Guinea-Bissau YES team
Newsletter # 12
By Zach Hazlett
February 26, 2010
Another week gone and I can’t believe how fast it’s been going. One minute you’re on a plane and the next you’re counting bench marks and watching the milestones of days, weeks, months whiz by. Sitting down I realized that what seemed to me to be events of the week were in reality events of the month, and that I had a hard time thinking of the things that happened this week.
I tried to start this week off fresh. I had my clothes washed, got some exercise (watering orange trees) and got some much needed rest for the week ahead which started like a '69 Camaro. I woke up late, and when I realized that I was the only one still asleep I ran to the church/mission house and gulped down my breakfast. The guy that was supposed to lead Sunday school was late, and the natives were getting restless. I decided to take it upon myself to start Sunday school on my own. I hastily chose a Bible story and ran over to get the ball rolling. After leading a few Kriol songs, I started to tell the story of Jonah and the whale. Never try to read to a group of kids in a language you only have a loose grasp on. I quickly lost my audience.
Looking up at the few kids who decided to stick around to see what the crazy bronco (white) had to say about some guy and a giant fish, my missions friend Andrew Stutzman told me he had a small story book about Jesus calming the waters. As I started to read, the story came to life, in a very literal sense, as the kids began to calm, and the kids that had wandered off came back to give me another shot. When all was said and done, I had about 25 kids huddled around to see the pictures in the tiny book. Just as I finished and was thinking what in the world I was going to do next, the normal leaders showed up, and the kids’ attention were quickly averted. Relived in every sense of the word, I sat down and watched how the experts do it.
A few weeks ago, I told the local bread maker, Alfa, that I wanted to learn how to make African bread. He seemed to like that idea because every day he tells me “nNa bin kuasina pon amania, bin judan.” ("I’m going to make bread tomorrow, come help.") and I have to tell him I can’t because I have class in the mornings. The other day he told Andrew in Kriol that I was a rascal and a scoundrel, (jokingly, I hope) because I told him I wanted to learn and I never go and help him.
A lot of this week was taken up by team stuff like; watering, check ins, worship and reviewing our team covenant. One of the things that was taking a lot of our time on weekdays was Kriol classes, but as of today that is done. So the team as a whole will have much more time to spend on hanging out with people and for me to spend with the bread man. All in all, I think we’re headed for a good week.
Prayer requests:
Please pray for continued health for our team. Patience and the ability to show Christ-like love to the kids of Catel. Discernment as I work along side Alfa, who is Muslim. Finally for our team to continue to seek the wisdom of God in everything we say and do.
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Guinea-Bissau YES Team
Update #14
March 15, 2010 by Joe Sutter
Bon tarde, and greetings again from Joe. Like everyone else, I am surprised at how fast the time is going here. For example, it feels like it was just Saturday when I was supposed to be writing this update, but now it is Friday and someone is about to write the next update. I’m not sure where this week went. I thought with our Kriol classes ending, we would find ourselves with much more time to do other things. This is true; however, the fact that we are using this time and doing more things means it doesn’t take very long before a whole week is gone.
Many things happened this new week, the week after March 15; it makes it difficult to remember what happened during the week I’m supposed to be writing about. We’ve seen more snakes around lately, but no big ones so far. We’ve started watering the orchard every other day, instead of once every four or five days, and only doing half of this orange trees each time. This is because the new palm trees need more water than the orange trees, and if we try to draw water for the whole orchard in one morning, the well goes dry.
One thing that sticks out in my mind pretty clearly is the woman with the infection. On Tuesday night, we learned that Mario’s sister has a very bad infection in her mouth, after having five teeth pulled. We went and prayed for her at her house one Wednesday morning. The infection had spread through her cheek, and looked pretty bad. She is taking strong medications for it, but it wasn’t clear if it would help, or if she would even live through this.
I feel a little self-conscious sharing this, but I want to write it anyway. I decided to try fasting that day, to see if I could pray more effectively. I don’t like fasting much, because in the past instead of making me think more about God, it made me unable to concentrate when I tried to study or pray because all I’m thinking about is how hungry I am. Especially, I don’t like telling people that I’m fasting, because I feel like I’m trying to be holy; and when we all eat together you can’t help but explain to people that you’re fasting. But I tried it, and I was able to concentrate better this time than in the past. I wanted so much to see her miraculously healed the first time we went in there. I still don’t quite know how God does things like that. I did go over there a couple more times over the next two days. I sat around with some of the men from the compound, and prayed to God silently whenever I wasn’t talking to people. What I really wanted to happen was that a bunch of us would go over there, and pray in her room, and pray so hard that the infection would just disappear.
It sounds as though she is getting better. Mario told me that Thursday that she was doing better. I have noticed that sometimes people in Africa say someone is getting better right before they die. But she didn’t die, and I’ve heard that she is up walking around now, feeling better. What is disappointing for me now is how I haven’t gone to see her again. It is true, I’ve had many other things to do here, and she is certainly not my responsibility. I don’t really know any of Mario’s family other than Mario himself, either, and Mario is often gone to school, so if I go there I don’t know who to talk to. I don’t know if me taking more notice of her would help her get better faster, or if I would just get tired faster; and it seems she is getting better anyway. Still, I think Jesus would care about her enough to go see her again, even if he didn’t really know her. I will make a better effort to go.
