Email the Richters!

As we look to this year, there is a lot of preparation and training ahead as we transition from West Texas to West Africa.
Our focus for the next few months will be to continue mission training with the Halbert Institute for Missions at Abilene Christian University. In addition to mission training, we are engaged in tropical agriculture, religious, language studies, and full-time ministry here in Hawley.
One of our greatest needs at the moment is to secure a sponsoring congregation who will partner with us for the next ten years in Burkina Faso. Also, we are in the process of raising our one-time moving and set up expenses. Pray with us that our fundraising will go quickly and successfully. We are confident that He who calls us to mission is able to sustain and provide!
God's redemptive activity among the Dagara is going so well that more workers are desperately needed to train and multiply Dagara leaders and to assist in church maturation. Now that we are a part of the team, one of our privileges is to help recruit others to join with us in this effort. If you know of anyone who might be interested in considering working among the Dagara, please let us know. We would be happy to meet with them since we are stateside.
Life on the farm in Hawley, Texas is always interesting. We are sowing winter wheat, cutting firewood, and taking care of all our goats. We're back up to 50 goats now which include Caleb's nannies recent births. One of Caleb's goats had triplets, and another one had quadruplets! At birth two kids are normal, three are unique, but four at one time is quite unusual. Caleb has his hands full of cute cuddly baby goats. We know the time is quickly coming to sell off all our animals as we prepare to move to Africa.
Your prayers and encouragement are greatly coveted

May God bless you this new year!
The Richter Family

Email the Burks!

This has been a great holiday season for us. We felt very blessed by presents sent to us from friends and family in the states (even if some of it still hasn't got here we know it's the thought that counts). We were also blessed by a visit from the Hausers.

The biggest present we got was having our teammates, the Carters, back on the field. We have rarely had all 4 families of our team on the field at the same time between various furloughs and babies.

We are looking forward to getting back into the swing of things with the work. We recently went to a joint church service in the Southern cluster with over 160 Christians from Kowpla, Sorian, 'Yo, Dano-Pari, and probably other villages worshipping God together. We are looking forward to a two day seminar on the gospel of Mark next week. We have invited not only the leaders of our churches, but the leaders of many other denominations. Please pray that God uses this time to bring about some of that unity under the scriptures for which some of the founding fathers of our movement had held so much hope. Please also pray for Andrea and Daniel as they transition back into full swing in school and for Aaron as he starts to redouble his efforts to get a Dagara wide leadership training program going.

May the LORD Bless You and Keep You,

Aaron, Andrea, Daniel, and Dylan

Email the Chankins!

A late Happy New Year to all. We celebrated a great Christmas with our family and our teammates. The Hausers from Banfora joined us as well for our Mexican feast the day after Christmas. The New Year went off well. The Carter amily is back on the field again. Now our team is four families for a short time. Praise God.

On 23 of December, our truck's motor seized. After a tow up to the capitol and the mechanic's assessment, we found out that we had gotten some bad oil on one of our oil changes and the oil had turned into sludge. They spent several days fixing the motor. And now the truck is running well. This was not without incident. We had gone up to pick up the Carters and our truck and things seemed to be going well…until we loaded up to go home. Andy, Emma and I, were about 45 minutes outside of Ouaga when the engine started making noise and died again. As we were sitting on the side of the road, Emma took the time to make some new friends and play with rock[Archie and Mandy Chankin] s and the dirt. So, after another tow back to Ouaga and more repairs our truck is running well.

I have to give Emma the "Super Trooper Award." I was so impressed with her and the way nothing seemed to phase her during this time. I have learned how we should be better at take inconveniences and troubles in stride and live in the moment, so God may be glorified.

Around the villages, things are going well. I have seen the ways that the Lord has been answering all of our prayers by raising up leadership in Kuuri, 'Yo and 'Yo-bagawn. Please keep praying for leadership in all of our villages as the new evangelism season is upon us.

We are also looking forward to my mom and sister who are arriving on the 19th of Jan. We also praise God that our family has been in good health recently.

Blessings,

The Chankins

Email the Johnsons!

Seems like quite a bit has happened since we last wrote! Andy enjoyed his first ever Dagara Trek, spending several days away from home, visiting with friends and staying in their homes. It was a great time of encouragement (both for those he went to see and for him) as well as strengthening friendships. Melissa and the kids got along just fine without him, but were certainly glad to see him return (to read more about Andy's trek, email the Johnsons and ask for his Dagara Diary #81)

The day after Andy got back, our team headed to Ouaga for a retreat organized by the Chankins. It was a refreshing couple of days filled with reflection on the fruit of the Spirit, shopping for the ladies, and swimming for everyone.

We enjoyed hosting our team's annual Feliz Navidad (our Tex-Mex Christmas dinner). In addition to stuffing ourselves, we also drew names and exchanged gifts. As at Thanksgiving, we were blessed by the presence of the Hausers, our good friends from down the road at Banfora.

With the Carters' arrival, we are finally four families once again! Over the last year and a half, we have been four families less than a month. We look forward to a long (for us) stretch of togetherness until the Chankins' departure in May.

We appreciate your prayers so much! To that end, please pray for our upcoming seminar on the gospel of Mark (January 25-26), for the Dagara churches, and for our team.

Blessings.
The Johnsons

Email the Carters

Thanks to everyone for your work on our furlough. Thanks to our team for managing our home (and repairing what fell apart). Thanks to our supporting congregations for investing so much time in our visits. Thanks to all of you who carved time out of your schedules to listen to us, encourage us, and pray with us.

We hope your Christmas and New Years where as blessed as ours.

After two uneventful flights we arrived in safely Burkina. We were welcomed by great teammates (including young Emma) and cool temperatures. In just a couple of days we were completely unpacked and feel back into the swing of things. We look forward to welcoming Chad's brother and sister-in-law in just two short weeks.

Chad's first task will be to visit churches and help them focus on folks who have stopped coming to church. He will assist deacons as they struggle with inquiring after these absent Christians. Please pray for courage since in these churches iron will be sharpening iron.

Thanks for reading and praying.
The Carters