First thoughts...

Hey y'all!

WE'RE HERE!! I'm finally in Senegal! We arrived on Sunday morning about 8am and started our first day of training; for many of us that was after not sleeping at all on the flight. I'm going to apologize now for any spelling/grammatical errors,this keyboard is different than those we are used to so it's taking some time for me to type. Also, we found out that our schedules don't allow for much internet time so I won't be able to blog as much as I had hoped while here. I'm going to try to post small blogs throughout the 6 weeks but I am keeping a journal that I'm planing to convert to blogs when we return to the states!

Today was our first real interaction with the students. I've found that it's very easy to turn the conversation spiritual. The Senegalese are all very friendly and open and love to talk about with Americans so that they can practice their English. After speaking with some students today, I've found that Islam is actually quite similar to Christianity. Their only problem is that they're missing out on Jesus. They are very literal thinkers here in Senegal so they have trouble comprehending the Trinity; they believe that "followers of Christ" are polytheistic, because we believe in God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Throughout these blogs, you will hear me refer to us as either followers of Christ or Protestants. Senegal is 95% Muslim, 4% Roman Catholic, and the last 1% varies. The Senegalese refer to the Catholics as Christians but there is a difference so we must make a distinction to the students here.) As you can imagine, it's difficult to explain to them how Jesus IS God when they have believed that He was nothing more than a good person/prophet all their lives. I ask that you will all pray for our team as we try to overcome the language barrier and speak the Truth to these students who ARE clearly seeking something more than what they've been given.

My time on the computer is running up so this is all for now. But if you would all continue to pray for us that would be great! I'll try to get some specific prayer requests up soon. Thanks and God bless!