another post... with PICTURES!

hey everyone!
this week has been an awesome one! We have been staying busy around the house helping out our family. Last night my roommate and I cooked dinner for our family. That was hilarious! We made spaghetti and sweet tea. We thought it was great, but im not so sure our family did. I think they really did appreciate the effort though, they at least didn't have to cook that night.

Here are some pictures of my family:


This is Ndaye. She is the "head" of our house. She's like a grandma to us, she never wants us to help clean up and she's always making sure we eat a ton! She is such an awesome woman. She also likes to randomly bust out karate moves. She is pretty much my hero!
Here is me and my lovely roomate Seynabou and baby Njaga. My roomate is pretty much the coolest!
This is Yandaye. She cooks lunch every day. She is so much fun. she loves to joke around with us, and she loves to dance.
And this is Papa. He is ALWAYS eating something that shouldn't be eaten, like sand, or rocks. But with a face like that, how could you get angry at him?
And this is Mama. She is full of attitude, as you can tell. Her favorite game is take my picture and then show me. haha. She is a blast to play with.

I will try to post more pictures later, but at least you get a little glimpse of my family!

I love you all!

My goodness. Another week in Senegal has flown by. TIme here just seems to slip away so quickly. I only have four weeks left in this place.

I just got back from another getaway weekend. It was so wonderful to come together with other believers and just praise God.

There isn't a whole lot new going on. We are continuing to work on building relationships and show Christ's love in all the little things we do.

Today we had an awesome time of worship before we left to come back to our homes. God was all over the room, you couldn't help but feel his presence. While we were worshiping God just broke my heart for my family here. While singing it hit me liek a ton of bricks the reality of the fact that my family is going to go to hell because they don't put their faith in Jesus. Without Jesus, my family, these people i have grown to love, are going to suffer for eternity. It was such a heartbreaking realization, and i experience a sorrow that I have never encountered in my life. It just sunk in that, these poeple that i love so much are so lost. But it gave me a even stronger desire to make sure I show Christ in all that I do. Please pray that my family would have hearts that are ready and willing to hear the wonderful message of Christ. Pray that they would see his peace and grace in our lives. Pray that we would lovew them the way Jesus would love them. Pray that they would see the freedom we have in Christ. They live such ritualistic lives, mindlesssly praying prayers 5 times a day that they don't understand, practicing a religion that they don't really get fullfilment from. Its just the religion of their ancestors. A ritual that they are suppsed to do. They recieve no joy from it. It breaks my heart to watch my family move through their prayers without thinking. As children of God we have a God who loves us, and wants to be in this beautiful relationship with us. He longs to be close with us, and they don't have that.

I'm looking forward to this week, and I can't wait to see what all God has in store.

Yet another week has flown by in Senegal!

I can't believe that i only have 5 weeks left in my trip. In some ways it feels like I just got here, and in some ways it feels like this has been home for my whole life. the sights and smells and everything about Senegal just seem so much like home now, I can't imagine what its going to be like when I leave. I never thought I could get so attatched to a place so quickly. While communicating with people isn't always the easiest, I have totally fallen in love with these people. And I never really expected that to happen, at least not the way it has.

God has taught me how to love people. He has shown me how to see people the way he sees them. Becauses these people arn't just people. They are more than that. They are more than faces. They are more than men leaning against a wall, women selling fruit, children tugging on your skirt. They are God's creations. They are his creations that he made, in his image. They were created to give himself praise. We are walking portraits of God's awesomeness.

Everyone of us.

Even the unloveable. Even those annoy us. Even the ones who know how to get under our skin when we are in a mood. We are all images of God's likeness.

But its so easy for us to forget that. We look at people through our own eyes that exxageratre imperfections. Eyes that remember shortcomings and hold grudges. Eyes that make assumptions. God has been reminding me that I need to stop looking at people through my eyes, and start looking at them the way he does.

As masterpeices.





This week I got the opportunity to hang out with Hadi again. We took a Wolof Bible to her house and just read it to her. We had no way to explain what we were reading, we could only stumble through reading words that we couldn't understand. But God blessed our efforts tremendously! Hadi said she learned alot. Which is wonderful! We prayed with her, and it was beautiful to hear her lifting up praises to God in her language and us in ours. Our God can hear whenever we call on his name. I gave Hadi my cross necklace. She said she wanted to wear it becase she was a "talibe Yessu", which means a follower of Christ. It was deffinetly a time I will never forget. Pray that she would be able to learn even more from God's word on wednesday.

I hope yall are doing well!

hey everybody! Here is the Senegal low down for this past week!

This week in Senegal has been awesome. Mainly my roomate and I have been hanging out with our family, just loving on them and helping them out with everyday tasks. On wednesday we went and visited a woman named Hati who is a new believer, praise God! My roomate knew here from last year (this is my roomates third year here). Hadi can't read so we are going to visit her once a week and read to her from a Wolof Bible. It was so exciting to meet somone from a totally different place and life that was in love with the same Jesus I'm in love with. Please be praying for her, its not easy to be a Christian in this country. Also pray for her son Babacar, at the age of about 5 he suddenly became paralised. he cant walk and lays in bed all day. Hati can't afford to take him to get treatments or anything, because it is so expensive. Pray that if it is God's will, Babacar would be healed. Also pray that God would speak to her through us.

