A Long Overdue Update

Please forgive us for not updating this sooner. Its been a very busy four months but exciting things have happened since then. Most of you already know that Meleah is pregnant and we are expecting our first baby in February. We travelled to Burkina Faso in September to finally visit Joseph's family after two years of marriage. This was the first trip for Meleah to Africa and also the first time Joseph has returned home since coming to the United States four years ago. It was the trip of a lifetime for Meleah, since Joseph and her had been engaged she has wanted to meet Joseph's family and felt that part of her heart was incomplete without this meeting. It has since been complete and fulfilled in every way. God did some awesome works in opening doors to allow us to travel and we are so thankful for all of your prayers in making it happen.
Joseph continues to travel within West Africa, teaching in different regions and Churches. He is currently in Nigeria teaching at a Biblical Studies school and will be returning to Burkina Faso at the end of this week. Please keep him in your prayers during his travels as it can be dangerous to travel in Nigeria. I am including a link for our Picasa web albums of our trip, so that you can see pictures of our time there. Please email us if you have an additional questions and we will try to update with more regularly. Thank you all for being apart of our lives during this season of our lives.

Some Prayer Requests

We have reached the end of our time here in Switzerland with less than two weeks left and we are excited about the time we have spent here.
We are almost ready to start packing and heading out of Europe towards the USA, however we have some prayer requests during this transition time. We are still in need of about $1000.00 dollars in order for Joseph to graduate and for us to be debt free, we have been actively fundraising and just as we continue in these efforts we would ask that you would stand with us in prayer that we would receive the necessary finances before we are finished.
Please be praying for us as we travel, that we would have safe flights and nothing would go wrong. Would you also pray that we would have complete guidance on our next steps and adventures. Thank you all so much for me being so faithful in our lives and for your continuous support.
We will be back in the states on the 27th of June and look forward to seeing those of you in Colorado!

Only 5 weeks left!

We are currently half way through our time here in Switzerland and I finanlly have some pictures to show you from around our small village here.

This is my favorite tree on the base and I know it looks just like every other kind of tree but I liked it so I thought I would share it with you.

These are our cows, by that I mean the cows this YWAM base owns which live in the field behind and produce all of the milk we drink here.

This is a small stream that is very near the base, once again I just liked the picture so thats why you are seeing it.

This is the Clock Tower that is just a little up the road from us but can been seen cleary from our window. It chimes

every hour and than once on the half hour, starting at 7 am and stops at 10. So needless to say it is my alarm clock.

This is one of the many fountains around the village, they used to be used for different purposes, from washing clothes to providing water for the homes. Now they simply remind us of the history of this small village.

Thanks for going on this tour of Burtigny with us, I hope that you have a better understanding of what our small village looks like now. Check back often because we will be adding more soon!

1 Down, 79 More to Go!

Yes, its true, Joseph and I have finally been married one year. We celebrated our anniversary here in Switzerland and God once again was so good to us.

My deep desire was to spend our anniversary in Geneva, as it is a truly unique city, yet due to our financial circumstances, that didn't seem possible. However, God always knows our desires and helps them to come true, the morning of our anniversary one of Joseph's classmates informed us that they were going to spend the day in Geneva and invited us to come along. Needless to say I was overjoyed, we quickly accepted the invitation, and off we went. Joseph had never been in Geneva before and so it was great to wander around the city and the lake. We were also given some money and so we found one small souvenir shop open (since it was a Sunday no shops are usually open) and in it we found this cow.

As most of Switzerland is farming country with cows being a major source of income, most of the souvenirs are cows. Despite not really liking cows, I loved this one, as it was prefect for being our souvenir from this lovely country. It really has been a huge blessing to experience our first year of marriage, God has continually shown his faithfulness in our life and we are both very excited to see what God has in store during this next year. We want to express our thanks for all of your support in our life during the past year and thank you for your wisdom and input during this learning process of marriage.

Hey Everyone,
It seems that the pictures have a problem, so I will try to fix it soon. The Internet is having problems here so I will fix it as soon as the Internet works again properly. Sorry Everyone!

Pictures Finally!!!

I know that you all have been anxious to see pictures of beautiful Switzerland and so here they are.

These are pictures from our retreat during Easter weekend to a town called Einigin. As you can see, it is a beautiful place.

This is the house Joseph and I stayed in. It is beautiful on the inside as well and still has that old Victorian feel to it.

