The Journey Corps slogan is “Everything will change”. It’s prophetic, because everything has changed for me and this is why… Six days ago my host mom asked me if I wanted to go to a funeral in the village. This is the first time she had asked me to go and I really wanted to because she was so excited for me to see it and dance with her. That morning though I was feeling a little off color. I had a little diarrhea and my body ached a little bit. I wasn’t sure what I had. I thought it might be…

Last week was mostly spent in the northern city (Korhogo) which is the other city where journeyers are living and that I frequent to help with different things.  The new Journeyers spent the week living with an Ivoirian family (Soro Zana); a of the host families of a previous journeyer.  Us that have been here longer came together throughout the week to visit families, pastors, and to familiarize the new journeyers with the city and the people.  While in Korhogo I stayed with an old friend…

"For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

So our team has been studying the book of Romans together. And although I've read it before, reading it here I get different things out of it than I did before. Like the…

Hey everyone!

I'm new to doing missions as I have previously posted online. I was curious as to what West Africa is like? I can't wait to go and join the team that will be put together. To be honest I'm super excited to go but I'm a little nervous I've never been away from home for a year. But I know that I can do it with God's help. I feel very lead to do a missions trip I feel that is this one. I'm praying on this everyday. Is there anyone else that is going on the mission trip to…

In way of an update...we've had a great holiday season with our family in Colorado.  Mimi and I are back in the frozen tundra of Minnesota.  Over our time in CO we gained five new financial partners!  We have five others who have committed to start giving soon.  It would seem that in spite of ourselves we will be able to deploy to Benkadi some time in the Spring.

I've been thinking about how blessed we are.  Let me recount some of the blessings.  First, my brother Greg and his…

Lately God has been teaching more about the Holy Spirit and his role in my life; how he guides and encourages. That he is the power of God living in me. I have surrendered my will over to him and have been asking him to use me to glorify Jesus. Last night a cousin of my host family came over to visit. He goes to school and is about the same age as my sister Bintou. His English is pretty good, but could use some help. So, I offered to practice English with him so he can get used to my accent,…

My little 1 1/2 year-old brother Enoch is the my main source of entertainment at home. One night, he was just lifting up his shirt and staring at his bellybutton and walking around. He walked up to me on the couch and showed it to me and then turned around and walked away, still looking down at his bellybutton. He kept walking right smack into the wall, turned, and continued all the while just staring at his bellybutton!

As funny as he is, Enoch is a fussy little guy. But he…

May God bless you and fill your hearts with His inexhaustible joy. 

Our team came together in Bouaké Christmas and New Year’s. The week before Christmas we had a seminar looking at God's plan to redeem all of creation and Biblically what should be the Church's role.  It is a saddening and daunting subject to reflect upon seeing the damage sin has already done, even through the hands of the church, compared to the end we will someday reach.  Along with that, it is not easy to…

Cross-cultural Learning



We are community deprived. Statistics show that young Americans value relationship above everything else. In Thom Rainer’s book “The Millennials” he tried to determine what makes millennials tick. He concludes that Relationships were the most valuable thing to that age group. How does relationship become such a universal value?



I…

hi mimi, i really enjoyed you post on'' trying to control outcomes''

i have and had a problem of my own as in control. many times i found my room not to my liking when checking into a hotel. recently my son and i were checking into hotel in Cincinnati,o. we parked underground an drode elevator to lobby to ck in and i ask for a higher room. we took keys and got back on the elevator and pressed the floor button. and much to my surprise the elevator started going down. i…

Here are some questions Carrie McNew's students had for me and I thought they were really good and wanted to post them here.

What kinds of food/drinks do you eat there? Food: Ivorians eat a lot of rice and sauce. I eat rice and sauce almost every day. There are different kinds of sauces. One of my favorite sauces is like a peanut sauce. Many Ivorians love to use a lot of oil in their sauces. They really like to eat fish because it is cheaper than beef or chicken. They…

So I've been living in my family for about three weeks now and I realized that in my last blog I described all my family members but I didn't tell everybody how day to day life works in my family and what things are the most different.



Every morning at 5:00 a.m. I wake up to the sound of the call to prayer coming from our neighborhood mosque. I don't really know how to describe the call to prayer but it is not a pleasant sound, especially at 5:00 in the morning. The first few days I…

So last Tuesday I moved in with my host family! So far it's been great, I love my family, they're so fun and caring and patient. Even though I've absolutely loved being with them, I am so exhausted from speaking and trying to understand French allll the time! I sleep so much now! There are 6 people in my family and they're all so great!



First there's my papa. He's really talkative and outgoing and makes me laugh so much! I love it when he gets home from work and says, "Ah, ma…

Greetings again from Cote d’Ivoire.   The first week has been pretty busy for all of us.  Rod and Angelika left last Monday for a field leader conference in Bamako, so I have been bouncing between working on campus and helping orient the new couple (Steve and Jessica).  Within the midst of being caught between two schedules, the joy of seeing friends again brings a freshness to life. 

I was able to have lunch with my host family last Sunday.  Mom and Sephora were not back yet…

I apologize for my lack of updating recently, but sometimes it's really hard to think of what to share with everybody and put it into writing. Plus things haven't been extremely eventful lately. But now many things are about to be changing and happening so I have a lot to share!

First off, as some of you may have heard, I got malaria. Around 7th or 8th, I started feeling pretty tired and just not myself but I didn't think it was malaria because I didn't have a fever or…

Almut, Tricia, and I went to church this last Sunday by ourselves. We got there a little late but got a seat in the back. The church service was extra long. About 3 hours in Tricia passed out in her seat. Almut and I caught her. We had no idea what happened. Her eyes were still wide open but you could see she wasn’t there. Her face got really white. We were scared for her, but didn’t know what to do. Thankfully she was only out for maybe a minute if that. Then, the three of us went to sit…

It looks like we will be moving into our families after Thanksgiving. We will spend Thanksgiving in Bouake on campus with other missionaries in our area. We are all looking forward to that. Then we go up to Korhogo the 28^th of this month for orientation with our families that have been chosen by the church we will be in. Almut and I will be in the Tiekelezo Church. Then, I believe we will move into our families on the 30^th. The first month of living there I think we…

Well this is my last update!

I'm back in the States now!

My last month in Cote d'Ivoire was bitter sweet. Saying goodbye is really hard and I had to do some of the hardest…

Tricia, Almut, and I went to our first African funeral several days ago. It was for Pastor Eli one of the first pastors of the Baptist Churches in Cote d’Ivoire. He had died a month ago and they waited until now to have the funeral so that people could make it to the veille. A veille is an all night party celebrating the life of the person who has passed away. Also, in this case since this man is a Christian we celebrated that he is now with the Lord.

   We went to this veille the day…