2 March, 2008 - Sunday "worship" in V2

When I got to the meeting place for Sunday worship, two of the leaders of the church came riding up in their bikes. They had not met, weren't planning on meeting. They had been meeting the last few weeks with V1 (church plant from another mission). They said, "they're Christians, right?" I told them that I didn't think that was the issue. I said it is good to worship with other Christians, but then I drew a map in the dirt and we talked about the 5 or so villages in their immediate vicinity. There WERE only 2 churches in the five villages. We want there to be churches in every village. I showed them how they were making 2 out of 5 and making it 1 out of 5 . . . not really the direction we're wanting to head. I tried to be as nice about it as possible, but at the same time stress to them the urgency that they should feel. I reminded them that they had first heard the gospel from other Africans (they are a church plant of the Nyinyime church). They didn't need an American to come and give them permission to do God's work. Then I told them how disappointed I was that they were letting things go like this, but reminded them that it was nothing to how Jesus would feel when he comes back, if he doesn't see them doing his work. On the drive home, I had to remind myself that the LORD's work is more than meeting on Sunday morning and I need to remember next time to find out what folks are doing to help those around them not only hear but also see and feel the good news.

Work week

Aaron spent this week, among other things, updating the website and preparing for interns, and preparing the next small group leadership series on evangelizing your friends.

9 March, 2008 No Church Visit

We visited no church this Sunday because Andrea was not feeling well and needed me to help her with the kids. We had a good morning together, being together as a family.

11-13 March 2008 - Gone Fishing

This is the first time that we are saying goodbye to a teammate for more than a furlough. First, this says a lot about what God has been able to accomplish on our team. Few teams make it more than five years on the field, especially in a difficult place to live, without at least one family going home early. No one has.

Even with that being said though, this is a difficult transition for each of the three families that will stay on the field and for the Chankins who are leaving. Because of this fact, through the encouragement of wise advisors, we are taking the time to make some special memories and give some blessings to the Chankins.

For this reason the guys went on a fishing trip. There were many laughs, not least among which surrounded my falling out of the boat at one point. We didn't catch much, but we had just about the most beautiful weather one could imagine for March in Burkina. We were able to spend some time giving blessings and encouragement to Archie. Please pray for them and us as they transition back to life in the states.

15 March 2008 - Winchebe

When we got back from the fishing trip, Andy had received a call that the wife of Domanyuora, Winchebe, was very sick. Domanyuora is the main leader of the Nyinyime church. As much as we try to avoid the church chief mentality and emphasize a multiplicity of elders, etc., there are natural de facto "chiefs" in some of our churches. Domanyuora would be that. He has been instrumental in not only leading many to Christ in his home town, but in leading church plants in V2 and Di-doro. When I heard that his wife was sick, I felt that it was just as much my duty to take care of him as one of our teammates.

That is why I went to pick her up Friday morning, the day after I got back from being gone from my family for three days. It takes a little over an hour to get out to Domanyuora's village. The sheet of paper they showed me told me that he had gone to the nurse's station in v5 where they guessed that her abdominal pain was a hernia and suggested she needed surgery in Dano. So I brought them into Dano. After I dropped them off at the hospital in Dano, he came back by and told me the Doctor said we needed to go to Diebougou (about 30 minutes away, mainly because it's all on paved roads. I told him, reluctantly - because I had not spent time with my family in days, that I would do it, but then he said that he needed to go back to Nyinyime first to get money. That would have involved my driving for 3 hours more, not to mention what else might happen along the way, so I told him no. I suggested that I would find him a bicycle so he could go back and get the money and come back and that in the morning I would take them. The doctor seemed to be fine with the plan.