As you can see the lake was beautiful and we find it to be an honor to be in this beautiful country during this season of our lives.

Contact Information!!

Here is our address in Switzerland so you can feel free to mail us letters, cards, care packages or anything else you think of!

Joseph and Meleah Ouedraogo
SCF
U of N/Jeunesse en Mission
1268 Burtigny
SWITZERLAND

Thank you so much for all of your support in our life and for your prayers. Please continue to pray for our needed finances and that Joseph does not get tried from continuously studying without a break between quarters. Thank you once again and if you would like our phone number please email us and we would be happy to email it to you!!

In Switzerland!!

We are in safely in Switzerland and first off, I am sorry that this update is so over due.
On March 30, Joseph and I left Kona, Hawaii; we went directly to Montrose, Colorado and spent two and half days with family and a few friends. In reality, it really was only an enough time to pack and then repack. We would have loved to stay around longer but unfortunately, that was impossible. As mentioned last we were in need of having at least $1300 dollars in order to arrive here in Switzerland and amazingly, thanks to God's faithfulness, we received a phone call the night before we left, that we were being given $1000 dollars for our time in Switzerland. It was a great testimony of God's never failing faithfulness to us. We are still in need of about $5000 more to finish paying for our stay here but we are very confident in God's goodness in our lives.
It has been amazing to experience Switzerland thus far. It is a beautiful country and Burtigny is a great base. Burtigny is in the hills that surround Lake Geneva. It is a small farming community with no stores and one restaurant, and plenty of cows, which I understand brings quite the lovely scent around at times, for those of you have lived very near cows you know what I mean. The base itself is small, with most of the base contained in one building with the exception of one office and some long-term staff housing.
It snowed the first day that we arrived and I myself did not step foot out of the building for the first two days after arriving, due to the cold weather. Need less to say, it's been quite the adjustment from Hawaii! The weather has heated up and it is has been pleasantly warm.
Joseph's class has about 17 students and 4 staff members, with representation from 12 nations and every continent except Australia. Two of Joseph's classmates are already friends of ours and many are quickly claiming the title as well.
The first weekend the class had a school retreat and it was wonderful. We traveled to the German-speaking region, about 2 hours away, to a place called Einigen. It is also an YWAM base but serves more as a retreat center. It sits on a hill next to a large beautiful crystal clear lake and behind it was the alps, up close and personal. The weekend was beautiful and warm which was great for Joseph and I, since all the activities were outside. The retreat was a time of getting to know everyone better and seeking God for direct during this season. It truly was a great way to start out the school, it was also Easter weekend, and we celebrated it with the base staff there. They lead us in a time of meditation and pondering on the reality of Jesus' death and resurrection. It was a unique experience and not one I will soon forget.
I hope to be able to add some photos on here soon, so check back in the next few days. Thank you so much for your prayers during our travels, it was very smooth and we are thankful to have arrived safely.

Our next step of Faith

In only three weeks we will be in Switzerland working towards Joseph's final goal of finishing his degree. It has been awesome to see how God has been providing the finances for this next step. In addition to the car wash, mentioned below, we shared with our church here in Hawaii about our future goals including our plans for Switzerland. They were amazingly generous to us in this effort, even through the church is 50-75 people weekly, we received over $850 dollars! It was such an awesome experience to see God working in the hearts of those generous people towards us.

We also did one more fundraiser here on campus. Meleah made some HUGE ice cream sandwiches which we sold during lunch and was blessed with another $50 dollars. That fundraiser caused us to have the perfect amount for our tickets which were almost $300 dollars less than we were expecting. So in an act of faith we purchased our tickets and are still trusting God for the rest of the money before the end of the month.

We are both in awe of God's hand in our life during the past three weeks, He has shown himself more than faithful and we are both have total peace to see the rest of the $5000 to come in before the end of the month.

Another praise report is that we recently found that Joseph will not need to apply for a visa to travel to Switzerland or study there, thanks to him having an US Permanent Residence card, it being the only exception for him needing a visa. God is so awesome!!!

Thank you so much for your faithful prayers on our behalf and for your continued support. We love hearing from you and can't wait to tell you of how God provided the rest of our money!

