years so they would be able to erect a church. Building a Christian church was one of the requests from a mostly-Muslim village and an all-Muslim elder council and Chief.

Our church prayed. Many people donated money to cover building material expenses. We sent two different construction mission teams to assist the village’s residents with building the church. All of that helped carry a desire and a prayer request in 2007 to a functional church in 2011.

It is true that Christians are God’s new temple (1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Ephesians 2:21). With that said, though, there was a joy felt in the Ndjemane Christians by having a place to come together to worship. They now had a place to come together to learn more about God’s Word. They had a home to fellowship together.

This tiny, new church has meaningful significance to a little village filled with only a few Christians. It was tough for me comprehend this until witnessing it. In our city where there are churches by the hundreds, I have the ability to shop around until I find the exact one that fits my desires. In the bush of Africa, a little village prayed that they would have a single building to worship in and God delivered. May He continue to be with this little village.

Church Under Construction

New Church

During our stay in Senegal, I wrote some posts while riding on the bus. When we had Internet connections in the hotels, I would spend the free time adding the group’s posts and pictures to our Charlotte To Senegal blog, but did not have much time to complete my personal posts. I am publishing them now, but am keeping the same present-tense perspective as if I was still in Senegal.
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I once participated in a Bible study where someone (wrongly) used the Bible to reinforce their own racist views toward black people. The guy’s comments angered me greatly, but, at the time, I did not know enough about the Scriptures to rebuke him.

This is an extreme example of an improper view toward people who are different and toward the Bible itself. Unfortunately, though, even when we as a community believe everyone is equal, separation and division still occurs.

While separation is not necessarily bad, I do see a large division among races when it comes to Christians and churches in the United States. That is why it was a special opportunity for me to participate in worship service in Ndjemane yesterday. Regardless of race; gender; age; and nationality, we came together as one people, united under Christ, to come and worship. We sang in Serere, Wolof, French, and English. We all learned from the same Word. We all shared stories of hope during our testimonies, and stories of pain/needs in our prayer request. Afterward, we spent hours in fellowship as one people.

For the past three years, in this small village of Ndjemane, I have gotten a glimpse of what every group of people could have. I have seen two groups of people of almost complete polar opposites (i.e., racially, culturally, language, monetarily) come together in joy as friends, brothers, and sisters.

As Christians, we are instructed to be that unified people. If only we would heed those instructions. For one day, in a tiny church in tiny village in Africa we did just that and it was an incredible experience.

For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. (Ephesians 2:14, 15 NLT, emphasis mine)

Two of my fav’s are going on a date tonight and I am very excited for them. Michele is taking Asher out on a date and I think some Star Wars in 3-D might be in order. It sounds like a lot of fun and I hope they enjoy their time together.

This morning, during our walk to his school, Asher and I discussed a few ways to be a gentleman for his date. Here are a few thoughts I shared with Ashe to begin preparing him for the future.

It is polite to:

• open and close the car door for your date.
• open the door for your date when entering and exiting a building.
• allow the woman to sit down first and to also stand when she gets up from the table, etc.
• walk on the outside of the sidewalk and allow his date to walk on the inside.

I know this is not an all-encompassing list. What are some ways that you think men (and boys) can be better gentlemen? Throw some thoughts in the comments. I may just throw some extra knowledge Asher’s way.

We are currently driving to Thies. This year’s drive is much longer because there is a Muslim festival in a city that is past ours. The traffic is backed up for miles and we keep pushing forward.

Watching Mangone (our bus driver) and all of the other drivers navigate and negotiate around each other is amazing. There is a sense of patience that we Americans lack. At one point I joked that I would have probably used three choice words, started screaming, and held the car horn down continuously for minutes. And that would have only been twenty minutes into our drive.

The cars, horse-drawn carts, motorcycles, buses, trucks, and pedestrians all work together in concert a beautiful dance with each other. Pedestrians weave around cars only coming within inches of getting hit. A driver’s quick wave of the hand out of the window and the car behind immediately lets that vehicle into their lane. Little Talibe kids who are no more than seven-years old stand next to the middle barrier (in between oncoming lanes) and a foot away from massive vehicles hoping to be given money. When traffic comes to a standstill, many vehicles begin driving on the side of the road. People ride on the rear tailboard and on top of the buses in a similar fashion to old-school firefighters. These are a few of the sights we see as we drive to our next stop in Senegal.

Patience rules here first because people are not in the same hurry as we are in the States. There is a cultural difference that creates this ease with jammed-up traffic. I think patience also comes from necessity. Our bus just drove two hours and we did not see a single stop light. Aside from a few roundabouts there are miles of unrestricted, open road that is semi-regulated. Patience and cooperation are essential or there would be a never-ending series of accidents. Whatever the reason, everyone makes it work successfully and I have yet to see an accident.

