Seeing God at work in Benin

It’s been a week since John returned from Benin; he has gotten some much needed rest and we have been sharing with each other many of our stories that occurred while we were apart.  More stories and photos will find their way onto this blog over the coming weeks...but today we wanted to fill you in on how John saw some of our specific prayer requests his time in Benin answered.

*Prayer for Stick-to-it-iveness each day as John continued to learn a bit of French before departure:   John did well in this regard, but left well aware of how basic his conversational French level was.  He received a pleasant surprise after arriving however; it turns out that many Beninois in Cotonou speak some English!  This is at least in part due to the influence of English speaking Nigeria, which borders Benin on the East.  So while he did grow in his French speaking abilities this summer, he was also able to fall back on his mother tongue when necessary.

 *Prayers for John & Jacques as they worked on team plans together in Cotonou just days before the team arrived in Benin and for their working relationship and communication throughout the trip: Not only did John and Jacques work well together, a third person joined their leadership team who turned out to be very similar in her style of leadership to Shevawn as a Discovery leader.  Carol was a wonderful blessing and a totally unexpected answer to prayer!

Carol and Daring Discoverer Danielle

 

*Prayer for wisdom for John to lead well while working under stress; answered in so many ways!

*Prayer For 4 African participants to join our team; and they did!  4 Beninois young men were participants on Benin Discovery 2013, making Benin the only other country besides Ghana who has so far had Discovery teams that were half foreigners and half nationals!

*Prayer that our team would be able to serve Wycliffe Benin and the Bible translators working there; again, answered in many ways

 *We asked and continue to ask God to lead our participants into longer term missions after Discovery; one participant in particular struggled throughout our debrief week to say a specific ‘yes’ to God and by the end of the week he said a resounding yes!

*Praise God with us for a GREAT Discovery trip to Benin!   Thanks so much for praying with and for us!