Email the Chankins!

It is an incredibly sad thing to be writing our final Dagara Digest from our home in Dano. These last few weeks have been filled with a myriad of different emotions as we say our good byes to churches, friends and a country that has been our home for the last six years. God has blessed us in innumerable ways during our time in Burkina. We have faced great trials and we have enjoyed amazing victories – through everything our God has been faithful. He has allowed us to be part of His work among the Dagara and we have seen over a thousand people reconciled to God through Christ. The Holy Spirit is alive and active in the lives of the Christians here, and though we leave with heavy hearts, we are convinced that when we return for visits in the years to come, we will see a harvest far greater than we can imagine. We would like to thank all of you who have supported us in prayer through these years. Please continue to pray for the Dagara people of West Africa. Please continue to pray for our teammates who will remain here for a few more years if the Lord allows and pray for the new workers who will come. We serve a merciful, wonderful, faithful God. We are truly blessed.

Please continue to pray for our family as we transition back to the US. We will be attending the West African Missionary Retreat in Ghana before leaving Africa. Next we will spend some days with missionary friends in Lyon (where we went to language school). Finally, we will be flying into Dallas on May 23rd. It is a lot of travel with two small kids, so please keep our sanity and health in your prayers. Please pray that all goes well with our container and that it arrives in Houston when it is supposed to. Lastly, please pray that we will find a job in which our lives can continue to bear much fruit for the glory of God.

Grace and Peace,
Archie, Mandy, Emma and Jack Chankin

Email the Carters!

There have been quite a few surprises over this past month.

First, we have run into some frustrating (and time consuming) problems with local laws and some new taxes that we are just learning about.

Though it is not all resolved yet we have started to clear up the process.

Also, there is the possibility of helping equip congregations to achieve their goal of constructing a church building. Chad and four other men went to visit a project that trains masons with a new building technique. The Nubian Vault method uses virtually all locally available materials and seems to be sustainable (no imported tin or cutting of wood… all mud). Please pray as the investigation continues into this idea.

There was a very successful leaders meeting hosted by the church in Nawile (see more details on the blogs). Chad’s focus has been to spend extra time with the Christians in Sorion, V2, and Muturi this month.

The goal is to encourage congregations that are not currently in a regular teaching cycle and give them some short seminar style teaching.

Sunday was a beautiful farewell party for the Chankins. Christians gathered from all over to spend some time celebrating and blessing them.

Thanks for your prayers.
The Carters

Email the Richters!

We're coming down to our final few weeks with the Hawley church. How do you wrap up 6 ½ years of ministry in such a short amount of time? Already it has been filled with many activities that we realize we are doing for the last time here. We're going to miss a lot of things about our lives here, but most of all, we're going to miss the people we've grown to love like family.

Geoffrey's final sermon series, titled "Living for the Glory of God" has been well received. It has been a challenging series based on Romans 11:33-36. If you're reading this, please take the time to look it up and read it. There is nothing more liberating or blessed in this world than to live for God's Glory!

As we prepare for our move we are consumed by support discovery, creating inventories of things to pack and things to store, and going through things that we've inherited or accumulated over 17 years of marriage (Suzanne has a great gift for knowing what to throw away and how to pack for an international move).

The children are doing great. Micah enjoyed her three year old "monkey" birthday party. Caleb, Seth and London performed a moving musical theater production called "Once Upon a Time Shop." And we all enjoyed an overnight camping and fishing trip to Lake Brownwood.

May God bless you all. Please keep us in your prayers!

For God's Glory and Purpose,
The Richter Family

Email the Burks!

We had a fantastic leaders conference in Nawile this month. The theme was on how taking care of the needy is a part of being a Christian. The Nawile church did a dramatic presentation of the story of the good Samaritan which everyone found to be highly entertaining. This was a very interesting yet difficult discussion for me. I have been trying to walk the thin line between refusing to give handouts to avoid unsustainable expectations and pre-empting Dagara to Dagara generosity by giving what they could never give each other. I'm trying to see how we can transition into more generosity while still listening to the warnings of doing so in a way that is disrespectful to their dignity.

A few agitators in the catholic church have been persecuting some of our brothers, saying things like, "You can't just learn about Jesus for a couple of weeks and then become a Christian. That's not a REAL conversion. You can't get baptized in a barrel. That's not a REAL baptism." Please pray that God will not allow Satan to discourage this young Christians with messages like that and that they can redeem those who would harm them from their own verbal violence.

Personal evangelism is on the rise. In the latest small group leadership seminar series I have encouraged leaders to witness to their friends and family more. As a result there has been an upsurge in attendance and, particularly encouraging, in whole families coming to church in Dano-pari, and Nyikpier.

May the LORD Bless You and Keep You,

Aaron, Andrea, Daniel, and Dylan Burk

Email the Johnsons!

Greetings from a blistering Burkina Faso! The temperatures have heated up (our living room peaked at 95.2 yesterday afternoon), but that also means the rains are on the way. Please begin now asking the Lord of the Harvest to send a good rainy season.

Our work has also heated up. At a recent leaders' conference in Nawile (with over 300 Christians), we were thrilled to learn of several new church plants. The Dagara are evangelizing their neighbors faster than we can keep up with it!

Andy finished a series of lessons on elders in one village and has continued teaching through church maturation materials in two others. He also began a new preaching point in the village of Nawn-Maare last week. Despite several competing village events, over 20 adults attended; please pray that God call His people in this village.

Our family has been doing great. Our children have proven more resistent to the heat than we; they sleep and drink more, but they never really seem bothered by it. Both have been healthy, which makes life here much easier.

We continued saying goodbye to the Chankins with a girls' trip to Ouaga for some rest, swimming, and fine dining. We also welcomed to our home about 80 Dagara Christians on Sunday, offering them a chance to say goodbye to our coworkers while enjoying cold water and Dagara snack foods. Please keep their family in your prayers as they navigate the winds of change ahead of them.

Blessings.
The Johnsons