The Sahelian

At Sahel Academy, assembly period on Wednesday afternoon is never boring. Sometimes students are in charge of the assembly, sometimes parents talk about their ministry, and every once in a while we play games.

Yesterday in Assembly we played one of Pastor Dave’s extremely wild and wacky games, like Djiboutian Baseball which we played last year at the plateau. This time we played Blind Flamingo Kickball which was completely different, but involved some ridiculous and challenging rules nonetheless and really mixed up traditional kickball.

Rule one: The fielding team has to stand on one leg, hold the other leg with their strong hand, and pickup and throw the ball with their weak hand.

Rule two: The kicking team has to kick and run the bases blindfolded.

As the rules would indicate this game held great potential for embarrassment as standing on one leg the whole time actually proved quite challenging. We divided up into our Field Day teams and played two games at once out on the field: Green vs. Yellow, and Gray vs. Blue. Yellow and Gray were the winners. Both the Secondary and Elementary students got a chance to play. It was a lot of fun for everyone who participated.

Besides having fun during our usual assembly period Pastor Dave actually used these games to teach important life lessons. To help the runner run the bases, the kicking team was allowed to put coaches at each base. The runner needed to know the voice of their coach and listen very carefully to it. Many times the fielding team tried to yell at the runner and confuse them. Pastor Dave talked about how we need to be firmly grounded in the Bible so that we would be able to recognize voices that are trying to lead us astray. When it was my turn to kick I made sure I knew who my coaches were so that I could know whose voice to listen for. In the same way I think it is very important to read the Bible daily and be strongly grounded in God’s Word. Pastor Dave talked about how we need to set our hearts and minds on things above not on earthly things.

Yesterday’s assembly was a good example of how fun and games can be used to teach spiritual truth. Sahel’s integration of spiritual values into every aspect of school is something that I think many students may take for granted but will ultimately be very thankful for.  ~Matt

 The masquerade was a wonderful evening of elegance and relaxation. Considering that it was placed right before a couple of very busy weeks, Student Council did an amazing job. They worked incredibly hard to bring together a wonderful banquet. There was good food, an amusing raffle and hard to beat dancing. The grassy area was decorated with Christmas lights, glittering masks and purple, black and blue sashes. The atmosphere was comfortable, yet very sophisticated with the aroma of pasta primavera, lasagna and spaghetti with meat sauce floating in the air. Everyone started out by socializing and checking out each other’s creative masks. We all then sat down for a delicious Italian buffet. As we were eating, a raffle was held that required the ‘winner’ to do something crazy to get the prize. After supper was over, you could either watch Beauty and The Beast or learn the Waltz and Two-step. The evening ended with laughter and I would say it was a completely successful evening! ~Jessica

God’s Girls is a club for girls in 3^rd- 6^th grade. Every Thursday we meet after school. We usually start with a snack, say a prayer, and then study the Bible. Right now we are studying about Heaven. We also memorize verses, and sometimes play games to help us know them even better. Our time ends with a craft or game with Rianna or Miss Tiffany. I’m looking forward to God’s Girls this year. ~Moriah and Alicia

5^th and 6^th graders had a chameleon - for a day. When we went to P.E., Aunt Cathy, who is our teacher in P.E., had found it. Cody Bliss was the one who took it back to our class. We put it in a small cage until Mrs. B. gave us a better and bigger one that was made of mosquito netting. In the afternoon we gave it a lot of grasshoppers to eat and put them in its cage. When we got to it next morning though, it was laying in its cage dead. Right before recess we took it out and buried it in a grave behind the new elementary building. It lies there now.

Faithful Prayer Supporters, I’m sending you this special update which includes a letter from a missionary family here in Niger. It mentions a major concern of ours that we ask you to pray about tonight as you meet together and then this week as you think about us. Thank you.

