Dear Prayer Partners,

When you are in Africa, you are always in Africa no matter where in Africa you are!

The other day I walked into the Cote d’Ivoire Baptist office to work on some e-mail and nearly stumbled over one of the workers tearing up small pieces of paper from a rather large garbage can into even smaller pieces. Curious I asked him what he was doing, “Well, these pieces of paper are too small to put through the shredder.” Oh, I should have known; human shredder. Personally, I’d put a match to the works and save the manpower, but what he was doing made sense to him!

Heather (of the new missionary couple we are orientating to West Africa), Jeff and I drove across the neighborhood the other day to check out a Lebanese butcher shop I’d found. His meats were a bit less expensive than in the grocery stores. Picture this: glass store front, six plastic tables and chairs directly behind the glass. Huge slabs of partially cut up cow hanging directly behind the tables and chairs, with the cutting table on the right and large stainless steel refrigerator on the left. Cozy. Great dining atmosphere! I ordered meat from the butcher, a rather large guy with huge hands missing one tooth wearing the traditional white-blood splattered t-shirt. Very friendly man, even though he can barely speak a word of French! His pigeon French is the worst I’ve ever encountered! I asked his worker how they communicate and he said, “Well, kind of like you do with a deaf person. I just figure out through his gestures what he means.” After starting to create my order I noted he was also cutting up excellent pieces of beef and poking them onto barbeque sticks. Worried, I turned to the African young man working with him and said, “I didn’t order any shish-kabobs.” He responded, “Oh, le patron always fixes a meal for new customers.” Now that’s service! A bit later we found ourselves sitting perilously close to the swinging, hoofed slab munching on delicious shish-kabobs, homos, parsley-onion salad and pita bread, free. Not quite up to USA health department standards, but he’s got my business!

Then on Sunday we saw something we’d never seen before—the toilet paper offering. This church surprisingly, had tiled, nice, bathrooms which were quite a unique twist from our usual run into the bush, or moment with the rugged, squatty style outhouse. I was impressed by the outside bathhouse structure and even more impressed with the folks as someone rescued Heather, Karis and me from drowning our shoes in the huge pond created by the constant rain by laying down some construction planks for us to step upon on our way back from stone stepping and jumping the first time.

The two hour worship, praise and prayer service before the sermon was beautiful. Afterward was the offering, the African style, in which everyone walks forward and places their offering in a wooden box or fancy basket. Here they used fancy baskets. Except for one. It was just a plastic tub set up on the stage. Before prayer the pastor roared into the microphone, “I hope you all remembered to bring your toilet paper today!” The prayer, the music, the walk forward by each individual with the tithes in one hand and a roll in the other—for the plastic tub! That’s one way to keep up supplies for the tiled rooms!

Love,

Barbara and Jeff

Barbara J. Singerman