However, the next morning, I went to pick them up, and Winchebe couldn't even sit up anymore. I had to take the kids car seats out so she would have a place to lie down. So, I brought the seats to my house, about 1/4 mile from the hospital. In that 1/4 mile, she stopped breathing. I dumped the seats quickly and rushed back to the hospital. The doctor said we had not taken proper care with her IV and he resituated it. She started breathing again and for a while we thought she would be o.k. I drove like crazy to Diebougou, but as we were pulling into the Hospital she gasped her last few breaths. Her husband wouldn't speak much the whole way home (he had lost his mother just a few weeks ago), and her mom was holding her and wailing the whole 45 minute drive through back trails on the way back to Nyinyime. We picked up her 18 year old son on the road. He had been biking out to Diebougou to see his mom at the hospital. When I brought her and they started preparing for the funeral and said goodbye to me, I felt guilty for having put off taking her to the other hospital one day. For what it's worth, the doctor in Diebougou didn't blame me, but was mad that the Dano hospital didn't send her on an ambulance Friday night. Please pray for me. I keep trying to remind myself that it is not my fault, but it's difficult. Please pray for Winchebe's family.

16 March 2008 Baptism Party

Andy and I went together with Daniel to the church service in 'Yo-bagawn this morning. When we arrived there were at least 50 people there and before we left the number had increased to more than 200 from at least 5 churches. All those who had been baptized recently were all wearing clothing cut from the same type of material with the same design on it - the way Africans tend to do at weddings. There was a great deal of singing and rejoicing and we all enjoyed Andy's message from I Cor. 12.

Work week

Aaron spent this week, among other things, updating the website and preparing for interns, and preparing the next small group leadership series on evangelizing your friends.

Easter Sunday 23 March 2008 - Dano-pari

We had a fantastic time of worship with the southern cluster of churches out in Dano-pari on easter Sunday. Severin shared a message from Mark 16 and a lesson on Jesus being the power of the resurrection and I shared a short message from Peter\'s Pentecost sermon about how Peter having denied Jesus recently and being a poor uneducated fisherman preached a sermon that started off with people making fun of him and that ended with 3000 joining the kingdom. This was the first miracle that the Holy Spirit performed and it still performs these kind of miracles among the Dagara as we hear poor uneducated preachers preaching even as hecklers pass them on the street more and more Dagara are joining his kingdom. As we celebrated in Dano pari, 26 people were being baptized in Nyi-kpier and people were celebrating the start of the new church in Di-doro where 28 people had been baptized Saturday night because they couldn\'t wait until Sunday morning. Praise God!

Ladies trip

Just as the guys took a special fishing trip with Archie, the ladies took a special trip with Mandy to Ouaga. Andrea and the other ladies on the team put together a surprise scrapbook for Mandy (some of the ladies from Homewood provided many of the supplies for this project).

Lesson on Evangelism in Nyikpier - 27 - 28 March 2008

I went to Nyikpier this week to teach 4 leaders there about evangelism. We have two "Train and Multiply" lessons about evangelism that I prepared for the seminar. Even though I was a bit late, we finished the first lesson before lunch. We finished the second lesson after lunch and (since I had originally thought that we would do these lessons over two days) I gave them a practicum on evangelism. We prayed for God to reveal to us each the name of someone we knew that was not in the church and would listen to us witness about Christ's love. Zu-pua (young man in his twenties, married with kids) who was only baptized himself a few months ago gave me the name Lo-ni-tomo. Naangmin-yela (lady with college age kids) gave me the name ngmin-tiye. Gba-gbia (widow) gave me the name Maria. Kpe-zuo (one of the two main leaders of the church and Zu-pua's older brother) gave me the name So-don. Knowing that I can't ask them to do something I wasn't willing to do myself, I thought hard during our prayer and wondered whether or not our new nightguard So-dire would be willing to sit down with him and talk in a serious way.

