I will miss...

Yovodoku - Ata + Tevi - FAN MILK - Giant leaves - Palm trees - The beach, the sight of forever – Motorcycles - How you can get whatever whenever because people sell everything possible on the streets - Rooster in the morning - The Yovo song - Smell of the bakery by our house every time we drive by on our motorbikes - View from our roof, seeing the downtown from across the plains - Being able to barter on basically anything, anywhere - Lizards and Geckos – Storms! - If you are late NO PROBLEM - Chill Culture - Always shoving as many people as possible in a car - Showers that just like clean the whole bathroom - Shoving everything in the fridge (Gum, Bread, everything!) – I will miss Benin! See you all soon :D!

Fong Lesson

So at the village, during our lunch break, Calixte and Martin taught me some Fong (the local language). Prepare yourself, because I have no idea to spell these words, but I will spell them like they are pronounced for you all!

Ahfonkangia – Hello

Sobedo – Is everything good? Response = Dolso – Yes everything is good!

Nonni – My name is _____

Affo – Foot

Chaussuafokpa –Shoe

Cloacko – Chicken

Cloacklovi – Baby Chicken

Choockoo – Dog

Bo – Goat

Bovi – Baby Goat

Chichi – Sunglasses

Add ne to the end of anything to say like “that’s a ___”, or “this is ___” etc.

Crazy Stuff in the past few weeks

We went to the zoo, we finally got to see some African animals (even though they were in captivity)...We saw some baboons and monkeys, alligators, crazy giant snakes, tortoises and much more (Including a random house cat)! Tortoises are amazingly strong, you can stand on it, and he will be still walking around, woah!

For Canada Day we created Jon-Eh (John A. Macdonald get it, get it? Haha), out giant beaver friend to celebrate the day! Created out of some cereal boxes we have been collecting in the corner of our kitchen haha!

Martin and I went out one day and he took me to this market called Tokpa...WOW! Imagine the most people EVER + the most little shops/stands EVER + shoved into the tiniest amount of space possible, and there you have Tokpa! Craziest environment I have ever been in. You know all those movies of the crazy markets in India, or Africa...Ya nothing compared to this, what an experience! Especially being a Yovo, and everyone screaming at you to come into their shop and tugging at you, wow, fun times for sure! Haha

I got some traditional clothing! I am officially African!

At Monday night’s meeting we had a huge surprise celebration for three people! Two of our leader’s birthdays had recently passed, and Abby’s b-day as well! We made sloppy joe’s (their favourite food ever now haha!), and decorated the house and had a great time together! The two DRIME Benin leader’s were touched that we celebrated their birthday and gave them gifts, because apparently you don’t really do that here, so they really felt blessed! I’m glad we had that opportunity to just bless them, because they have been working so hard with DRIME and doing an awesome job!

DRIME in the past few weeks

Sorry, my bad for not blogging in so long! (Take that as a compliment, it means I’m busy doing good things in Africa!! Haha)

Anywho, DRIME stuff has been going magnificently in the past few weeks! I’ll give you all a quick summary.

We promoted/presented DRIME in two more churches, which turned out great, receiving great response from the churches about this ministry! Praise God!

We were invited to partner alongside a church for an evangelism event. The crowd really loved the dramas, and because of our loud music, the area we were in soon was packed with people thirsty to learn about Jesus-Christ!

We have successfully started DRIME Benin’s first ministry season! They decided on having practice and ministry both on Sunday’s one after the other. Since then, we have had three practices, and two ministry times. At this past practice and ministry time, we totally left it up to the leaders to plan and run the day, we reinforced that statement by telling them we will not be present that day! As usual, they did simply awesome running their team by themselves. Because of their leadership skills, and love for our God, we are confident DRIME Benin is going to thrive in this country and continent!

DRIME Benin so far has been doing ministry at the beach because that’s where people seem to go Sunday afternoons/nights (seriously the whole beach gets packed!). The turn-out has been amazing. We get hundreds of people watching at one time, just observing and receiving the message of Christ! We have had some amazing opportunities here!

