Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Adventures in Burkina Faso & Niger!

The road was good, just a little long....a full day's drive into Burkina Faso from Bamako. We arrived in Ouagadougou at around 5 pm having left Mali at 5 am. We are so thankful for a wonderful day of driving and seeing more of the interior of West Africa.

We stayed two nights and one full day with our collegues and heros of faith, Barb Grimes and Nancy Smyth who have served for over 30 years in missions at a Bible School for training and teaching new pastors. Now missionaries are being sent out from Burkina Faso into other parts of West Africa, including Mali.
We safely traveled onto Niger the following day without any problems at any border crossings. We can only travel during daylight hours because traveling after dark can be dangerous. Our project in Niger was to work with missionary collegues, Brent & Shelley Teague and Charity & Ruth Harris who brought a team from the United States to do Tabernacle Evanglism projects. That's T.J. on top of this tabernacle. He loves working with his dad and is a terrific worker.


Although the project wasn't completed, great progress was made and we had the opportunity to work on several additional projects as well as erecting two graineries where food will be distributed from in the coming months as an impending famine approaches many parts of West Africa. We also were able to participate in a Good News Crusade. We were most excited about a young man who gave his heart to the Lord after Todd and the local national pastor talked with him and answered some questions he had. Several other men as well as many children came forward for salvation. Many came for healing to the crusade services.






On a free day, we visit a Reserve Park for the only remaining herd of Nigerian Giraffes. We drove just a short distance (30 minutes) from Niamey, the capital of Niger to this park where we saw the magnificent creatures that God.made. They are so elegant and graceful...

Just before a huge rain storm came a huge sand storm.....then a rainbow after the storm, can you see the second rainbow? It's a double. Then the evening sunset...Wow! The wonders of God that we have witness reflect just a small fraction of His awesomeness and majestic power. It's a privilege to be called His and to serve Him.

There are always plenty of things to see and people to meet. Susan met this little girl at the Tabernacle building site. She, along with many of her friends, played games with Susan. After a while we asked her what her favorite songs were. She told us her friend knew how to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in English so we asked her friend to sing it with us. Then Susan started singing a song in French that we have learned here in church. The girls knew the song and we discovered that they attend the Assemblies of God church in their neighborhood. Together they sang a while and Susan told them that they could tell their friends about Jesus and invite them to church. "Vous etes les missionaires ici pour votre amis". (You are the missionaries here to your friends). They beamed from ear to ear! Please pray for Natalie & her friend to continue growing in Christ.








Flood waters overtaking the road in Burkina Faso on our way back to Bamako. Did we tell you how thankful we are for Speed-the Light? Without our Speed-the-Light vehicle, we might be have been stranded for several hours waiting for these and other water covered roadways to clear.

More to come.....