Email the Carters!

The heat has arrived and so has the "peak" evangelism time. March and April seem to be when much church growth happens. Chad has been teaching in the village of Nawile with a Christian from Dano-Pari called Jo-nyine. This town is already participating with the Dano-Pari church as they learn about who God and Jesus are. Thank you for your prayers for the Western Cluster (from last month's request). Aaron and Chad have started prayer focused meetings with leaders in those churches. These leaders (and potential elders) are making very mature requests and have great faith (read more about this on the individual village blogs). On top of all this there was the joy of Resurrection Sunday! The Dagara loved to be baptized in groups and there were over 100 baptisms among the 10 congregations on that day. Praise God for growing his kingdom but also pray for these young Christians. They will be very vulnerable to attacks from Satan. Finally, we were pleased to celebrate Passover with all four families. (We celebrated a week early to accommodate the Johnson's departure.) The kids were fantastic and we enjoyed sharing that time as families and as a larger family.
Amy continues to teach during our Sunday visits to churches. She is helping to show Dagara churches how to teach lessons clearly to their children. This is being accomplished as she teaches by example, using the parable of the lost coin as her text.
Noah continues to grow and the pregnancy is advancing with health. Thank you for remembering our family in your prayers and for these other specific requests.

The Carters

Email the Chankins!

This month we have seen the fruits of the Lord and felt the heat of the sun. Yes, the heat has come with a few rains. The rains cool off the days when it comes, but those days are few and far between. Please pray that the rain will start to come consistently over the next several months.

God has shown us his faithfulness on Easter Sunday. Over one hundred people chose to follow Christ with their lives. The most exciting thing is that all the baptisms were done by local churches. They taught, studied and built relationship with these new Christians. It is God's church at work. IT IS GOD'S HAND AT WORK. See our blogs for more details.

This month also held the release of gospel of Mark here in Dano. It has been released in several different towns and villages around Dagaraland and now it has finally been released here in Dano. Praise God. We had the pleasure of hosting Andre and Nicole Aguilar, Director of SIL (the organization overseeing the translation of the Bible in Burkina). They were here to participate in the release party for the gospel of Mark. Pray that the people that bought the copies of Mark will be touched by the Word of God in their own language.

We had a great Easter Sunday. There was a special Easter egg hunt and cook out after church. Emma remembered what was going on and was off and running in seconds. It took Jack a little bit longer to figure what was going on but once he figured it out, he was excited every time he saw an egg.

Blessings,
Archie, Mandy, Emma and Jack

Email the Burks!

We are doing well and really getting into the swing of things. We have finally added our last new helper around here, our cook. She will come one day every two weeks to make certain ingredients to dishes that will make our meal preparation go more quickly. Daniel is doing well in school although he has some attitude problems on some days. Yesterday, Daniel and Mom played in the sandbox together. As Daniel regaled it to me, he said, "When I got in, I was just dirty . . . I was FILTHY dirty." Dylan is growing more and more every day and starting to eat baby food regularly. He really chows down on the ham and carrots. Village visits are going great. The new preaching point Kowpla is going well with at least 50 folks at every meeting so far. Church maturation is getting started in V2, and real individual leader training is going on in Nakar and Nyinyime.
I would ask prayers for Bayou. He was riding his bike down the hill and a slingshot tied to the front of his bike fell into the spokes of his front tire. He tumbled over the handlebars and broke his collarbone. Apparently the hospitals don't know how to set bones right and he keeps trying to get out to a village to see someone who specializes in setting bones. Pray that this goes well for him and that he is able to return to work soon.

May the LORD Bless You and Keep You,

Aaron, Andrea, Daniel, and Dylan Burk

Email the Johnsons!

Greetings from the west side of the Atlantic! We successfully survived our first transatlantic flight with a child. Honestly, all things considered, it was a wonderful trip. Elijah slept a good deal, and we even managed to get a little sleep ourselves.

As we arrived in Atlanta, we needed to complete Elijah's adoption. We were prepared for a long drawn-out affair (we had heard horror stories...), but the actual finalization of Elijah's adoption took less than half an hour! Elijah Scott Johnson is now both our son and an American citizen; thank you SO much for all the prayers that have already gone up on our family's behalf, and please keep them coming for our second child on the way.

We have been really enjoying time with Andy's family. Elijah has definitely taken to Granny and Papaw and their living room full of toys. We've also enjoyed some blessed times of worship with our sponsoring congregation 10th and Broad.

Throughout our furlough we'll be able to receive emails at almjjohnson2002@yahoo.com. Over the next six weeks, we'll be at Melissa's parents' house where we can be reached at (209) 221-6601. We'd love to hear from you!

Blessings.
Andy and Melissa