 "Whenever you create a file or install a new program on the computer you want to make a backup copy of whatever it is.  Then in case the original copy gets corrupted or deleted,  you haven’t lost all your work.  In a war, the troops on the front line need plenty of support and backup to maintain their momentum.  Without adequate transportation facilities, doctors, air support, food, water, and ammunition, the army cannot do its job. Planning ahead and working together as a team are essential if the war effort is to succeed. Likewise,  any country needs a good infrastructure to maintain a certain standard of living.  Roads, airports, electric grids, water and telephone lines, sewers, schools, postal systems, offices, churches, and manufacturing plants are all essential to our way of life.  But what if all these backup systems were pulled out from under us and we had little support to continue living our lives the way we always have?" (Written in 2002)

 

We have often said that if it were not for the support of Sahel Academy, we would not be able to continue our work in Tera.  That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but we certainly would not be able to continue with the same amount of effectiveness.  We also look at how well Daniel and Suzanne are doing and know it is in part because of the partnership we have enjoyed with Sahel Academy.

Because we are 100% behind Sahel Academy and their mission, we come to you with two very urgent prayer requests.  By mid-January (or before!) we need to have a high school math teacher (or two) and a principal (grades K-12).  It would be ideal if the principal were also familiar with the accreditation process for ACSI and MSA, but we won’t be too picky at this point!  We need somebody to fill each of these positions until early June. 

Our high school math teacher came to do a year and will be finishing 3 1/2 years in December!  So, a warning comes attached to this plea: You may like it well enough to stay!  He extended another 1/2 year this year because no math teacher was in the pipeline for the fall, but he needs to be back in England in December.  Our principal has finished a four-year term and is on a much-deserved home assignment in Australia.  She will be back for the beginning of the school year in August 2008.

Please pray for these positions to be filled.  Our teaching staff is already over-extended and cannot take on any more classes.  Our director is trying to do his job, the principal’s job, and keep the school moving forward in the accreditation process and has more to do than one man can possibly ever get done.  Some of the teachers have taken on extra responsibilities to try to lighten his load.

Please think about filling one of these positions.  If you are interested, contact SIM directly through their website (www.sim.org), write to them at  Box 7900, Charlotte, NC  28241, or call them at 1-800-521-6449 or 1-704-588-4300.  We’d love it if you were able to partner with us in reaching the Songhai.

It is also possible to come to Sahel Academy under EBM (www.ebm.org) or SIL (www.sil.org).  If that were to be your preference, contact them through their websites.

Thanks so much for your prayers for these urgent needs.

Love,

Nancy and John DeValve (and Suzanne who needs a math teacher!)

Maybe you are God’s answer to this prayer. If you need more information, please visit the school website at www.sahelacademy.com.

The Ayorou trip was a very interesting outreach trip where a group of us went to a small town to clean up a clinic for the people living in that town. When we got to Ayorou, we went to Marc’s house where the guys were staying. Then we got out of the school van and went to visit the clinic that we were going to clean, and paint.

Arriving at the clinic we got a warm welcome from the people who ran it. We went inside the clinic and looked at what we were going to be dealing with. What I observed was a shock. It was not a place I would want to go to if there was something wrong with me. The place smelled, it was dirty, there was bat manure on the wall, and spider webs everywhere. We had a lot of work to do.

The next day we started our work. We thoroughly cleared the inside of the clinic. We swept the floor, and then washed everything in all the rooms. We were in different groups, some washing one room that wasn’t going to be painted, some cleaning the waiting rooms and some cleaning other rooms.

After cleaning everything, we painted the rooms of the clinic. When we were finished, the place was clean. We all had fun, we enjoyed helping people have a good clean clinic to go to. I was very happy that I could go and serve the people of Ayorou, and also that the Lord had given me this opportunity to go and serve. I have come to realize that there are a lot of people that don’t have as much as I do. I have come to realize more that it’s not about doing what I want, but about how I can help.  ~Antony

A few weeks ago, eleven students and three staff members headed out to a village called Ayorou, about 3 1/2 hours northeast of Niamey. That night we set up camp; the guys stayed at Mark’s and Parker’s house and the girls at Emily Elliot’s house. Once the tents were all set up, the food was kindly prepared by a couple of the girls and we sat down to a hardy meal of ‘tigea duga hoy’ (peanut sauce and rice). Once we were all moaning because we were so full, we went into a time of all out worship. It was truly powerful. God did a lot of things during that weekend, but the hardest and most rewarding part of the trip was the dispensary.

Our main reason in going to Ayorou was to serve the people there by extensively cleaning and then painting the town’s dispensary- the only means of healthcare for the people in Ayorou and the surrounding villages. I don’t know if you have ever been to a dispensary out in the bush, but to give you the basic gist, it was absolutely DISGUSTING. All of the beds, walls and floors were covered in medicine, blood, bat feces and years and years worth of dirt–not a healthy combination!