Saturday was a busy day for all of us. Jordan, Andrew, and Jeremy went with Beryl and some of the Africans to the village of Yabon, in Senegal, another village that doesn’t have a church but is hungry from the good news. I thought we were sending people to lots of villages already, but we keep finding more places to go. Pray that there will be enough workers to keep up with the harvest.
Zach and Bree took a public van to Sao Domingo, bought some snazzy looking African clothing and some groceries, and took a ride on a local canoe. They had a great time learning this area better.
I went off with my friend Chalino (one of the people from the church who is going every week to preach in other villages) and this other guy named Mamadu to the city of Canchungo. We stayed with Chalino’s family. I wasn’t sure if we were going to spend the night, or coming back the same day; it turned out we were staying two nights. I really enjoyed going, but I would have enjoyed myself much more if I had taken some sunscreen or maybe a hat, instead of just frying in the sun and getting blisters on my shoulders.
I noticed that unlike when I went bike-riding through Ingore, no one on the street in Canchungo asked me for money or bread or anything. There are many more white people there than here, and some Chinese people too, so I guess the locals are more used to seeing strangers. On the other hand, when we went to look for batteries for my camera, Chalino wouldn’t let me come with him into the store, because when they saw me the price would go up.
There are many different churches in Canchungo. There are many Catholics; there is also a big mosque, and I saw a Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I have been told that many Catholics in this country are not Christians; they go to church to get baptized, then continue in their idol worship and other practices, never experiencing the transforming power of Jesus. But they’re very hard to reach, because they think they know the good news. Chalino himself originally came from another church here which is very similar to that. He wasn’t Catholic, it’s a protestant sect, but he says he did all the things the church required and he wasn’t a Christian at all. It was only when he came here to Beryl’s church and learned what Jesus really wanted that he decided to give his life to Christ.
Living in the same room with Mamadu for two days, in a place with so many churches, made me wonder again how I could reach people for Jesus. Several times every day, I watched Mamadu wash his feet, spread out his mat, and bow towards Mecca, reciting in Arabic. I wondered if anything in how I live my life or in how I speak would suggest to him that my faith has more power, that mine is worth considering. It seems Muslims just laugh if you talk about religion with them. The Muslim religion has answers for Jesus and the Bible: Jesus was a good teacher, but he wasn’t God; his disciples weren’t all that good and they didn’t record his teachings correctly. Only after he was gone did people start claiming that Jesus was the Son of God; Jesus taught that we should all pray to God alone, and pointed the way to Mohammad.
I’m not here to win converts; all I can do is make friends and be a witness and trust everything else to God. But sometimes it seems like a missionary’s job is to make new believers, and sometimes I feel so helpless. It’s a funny situation to be in, where I can’t put forth some kind of new effort or new program to make things work; I have to wait and rely totally on God. Yet I can’t forget about all those villages who are looking for people to come preach to them. And regardless of how much it feels like I’m doing, I do know God is moving here. He’s moving through the people on my team, he’s moving through Beryl, and he’s moving in me in the friendships I make with Muslims and unbelievers and Christians.
Praises:
- All the new villages who want to hear about Jesus.
- For the deepening friendships we are forming with people here.
Prayer Requests:
- Mario’s sister, with the infection in her mouth! That kind of thing can be deadly with no access to a good hospital; she needs God’s power to protect her and make her healthy.
- Keep praying for health and good rest for people on our team.
- That opportunities will open up for us to say things about why we are Christians, or how believing in Jesus changes us.
- That our bible studies on Tuesday and Thursday nights, our woman’s bible study on Wednesday afternoons, and our kids singing time on Saturday nights would be filled with the holy spirit; that people would learn and grow through these times.
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 “This opportunity lined up directly with when I needed it. The timing was perfect. Mission work has been something I've wanted to do for a long time, but I never really looked into it seriously until I was contacted by Youth Evangelism Service (YES) of the Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) organization.”
Youth Evangelism Service is a program for young adults; ages 18-30 who desire to grow closer to God during two months of discipleship training and four to eight months of cross-cultural outreach. The program is facilitated through the EMM and Hazlett is currently spending his training time in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at the Harrisburg Discipleship Center (HDC) preparing for his upcoming trip to Africa.
During his eight month stay in Africa, Hazlett will work in a variety of areas and hopes to impact the children of that region where their education is concerned.
“I’ll be working to teach the locals how to do many things,” he said. “I will help them learn how to read, build composting toilets, learn how to operate water irrigation systems and perform other agricultural trades. I’ll also work with the community building various facilities and I’ll work in children's ministry and women's ministry. Our goal it to try and preserve their culture, not replace it with American culture. We want to try to help build themselves up, not just give them everything they need.”
According to Hazlett, education is the biggest need in that area.
“The children don't know how to read or write in their own language,” he said. “We want to help them learn. We will also be making improvements on solar ovens, water systems and composting toilets. These are all important areas for their society.”
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