We All Would!

From the moment the day started I knew that it was going to look a little different.  An average day during the Summer Project included getting up early for some time in the Word, eating breakfast, getting Keenan to school by 7:30AM, bringing Elliot back to the house (he loves taking Keenan to school) and then off to the Guest House to pick up the students to go to campus.  This day, however, was a rainy day and over a week into the project.  It's about a week in of sharing the gospel everyday that the newness of being on campus and sharing begins to wear off for students.  To have a little heart check I encouraged the group to share where their heart was and enjoy some praise and worship songs together.  It went incredibly well.  I loved the honesty as students shared how they felt.  The whole group seemed to be refreshed with vision and passion to go to campus.  

When deciding which campuses the different groups should go to it was quite easy because of the time.  It was almost lunch time and the students were excited at the thought of having another egg sandwich from a vendor next to one of the schools.  We decided that from there we would split into two groups to go to the two closest schools.  I thought that while they waited for their sandwiches I would meander through the campus we were right next to and see if any opportunities lay ahead of us.  I ended up going into a classroom where the professor didn't show up.  I asked them if any in the classroom would be interested in doing a little Bible study and they responded "We all would!"  I responded by questioning them if they wanted to go elsewhere in case some in the class weren't interested but they insisted that I stay there and that everyone wanted to hear what we wanted to share.

Over the next hour and a half we had a very lively and exciting Bible Study.  Josh, one of the Summer Project students, ended up following me into the class along with Stéphane an Ivorian student, who lived with us this summer in order to be involved in every detail of the summer project (I will share more about Stéphane in another post).  We bounced back and forth from English to French to English.  The students were asking great questions.  Josh, Stéphane and I were so pumped.  We all took turns jumping in to explain stuff.  A few times Stéphane forgot to translate something so I would do it for him.  Finally he told me, I am so engaged in the conversation and learning so much that sometimes I forget that I have to translate.  It was such a joyful time.  Each of us were all in as God was revealing his Word more and more through all three of us.  I am so thankful that that was just one of many incredible moments that we got to experience this summer here in Côte d'Ivoire.