Brenda Rodgers

Tag: Burkina Faso

  • Can This Be Real? :: Burkina Faso :: Arrival

    We walked down the stairs of the plane and it was already dark and hot.  A bus picked us up to take us to a building with one double door.  Everyone from the plane was going through that door.  In no order.  Without a line.  This is their airport. 
     

    Now one carousel delivered our luggage from the plane.  They’ve upgraded since our church’s last trip to Burkina Faso.  Before they rolled it in on carts and threw it in the middle of the floor.  You had to get there quick if you wanted the luggage you started with.

    Walking outside it became obvious that we were different.  The eyes were magnetic, long reaching, and hard.  But very friendly.  Immediately we were swarmed by Burkinabes wanting to help carry our luggage – for money – or sell us a calling card. I later learned that they were legit.  Needing work of any kind.  Needing an income. 

    The air was dark and thick and hot, but as we headed to the LAC, the place where we stayed, it could not hide the desperation.  The paved road was enclosed by orangish dirt on both sides. At 10:30 at night people were sitting outside under coverings held up on four sides by two-by-fours.  Lots of people.  I asked why there is so much loitering so late at night.  Their huts have no electricity.  So they hang out of the sides of the road under the buildings with electricity.

    The streets looked like a flood ripped through the landfill disbursing the trash onto every foot of land.  It was everywhere.  But for some it was their treasure. 

    I turned my head right and saw, laying in nice, neat rows, one pair of shoes after another.  Obviously worn.  A man sat in a chair beside them.  He was trying to sell them, this late at night, but no one was there to buy them.  Looking at those shoes I thought about the countless feet who had stepped in them before.  And the feet who will step into them in the future.  For them the shoes will be brand new.  And they will be grateful. 

    These feet are the reason we have come to Burkina Faso. 
    Thank you for your prayers during our trip to Burkina Faso.  Our trip was overall very smooth, and the Burkinabes were blessed through your prayer.  Over the next several days I will blog about my most special moments with them.  However, they still need your prayers.  Please consider praying for them regularly.

  • Prepare the Way

    Three months after graduating college I sat in front of that classroom – apart – and stared out at twenty-eight faces, sitting neatly in groups of five, staring straight back at me. Their look was one of anticipation. Anticipating me to do what I was trained to do – teach.  Except that in that moment I had nothing.

    Four years of learning theory and philosophy and pedagogy became meaningless words on a page.  All I could see were those faces and behind those eyes worlds that I never learned about.  Ten years worth of life filled with experiences that had nothing to do with two-digit multiplication or subject-verb agreement.  And it was my job to connect the two.

    Sunday morning will be my first full day in Burkina Faso.

    I have read the statistics.
    I have learned about the culture.
    I have seen the pictures.
    I have heard the stories.
    I have made checklists for packing.

    I have been immunized.

    Or have I – really?

    Is there anything I can do to prepare myself for those faces?  Those faces who will look out at me in anticipation?  Starving for Hope, the Hope that is promised, with no tangible evidence that it exists?

    My job is to connect truth and experience. 

    Or is it?

    What I am about to see, hear, and feel is impossible for me as a human being to take in, comprehend, and respond to.  It can’t be done, and it’s not my job. 

    Only the Holy Spirit within me.

    Only in His power.

    Prepare the Way, Oh Lord.  Go now before me. 

    Please join me in prayer for our team and the people we will meet in Burkina Faso.

  • Space to Be Filled Reaching Up

    “Are you excited?” they ask.
    “Yeah. I guess. I don’t know.” I reply.
    Am I supposed to be excited? What is supposed to be going through my head days before being transplanted into a different space – a space that seems to have stood still over thousands of years and I picture like I did this morning with my Bible in my lap reading Acts. 

