Last night we had some rain early in the evening and it brought with it cool weather. This morning we woke up toa very "cold" Sunday in Mahadaga, with temperatures only in the mid to upper 70's. Apparently last night the missionaries were sleeping with quilts and blankets and many people had hats and coats on today. Personally I (Mike) have very much enjoyed the cooler temperatures but last night I must admit that I had to turn my fan off because I was a bit chilly. Based on what I've read in e-mails from friends and family and on Facebook, it has been very hot back home on the east coast with temperatures reaching 100 F and higher. We are thankful that God has blessed us with this cool weather during our time here in Burkina Faso.
This morning I attended the French church again with Angela, John and Jon. The church meets in a classroom at the school adjacent to the mission compound. Last week was children's Sunday and the kids lead worship which was awesome. The church was packed last week and there were no free seats. This week was very different. There were a lot less people and Matt thinks that is due to a few different things. With so much rain the last few days, a lot of people are spending time working the fields to plant crops. It was also a cold day here like I said above and mothers have trouble getting their children up and going on mornings like these. The school at the Handicapped Center also closed for the summer this week so a lot of the teachers and their families as well as the children from school who normally attend were not present. But even with lower attendance, the singing and the preaching were still very powerful. Even though I don't speak French, it is still very easy to feel God in the worship at the church. Today's message was about what it means to be children of God. The pastor, who was not the regular pastor, gave a great sermon about leaving behind our old ways and embracing the Spirit of God to become new creations in Him. He also spoke about what it looks like to be a child of God and gave several examples of how people here have known that others are Christians because of the fruit of the Spirit being seen in them. A very special aspect of the sermons is that they are translated from French into Gourma for the local members as well as to English for us. It is amazing to see and feel God working here in Burkina Faso.
Over the last week I have had the opportunity to do a lot of biodiesel related research and work here at the mission center. In preparation for this trip I designed and built a small biodiesel test processor that would fit into a duffle bag so that Matt would have a system to use for research here in Mahadaga. The system made it here in one piece and I assembled it and tested it with very good results.
(The biodiesel test processor on my make-shift work bench.)
Matt was able to get me all of the materials (oil, alcohol and catalyst) to try to make a batch of biodiesel but I quickly ran into a road block with the oil. The oil that Matt got me contained a lot of moisture and was also not degummed, both of which hinder the biodiesel production process. I expected this and was able to degum a sample of the oil using water and citric acid (lemon juice) with good results. However the oil still contained a lot of moisture so I spent a good amount of time heating it to remove the water. It is very important that there be little to no water in the oil before the catalyst is added or else you will make soap instead of biodiesel which is exactly what happened in my first attempt. This first test batch immediately turned to soap. Knowing this I should be able to remove more water from the oil and hopefully get a good sample of biodiesel before we leave.
The key to good biodiesel is starting with good oil and producing good oil is the first step in our biodiesel work here. There are many crops here that can be used to produce oil, but that main crop we would like to focus on is Jatropha. This is a tree like plant that grows very well here and it produces a seed that has a very high oil content. After it matures the seeds can be harvested 2 to 3 times per year. The beauty of Jatropha is that is grows almost anywhere here, it only needs to be planted once and it is not a food crop, the oil is not edible. The goal is to have local people begin growing Jatropha and then buy the seeds back from them to then press the seeds and produce oil for biodiesel.
(A young Jatropha plant growing at the edge of Matt's garden.)
The first step in this process though is learning to press the seeds into oil, which is what I spent most of yesterday doing. I do not have a lot of experience with pressing oil but I do have a little and that was enough to give it a try here. We began this adventure by drying the seeds over a charcoal fire. The seeds were heated for 15 minutes over the fire to reduce the moisture content and hopefully increase the oil output.
(Our seed drying system.)
After the seeds were thoroughly dried, we began using a press that Matt had purchased to try to press the oil of of the seed. This took a few hours of fine adjustments to get it right but we ended the day with a steady flow of oil coming out of the press! There is still a lot of work to be done to perfect this process but we are making progress and God is blessing us with good success.
(The oil screw press we use to extract oil from seeds.)
This is our last week in Mahadaga and we (the mobility team, Dr. Vader and I) will be leaving early Thursday morning to travel back to Ouagadougou to begin our journey home. As we begin this week please pray that we would be able to get all of our work done and still enjoy the last few days here. This is crunch time for our projects and we pray that God would give us peace as we wrap up our work. We have a lot of social activities in the evening with our local friends so we are going to be pretty busy this week. Also pray that God would continue to bless us with good health and safety.
As always, thank you for your support and prayers.
God Bless,
Mike
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