Here we go again…

When I was making my preparations to come back to Benin I half-joked with Sarah that I would be back just in time for bush fires. Well, as it turned out I wasn’t wrong. Yesterday during the hottest time of the day, two groups of local men who hunt in large groups came through.

One group burned over a 100-acres of grassland next to our farm and because our fire break was so well done this year, someone kindly helped the fire across onto our land. However, after several years of living in heightened awareness to the unique sound of fire crackling and to the smell of smoke, I and an intern got there before the fire went too far into our farm.

The second group of hunters decided to go through the center of our farm, and although they did not start any fires, the animals and fences in their path took a literal beating. We’ve since registered a complaint with the proper authorities who’ve said that they will speak with the hunters.

Things have been better this past 18 months because so many people are very angry over the behaviour of the hunters, more like Mongol raiders really. So happily society here seems to be against this “tradition” and things may be changing for the better. We’ll see.

Three days in Benin

Well, I’m back in Benin now for 3 days and it feels just like coming home. Had no problems with my bags getting here, which is no small miracle. I then took the bus up country all day Saturday, about an 11 hour ride, and stayed at our local hotel where I was able to have dinner with some good missionary friends.

The next day, Sunday, I continued out to the farm and went to our church here. It was good to see everyone and my little bit of Byali kicked in and I was able to interact with everyone comfortably. Then began the movement of all my “stuff” from my old house where our staff now lives to the small apartment we had renovated while I was gone. It’s a simple apartment but has the luxuries of home, like lights and fans (when the electricity is turned on from the solar panels), a bathroom and a small kitchen of sorts. All day I moved stuff in and put it in place. There were hundreds of mosquitoes because of the moisture from the new construction, but I smoked them out Sunday night with mosquito coils.

Monday was spent in meetings all day long. The farm is doing well, and despite the fact that our production per person was lower than I had hoped, it turns out our farm produced more than most anyone else in the region – the rains were bad this past year. So praise God for that, and an added bonus is that the overall poor harvest in the region means that food prices are higher so the value of our crops is higher than they normally would be. Obviously a mixed blessing because who wants high food prices, unless that’s how we’re going to finance our project. I was able to address some important items with different individuals and we all agreed on a few tweaks to our overall strategy.

Today our final year interns will be taking their final exams and my new interns will be getting more orientation. It’s all very cool here and I get to wear a light sweater most the morning and use a light blanket at night. Not bad especially since I’m just coming from Wyoming!

Thanks for all your prayers, and please continue to pray since there remains much to do and so little time.

Paris airport at 6am

Did you ever wonder what the Paris is like at 6am? Yeah, neither have I, but with 7 hours until I board my next flight to Cotonou I thought I’d share the misery. That said, the airport (Charles de Gaulle, that’s CDG to you airport aficionados) is truly a wonderful labrynthe. Three terminals with something like 9 different buildings that have been added, dare I say haphazardly all connected by a bus system that goes through dark tunnels, under airplane wings and into small crevices all at respectable speeds is something you can only experience. Then once inside, why I felt like the Fellowship of the Ring going up, down and through narrow fluorescent lit hallways with other red eyed passengers wondering just when we would see airport personnel or tumble onto (in a small room) the X-ray machine where everything is off and out before finally finding your solitary gate whose next isn’t for 7 hours. And if thought it was hard enough to read this, it only gives you a feel for my past 45 minutes. Perhaps I’m a cynic but traveling is no longer the romantic adventure it was when I went Edinburgh the first time in 1990.

But the people you suffer along with are great. I love meeting the people, the stories and adventures are all there. The many nationalities in one “small” plane along each one’s raison d’être. Being at CDG is like a microcosm of the world where you can observe and yes, be observed. It’s a swell reminder that there are more than Americans in this world and that we are bit of a minority and we stand out, for better or worse.

Well, I’m going to try to cat nap now before the people flood in and stretching my legs out becomes a challenge.

Sent from my iPod

A380 to Paris

Ah, so much room, so many people and so big. How does it fly? Getting on my flight Paris in 5 minutes. This plane carries 535 people, four of these planes could carry most of the population in Pinedale!  Anyhow, had good time with friends, family and partners in DC. Of course I’m missing the snow in Wyoming. Ah well I’ll have good tan when I get back.

Sent from my iPod

“Why do Indians drink?”

Cover via Amazon

In a book written by John (Fire) Lame Deer entitled, Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, he writes,

“They drink to forget, I think, to forget the great days when this land was ours and when it was beautiful, without highways, billboards, fences and factories.  They try to forget the pitiful shacks and rusting trailers which are their “homes.”  They try to forget that they are treated like children, not like grown-up people… So we drink because we are minors, not men.  We try to forget that even our fenced-in reservations no longer belong to us.  We have to lease them to white ranchers who fatten their cattle, and themselves, on our land.  At Pine Ridge less than one percent of the land is worked by Indians…  We drink to forget that we are beggars, living on hand-outs, eight different kinds of hand-outs: ex-serviceman, the disabled, widows, gold-star mothers, old-age support, foster-parent contracts, Social Security, ADC – aid to dependent children.  That ADC!  The mothers get more money by kicking their husbands out.  “I don’t want him,” they say.  “If he stays with his family, the money stops.  We’d rather have the money than him.”  In my town close to forty girls live that way…  We drink to forget that there is nothing worthwhile for a man to do, nothing that would bring honor or make him feel good inside…“

Why do Indians drink?  It is definitely an endemic problem on the reservations in our United States, something that more of us should think about more often.  The solution is not hand-outs but finding ways for men, and women, to earn honor & pride as they improve the family and their community from the front-line, not the side-lines.  Pick up John’s book, and get an Indian perspective of their problems.  The more we know and understand, the better our work and ministry will be.

