Our church took a missions trip to a village a few hours away from here. Their hope is to partner with a missionary to plant a church in the village there. We left at 9am on Tuesday morning with a full 15 passenger van.
We stayed in at a youth camp near the village that was not in good working order, but we learned to be content with a few of the difficulties. We got to see God provide the grace needed during that trip just like He provided what we needed to get through jungle camp in Canada years ago.
The first day we got settled at the camp and got to talk to the missionary and plan out the week. Wednesday and Thursday morning we worked in the fields weeding, planting and fertilizing plants in a garden. Caleb loved using the tools and helping out. Grace had lots of fun with the daughter of the missionary family.
Wednesday afternoon we got to host the pastors of the area to find out what is going on in the area and what they see as the needs of the area. 
Thursday afternoon we got to go into the village and hand out walking canes. I enjoyed using my nursing skills to fit people for their canes and teaching them how to walk with them. I did it mostly through a rough translation into Wolof and through gestures.
Friday we packed up after another wonderful breakfast of tapalapa bread (a bread baked in an earthen oven) with tuna or with nutella on it. They served it with hot milk. They normally added 3 tsp of sugar to each cup and sometimes a tsp of instant coffee. It was really good even without sugar.
After breakfast we headed to the missionary’s house to debrief on the week and we were able to see the work of a local pastor. He has a kindergarten, seamstress school, dormitory for traveling pastors and a chapel on his property. On our way home we stopped at a place called Beersheba. It is a farm that trains people in agriculture and disciples them in the process. They currently have 16 students in the middle of the one year course. They train them in new techniques of farming and animal husbandry while also teaching them the Bible. We left there very encouraged.
We enjoyed the week overall. It was neat to see how the missionary couple shared Bible stories and songs with the kids that were watching as we worked. It was difficult for us to communicate with them because we didn’t know their tribal language and they didn’t know much French. It was interesting to watch how our church planned and went about their first missions trip. It was so neat to get to know the people that came on the trip. Our kids really became attached to the guys and enjoyed hanging out with them. We were really glad we went.
Thanks for the totally cool, awesome mission trip report. 🙂 I’m so happy to read your reports and hear what God is doing around the world. That’s so cool that you were able to use your nursing skills again, Melissa. 🙂 As I’m sure I’ve said many times before, I firmly believe God never wastes any experiences in your life but always has a use for them sometimes in ways we don’t expect. I’m glad to hear of the seeds planted (literally and spiritually 😉 and trust God will continue to give them growth in His time. 🙂
And how cool that you got to visit Beersheba! In Genesis 21, this is the spot where Abraham dug his wells. How fitting too that a farm that teaches people about planting and growing in Christ is there in the African Beersheba, since in the Israeli one, Abraham also planted a tamarisk tree and called there on the Name of The Lord, the Everlasting God. 🙂