Working at the Car Wash

A few weeks ago we held a car wash at the lower end of the campus and it was fun. God was so faithful to us during this time. We had cars nonstop from 9 am to 2 pm when we finally called it quits. Even after we took down the signs we were still having to turn cars away that kept coming anyway.
We had some awesome friends who helped us all day long. But above all else, the most amazing thing was God's faithfulness in using this time as a way to provide for our trip to Switzerland. After six hours God provide $900 dollars to us!! Never have I heard of anyone making this much during a car wash and it just goes to show that God is our ultimate provider.


It was not only an awesome fundraiser but it was a great opportunity to share what the University of the Nations is all about, to those in the community .
As you can see in the picture we had some nice cars to wash.

It was such an awesome day, thanks be to God alone!!!

I wanted to show you around campus some so you can feel apart of our life here. This is a sunset view from the top of campus. One of my favorite spots.

To the back of campus is one of the smaller mountains on the island called, Hualialai.

This is a picture of our Thursday night meeting at the Ohana Court. This was one of the nights when Loren and Darleen Cunningham was sharing that night. The Ohana Court is nice and open with only one main wall which is great until we have monsoon rain storms like the other night.

I added in the picture of the sunset because I thought it was pretty and I am sure you would agree. I hope that you enjoyed the tour and the pictures, I love to show them off!

A few weeks ago the Old Testament class finally got some time to have some fun. The leader of the school, Robert Evan, invited us over to his house to help celebrate his birthday but I think that we were more spoiled more than he was! His wife, Bev, cooked us steak for dinner and we even had a Pinata!

Starting on the left is Bev, Makanna, Robert, Timothy, Ansuka. On the right is Jo, Terri, myself and Joseph. Jose is taking the picture but he is also in the class.

We played a trivia game about the birthday boy and although some had an advantage we all won a prize.

After the game we watched a movie together while enjoying coffee and cake.

It was nice to get out of the campus and just have some fun for this night.

More to come

There is a problem uploading our pictures but I will try again so check back in a few days to see some pictures.

A Midnight Adventure

I have had an experience while here that I feel God is compelling me to share with all of you. But first I must share some background information for those of you who do not know. Since before I could remember I have suffered from Asthma and it was extremely bad as a young child. Growing up my asthma had been getting better and better and I had actually not been on medication for it for 5 to 6 years and had been using a over-the-counter inhaler for the past three years. Well that has since changed.
Since arriving I have struggled with being able to breathe and yet not feeling the need to seek out medical attention despite consistent use of my inhaler. Last Thursday night I went to bed with the realization that I had gone through an entire inhaler in less than two weeks (normal it took me three months to go through one) and I was completely out for the night. Unable to sleep, due to lack of oxygen, I began to pray with Joseph around 1 am and we continued to do so for about an hour and an half. Until Joseph decided that I was in need of emergency medical care and went to wake up his classmate who owns a car. Thankful this classmate's wife is a friend of mine and is a nurse practitioner by profession and was unalarmed by our intrusion in the middle of the night.
After spending 2 hours in the hospital I was released and went home and slept. It had been a very long time since I had to be on medication and it was even longer since I had to spend any time in the hospital. I came home broken in my spirit and confused as to why this happened. I knew that God had purpose and reasoning but I was unsure as to why at that moment. On Friday I had an experience that answered all of my questions and that is the most important thing for me to share with you.
I went to a seminar in the afternoon and although the topic of the seminar is irrelevant the thing God did through the person leading the seminar is not. During the seminar, the speaker felt the need to stop and pray for a person in the audience who was struggling with an issue in their life that they felt was holding them back from doing all that they wanted to do and he began to pray for that person. During this prayer I was completely unaware of the lasting effects of this prayer, thinking the whole time that the prayer was for someone else, such as the person next to me who began to cry during it. So at the end of the seminar I left without much more thought and was chased out by the man who had lead the seminar. He quickly informed me that he had to stop me from leaving because I was the person he was praying for during the seminar. I am sure most of you already figured that out but I was oblivious to that fact and as this man began to share what God had put on his heart for me, I began to cry realizing the awesome love of my God. Towards the end of our conversation he prayed for me and shared that he felt the God was truly desiring to heal me but it was more than a healing like it was never there but that it was to be a healing that was much deeper and complete.
I was overwhelmed by this encounter and not fully understanding it all but God was faithful to show me all that he had in story for this experience. I now understand that God allowed me to have this asthma attack that put me in the hospital in order to expose what was truly in my heart and that was shame. I realized that through out my life I had hid in shame over asthma and tried not to have to deal with it. I saw that God has the desire to heal me completely of asthma but first he needed to heal me of my shame and that is why this post is the first step. Shame is a lie and in order to fight a lie you must expose it to the truth. I realize now that for most of my life I have believed that some how I was inferior to everyone because I was unable to physically compete with them. I felt that some how I was defective and that asthma held me back from all that God was calling me to do especially in reference to missions. But God has truly redeemed my life for His glory and I believe in His promises and that God will completely heal me inside and out.
It would be awesome to have you stand with me against this lie and for my healing process to be complete. It would also be awesome if you would stand with us in prayer on the matters of finances as well. We do have insurance but have not heard back from them as to whether or not they will pay the entire hospital bill or not. Also the medicine is really expensive and we really have to trust that God will provide to pay for it. I am honored to be able to share this with you and I trust that you will stand with me in prayer. Thank you for all of your support in our lives up to now and for the future as well.

