Good News, Bad News

Let's start with the good news:

After the whole "break in" thing, we had a little miracle!  A couple of days after, Nate was working in the shop with his two buddies, Bawa and Fusini.  Bawa speaks a little English, pretty good French and great Anufo.  Fusini speaks only Anufo.  Anyhow, Bawa came up to Nate and said, "Fusini cannot understand you.  He doesn't get how after a man has stolen from you, how you can be so happy and joke around!  Why don't you want to kill this man?"

What an opportunity!  So Nate carefully explained to Bawa about grace.  And God.  And His love.  And our faith!  And Bawa carefully translated it to Fusini!  And that, my friends, is so amazing.  What an answer to prayer!!

It so reminded me of the verse in Genesis, in the story of Joseph, that what "man intended for harm, God intended for good."

Neither of these guys could understand how or why Nate could still exist in joy and peace when something so bad had happened to him (in their eyes).  They told him that if it had happened to them, they would have killed the guy.  For real.  And they wouldn't have been charged because the man stole from them and that would be justice.  So please keep praying for these two men!


Now for the not-so-good:

This week has been a whirlwind of activity.  There have been so many little things that have happened that have been ordained by God, that I can't take time to tell you all of them.  So you'll have to trust me on that.  BUT, this morning, when I got up, I got a text from Emily that she and Anna had just found out that there was a group of refugees right in our town -- just arrived this past week.

The Fulani tribe are a nomadic, cattle herding people group that live all over West Africa.  And no other tribe likes them.  At. All.   Think of them as the gypsies of Africa.  If the Fulani are around (and because they're nomadic, they do get around) and there's any funny business, they get the blame.  Fulani people are very private, very suspicious, and therefore, not overly friendly.

Recently, this particular group of Fulani people were in the area of Gomgom.  The people of Gomgom wanted to send a message that the Fulani's were not welcome there, so they murdered one of the Fulani tribesmen.  Then set their houses on fire, stole their cattle and started some small inter-tribal warfare, just about an hour from here.  The Fulani people were forced to flee, being chased by the other tribe and murdered as they fled.  Children were lost.  Families separated.  People killed.

This is not 100 years ago.  This was last week.  And the Fulani people have now set up a refugee camp, literally, in our own backyard.  I'm talking a real refugee camp.  We just found out about them last night, so Anna, Emily and I went out this afternoon.

Here's what it looked like as we pulled up, rows of tents:

There were about 30 tents set up, and we found out, more arriving tomorrow:

We peeked in the tents and there was NOTHING in them!  These people ran with the clothes on their backs and nothing else.  Here's one momma with her babe:

We chatted with the guy who was acting as chief, as the chief was away at purification ceremony for the body of the guy who was originally murdered.  We wanted to find out how we could help and how many people we were dealing with.  Turns out, there are about 400 people in this particular camp and about 1000 others in another one about an hour away.  I didn't take pics while we were on the actual camp grounds because, well, it seemed mean.  Anna speaks a little Fulfulde, which is the language of the Fulani, so she greeted a lady in the normal fashion (how is your family, how is your house etc.) and the poor woman just shook her head and said she had no house, she had nothing left. It was very sad.


We stayed for about 20 minutes, after talking to the guardian, just trying to greet the people and smile at them.

Here's a pic of a bunch of kids as we were ready to get in the van:

We left the refugee camp feeling sad. It was so surreal.  It was EXACTLY like it looks on tv.  Tents, people, the smell of humans and canvas.  Kids just sitting around. Adults attempting to scrape some kind of life and work from a patch of ground.  Sadness. Loss. And as we prepared to leave, we looked around to figure out where exactly we were and realized that from our location right there at the camp, we could see the hospital.  Our hospital.  These people are literally in our own back yard and in such dire need.

So, what do girls do when they feel sad??  They go shopping!  We decided that we would make up a care package for each of the 50 tents or so that the families were living in.  So, we went to the store owned by Solomon and Awa, a Fulani couple who have left the nomadic lifestyle and become shopkeepers.

Here's a very stoic Solomon behind the counter of his store with our order of canned milk, tea, sugar, tomato paste, spaghetti, laundry soap, body soap, cookies and candy.  We purchased it all and then Anna and Emily put together care packages with all the stuff that we plan to hand out tomorrow morning at 9 am.

And this is Larry, Solomon's worker.  He really wanted me to take his photo too, so I did, just to humour him.  He's a total poser!

Please pray for us as we head out there tomorrow.  We have such a great opportunity to share the love of Jesus with this people group.  God has placed them right outside our door and we are so thankful that we found out about them living right outside the hospital compound.  We're just praying that God would show us how best to reach them, especially since Anna is the only missionary on our team that speaks their language.

The kids are coming with us tomorrow to hand out the care packages too.  Pray that their hearts would understand the deep needs of the Fulani and that this would be an opportunity for them to learn and grow as they see people in such desperate need.  I hope I can take photos tomorrow as we hand out the food etc.  If I do, I'll be sure to share them!