Updates to Newsletters

Just a quick update that we have added a new 2012 newsletter prior to Matt’s trip this week. Just click on the newsletter tab above and you may read several of our archived newsletters.

8 days and counting

This Sunday I (Matt) will be leaving Wyoming to begin, my trip back to Benin, first to Denver then on to DC and finally to Cotonou, Benin. I will be gone until Feb. 11th. So for those of you in Benin who read this, “here I come!” and to those I leave behind, “ciao!“

It’s going to be an unusual and busy trip. Unusual in that I will be flying into Cotonou, the capital of Benin, rather than my usual airport in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. So instead of traveling south for 5 hours to Tanguieta, I will be traveling north 10 hours. The reason being that I no longer have a vehicle in Benin and taking “public transportation” from Cotonou is much easier.

It will be a busy because during my trip I will have to: teach a seminar for all of the MJB (the Beninese Ministry of Jesus national church) elders, oversee the final exams of the 3rd year interns at the training school, get the new 1st year interns settled and on the right track, finish the renovation of our new guest apartments on the farm prior to the arrival of a group of Americans coming, organize and run a 3 day meeting for the leaders of MJB, MOJ, and TAG (more on that in a moment), see many friends and especially get my fill of good Beninese cuisine, among other things.

Towards the end of my stay we will be holding a meeting and ceremony celebrating the hand-off from the Ministry of Jesus (MOJ) which closed this past December 2011 to The Antioch Group (TAG) with our Beninese partner, le Minstere de Jesus au Benin (MJB). So several MOJ board members and several members of TAG will be coming from the US to meet with the leaders of MJB. This is an exciting moment as we celebrate the conclusion of 16 years of ministry in Benin and the official hand-over to our Beninese colleagues. there is a well trained and highly motivated leadership structure in Benin that is now in charge of all things in Benin. This is a big burden for them and we all want to encourage them and make certain that they know that despite our physical absence we have not left nor forsaken them. It will still be several years until they achieve financial autonomy so that remains a big factor, but we are confident in their ability to not only manage but to extend the vision we originally had in 1995.

Look for updates during my trip, hopefully the Internet connection will working while I am there.

American Indians and Horses

This article was just published in the Indian Country Today Media  Network which relates a recent current event with traditional beliefs of the American Indians.  Coming from Wyoming where we have our own peculiar laws concerning horses (did you ever notice that they generally hung horse thieves and not cattle rustlers?) I can understand the revulsion this new law re-opening the horse slaughter industry.  What may be considered by some as just another opportunity to earn a dollar, is taken by others as a threat to part of sacred way of life.  Rather than writing off such a response as primitive, understanding this spiritual view of horses from the American Indian perspective is important in our pursuit of presenting Jesus of Nazareth as the Savior for all men everywhere.

American Indians Offer Programs for Horses That Treat the Sacred Animals as a Way of Life – ICTMN.com.

Related articles

• American Indians Offer Programs for Horses That Treat the Sacred Animals as a Way of Life (rtfitchauthor.com)

Back from Lame Deer visit

Just back after a flying visit to Lame Deer where I had some great talks with church leaders and individuals. It looks like we’ll be starting an addiction recovery home in Lame Deer itself which everyone there feels is a top priority. Just a couple of years ago drug sales on the reservation was estimated at over $1 million, a frightening amount for a population of about 9,000 people where unemployment is between 60-80%.  Methamphetamine as you can see by this bumper sticker, is one of the major “cheap” drugs readily available on the reservation, to the detriment of many.  Solving addiction problems will go a long to solving many other pressing problems.

Rice Patte

After talking about it for the last few weeks, I finally decided to try my hand at making rice patte today. Since Matt is not here, I made a peanut sauce (he is allergic, and the rest of us think rice patte is best with peanut sauce, preferably with Fulani cheese – which, alas, we cannot get here). I have never made rice patte before, just observed our house girl make it, and mine did not turn out exactly right. Bridget was eager to dive right in, and decided to eat with her fingers “like the stagieres.” She took a bite and observed, “The patte and sauce and meat in Africa are better.” Too true. Far from being insulted, I was delighted to see her memories of Africa alive and well, and affectionate. Duncan soon began chanting, “I want to go back to Benin.” We are sad not to be returning with Matt in a few weeks. And hoping he can bring us back some Fulani cheese and maybe some tips on how to make better rice patte.