Ganvié - Village on Stilts

Well, here are the last ones before we flight out to Burkina-Faso. After we leave this hotel I don't expect to be able to post this many photos till we're back in the U.S. in July. Hope you're enjoying!

First there are a few pictures of the church service we went to. Pastor Severin preached. They had us sit up front, behind the podium, which is a little awkward, but that's what they do when "important" people visit. :)

The choir. I have a great video, but it's too much to load.

Pastor Severin preaching in French (right) with an interpreter (left), translating it into Fon (one of the local languages). Pretty much all church services in Africa are in at least 2 languages (the language of education plus one or two local languages).

The four of us after the service. The pastor who took the picture really wanted to get our feet in it, at the expense of Jon's head! haha

Then... we went and did something touristy!  whaaat?  We took a boat out onto the lake in the Abomey-Calavi region, out to Ganvié - called the Village on Stilts, because it is... well... on stilts! A village in the middle of the lake. Back in the day, the tribe was trying to escape the warring tribes around them and find some peace, so they went out onto the lake and found a little island. They learned to fish rather than hunt, and eventually started building stilt houses and getting around in canoe-like boats. The Island is now only used as a cemetery and they live in their stilt houses which last about 15 years before the wood rots and they have to build a new house.

It was so nice and cool with the shade and the breeze over the water.

     Checking the nets for fish.

Fish harvesting time in this area. They basically set up fish farms by providing food in an area, then netting it, and eventually harvesting the fish there.

Jim and our tour guide and boat driver

This is the water depot. The Government provided a pipe line to bring good water into the village, since before they were drinking the lake water and getting all kinds of illnesses.

One little floating market. Apparently in the morning they have a full on floating market.

Bigger boats like this are taken all the way over to Nigeria to bring back petrol and other things to sell.

Taxi!

Yay! I caught Severin's smile!
If he knows I'm taking a picture he won't smile his real smile.

Aw... aren't we cute.  :)

Our daily indulgence. Jon can't go a day without it it seems. 
FanMilk. yea. It's good. The chocolate one is pretty much like a fudgescicle.

THEN, that same night, even after having a FanMilk in the afternoon, we further indulged ourselves by getting ice cream. haha

I wanted to post this picture to keep it real. It may be Africa, but there are still ice cream parlors in the cities.

Alrighty, that's all folks!  Off to Burkina-Faso this evening, and though I'm not expecting to be able to post many pictures, I'll let you know how things are going.

Love you all!

-J&L

Benin - Abomey-Calavi

Pictures from yesterday. Mostly in Abomey-Calavi, Benin.

Jon spent the first half of the day going over the new version of the reporting system with Pastor Severin, working through any issues he was having with reporting ect. and I did a bit with him on the finance reporting.  Then we spent the rest of the day driving around the Abomey-Calvi area to see the area where Severin is planning to move (he's from up north in Parakou) to do church plants, since there are large areas in Abomey-Calvi which have no church presence as more and more people are moving into the area, and we visited a couple of churches that Severin and Jim had planted years ago. It wasn't really OneHope specific, but it was cool to see the fruit of past years' work and to see the area that God has called Severin to come and serve.

Sorry some of the photos are sideways... I don't know why they uploaded that way, I did turn the files, but I'm not going to go through and re-upload those ones so... just turn your head  ;)

Our exciting work! On our computers.

Dress "shop". I love these, so pretty with all of the colors, hanging in the breeze.

One of the churches we stopped by.
The pastor then drove around the community with us and told us about it.

Market day.

This area is sort of in the city of Abomey-Calavi, but it's still a developing area, and this particular community is still very much like a village.

The pastor of this church, and his cute little daughter.

Severin wanted to see how good the water was in their well.

They were singing their little song at us that children sing when they see white people. It goes like this.
---Yovo, yovo bonsoir! Sa va? Bien, merci!  --- Whitey, whitey hello! how are you? Good, thank you! ---

haha  I have a video, but even with the good internet we have at this hotel, a video is too much. It will have to wait till we're back in the U.S.

The Pastor and his lovely family (I wish they would smile! they have great smiles)

He was soooo cute! 7 months old.

A family on their moto. I've been trying to get a good picture of a larger family riding together, with a kid in front, and in between, AND a baby on mama's back.

One of three warehouses for the OneHope books in the country.

This is a large, growing Assemblies of God church which they are expanding.

The worship team practicing for the Sunday service.




Love,
-J&L