We began early in the morning scrubbing everything with a very large amount of soap and bleach. Although this may sound like the easy part of the job, it was incredibly trying for all of us. We were forced to not only go outside of our comfort zones, but we were thrown into work that many people would never want to do. We first swept the ceilings of dust and spiders along with all of their webs. Next we scrubbed the walls with soap and then did a rinse down. After about 2 1/2 hours, many people moved onto painting the walls. We painted the rooms with a boarder of a bright blue (like Smurfs) while the bottom part was painted grey. The waiting room was painted dark brown after the rest of the rooms were done.

While the rest of the group was painting, Jessica and I (Tam) noticed that the diagnosis room where all of the patients were waited on had been neglected. Seeing as no one was planning on doing anything about that room and there weren’t enough paint brushes for everyone to paint, we decided to take on the job of cleaning the blood stained beds and mop the floors. This was the hardest part of the trip for me. Bending over, scrubbing ‘past pain’ off of these beds and clearing the floor of the old needles that had offered a reprieve to some of the anguish that some of these people had felt. I must honestly say, that none of this working was of me or of anyone else on the trip. I had to constantly stop and just lay all of my own inhibitions before God and allow him to work through me because I did not want to go through with what I had come to do; I felt it too hard. Again, I was reminded of God’s great power and how He so much desires for us to call out to Him when we cannot do it on our own.

We really couldn’t have done it on our own, but because of God’s help the transformation was amazing. After our long day of work, we all headed back to the Phillip’s house where a group of us got dinner together and the rest of us were finally able to sit down and relax. It felt absolutely wonderful to take a load off. That night, at dinner we were all a bit hyper from the joy of knowing what we had done. (Paint fumes might have been part of this too, but we won’t worry about that.) That evening we spent some more time singing and thanking God for the night and then we split into groups of guys and girls, Quaker-style, and talked about the different kinds of love-brotherly, romantic and agape love-and how we should apply love to all relationships and more specifically in dating relationships. This time was a good way to end the day, but I think by this time we were all ready to go to sleep.

The next day we walked to a building that is used for Bible study every Sunday. There we worshipped in Zarma and Hausa, and while some of us stayed in for the Bible study, Suzanne and a group of us went out and helped lead a small Sunday school for the kids. They read the story of David and Goliath and colored a picture. This was really neat because we were able to connect with the kids that we otherwise wouldn’t have.

After Bible study we ate lunch, packed up, and headed back to Niamey. Our weekend in Ayorou was a long and trying one, but God truly made it a wonderful one. He gave us the opportunity to reach out and be reminded of how amazing His love–working in and through us– truly is. ~Tamarah

This is a good-bye note and a welcome note to my teachers Mrs. Golde and MRS. Mattimoe. MRS. Golde was the first quarter teacher of the 5^th and 6^th grade but now it is Mrs. Mattimoe who is a very nice teacher and is a fun teacher. I am looking forward to have a great time with her. ~Rotimi

I thank Mrs. Golde for being so kind to teach 5^th-6^{th graders} until Mrs. Mattimoe came to teach us. We?ve enjoyed being with her a lot. Now with Mrs. Mattimoe we are getting along really well. ~Christina

Our new teacher in the fifth and sixth grade class room took quite a while to get used to. Her name is Mrs. Mattimoe and numerous amounts of time have some student called her Mrs. Golde. She gives a little more homework but that’s okay. She has been nice understanding and gives us a little more time to read. She is a good teacher and I think the rest of the year will go just fine. ~Cody

The tension’s high. It’s the top of the 7^th and the Suns are winning by a stretch. This being the finals, the crowd is filled with excitement!

The first batter for the Suns steps up to the plate as the cheers of people calling out his name echo throughout the ball field. The first pitch soars through the air and lands on the plate with a thunk. Strike one! That’s ok. Never swing at the first pitch, some say. The ball gets back to the pitcher and he loosens up and throws another one. This time you hear a ting. Contact! The ball goes bouncing along the ground and under the second baseman’s legs, giving the runner just enough time to get to first base.

