Rafiki Center - reflections from the first few days

Your love oh Lord reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains
- Psalm 36:2

I was reading this in my devotions my first morning here yesterday as I looked out my window to the sweet mountains streched all around me (I'll have to post a picture shortly, as soon as I can get my camera to work again). It really is beautiful here in Jos, Nigeria, where I have the privelage to be until the end of July working at the Rafiki children's Village.

After two very full days now - wow am I ever exhausted!
And I'm sure learning to be flexible and to draw upon the Lord for my strength daily.
Thankfully I did not come with any major expectations, because things were quite different from what I had thought. Instead of working with the orphans during the day, I am helping out at the Girls and Boys centers, which are vocational training schools attached to the children's village. It is another ministry Rafiki has here for local Christian high school aged children who cannot attend school, either because of finances or low scores. It just so happens that over half of the staff happens to be gone for the next month so both myself and another short time college age volunteer, Brian, are taking over most of the responsibility at the Boys Center.

my day start at 6:30 and after breakfast I teach music and then math to the high school aged kids at their Girls Center and Boys Center. After lunch with the guys, I do construction work with them until 4, which is when my "students" become my teachers with my ever so extensive knowledge of building and mixing concrete.

The highlights of my days so far is the little orphans I get to run around and play with after I'm done with work. They seem starved for attention, especially from older male role models (they each have a house mother but there are very few males working here)
There smiles bring joy and energy to my exhausted body and they can usually get a soccer game or two out of me. There's nothing quite like 40 little boys in wonder of how high you can kick a soccer ball and how fast you can run to boost your self esteem. I heard one remark, "uncle luke runs faster than a cheetah."

But what impresses me most is there Bible knowledge.
I was telling Bible stories to about 60 of them the other night, and they were quoting sections of verses from every story I could think to tell them...and most of these kids are only about 6!

Things to pray for
Pray that I'd have creativity patience, excitement and wisdom in teaching. I think what scares me most is for one of the first times in my life being totally in charge of something with adult responsibility, though I still feel like a kid, and the unknown of what is expected of me. I already feel a peace about things after the initial shock of the first day and this is a praise.

Pray for an extra supply of energy.
I really enjoy hanging out with the orphans, singing, storytelling and playing soccer, but I'm always so exhausted by the end of the afternoon.

Praise
I'm so thankful for my new best friend for the summer and co-worker, Brian, who's a college student from Kentucky. He's a great guy and has really been an encouragement to me so far.

I'll try to keep you posted and hopefully will be putting some pictures up of the Rafiki Center and the kids here.

Pictures

Talibe boys
Originally uploaded by locoluko.

If you would like to see some more pictures that I have taken, click on the photo...

These last few weeks have flown by. My time here in Senegal is almost done as I am leaving for Nigeria tomorrow. As some of you noticed, I did not have a lot of opportunities for internet access until now, so I will attempt to give a summary of some of the ministries we were able to visit and some things I'd appreciate prayer for:

-travel
pray that all of the little details and connecting flights get worked out. It has been neat to see all of the little details fall into place so far. Right now I am staying at a Taylor friend Justin Nevious' house and am looking forward to meeting up with some other Taylor friends, Dubem and Olamide, in Nigeria before I head to the orphanage in northern Nigeria, where I will be until August

-personal growth and reflection
It has been a crazy last few weeks going non-stop and visiting a lot of different ministries. Pray that I will be able to process what I've expereienced and not get burnt out as I still have around two months left to go. Pray that this summer would be an amazing time of spiritual growth and maturity.

- pray for the Talibe Center
pray for Jane who operates a shelter for the Talibe boys who have been sent away from their families at an early age to memorize the Koran at school, and live and beg on the streets for the rest of the day. She has a unique ministry, giving first aid, breakfast, and showing attention to these boys who are often neglected by society. As a result of her commitment over many years she has recently been able to show many of them, and even their Koranic teacher, the Jesus film in their dialect. Interestingly, not only did the Koranic teacher like the movie, but he asked to borrow it, and when Jane went to get it back, he didn't have it because he had lent it out to some of his fellow teachers. Although no one has expressed a desire to come to know Christ yet, the seed has been sown, and as God promises, his word does not return void.

- pray for the national ministers who are working in the villages.
We were able to meet with one, Geli, who runs kid's clubs which both muslim and christian children attend. It was neat to see how excited the kids were to sing the songs about Jesus and how passionate the young Christian leaders were about sharing their faith. We were able to visit some of these villages and interact with the kids there, as well as attend Geli's church.
Although Christians there experience a fair ammount of tolerance, it is hard to win converts in a land that is 95% muslim.

- Christian orphanage
be praying for the orphans and leaders that we visited there. It is the largest Christian run orphanage in the region and their main goal is to train future Christian leaders. They are also in the process of building the first ever missions training center for the Senegalese people.

- Pray for the Senegalese people
Senegal is a country renowned for its friendly people and you would not expect it at first glance, but it is also country plagued by fear. Islam here is mixed with local superstitions and the occult. Practically everyone consults their local maribu, or witch doctor, and sacrifices to spirits is common place.
Pray that the Christians here would be a light in a place of spiritual darkness.