    This whole Africa thing has come steadily for me. Steadily since I declared boldly that I didn’t want to go eighteen years ago. 
    He wasn’t going to push me. Demand me to go like an overbearing father who wants his will more than his daughter’s.  He knew my grip was too tight around this life of mine I wanted.    
    But subtly the loosening began.  He started small with simple requests – Is that friendship right for you? Are you honoring me with your time? Should you be dating that boy?
    My muscle grew a little bit and my trust did, too.  Maybe he really does love me.  Maybe he does know what’s best.  My clinched fist began to weaken, and my fingers began to soften.
    Until he asked some more.  Is that pride I see deep inside?  Are those dreams really idols?  What about that anger you won’t give up?  Are you going to allow only my one foot in forever?
    The stakes were higher now, and I just couldn’t seem to do it.  The muscle weakened and strengthened contracting with each failure and triumph.  But he stood there in that door frame, with only one foot in my heart, with no intention of leaving until I closed the door behind him.  One finger at a time began to fall from my fist held tight.  And there was open space.  Space to be filled.
    He came to me that August morning while my fingers pointed outward and that space in my hands faced up.  And he asked me if I was ready.  If I was ready for both of his feet to come in.  “I want you to give your life to me including all I will”, he said. “Even if you don’t understand.  With every hurt and ache I want you more than that.  I want all of you. Only then can I fulfill the days of yours I’ve already prepared.”
    That August morning I turned my head.  My husband rolling away to life support was all I saw.  And his other foot stepped in. I closed the door.
    This day has been prepared. This day to go to Africa.

    So am I excited about going?
    Yeah.  I guess.  I don’t know.

    There is nothing Africa needs from me.  I am just the surrendered vessel carrying Jesus to a place where his feet aren’t welcomed.  Standing with fingers facing out and space to be filled reaching up.




  • My Disguise of Serving in Africa

    In less than two weeks I leave for Burkina Faso, West Africa. 
    I am told the experience is going to change my life.  Or at least my perspective on life.
    That scares me. 
    Several months ago I sat in church and saw the video clip inviting people to join the team going back to Burkina Faso.  My heart started beating fast.  I knew right then the invitation was for me, and it wasn’t from the church.  It was from God himself. 
    I cried and I ignored.  Then I cried some more.  I didn’t want to go to Africa.  But God told me it was the Way – the way he wanted to answer my prayer.  That prayer that I ask so often for him to make me like himself. 
    So I am going to Africa to be like Jesus.  Jesus was a servant.  So I am going to serve.  To bring hope. To give life. To show relief.  To be a savior. 
    Or am I?
    The people I will meet have no running water.  They sleep in huts.  They cook in a pot outside.  They have never seen themselves in a mirror.  They have never seen a mirror. 

    Compared to me they are beyond poverty. 
    “Tell me they don’t know.  Tell me they’re oblivious.  Tell me they’re happy”, I said as I looked at picture after picture of the people there.
    “They are happier than you are or ever will be”, was the response.
    And yet they have joy.  And I sit hear in my warm house, in perfect health, with food busting from the refrigerator.  Consumed. Worried. Tired. Stressed. Miserable. 
    In a podcast I listened to this past weekend from Craig Groeschel he said this, “You want to know that you’re in need? Go to a third world country.  You feel good about yourself for a while.  For a couple of days you hurt with them, hurt for them, and then something switches along the way.  And suddenly you realize the more I do for them, the more they’re doing for me.  The more I give to them, the more I’m receiving in some crazy way I didn’t expect. Then one day you wake up and say, wait just a second.  They’re financially broke and empty, but they have something I don’t have.  You see the strangest joy in the middle of nowhere.  They have nothing and seem to have everything.  And you realize I’m in need, too.  We’re mutually in need, and we both need God.” summarized from Craig Groeschel’s sermon “Those People Part 1: Those Overly Needy People”
    God is sending me to help the needy as a disguise.  A mask shows a needless woman’s face going to the other side of the world to share her needlessness with the needy.    
    God’s intention is to strip back that mask and reveal that I am the needy.  I am the broken.  I am the impoverished.  I need the Savior.
    My culture puts the world at my disposal.  But joy is still lost in the abundance. 
    I am not going to serve the needy.  I am the needy going to relish in a joy I do not know.    

    “But as for me, I am poor and needy; please hurry to my aid, O God. You are my helper and my savior; O LORD, do not delay.” Psalm 70:5