Here are some pictures from our first few days.

We are officially in Senegal. We touched down this morning at 6:00 a.m. (GST; 1:00 a.m. EST). We travelled for approximately twelve hours, but everything was incredibly uneventful. Both of our flights were on time and we soared through customs without any issues.

It feels great to be back. It is like returning to a third home, with Chele and the kids being the first and the fire station being the second. Last year I remembered most of what I observed and absorbed from my 2010 trip; however, this year Senegal feels very familiar.

Today’s time has been mostly spent in post-trip recovery, with a brief nap in the morning, and cultural orientation. Despite news reports, we have not seen any affects from the protesting. There are some slight schedule changes to help ensure our safety. We are not going neat downtown Dakar today to avoid the scheduled protests. Next Friday, we will be returning to Dakar earlier to avoid the protests and blocked streets. Those events usually occur in the afternoons.

Please pray that our medical clinics occur in the villages. There seems to be a possible problem with the permits to enter the village as a medical team. We are praying that those issues will be resolved Monday morning before we are to begin.

Here is one of the verses we studied today and I think perfectly applies to what I desire out of my trip in Senegal.

Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. (Romans 5:2 NLT)

It is easy to only think of the medical clinics we conduct as an effort to physically heal people in the village. While it is true that we do hope to help people who might not otherwise receive medical care their whole lives, it is important to know that these clinics do so much more.

Prayer

As I mentioned yesterday, during the clinics our teams are afforded the opportunity to pray for many of our patients. We ask every patient if we may pray, and after getting permission, we then proceed to pray for them. Almost every patient allows us to pray for them. Personally, this is astounding. As Christians, we are allowed to pray for almost every patient we see in a village and country that is over 95% Muslim. The medical clinic allows us to attend to our patients’ medical and spiritual needs. In serving, Jesus is revealed in two tangible ways that the patients can take with them.

Other Barriers

Medical clinics can also breaks down relationship barriers. Our clinic in Ngogobe is one such moment where this occurred. Before ever sending a complete mission team into a village, our host organization sends a couple of the church’s/organization’s representatives to talk with the village. These “vision teams” help create a relationship between the two groups and set a foundation for future interactions. Our church’s 2007 vision team meeting went smoothly and created a relationship that has lasted for five years so far.

Our church’s first meeting with Ndjemane went well, but that is not always the case. The first meeting between an organization and the village of Ngogobe fell apart very quickly. After a brief period of time, the two sides walked away a little bit frustrated and/or disappointed. This meeting was held a couple of weeks prior to our arrival. Our host organization asked us to use one of our clinic days to serve in Ngogobe. With preparation in prayer, we gladly agreed and spent many hours seeing many of Ngogobe’s hurting and sick residents. The barriers were breaking down and relationships were being healed.

A village was beginning to put up walls and there was an increasing risk that any relationships with our hosts, their teams, and the village might never occur again. Instead, God worked through a small group of willing servants to soften hearts. Through medicine, relationships were being restored. As I said before, it is easy to only focus on the medical needs that we are addressing, but God is using our service in so many other, and more powerful, ways.

I pray that God uses our clinics again this year in mighty ways that extend beyond the physical needs of our friends in Senegal.

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A Little Help Goes A Long Way
I am leaving for Senegal in February, 2012 to be a part of a medical team that is providing medical care to the people of Ndjemane and other adjacent villages. Please be a part of my trip and help. There are a three main ways you can help:

1. Pray for the medical team and me. As we just read, God answers prayers and I believe he will answer our prayers about this team.
2. Share these stories. I pray that as I tell stories to raise funds for the medical clinic that people will also hear the Good News about the love that God has for a small village in Africa and how He also loves each one of us. It is a powerful and showering love that every person should have the opportunity to hear.
3. Most important to me is prayer and sharing these stories. However, if you would like to donate money to assist me with serving in Senegal. Check out the sidebar to the right to see how much I still need so I can cover all of my expenses in Senegal. (Here is the link to PayPal to donate to my trip.)

However you participate, thank you for being a part of the February 2012 Medical Team!

If you have gotten this far, here is a picture of Amy and me goofing off after our Ngogobe clinic closed. Do not let her short stature confuse you… she is scrappy. The second picture is a child from Ndjemane. I thought it was a cool picture and wanted to share.

