Fo fo!

Fo fo! (Hello!)

Wow, all I can say is God has been so good these past few days and has just been blowing me away over and over again!! Since this past Thursday night I have met several international students from Niger: CJ, Nathan, Dan, Hadiza and Omar, just to name a few, all of which speak French and Zarma, the two languages I need to learn. I met most of them playing volleyball, and volleyball is now our common ground for hanging out a few nights a week!

It has been so neat to see the ways God is constantly preparing the way and confirming His will to me through all of this! I've been thinking my trip to Niger was set to begin June 30th, but it has already begun and He's brought the mission field here to me!!!

So today I met for the first time with my new buddy CJ to get a head start on learning some Zarma. Up til now I have been trying to teach myself from a pronunciation guide that Phil, my field supervisor, sent me over email. Let's just say... Praise God I met these students!! My pronunciation has been simply awful. I discovered this on Thursday when I first met CJ and decided I would try my "Zarma-speaking-skills" on him and he had no idea what I was saying!... So back to today... My first lesson...

I met up with CJ in Starbucks on my campus, and we sat and talked for about 2 hours. He taught me some basic greetings, corrected my wrong, self-taught pronunciation, and told me a lot about the culture. Niger is primarily Muslim, and CJ got to tell me a lot about Islam and I also was able to share a lot with him about Christianity. It was a really great first meeting!!

Needless to say, I still have a very long ways to go in learning Zarma, but these few first steps have sparked such a crazy excitement in my heart about going! And being able to put real faces and names to the people I am going to be living life with for two months is starting to change everything!

I am so thankful and so incredibly blessed by how the Lord is leading and preparing me and where He is taking me!

A few key prayer points for now:
-That the Lord would continue to satisfy me in His word so that I may fully reflect His glory
-For this excitement in my heart to continue to grow!
-That He would continue to provide opportunities for me to meet with my new friends
-For doors to begin to open for the Lord's will to be done in their lives!

Kala hanfo! (See you another day!)