On another DRIME note, God is showing us over and over that he is in control and that he will provide for us! We recently worked out the monthly budget for DRIME Benin, and it seemed like a lot, but it was all necessary! And of course they have to raise it all. But God showed us that anything is possible with him by proving a man named George into DRIME Benin’s life! We were doing ministry one day and this man comes up to me and says “hey I think I am your neighbour.” (We had new neighbours that just moved in and we had yet to meet them!) So we went about chatting, and he came over one night while Abby and Janna were out and just started spilling how the ministry had touched him so much! He’s a believer himself and kept repeating how the dramas were so simple, yet so powerful, and that it amazed him that people left their “fun at the beach” to come and watch the dramas intently. He said that the whole thing amazed him. He’s a business man, and was telling me how he wants to see DRIME in Nigeria and Ghana and that he can help, which is amazing! So to start, he is definitely sponsoring DRIME Benin! Out of the blue, he gave us 30,000 CFA’s for transportation for the next ministry time (transportation is only 6,000, so he blessed DRIME Benin with their first donator!) and he rented us this whole high tech intense sound system for that ministry time too! He also said how he is going to keep renting it for DRIME Benin each week, then at the end of this month, he is going to buy us a whole new sound system! One thing that was so powerful that he said was that “I believe DRIME is the next move of God”...Wow! That is so incredible! God sure is looking out for us and DRIME Benin! Praise Him!

We have also been putting together the DRIME advisory council, which is a team of people who have a passion for the ministry, and that give council to DRIME Benin leaders and support them, and promote DRIME in their own circles of influence (People like business men, pastors, elders, directors of organisations etc.)! It’s been going great, we had our first meeting on Wednesday, and it all worked out great!

On a last DRIME note, we went with GAiN and a team from North Carolina to a village on Tuesday to do ministry, what a great day! The drive there was awesome, because honestly, the village was in the middle of nowhere! We drove through straight up bush the whole way, with a tiny little path that was big enough for a bicycle (which of course a bicycle would never make it due to the intense terrain!). We continually were wiped by bushes and branches in the car because of our tanking it through the bush! Haha. So we finally decided to put up the windows (duh!) The day was awesome! God sure moved in that village, bringing most of the village to come and know him, setting them free from the chains of fear and captivity! Praise God!

Our last tasks here as DRIME Benin base planters is to have a leader`s retreat, to finish the training, and debrief the trip with the leaders! Pray for a great end trip weekend with the leaders, and that we can finish well, praising God for everything he has done in this country!

Extra Extra Read All About It!

This week’s news stories include: Nigeria stumbles upon Benin, & Benin becomes the host city of a national Bootcamp

This past week, on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, we had a school group from Nigeria come down to Benin to be trained by DRIME! We had a blast with them the three days. We taught them some of our dramas, trained them in evangelism, played awesome games with them, & just had an overall blast with them! It was hilarious, even after the three days that we had known each other, they already had realized one of my quirks...I wear backpacks, EVERYWHERE! So because of this, they bought me this funky African backpack as a thank you present, I was honoured by the gift, and now have another backpack woo! Us & the DRIME Benin leaders definitely enjoyed out time together with the Nigerian Team! It was actually the first time the DRIME Benin leaders go to train dramas! Exciting! Favourite moment of the three days would have to go to Janna’s epic fail! We were fooling around, attempting to kick over each other, and Janna was confident she could kick over Calixte’s head...poor Calixte! You can see where this story is going! One second she is winding up to kick over his head, the next, Calixte gets a foot directly in his face! Classic moment we all laughed off!

Bootcamp was this weekend! For those of you who don’t know, bootcamp is the kick off weekend for all the DRIME Benin members, to start the year! As you can tell, a very exciting moment for all of us & for the DRIME Benin Leaders! We had an awesome weekend training them in the dramas & evangelism, getting to know them all, & just spending the weekend together bonding to start off the year together! It was so amazing and crazy to actually be with the DRIME Benin team. To see where we started, & where we are now, amazing! All the glory goes to God, because his hand has been over this ministry the whole entire team!

We completely left the weekend up to the DRIME Benin leaders, for them to run it all, and make all the decisions together without us. It was so cool to see them run the weekend & take charge of every situation, us just there to help with whatever they wanted us to help with.