The second batter steps up to the plate. The pitch comes. He swings and swish, he misses. “Come on, wait for the right one,” someone says. The next pitch comes. This time he doesn’t swing. It lands a little too short. “Ball one,” the umpire calls. I hear “good eye, good eye” resounding all around me. Another pitch soars through the air. This time it’s a little too high. “Ball two,” the umpire calls. Yet another chorus of, “good eye, good eye”. The pitcher throws the fourth pitch, this time a good one, but the batter swings just a bit early and just barely nicks it, sending it straight up. The catcher puts out his glove and catches it. Batter’s out. “Good try,” I say as I watch the batter walk off.

The third batter pats the second on the back and then walks up to the plate. The first pitch comes, he swings and misses. The second time he swings and misses yet again. “Come on,” I scream, “you can do it!” The third time the pitch soars through the air. It’s a beautiful one. The batter swings and hits the ball right over the infield. He runs as fast as he can, touching first base and then sliding into second, just before the second baseman catches the ball.

The next batter steps up to the plate. The outfielders converse among themselves and then all move back. They know he can hit. The ball is pitched. The batter swings and hits the ball deep into the outfield. Everybody watches expectantly. “Please don’t catch that,” I whisper. Swap! The ball lands in one of the outfielders’ gloves. Batter’s out. That is the second out.

The next batter steps up to the plate. The pitch soars through the air and hits the plate. Strike one. The second time the batter makes good contact sending the ball bouncing along the ground to the second baseman. The second baseman picks up the ball and throws it to first getting the batter out. The third out, but it doesn?t really matter since we’re winning anyway, and there isn’t much of a possibility that the other team, JICA, can catch-up now.

“You can do it guys! Show us some good defense!” I shout as I watch the Suns move out in the field. Various other shouts are heard around me as the players reach their positions. The first batter steps up to the plate. The ball flies towards the batter but lands too far to the side. “Ball one,” the umpire calls. The ball comes again and this time lands a little too short. “Ball two,” the umpire calls. The pitcher sends the ball soaring towards the base once more. This time the batter swings and hits. The ball goes flying into the field but lands in foul territory. “Strike one,” the umpire calls. The pitcher regains the ball and pitches it, this time a little too flat. “Ball three,” the umpire calls. Yet again the pitcher throws the ball and yet again the batter does not swing. The pitch is too high. “Ball four,” the umpire calls, as the batter walks to first.

The next batter is at the plate. The first pitch soars through the air and hits the plate. The second pitch flies toward the batter. He swings and misses. Then the fourth pitch comes toward the batter. He swings and hits the ball straight into the second baseman?s glove. Batter’s out.

The next batter approaches the plate. The ball is pitched. He swings and misses. The second pitch he swings and hits right between the right fielder and the center fielder. He takes off, as the right fielder and the center fielder run to get control of the ball. Finally one of them does and throws it to their cut-off who then throws it to home. Swap! The ball lands directly in the catcher’s glove, holding the batter at third base and getting the other runner out just before he could slide into home.

Another batter is ready at the plate. He swings at the first pitch and sends it deep into the outfield. “Mine, mine,” one of the outfielders shouts as he runs forward watching the ball all the way into his glove.

A cheer goes up as the Suns all run into the field patting each other on the back. “They did it!” I say shaking the person next to me. “They really did it! The Suns won the finals!” I run to the field to congratulate the players. I say “good game” to many of the players on both sides and then hug one of my friends saying, “I knew they could do it! I just knew it!”

Even as I watch all the people celebrating around me, I think of the other Sahel team that I had been on. The Comets was the girl’s team. We had come pretty close to winning sometimes, but had lost all our games in the end. That wasn’t what mattered though. What mattered was that we had come off that field better than we had gone on, and we had kept up a good attitude of joy, team spirit, and good sportsmanship.

As I watched the Suns line up for their team picture, I smiled. Sahel would always have a winning season, no matter what the final score was, as long as the players continued to have a good attitude, to show fair sportsmanship, and most importantly to trust God in all things. ~Julie

Spirit Week is a great time that you can dress what ever you want to be.

This week we had to dress like a super hero, the suns, hobo and the last one was to be dressed as the class tells you so. Our class were pirates while 2,3,4^th grades were western.

I felt the time zooming by. Oh! You also get prizes if you win. I think it was one of the greatest time I ever had in Sahel. ~Chung Hyun Lee