So-dire often brews extra strong tea to stay awake at night. This is also a cultural event in Dano life . . . sitting around and drinking really strong tea for hours. I asked if he would let me sit down with him and drink tea. He obliged and we sat down. He asked me what I wanted to talk about (I am, after all, his boss and am ashamed to say I hadn't sat down with him like this before). I told him that I just wanted to get to know him better. I also admitted later in the conversation that we had prayed earlier that day and he had come to my mind. He immediately and very openly shared a lot of his family history. He even shared with me his plans for dying. I was very impressed. I don't even really have a plan, but he is at least 10 years younger than me and he already says that as soon as he has kids and those kids have kids (when he becomes a grandfather) that he will be satisfied with this life and ready to move on. He had said before that he was a catholic so I asked him about that. He said that he used to go when he was a kid to little catechism lessons, but whenever his Dad found out he had gone he would get a beating, so he eventually stopped going and was never baptized or never received his confirmation. He said that he was still very interested in Christianity. He doesn't really know the difference between Catholics and Protestants. He said he went to a Muslim friend of his whom he asked about Islam. The friend said that he couldn't tell him what to do, but that it was up to him to decide. He talked to the Carter's nightguard, Arnyine who is the leader of the church in Muturi, but before he could finish his discussions with him, Arnyine has gone on a trip to Ouaga. So I could really see God moving in this. This was when I told him about my prayer. He asked me lots of questions about baptism and the bible and he has begun reading Mark. Pray that we can continue an open dialogue and that he will come to know God better and fall in love with him since I see God so obviously wooing him.

When I got to Nyikpier the next day to find out their reports. I was equally encouraged by how God moved in their efforts. Zu-pua's friend, Lo-ni-tomo, said that he had seen that God had really changed Zu-pua's life and he wanted to know more about it. Even though Naangmin-yela was not able to find Ngmin-tiye, she was able to talk to people at the wedding where she was sitting around and fellowshipping with them after the wedding. She explained that she had been late because she was at the church leader meeting (I encouraged her saying that this lets people know that she is someone who knows God and when people have questions they may go to her). Gba-gbia, a widow herself, talked with Maria whose husband had died recently. Apparently Maria's husband had not wanted her to go to church, but she wants to and is planning on going to church on Sunday. Kpe-zuo met not only with So-don but with his wife and his brother and his brother's wife. They had been scared to come to church in Nyikpier, because three years ago the Catholic church where they had been studying had refused to baptize them for some reason. They didn't want to reach out and get rejected again. Kpe-zuo explained that the Nyikpier church was not like that and they are also going to start coming to see what they're all about. Praise God for how he is moving among the Dagara.

30 March 2008 - Kuuri

I have never been to this church before this Sunday. Although some of the folks in the church here have been Christians for a year or so, they've only started meeting together in their own town for a few months. They have learned quite a bit from their mother church Dano-pari. Their service was very enthusiastic and well organized. They had over 30 people in attendance that were already worshiping God when I arrived (sometimes we show up late on purpose to see if they would really meet without us there). Here is a picture of some of the kids in Kuuri praising God in dance during one of the songs we sang this morning

February Work Report

Long story short . . .

This has been a busy and exciting month as we have hit our first round of small group leadership seminars with a great start. We taught around 12 leaders a seminar on how to develop biblical lessons that apply. These leaders were not only involved in listening to lessons but participated in practice of both developing these lessons and teaching others how to do so. The church growth chart on your left is the best estimate we have of our current work's progress. Our teammate, Chad, has been in the process of helping us collect data over the last month or so and so we should have an even more accurate count coming soon. The "first count" column on the left is based on an effort to collect attendance booklets at the end of 2006. At the end of this month I started what will be a 3-4 week hiatus from the small group leadership seminar program, because I have a commitment to revamp the intern prefield information packet, some doctor appointments in the capital, a sort of "last hurrah" for the Chankins with a guys trip one week and one for the ladies the next week, plus I have to prepare the next seminar.

7-8 February - Nyinyime

We had a good small group leadership seminar in Nyinyime this week. There were 6 who attended. The two day lesson was, I think, an essential step in the Dagara coming up to the front seat of this movement. They have recently obtained the gospel of Mark and the book of Acts in Dagara (in their dialect – Wile [pronounced wheel-lay). They also have the entire New Testament in a dialect that is very close to their own (lobr). These are great blessings and just being able to read God's word to their congregation is a great service the literates in the churches can provide. However, in this seminar we are trying to get them to take the next two steps:

1. to come to understand and explain biblical passages in context, and
2. be able to apply it.