On thursday night we had an awesome opportunity to hang out with the kids that live in our house. The kids arn't usually allowed to come in our room. They get yelled at when they come in, but somehow we were able to sneak them in our room to hang out for a good hour or more. the kids had so much fun, we brought out some toy cars for mama and papa to play with, and we let the 2 teenage girls listen to our ipods. they got a HUGE kick out of that! they were dancing all around our room trying to "sing" along to "engles music". It was awesome to just get to play witht hem. the two teens don't get many opportunities to just hang out and be kids, their time is usually consumed with cleaning and running errands. Meti qnd Anta were just so happy to play. It gave me such joy to see them just being kids. we are hoping to get the kids together more often and let them hang out in our room. our goal is to get them in there and lett hem listen to our bible stories that we have on tape in their language. Pray that God would provide these opportunities!

This weekend we had a retreat weekend where all of the student missionaries came together to talk about what we have been doing. It was such a wonderful weekend! We went to a place called Simone, and it was GORGEOUS!!!! it was right on the beach, and the beach was clean! I was so happy to see a beach that wasn't full of garbage. We spent time hanging out with eachother and just enjoying being able to hold real conversations with other people that spoke our language. It was so encouraging to hear the ways God is working in the other cities.

Thanks for your prayers!



Yall should check out Kari Freeman's blog as well, she is my best friend and she is here in senegal with me! its www.povertytriumphant.blogspot.com

Life in Senegal and Prayers Needed

The time here is Senegal has been flying by! I cant believe I have already been here for two weeks. So far my roommate and I have begun to build relationships with our family, started working with some other girls from the ESL team teaching about 12 teenage girls English, teaching our family English, and have been diving deeply into Gods word. We have been learning so much! My Wolof isn't the greatest, and I get frustrated with not always understanding people. But God is good and will translate what he wants translated!

Life in Senegal is so different than life in the U.S. Here are a few of the differences:
- there is no need for an alarm clock here, the random calls to prayer throughout the night wake you up early!
-cleanliness is a relative term, if your clothes don't stink, wear them. if they do stink, still wear them!
- if you use the bathroom or take a shower and you aren't accompanied by some sort of critter, its a good day!
-goats are natures garbage disposals. dump your leftover food and trash at the beach and they will gladly take care of it for you!
-flies are your constant companions.
-cooking lunch is a 2-3 hour ordeal.
-here, you never forget that you are white, the kids in the street always point at you and say TOOBAB!!!!! (that is Wolof for white person!)
- not sweating is a luxury

Though life is different, i really am enjoying it here.

Here, they live life on a day to day basis. They buy enough rice for that day. They worry about the food and money for the next day and then the next day. In Senegal, there is no planning ahead.

Saturday night I went to my first Senegalese futbol (soccer) game! it was a blast! I got to see some of my American friends. It was definitely a blessing to be able to have a conversation with other "Toobabs" in English!

Here is a little bit about each person in my family, and prayer request for each one!

Nday: Nday is the oldest woman of the house. She is the Aunt of all of the people that live here. She works hard, cooking and cleaning, and overseeing everything that goes on in the house. She is a strict Muslim and always does her prayers. Pray that she would experience dreams and visions from God revealing his truths to her! Dreams and visions are a huge thing with these people.

Yanday: Yanday is a beautiful girl in her 20's. She works so hard around the house, she cooks lunch every day, and sometimes dinner too. She is super sweet and she is a blast to hang out with. She loves dancing, and dances every time music comes on TV. She doesn't do her prayers everyday and we aren't sure why. Pray that we would be a good witness to her. Pray that her heart would be softened to God's word.

Check: Check is in his 20's. Is isn't around the house a ton, except for around meal times. He says he wants to learn English, but he hasn't really been around too much to learn. Pray that we would have opportunities to teach him and in the process share Christ's love with him.

Miaita: Miait is crazy! She is probably in her late 30's, or early 40's. She always has us laughing. You never know what crazy thing she will do. She sells breakfast at a shack on the side of the road for money for the family. Pray that she would ask us questions about our faith!

Kodu: Kodu keeps to herself mainly. She is married to a brother of the other people in the house, and we think she feels like she doesn't quite fit in with the family. Her husband is away working, I haven't met him yet. She cooks for herself and her 4 children, Meti, Mama, Papa, and baby Njaka. Meti, who's about 13 helps her cook a lot. Mama and Papa, about 4 and 2, respectively, are my good friends. I can communicate with them! Pray that they would ask questions when they see us reading our Bibles.

Anta: Anta has a very special place in my heart. She is about 11, and is my best friend in the house. She is such a hard worker, she has to do so much work around the house! She is the errand runner, and does the grunt work no one else wants to do. she doesn't get to really be a kid. Her family makes her do her prayers every day. She wants to color with us, and we have a bible story coloring book, so pray that we would have opportunities to be bold and explain the stories!

Thank you all so much for your prayers, they are going to great use!

Also keep my other team mates in your prayers as they build relationships as well. Also pray for our health, some of the Toobabs aren't adjusting as well as others!

Thank you!

bon bennen yon, until another time,

Xati Silla
(My given Senegalese name)