Meet Yéo Martine, my sister!

This is my host sister, Martine. :)

A truly remarkable girl, and easily the best Ivorian friend I’ve made this year. Martine is 20, and interestingly shares the same birthday (May 4^th) as my childhood best friend Mike, though seven years apart. She, like most of the kids in my enormous family, is not one of my host parents blood children. She is my host-Mom’s neice, and Martine’s mom (Naomi’s older sister) also lives in Korhogo and on occasion comes to visit. The reason she came to live with my host parents at the age of four was simply because Naomi asked her sister if she could have one of their children, and she sister of course agreed. I don’t know why she asked to have Martine, but I’d imagine it probably has something to do with financial difficulty and my family being well off and able to send her to school. After that in 1995), Martine grew up in the village of Niofoin with the family until 2005 when a my host aunt and a handful of the kids, including Martine, moved into the Korhogo house. The parents and rest of the family followed suite in 2009.

Martine has been something of a cultural guide for me since coming to Korhogo. And I've had a lot of fun sharing about my culture with her. One good example would be when I told her that American wedding ceremonies generally don't last longer than an hour. She was awestruck and of course asked why. I told her it's probably because the American bride and grooms walk about 100 times faster than the Ivorian brides and grooms, who usually take 5 to 10 minutes to do so. She made me demonstrate, which resulted in an eruption of laughter and me repeating that about 10 times for everyone. Nowadays whenever we walk somewhere fast, we are walking "like the Americans." In reality the reason weddings are so much longer in Côte d'Ivoire is because they have a full length church service complete with sermon and worship setlist, take forever walking down the isle, and then dance and eat. It's the ceremony, reception, and a sunday service all combined. Interesting, n'est pas?

Martine is quite a unique individual, with many talents and interesting tastes. She speaks, reads, and writes three language, loves math, sings really well, leads worship at church every week, and is learning both piano and guitar. She also cooks the majority of the meals for our family of 16 and does a good majority of the cleaning as well. All of this on top of the fact that she is taking several college-level classes and doing well in them. She is so busy, even when sick, and manages to be one of the most joy-filled people I’ve ever met. Definitely a superstar.

Martine is really intelligent as well, and has some interestingly high life goals considering the place and role she was born into. Martine is a Senefou girl, and even though she comes from a farily modern family, she is likely expected to conform to the general mould, which means getting married and having kids within two years and be a very hard working, mostly stay at home Mom. I definitely see a big part of Martine that wants this life, but I also have observed that she would really love to get away and chase her dreams. Martine wants to be an architect/civil engineer. Even more than that dream, she wants to be devoted to helping orphans and the poor for the rest of her life. Martine is still in “premiere” meaning she has one more year of school before she can go to University (God willing), so she has plenty of time to think about her future. If she decides to pursue that dream she will have lots of mountains to climb to reach it. It’s sad to say, but women are traditionally viewed as second-class citizens in West Africa.

I’ve come to feel that something is off about my day if I haven’t spent time hanging out with Martine. It’s a pretty common thing for her and I to be sat on chairs doing a guitar lesson, or me getting a French lesson, or just relaxing and talking about life. The last few days she’s been really sick, so I’ve spent a lot of time just being in the same room to comfort her, or finding ways to encourage her and make her smile. Probably the best thing about Martine is that she really, REALLY loves Jesus. And second to that comes her love for singing TO Jesus, so the way I've been making her smile for the most part has been convincing her to come sing french worship songs with me.

Anyways, that’s my introduction for Martine. I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about her in the near future. I think when I leave this place, I'll miss her the most out of all my new family and friends!

Here are a couple photos of Martine, more to come soon!

Martine and Parfait singing it up at church

Martine and "her baby", CJ (aka Julia)

Roof pouring day :)

In Niofoin

Drama practice with CJ

Déjà le 15 de Août?

We are only halfway through August and it already feels like such a full month!

Our first week this month saw us in Bouaké, welcoming two new journeyers, Kelly and Tricia! We spent the week doing their orientation, and having a super fun trip to Yamoussoukro, the nationals capitol, to visit the worlds largest basilica and go swimming at the president’s hotel! It was a great time of relaxing and unwinding, but boy did it feel great to get back home to Korhogo! Reuniting with my family and friends here was like letting out a big breath I’d been holding for too long.

Since being back in Korhogo, I’ve spent time visiting friends and new acquaintances, reading lots, and hanging out with Taylor, who was here to visit his girlfriend Heidi, one of our fellow Journeyers. Taylor stayed two nights at my house and then I spent two nights with him at one of the bible school’s guest house. He had a case of the amoebas, and I came down with a cold, so it was good to stay at IBB for a bit. He was feeling all better before we went on Saturday to get his bus ticket to Abidjan. It was fun having him stay with my family, and I think he got a decent idea of what Ivorian family is like. Meals for one were spectacular, making me pretty happy to have a visitor and reminded me of when I first came to live with the Soro family, too. I had fun translating for him and helping him get around town too. He was pretty independent despite having amoebas which made things lot easier for both of us I think.

Also since being back, God has been doing a lot to remind me of lessons learned over these last several months. The main lesson he’s been pressing on me this week though, is to remember to keep HIM as the central purpose of my being. When I’m struggling with temptation, run to Him, think about Him, surrender to Him. When I’m wandering, slacking in being still before His throne each day, and getting distracted – to remember to pray and to take initiative in returning to Him. It’s crazy how just a few days of letting distractions take your eyes off of Jesus can rob the spiritual zeal out of your life. It’s crazy how difficult it can be to get back into good habits, but how rewarding time spent with God is once you’ve put him back where he belongs – at the center of your life. These last few weeks I’ve been battling distraction, and am in process of getting back to where I should be, or I should say, where Christ ought to be.

Anyways, I don’t have lots of photos to show…but I do have some to share of our trip to Yamo and of our time in Bouaké! Enjoy!

Baptism! Steph and Naomi were the first Americans Pastor Keo had ever baptized.