Some Things We've Learned Lately

Wow, I can't believe that we have been here for almost a month now. Time always does escape us. Joseph is learning so much in his class, and its more than just the language. He shared with me that they were discussing how when God spoke through the burning bush to Moses and God told Moses to take off his shoes because he was on Holy ground, most of us when reading that assumes that the reason is because God is so holy that he didn't want Moses' shoes which were dirty to touch him. But they were talking in class how it was a picture of God's desire for relationship with Moses. He did not want anything to be between Moses and Him, he wanted Moses' flesh to feel His holiness. Isn't that awesome? I have never thought of it that way and yet it makes so much sense in considering God's character. Even later on in Moses' life, God spoke to him face to face as a friend. This just shows how we take our own image of what God looks like and even read the bible with that image in place, which causes us to miss out on really seeing God as he is.
On to my experiences here, I am learning the art of how to 'talk story'. If any of you have spent much time in the islands you know what I am talking about but for the rest of you I will explain. Talk story is simply listening to a person's story and it is something that I think most Americans have lost. Today in the coffee shop, I met this wonderful old man, and it is very just of me to call him an old man because he is close to the age of my Grandfather. Our conversation started by him asking me if I thought President Bush was a handsome man, a humorous question if you ask me, well after that he just started talking story. He told me all about being in World War 2 and then he went off on Big band music and was very excited to learn I liked Big Band music. Well we spent about 30 minutes just talking about the things surrounding WW2 but the best part was the look on his face when he talked. There was this sparkle in his eyes as he talked like suddenly he was in his youth again. It was a great experience and I hope that he decides to come and visit me on Friday too.
We sent our applications to the base in Switzerland for April and are praying that God opens the doors in that area so we can go. Joseph really desires to finish his schooling and if we are unable to go to Switzerland, we will have to wait another year before being able to do the school again. So would please join us in prayer for that as well as the finances to go along with it as well. Thank you so much and we hope you are all doing well and would love to here from you all!

Here is our address so you can send us letters or goodies if you would like to:

Joseph and Meleah Ouedraogo
University of the Nations
75-5851 Kuakini Hwy
Kailua-Kona, HI 96740-2199

One of the most beautiful flowers in the world

The Faithfulness of God

I am amazed at God's never-ending love and faithfulness to us. He is beyond my comprehension. Joseph and I have safely made it to Hawaii and blessed my husband with a cool cloudy day to adjust back to the heat.
Before leaving Montrose, Joseph and I were unsure as to our finances for this time in Hawaii but decided to trust God to provide and man oh man did he ever. The day before we left Montrose, we received a check for $3,000 dollars, which was from a variety of people, as well as our church, desiring to bless us for this trip. It exceeded our expectations and was a huge blessing in every way. Thanks to those generous individuals, we are able to pay our flight tickets as well as the required insurance and all of Joseph's tuition. This is a huge blessing to us as we will not have to worry over money. We are still trusting God to provide the amount to cover my college tuition which I am doing online but are confident that He will, as He always does.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers during this time and for the prayers during our traveling.
Traveling here to Hawaii was long but after 15 hours and a few mishaps, we made it safe and I am sure we will catch up on our sleep during the weekend. Joseph has already had his first day of class and already has a load of homework due. Please continue to pray for Joseph, that he will have enough grace and strength to learn all that is before him.
From the beautiful state of Hawaii, we send all of our love and thanks to all of you and May God bless you during this New Year.