Price Family Update -- MVNU Team Update

Okay, so it’s been a while since the last post. Here’s a brief overview of the MVNU Joining Hands trip to Benin and Togo

In a word—amazing.

We had a rooftop cookout and played games with MKs from three organizations; we sang worship songs with American, Irish, English, and Canadian ex-pats; we crossed an international border between Benin and Togo with 13 foreigners in tow with no problems; we sang songs on the roadside while we waited to cross a bridge closed due to a tipped over semi-trailer; we were pulled over at a police checkpoint just after dark outside Lome, when the backdoor of the bus slammed shut, someone said, “I think I just peed a little bit in my pants” and we did our best not to laugh out loud; we worshipped outdoors in Tsevie, Togo until it rained and then crammed into a small classroom to finish the service; we learned to sing French African worship choruses; we spoke Fon in the Dan Tokpa outdoor market while we saw the sights and smelled the smells; we prayed as we walked through the voodoo section; we walked across a trash heap to get on a boat to go to Ganvie where we saw the bright faces of young new Christians (children outnumbered adults two to one); we gave an African mama seven bucks so a baby could get treatment for a serious case of malaria; we bartered and bantered with merchants at the tourist market; we talked about all sorts of ethical problems and current events during our hours in the bus; we blew a tire at 60 miles an hour; we spent the day in Abomey with an American mom, her three month old daughter, and visiting mother; hopefully, we were a good witness to them since they are not believers; we saw baobab trees along the roadside; we saw a real live African king from Nigeria; we bought material and had African clothes made; we learned how to put on an African headdress; we learned what it’s like to break a foot in West Africa; we played football and exchanged E-mail addresses with teenagers in two different schools in Cotonou; we played video games with Parker and Payton (and taught them how to be good Jedis); we gave away toothbrushes and lollipops to children; we held, learned the names of, and played with the neighborhood kids; we watched them smile and laugh at us silly yovos; we can finish the song every kid can sing that goes, “Yovo, yovo, bon soir . . .”; we talked with, asked questions to, and prayed with the chief in a village Alo-Kebo where Cyrille is planting a new church; we did the Hokey Pokey with three hundred women and children in the same village; we watched a voudon priest give his life to Jesus Christ in a small Beninois village; we walked in prayer around the sacred square in Ouidah the voodoo capital where the Temple of Pythons is located; we ate Indian food in an African restaurant while the TV played a 50 Cent video; we also tried Thai food, French crepes, and Italian pizza made by people from those countries; we discovered Nutella; we played with the kids and talked with the people there and made them laugh; we were invited by Ignace, our driver, to his house and prayed with his family; we ate nasty good African food; we painted two large rooms and the stairwell in our house; we built a web site for the Price family; we watched Taylor when American Idol; we killed two rats and a dozen cockroaches in our garage; we locked ourselves out of our house, endured nights without electricity and days without water, munched on fishheads and French pastries, swam in the Atlantic Ocean, pulled in fish nets out of the ocean with local villagers, and drank the milk directly from coconut shells; we took boats, buses, and moto-taxis to places we never imagined.

And, now, we want to do it all over again.

Prayer Requests:
We stay healthy.
We take time to rest together as a family.
We get full phone service restored.
We go the whole week with water and electricity.
We find a new car (we're close).
We find the resources to have an NYI training session in Benin.
We find a teaching space for our pastor training course.
We continue to keep up with the churches and new pastors in Benin and Togo.