We're back! On Thursday morning we visited some sand dunes outside Niamey. Our breakfast was interrupted by a sandstorm, which was a neat experience. We spend the rest of the day packing and at the market. The market serves as the super Walmart of Niamey, where you can by food, fabric, and clothing. In the evening, the girls and guys put on separate events for the female and male missionaries, respectively. The girls spent the night giving the missionary women foot facials while the guys played volleyball and basketball in the hot Niamey evening. Both events were well received. Before bed, our Nigerien friend that we met during our travel to Niamey came and visited us. She looked beautiful in her traditional African dress and was excited to see us. We exchanged contact information with her and hope to connect with her in the states. As I mentioned before, her and about 5 other Nigerien families are living in Louisiana. Please pray that our friendship with her would blossom and that we would be able to connect with her in the US. We arrived into Fayetteville around midnight on Saturday morning. Our return travel went well. The highlight of our return trip was that we met a Muslim lady who was traveling to the states to meet her new husband. She was anxious because her husband had just become a Christian and she wasn't sure if she would be able to become a Christian and stay in the US or if she would have to move back to Morocco. To make things more difficult, since she was moving to the US she had about 8 bags with her and was worried that she wouldn't be able to carry all of her bags to her connecting gate in time. We were able to help her move her bags and she was very grateful. Please pray that she would see the hope in Christ in her husband and as a result would place her faith in Christ. Overall, the trip had an impact on all of us. Since we cannot fit all of our experiences into one blog entry, we encourage you to seek out someone from our team and get them to tell you all about it. We leave you with a challenge: please continue to pray for Niger. It is a broken country that desperately needs Christ and his ability to transform culture. God is doing amazing things there in the midst of fundamentalist Islamic opposition, especially in the area of Christian education. You can keep up with SIM-Niger at http://sim.org/index.php/country/NE. Thank you all for your support and prayers. |