As the calendar turned over to 2011 I was getting prepared to set off for Senegal again. Our team was to depart for Dakar, Senegal in early February. The 2011 team had an almost brand new team from the previous year. Our new team now consisted of additional medical personnel. The mission trip also had three days appended to it, which allowed us to offer more medical clinic days and locations (Ndjemane village, Ngogobe village, and a prison clinic).

Our first stop was in our partner village of Ndjemane where we held two days of clinics. With the additional medical personnel serving in the clinics, we were able to see hundreds of patients each day. The clinics allowed us to treat physically and pray for a large portion of the people living in the village. While the 2011 Ndjemane medical clinics were incredible, they were not necessarily the highlight of the trip.

The Chief & The Village
Our return marked Forest Hill’s sixth visit to Ndjemane (over the span of five years). This visit was noticeably different from the previous trips. Many people in the village appeared to be changing. This change was especially visible in Ndjemane’s chief, Ghana Diouf.

During our previous trips Ghana Diouf was rarely seen. When team members were with Ghana, he was stoic, very formal, and somewhat aloof when interacting with the teams. In 2011 the chief’s demeanor was changing. He was around the medical clinic… a lot! Early in the clinics, doctors did a physical for him. After his physical, Ghana spent time hanging out in the waiting area. He was friendly and open with the team members. He spent time talking with Robbi Fischer and practiced English with Robbi. Ghana came to the naming ceremony and spent time enjoying the festivities.

This was not the same Ghana Diouf, Chief of Ndjemane, that we had experienced before. It was obvious that God was chipping away at Ghana’s heart and this change was becoming noticeable on the outside. Ghana is still a Muslim/Animist, but there appears to be a continued softening of his heart. Many of us continue to pray that God will continue to call Ghana into fellowship with Jesus and know him as his Lord and Savior.

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:9

He called you to salvation when we told you the Good News; now you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. – 2 Thessalonians 2:14

A Little Help Goes A Long Way
I am leaving for Senegal in February, 2012 to be a part of a medical team that is providing medical care to the people of Ndjemane and other adjacent villages. Please be a part of my trip and help. There are a three main ways you can help:

1. Pray for the medical team and me. As we just read, God answers prayers and I believe he will answer our prayers about this team.
2. Share these stories. I pray that as I tell stories to raise funds for the medical clinic that people will also hear the Good News about the love that God has for a small village in Africa and how He also loves each one of us. It is a powerful and showering love that every person should have the opportunity to hear.
3. Most important to me is prayer and sharing these stories. However, if you would like to donate money to assist me with serving in Senegal. Check out the sidebar to the right to see how much I still need so I can cover all of my expenses in Senegal. (Here is the link to PayPal to donate to my trip.)

However you participate, thank you for being a part of the February 2012 Medical Team!

Robbi and Ghana Diouf Language Lessons

End-of-the-day Goofing Off

Yesterday, I talked about how God used Ndjemane to work on my heart concerning having joy. Today, it is all about the community. Here is how God used Ndjemane to build a desire for more community in my life.

Community
A second aspect of the Senegalese culture that God moved in me was the value of community. I observed in Ndjemane a culture where relationships are highly valuable. I saw how villagers took care of each other. I saw how families lived together in small compounds relying on one another daily. I saw how four (or more) vehicles took the time to stop on the side of a highway to help an unknown driver push his bus out of a ditch after the bus had gotten stuck. Tasks and schedules did not dictate; taking care of others in relationship did.

My desire was to build on these observations and really live in an authentic Christian community whose example was set way back in the days of early Christianity:

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. Acts 2:42

I would like to say that I have firmly taken a hold of both of these, but I have not. Despite that, though, exceeding joy and living in community are still desires of mine that I pray about continuing to build. They are two aspects of my life that I continue to work on and improve.

A Little Help Goes A Long Way
I am leaving for Senegal in February, 2012 to be a part of a medical team that is providing medical care to the people of Ndjemane and other adjacent villages. Please be a part of my trip and help. There are a three main ways you can help:

1. Pray for the medical team and me. As we just read, God answers prayers and I believe he will answer our prayers about this team.
2. Share these stories. I pray that as I tell stories to raise funds for the medical clinic that people will also hear the Good News about the love that God has for a small village in Africa and how He also loves each one of us. It is a powerful and showering love that every person should have the opportunity to hear.
3. Most important to me is prayer and sharing these stories. However, if you would like to donate money to assist me with serving in Senegal. Check out the sidebar to the right to see how much I still need so I can cover all of my expenses in Senegal. (Here is the link to PayPal to donate to my trip.)

However you participate, thank you for being a part of the February 2012 Medical Team!

If you have gotten this far, here is a picture of Mike and me dancing:

Namesake Ceremony & Dancing