We are also working with Dagara who can't read to be able to witness what God has done for them in this way (to not only tell the stories, but apply them to the lives of others in the congregation). Domanyuora and Eric the two who can read were able to grow in the first step of being able to explain the passage, but still struggle with applying it. The same is true of Kuunbele in telling a story of how God provided food for him once when he was unsure if he was going to be able to provide for his family. However, just making that step of turning it into a lesson of God's providence or faithful perseverance etc is a struggle.

One other thing to be praying about. It seems that the chief of Booni has pocketed some of the money that the community raised for a new water well and is asking his subjects to contribute again so that there is enough to pay for the well. Pray that there will be justice and God's provision in this.

10 February - Nyikpier

Sunday worship was uplifting. They were already meeting when we go there for church which, unfortunately, is not always the case in all our churches. Kpe-zuo encouraged the church during roll call to visit those who were on the roll but didn't come.

14-15 February - Nyikpier

This week we picked up Eric and So-tieru and her 15 month old baby all of whom got in the car in Nyinyime and went with me to the small group leadership seminar that they were going to co teach with me in Nyikpier. We got there and Kpe-zuo, his recently baptized nephew, Zu-kpiera, and the older first baptized Christian Ziera, and a couple of older ladies. Eric did a surprisingly good job teaching after having just been presented with the material one time and not really being trained to read Dagara (he is literate in French but doesn't know the pronunciation of letters in his own language!).

Eric basically focused on teaching literate leaders how to study the Bible in order to prepare a lesson. I worked with the illiterates on how to take a story from their own lives about how God helped them and turn it into a lesson that could apply to others. This is still the hardest step for both the literates and illiterates. They can retell a story (either from the Bible or their lives) and tease out some meanings, but to then make the statement, "Knowing this truth, we should . . . " is still a bit of a stretch for them. But they are getting better and better at it.

After the first day of teaching Ziera wanted to visit his brother at the hospital in Dano, so we all went in to see him and pray for him. I suggested that Kpe-zuo and Ziera lay their hands on him and pray. They are the closest thing Nyikpier has to Elders. He looked pretty bad. Eric had his doubts that the prayers would do him any good. The next day, as I was taking Eric and Sotieru home, we passed by to pray for him again. By the time I got back from taking them back to Nyinyime, he had died. I helped the family transport the body back to Nyikpier. Seeing Ziera, a sweet quiet old man, lay his hands on his head and cry, I also cried for the second time in as many months at Dagara funerals.

Pray for Ziera and his family. Pray also for those watching all of this. It is hard to tell how folks will react. They live in a culture and mindset where religion is supposed to "work." Also praise God - this is the first time we have asked one of our leaders to help teach a small group leadership seminar and they did great.

21-22 February - Dano Pari

This week I picked up Eric and Sotieru in Nyinyime and Kpe-zuo in Nyikpier. It was an exciting week. I just dropped them off to teach the Dano Pari leaders (this time Rebecca, and Germain), the seminar I had taught in Nyinyime and Nyikpier for the last two weeks. I was not sure what would happen. My teammate was scheduled to come and teach a lesson on elderships Thursday night. Andy and I talked about this and we saw this as an opportunity to do a surprise inspection. As it turned out, when Andy showed up, they had just finished that day's lesson. He had them review what they had learned. Andy, having never heard the lesson, was both impressed by Eric and Kpe-zuo's teaching styles, but at Rebecca and Germain's retention level.

This is the end of the first round of the new leadership program that we have begun. Much prayer and thought has gone into both the content and method we are using. There will be lots of practice, modeling, and room for growth in this program. When we phase out, it will be these guys that will help carry the movement forward. This stuff is so important if we want this work to continue after we go back to the states permanently. Praise God that it has begun well. Pray that it can continue well. It will take approximately the next two years of ministry to get through the program.

24 February - Didoro

It was an encouraging time of worship in Didoro this morning. It was somewhat freakish that the level of organization was so high there not having been even any baptisms in this preaching point yet. There were around 40 to 50 worshipers. They were singing from the song book the Nyinyime church had provided for them. They read a scripture from the book of acts and discussed it.

If all of this is any indication they should have a huge haul on Easter Sunday. They had decided to put off baptisms until Easter Sunday.