Ladies' Prayer Breakfast

Each year in January our entire missionary family meets for about four days for our annual conference.  This year I helped my friend Joy out with the Ladies' Prayer Breakfast.  It was a lot of fun designing the decorations and dreaming up the color scheme.

Anita and I made all the wreaths and cones out of newspaper.  That was all we had done until the week of conference.  Thankfully I had a wonderfully crafty guest staying in my house who helped Joy and I roll all the flowers and put them on the wreaths.  We would have been lost without her especially because I was sick with a fever for three days in a row.  

Joy's sister blessed us with some sweet treats for all the ladies including apple cider, hot chocolate, life savers, peppermints and granola bars.  So we hung out and stuffed goodie bags one night. 

Friday night lots of people pitched in to set up the dining hall and make it look like this. 

Saturday day morning the ladies arrived with all their delicious breakfast goodies.  Around 90 ladies enjoyed some great fellowship and time to praise God for the things that He has done in this past year in our lives, our ministries and the country of Niger.

The ladies squeezed a little unexpected fun into conference this year in the form of a flash mob.  You can read about that here.

The Baobab Made Us Do It

One evening as the sun went down, they decided to go for a walk and came to rest beneath a Baobab tree.

Unsatisfied with simply sitting beneath the tree, she felt compelled to climb it.

 

Inspired by one friend and prodded on by the next, she, too, climbed the Baobab.

 

She was sitting back, content to watch until the challenge was given.  "If you do it, I'll do it!"  Without a moment's hesitation, she began her ascent.

 

Having thrown down the challenge and watched her friend scale the old tree, it was time to fulfill her end of the bargain.  She flexed her muscles and showed her young friends that she was more than ready for the task.

 

Ahh, the glorious spotlight had turned to her.  So she clung desperately to the tree within inches of tumbling to the ground (or merely stepping down, if you must know the truth)!

Not to be outdone, He climbed higher than any one of them.

And so having been spurred on by one another and by the gnarly old tree, they scaled the heights and returned safely to the ground only to walk off into the sunset declaring,
 

"That old Baobab made us do it!"

A Very Gourma Christmas

I had the privilege of spending Christmas morning in a Gourma church in a village about an hour away from Niamey on the way to Burkina Faso. My neighbors work in this village amongst the Gourma people. They always come back into town with exciting stories about how God is at work in their area so it was really a joy to be able to see this church that is full of young people who are believing and trusting in God. Christmas is celebrated in so many different ways but perhaps one thing that Believers around the world do in celebration is sing. The Gourma love to sing and dance! I got a little bit on video but I've given up on trying to load it. So pictures it is!  The whole congregation was singing in a kind of call and response style. In this picture, you can see one woman twisting and throwing a calabash with cowrie shells attached into the air to make music.

Later the women's choir all sang.   They were all wearing their Christmas cloth and matching shirts.  Apparently in this village, polos are all the rage! :)  You can see that in this picture of the Youth Choir who

really get into the dancing.  They danced so hard that most of them were sweating profusely by the end.

It was a very Gourma Christmas!  I'll admit that most of the time church is pretty difficult because it's hard work to listen and to understand what is going on.  In my western mentality, I'm very tied to certain things. Time, order and variety being foremost among those things.  Things that aren't so important in this context.  As I sat there surrounded by young moms, peeing babies, restless children and dancing men I was challenged by the thought that nothing kept these Believers from worshiping God TOGETHER!

A Jolly Little Bit of Fun

If you have kids or you are a teacher in need a little bit of Christmas entertainment for your students then today's post is for you. 

Last year at our class Christmas party, my kids had a blast dressing up as characters from the Christmas story.  We had Mary, Joseph, an angel, some sheep - you get the picture.  These children were then sent to hide around our campus while their classmates tried hard not to peek from inside the classroom.  When everyone was safely hidden away, the students in the classroom went searching for the Christmas characters.  It was highly entertaining watching them try to locate their classmates some of whom hid themselves quite nicely in garbage cans and toy trunks and behind bushes.  So there you go a little game of Christmas Hide and Go Seek will keep the troops entertained. 

Now being in a hot environment like Niger makes Christmas Hide and Go Seek easier than traipsing about in the snow, freezing to death and wishing that someone would just find you already so that you could go in and warm up.  So this year's game is for you if you live in a cold place but it will still get your kids moving and they'll have a great deal of fun.  I printed off the cards located here and then I let my kids draw one and everyone did the actions.  I wondered whether my second graders would enjoy it and I had thought about having a spinner to make it more fun with categories like choose one to do the action or you and two friends do the action or everyone do the action.  But we ran out of time so I just let them draw a card and do the action and they loved it.

There you go a jolly little bit of fun for the kiddos this Christmas!

Field Day Celebration

Cheering Nation

Unification

exhileration

eyes on the destination

determination

frustration

no disqualification

relaxation

adoration

time for celebration

Tis the Season to....

keep your chair warm!

Pop!

Time for a pop of color and a crafty post since it's been a while! 

The colors in this card make me happy.  My friend Kathy has an amazing relative who sends her this magazine.  I'm not huge into decorating but I love perusing the magazine for color schemes and patterns.  This advertisement was the inspiration for my card.

Hope your day is just a little bit brighter!