REWIND- This weekend we are leaving for our first outreach into the village. But here is the deal- they are splitting us up into groups and sending us without leaders. Well, kinda, I am a leader. Each group has their own. I am responsible for 5 people and we are bringing in our own tents, food, and ideas for evangelism. They basically are telling us to go with God and see what happens. So they are going to drop us off at noon and then pick us back up at noon the next day. So I go in and find the head man and ask permission to be there. Then we are setting up tents and we will be going hut to hut to gather people together for a meeting? Or maybe we will gather the kids together and tell them stories and ask questions? Or maybe we will meet in the local church and sings songs? Or maybe a drama? Ok, you can see I have a lot of options and I am hyped! So I am responsible for these people and what will happen to us. It is only for 24 hours though so I know it is going to fine. Not that much can happen during that time, right?! I am excited! We are going to cook and build and everything else.
FAST-FORWARD- The outreach went great! I am so surprised that I winded up doing so many things like my father! We went and met with the headman and asked him for permission to be in his village. There was also a head woman. She had been brought in by the headman from another village. 
They are not a couple but he needed someone to help him with the “female” parts of the village. So, for example, any marriage or children issues get run through her first before they go to the headman with it. There is some divorce but it is rare. It has started happening more due to an increase in drinking. There are some orphans but the village just absorbs them into other families.
The village we were in was extremely agricultural. 
The problem is that hoof and mouth disease killed all the cattle a couple of years ago and then elephants 
kept stamping and eating all the crops. That has affected the community in extreme ways. The village had maybe 150 people in it. So we went around to all the grass enclosed huts and talked with everyone. We invited them to a meeting that night. We set up our tents and started boiling our beans because they were hard. I wished we had soaked them the night before but we didn’t know:) 
Then we started playing with the kids. If you have never been to a remote village, let me tell you about the kids. They are everywhere. They giggle and laugh and play with you at all times. 
The children have completely threadbare clothes with holes all in them. They have, usually, no shoes and they are constantly 
foraging for food. They are several edible plants and things that grow around so we ate things with them like “African bubblegum” and red beans.
After dinner (which ended up being so great because the beans got cookedJ) we had a meeting. Well, the people called it a crusade. The whole town came. I asked each team member to prepare a “sermonette” and said they might preach. 
Then I asked them to all preach. At the end, we gave an alter call and the ENTIRE village accepted Christ as their Savior. We brought in local preachers and turned over the discipleship to the nationals. It was very exciting!
The next day we got up and prayed for each person in the village. We had stayed up late the night before and prayed for everyone too. 
The next day as we walked around people were running out of their huts to tell us about what God had done in the lives overnight.
It is hard to know or understand the impact we made in this town but I trust the God has great plans for the people. We are going back there in a month and we are making two more trips to the same village. I believe I will have an opportunity to develop some really cool relationships out of this time. It is so cool to think about the impact we are going to have in the lives of these people.
Other than that, today we are drilling a well. We have a team in from
This is a lot of info so I am going to close this correspondence here. I am so grateful to be here and want you to know, I thank God daily as I think about those people that I love. Thanks for being those people:)