DRIME Benin did their first official ministry time to close off the weekend! Was that ever awesome to see them perform the dramas, and get into conversations with the crowd, and just really dive right into being a part of DRIME! They are amazing servants of Christ with awesome hearts for Him! DRIME Benin has a great year ahead of it! One member at the end of the weekend said the following which just melted out hearts: “I have never experienced such joy or felt such a sense of family than I have in these past two days.” God was so present this weekend, already creating a tight family bond between the DRIME Benin team! Not only that, but in our 2 hours of ministry, 30 people came to know Jesus as their personal Saviour! Praise God!

Random Fact: Did you know rats can climb up walls in Benin....EEK! Abby & I were chilling in the training room at bootcamp, when we saw a rat randomly climb up a completely vertical wall...WOAH, creepy! Apparently all the lizards here have rubbed off on the rats! Haha.

‘It’s a stormin’ out there!’

The past few weeks the storms have been crazy, which is really fun though haha! The thunder and lightning have been going berserk! Last night actually, we had one huge storm at 3am which woke us all up, loudest thunder I have ever experienced for sure!

The sad thing about it all though is that it creates massive flooding here in Benin, due to the lack of a proper sewering system. It is actually crazy how much flooding has occurred in the past while. Most side streets are completely flooded, in which many people have to vacate their home! Where we live is okay, but the road that leads up to our house is completely flooded, so we have to walk to the main road everytime we want to go anywhere on mototaxi’s now, because cars and mototaxi’s cannot get to us! We were on our roof looking out on the city, and people are literally cementing their doors higher, and constantly pouring out bucket fulls of water out of their houses! We are fortunate to live on a second floor of an apartment! Olivier said that every June and July is like this, many people have to leave their houses and such! Today we were walking to the cyber cafe, passing by many roads, and we actually had to take another route because of flooding, it’s crazy! Sewers is definitely something that I did not think twice about back in Canada, but am now very fortunate to have them!

The Comedy Network

So I thought I would fill you all in on some of those priceless moments you just can’t miss out on:

One night, we were all sitting around after watching a movie. I started whistling, as usual, and caught Janna’s attention. She asked if Abby and I could teach her how to whistle. Us not really knowing how we whistle (one of those things you just do and don’t know how to do), tried to figure out how we indeed are able to whistle. Abby and I gave each other a look and knew what each other were thinking...This could get fun! Abby held her hand out to Janna and said “here, it really helps if you kiss my hand, because then you make the exact mouth shape you need in order to whistle.” So there is Janna, so seriously making this intense kissy face with her lips, trying to whistle with all her might! I then added, “hey, this really worked when I was learning to whistle. Put your tongue between your top lip and your teeth. It creates the prefect mouth shape for whistling, and helps the air pass better through your lungs, so whistling will come easier to you Janna!” There she is, making this awesome priceless face, and Abby and I just couldn’t hold back from laughter...Janna finally caught on! Poor Janna, but we were eventually laughing together! Haha.

So I get in the house from going to the internet cafe the other day, and I see Janna and Abby sitting there, watching a movie so I join them. They told me that I could have the rest of the delicious new cookies we bought, because they snacked all night and were stuffed. Little did I know this was a ploy to get me to eat disgusting cookies! So I’m sitting there, chowing down on those cookies quite enjoying them, and Janna and Abby both give me this gruesome face and say; “HOW CAN YOU EAT THOSE THEY ARE DISGUSTING! THEY TASTE LIKE BOX!” So basically, long story short, their plan backfired and I now have a whole box of cookies to myself! Haha.

So this story is my favourite by far, I really don’t know how this came to mind but anyway...Were sitting in the living room, doing devotions together in deep conversation. We were talking about the image of God and got on the topic of Adam & Eve and how Eve is the rib of Adam so they strive for that reconnection etc. Anyway, right in the middle of our intense chat, this random thought entered my mind and I just blared out laughing, I have no idea where this thought came from! I just had to tell them though. I thought to myself...”That’s why men like ribs so much!”...Ya you are thinking exactly what I thought, WHERE DOES THAT THOUGHT EVEN COME FROM. Who knows, who knows! Haha.

Random side note: After months of MANY burnt out lightbulbs around the house, including both bathrooms, the technician finally came and fixed them. It’s actually odd to have light in the bathrooms now haha, we got so used to using flashlights and candles etc. Haha.