Trip into Burkina Faso
After leaving Dapaong this month, I continued north to Burkina Faso. The trip from Dapaong to Burkina's capital city took about five and a half hours.
My journey was held up at the border for an hour and a half but ultimately I was able to secure all my passes and stamps and pay whatever fees were required. I was finally on my way till I found a “Péage.” I wasn’t quite sure what it meant but soon found out that it is the French word for Road Toll. To my surprise, there were about five of these along the road to the capital and only one of them had the convenience of paying at the booth. At all the others, I had to get out of the vehicle, walk over to a building, and pay the 2 dollar fine. Africa sometimes is a piece of work, let me tell you!
After navigating good roads and cow paths for nearly 9 hours, I finally arrivedin the capital city. It’s closer to the Sahara than where I live, so there is much less green and much more dirt. But because it is a capital city, they're living conditions are a bit higher then where in Kara. However, because of it's close proximity to the desert, I honestly felt that I couldn’t keep clean. Anything you bumped against or touched would leave you with dirt residue. It was a constant battle to keep clean and cool.
Despite this, it was a thrill to visit the two works that the Shumaker’s (Keith and Rebecca) had started. Their first work is a village work, and the second is in the city. They meet with the village work every Sunday morning before heading over to the City Church, where they hold full weekly services in.
The time I had with the Shumakers was brief but was sweet. Keith and I had a few moments to chat about the ministry, and he gave me some great advice and insight on ministry here in Africa. Though they have only been in Africa for about five years, they still gave me some interesting things to think through and I was truly encouraged and blessed by the time I had with them.
Their work in the city has been blessed so much over the past few years that they found the need to start construction on a new auditorium. It was interesting to see the dedication of the folks. There was construction going on everywhere, and at times everything was covered in construction debris, yet the folks still come every service and worship the Lord in their uncompleted church building. There is such an excitement in the air about how the Lord is working. I really believe God is doing something special up there. It was an awesome experience.
After eight days in Burkina and 11 on the road in total, I was ready to be home. It’s funny how after a while you long for the comforts of your own home, a nice shower, and your own bed. It took me about 9 hours to get home, but this time I didn’t have any issues at the border. In fact, I was a bit impatient as I got to the Togolese side. I knew I was supposed to get out of the vehicle so the customs officers could, if they wanted, inspect it for import and security reasons.
Despite knowing this, I drove up to a checkpoint and, still in my vehicle, looked at an older man sitting on his bench next to the gate. He threw some hand signals at me which I took to mean "you need to let them search your vehicle" and I threw some, “I’m confused, what do you want” hand signals in reply. Apparently, whatever I did worked because for whatever reason—maybe he just didn’t want to get up?—he opened the gate and let me pass. Try pulling that one crossing into Canada from the US or vise versa! Africa…you have to love it!
