*Disclaimer: Jill sends her updates to us with certain things coded for safety/security reasons, and I try to decode as much as I can!
Hey everyone! I am actually going to be able to send updates every two weeks. Since the last update, I flew to another city in the country. It was much smaller than the first and much less westernized. I actually felt like I was officially out of American culture. We stayed in this city for a few days and just tried to adjust to the way of life here. We even got to spend some time with a new family of missionaries who have been here for just two months and have Domino's pizza! We spent one day going around the city in two teams of three with our GPSs which we would be using on our project here in the villages. We went to some historic sites in the city as well as the zoo. It only cost 30 cents to get into the zoo. We wanted to ride elephants because you can do that for about $1 at the zoo but we had missed the time to do it. In the city, we stayed at a home that belongs to another missionary family that is currently in the states. We had electricity almost the whole day and we also had AC. Unfortunately when we left the city, we too left the air conditioning.
We drove about 1.5-2 hours to get to the area where we are staying. The flats we are supposed to be staying in are still under construction so the boys stayed in one national partner's home and the girls stayed in another. I stayed with a family that had two sons who were 13 and 11. The dad spoke some English and so did the boys but the mom spoke relatively no English. This made it really hard to communicate with her. I had a photo album with some pictures of my family so I felt like showing her the pictures would be a really good way to relieve some of the awkwardness. Sure enough, it worked! I showed her mine and she should us hers. The house we stayed in was pretty small. There were only two bedrooms which couldn't have been bigger than about a 10' x 10'. We slept on a few blankets on tile floor with no ceiling fan but one small box fan that worked even when the power was off and a stronger fan that only worked when the power was on. In the area I am in, power is off for about 4-8 hours a day. It always seemed to go out right before we went to bed and in the middle of the afternoon. Needless to say, I have been constantly drenched in sweat. I take a shower before I go to bed and wake up drenched in my sweat. There's no escaping it here because there is no relief given by AC. While I only slept 2-3 hours the first night and had a full day of work ahead of me, I was reminded of why I am here and the suffering that Jesus went through while he lived here. In a letter from a man named Peter (cough, cough) I read that to this I was called because Jesus suffered for me and left me an example that I should follow. This put everything into perspective. While I am uncomfortable for a few months, Jesus suffered so much more than I do by just being hot and sleeping on a hard floor. I just have to keep reminding myself of this.
So a little bit about what exactly I am doing here for 6 weeks. We are separated into two teams of three people each. Each team must have at least one guy and one girl because cross-gender communication is considered inappropriate in this culture. We drive 30-40 minutes to more remote villages to survey the government water pumps. What I mean by survey is that with the help of the translator, we ask the villagers how deep the pump is, if any part of it is missing or broken and if the water is potable or not. Then using the GPS, we tag each hand pump in a village and take a picture of the pump. A village can range from 5 to 5,000 people and can have 0 to 300 government water pumps. The whole idea behind doing this is to survey what needs to be fixed so that the local body of God can go in and fix the pumps and build relationships with the villages and if one decides to follow Jesus, they can help them grow in their walk and teach them how to plant other bodies of God in their own villages. Basically we are just preparing the field and sowing the seeds for the harvest. Because of this, it's easy for our daily tasks to become mundane and to get frustrated that we aren't directly seeing the fruits of our labor. The beautiful thing about it is that we get to cover hundreds of villages in pr as we go.
Here's a couple stories about the three days that we have been surveying. We get up around 5 AM, and try to be out at the villages by 7 so it is somewhat cool (in the 90s). The first day, I took my camera and took what seemed like hundreds of pictures of children and women. Most of them had never seen a picture of themselves. It was frustrating try to talk to the villagers because they cannot speak English and I haven't picked up much more than "hello" and "how are you?" in the native tongue. I realized that pretty much the only way to show these kids the love of our Father is to smile and laugh with them. I need to get it out of my mind that there is only one way to show people God's love. The second day went better than the first day, I learned how to ask them about the conditions of the well in their language and more people were responding to my hellos. Apparently, I am an easy target because on the third day we were surveying another village and we were gathered with a huge crowd of people in the middle of the village and someone threw a small piece of a corn cob at the back of my head. Just my luck! It didn't hurt though.
Two observations I had noticed by going around to the villages. I now see why it was such a big deal that Jesus cleaned his followers feet. By the end of the day my feet are dusty and gross and sometimes they have cow poop or other nasty mud like substances on it. The other observation was that I feel like I can somewhat better grasp how Jesus felt when he was followed by large crowds. We attract sometimes 40+ people in a given village. People engulf us. Children, women, men, young and old. People are touching us and pushing and shoving to see what we are doing. This experience has shown me how much patience and grace Jesus has because I have gotten irritated and frustrated with the people who follow us at times.
Here are some things you can be praying for over the next two weeks:
-against distractions and discouragement from the enemy (its so much more intense over here)
-against sickness and heat exhaustion (its almost impossible to stay hydrated since we sweat constantly, and many of my teammates have gotten sick)
-the Holy Spirit to transcend language barriers and make his glory known throughout this state
-God to continue to prepare a person of peace in each village to spread his love to their family and friends
-unity with my teammates
-that my joy be found in God alone (there is so many things that can steal my joy here)
-that I would completely rely on God for everything
-that I would be humble and that my voice may not be heard but his, that I would not receive the glory but he would, that I would not be made known but he would. -that I remember that He must become greater and that I must become less
Thank you all for your continued love and support. Your letters and texts help me get through some of the hardest days and I truly appreciate your constant pleading with the Father on my behalf. Thanks again.
Jill
Also, here is a link to Jill's supervisor's blog. It contains additional information as well as few pictures. It is also updated more frequently, so be sure to check it out!
