Some projects we hope to help with

We’ve been talking to our friends at the Senegal Mission and have found some projects that they would like our help to accomplish. We are excited to be able to work with the church to find ways to realize these goals and then look to the future to see what other things we can do to help further the work. In addition there are some projects that we hope to develop with some of our local friends and partners. 

Projects we'll be working on with the mission, our friends and partners:

Putting in corner posts for the church property in Sédhiou

1. Church in Sédhiou -  Sédhiou is a city in the south of Senegal, on the other side of The Gambia. The church members in Sédhiou have been meeting in various members houses for all of it’s existence. Just recently the local government gave the church four connected city lots with permission to build a church. We are praying for funds to build the church, guest rooms and pastors house on the land. We are praying that God will send us a team to come and help us build the church. Ideally the group would work with our members here in Senegal as a combined team to do building, health and VBS. The project will be done in phases so it could be a situation where a team could come back year after year, developing friendships and strengthening the church in Senegal. 
2. Church in Samine - Samine is also in the south of Senegal on the other side of the Casamance river from Sédhiou. We have some friends living in Samine who are also meeting in a house church, we believe that if we can buy some land and build a church that we could see some real growth in this area. One of the larger percentages of members in the SDA church in Senegal come from the Balanta ethnic group. Samine is a major Balanta area and could be an excellent central location for ministry to surrounding areas. We hope to get a price for some land soon and then will be praying for funds and a group to help us build a church there. 
3. A Doctor Friend - We have a friend who is just finishing up his medical residency in cardiology and will be soon starting a practice. We hope to help connect him with other cardiologists from other countries to help give him ideas on how to make his practices a mission field. We also hope to help him find good quality medical equipment, medical equipment here is expensive and if we could find some things outside and ship them here it would be a huge blessing to him. We plan to work with him in doing Health Expos and other health out reach activities. 
4. Health Expos - We were excited to learn that ADRA has done health expos here in Dakar in the past and that many of our friends helped with the expos and would like to help do some again. We will be working to get necessary equipment and supplemental training of local members so that we can start regular Expos in Dakar and in the other regions as time and funds allow.  
5. Dental Work - We learned recently in the news that 67% of all Senegalese people have never seen a dentist in their life. When we were working in Niaguis we constantly had friends that would complain about their teeth. We didn’t have any way to practically help them other than simple natural remedies, which just helped with the pain. We hope to find international dental teams that can come and do dental clinics here in Senegal. We have connections with the government and the ministry of health and see that this could be a huge help for the overall work of the church in Senegal. 
6. Training of Bible/Health workers - This is one of the main objectives we have for coming to Senegal. We are currently working with our team to develop housing for students as well as housing for ourselves. We are excited to see how God will help us realize the goal of starting a school. We don’t know how the young people will be funded once they finish the training we hope to give them, but we are praying that God will give the necessary insight as we need it. 
7. Language Tutoring - We are working to open an English language tutoring program. The program will hopefully open the first of May. This will be a way for us to help finance our projects and to provide a service to the community.