Brick-building and relationship-building
“Being a foreigner in a small village is not easy,” writes Casey Cretsinger.
Feeling at times as though you are on the outside of an inside joke or wondering what is said when you walk away can be difficult. And Casey keeps reminding herself that in a small village where everyone is related to everyone, acceptance of newcomers takes time. Skepticism about foreigners abounds and Casey admits it can make their family feel a little paranoid at times.
So she takes a lot of joy in the small milestones of progress. “I am encouraged with every bit of progress,” Casey writes, “I’m so thankful to see how much has changed since we first moved here. Several times recently someone has said to me, ‘How do you know that? You really know what’s happening.’ That’s exciting stuff for me!”
The Cretsinger family has lived in a village in Guinea for three years. Casey shares, “We spend the majority of our time in community development … medical issues, care of babies, hosting Bible studies, building up a rice/peanut co-op, working with village schools, and acting as a liaison to many other villages in our area …. We have been blessed to have a ministry like this.”
Their family works hard to be good neighbors in many ways. They make an effort to spend quality time with people in their village and to just be part of their lives.
Sometimes that looks like sitting around and talking with them or being part of their village’s social occasions. Other times, it means that they pitch in on work that needs to done.
Recently one of their neighbors’ homes needed some work. Bricks of one wall were crumbling and needed to be taken apart brick-by-brick and then put back together. The entire Cretsinger family joined the work team and had the damaged section quickly dismantled down to the foundation. Then their hard-working crew rebuilt the wall with new mud and new bricks.
The job was quickly done. Casey shares, “Everyone got in on the action…We pray that these times of joining our neighbors in the daily grind of life continues to show them how much we care about them.”
Relationship-building, Casey says, “doesn’t happen overnight.” But brick-by-brick and day-by-day, Steve and Casey Cretsinger hope and pray that their neighbors will powerfully see Christ’s love living in them and that God will use that love to bring many people in their village to faith in Him.