Email Hillary!

These past few weeks have been full of blessings and new experiences. I can still hardly believe I'm here. I was very grateful to get to travel with the Burnams who took great care of me and helped me navigate international travel. Language lessons have been a blessing so I can start talking to people. I was also blessed with a wonderful eighteenth birthday. It is kind of strange to consider myself being officially an adult. Another blessing was getting to visit some of the different churches. I visited the churches in Mou, Yo-Bagawn, and a Pentacostal church in Dano. Several people have gone out of their way to welcome and help me adjust to life in Africa. Rebekah, with her smile, is teaching me Dagara. Arnyine helped me practice my greetings. Alex helped me find girls my age who speak English. Pilagé invited me to attend church with her. I especially appreciate the team, who has gone out of their way to welcome and help me. I have felt very privileged to get to work along side them. It has been inspiring to see their love for God and desire to do His will. It has been so exciting and humbling to see what God is doing in Burkina. Thank you to you who have been praying for me. It means a lot to me.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Hillary Sellers

Email the Johnsons!

The last few months have been a great blessing to our family! To begin with, the West African Missionary Retreat on the coast of Ghana was, as always, a treat. Besides all the great singing, fellowship, and lessons, it was our first time to attend one of these retreats with children. We had a great time introducing Elijah and Amelie to more of the people who had been praying for them long before they were born!

Our team began its string of visitors by welcoming the Guilds back to Dano for the third time (brave souls…). They led our team in processing the Chankins’ departure and preparing for Hillary and the Richters’ arrival, as well as providing some guidance in how to go about discerning God’s will for the coming years for our team. We are so grateful for all they do for our team.

Our team’s guestrooms have been blessedly busier than usual. Since last we wrote, we’ve welcomed Hillary Sellers (our team’s first apprentice), Ryan Jones (our summer intern), the Burnam family (second time visitors from our overseeing congregation 10th and Broad), and the Duecks (Canadian friends of ours). We are grateful to God for bringing so many different people to grace us with their presence.

Oh, and did we mention that during all this busyness the Lord saw fit to work through a nonliterate Dagara evangelist to plant two new churches with nearly 90 baptisms between them? God is SO good to us all!

Blessings.
The Johnsons

Email the Carters!

Since our last entry we have been all over the map! There was a missionary retreat and the Chankin departure in May, the visit of the Guilds in early June (to counsel & advise our team), and the arrival of interns in mid-June.

Thanks be to God for his protection of our interns. Both have had some medical problems that required trips to the capital. There are no worries now and God has been on them blessing their lives.

Under Amy’s guidance, Noah taught his first lesson in the village of Mebar a couple of weeks ago. He acted out the Parable of the Sower as Amy explained the story. Her teaching models how churches can minister to and raise their young.

In other news, Dagara Christians continue to amaze us as God works through them. Donatien is helping the village of Muturi start a church choir to encourage their worship time. The village of Nawile baptized over sixty people in the church plant of Bafour and another group the following week in Nan-moore. Other churches keep planting further and further away from Dano. Chad made the trek to spend a Sunday with the church plant in V8…50 miles from Dano!

Pray for the leaders that Chad is enrolling in our discipleship curriculum. Please pray that the Lord of the harvest will multiply the workers that he is sending in to the field.

Thank you for your love and grace towards us.
The Carters

Email the Richters!

God is leading and blessing us through another transition. Serving our Lord and raising our young children in Hawley has been wonderful. We'll miss the people in Hawley. Saying goodbye to those whom we know we may not see again was especially difficult, though we remember that death is not final for the Christian. "Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor.15:57).

Our training with the Halbert Institute of Missions is also complete. We enjoyed our final mission training module at Lake Brownwood with other mission teams preparing to enter the field. Sonny Guild has blessed us tremendously and helped prepare us for what lies ahead.

Amidst the preparations for moving, we also decided to complete a full health review. Geoffrey had been suspicious of a spot on his upper right arm. The biopsy revealed it to be a malignant melanoma. The skin cancer was removed completely. Thanks be to God for blessing us with this discovery and taking care of it now. Satan may try to hinder us, but "greater is he who is in us" (1 John 4:4).

Our talented children finished up their year at Turning Pointe Academy with an inspiring performance. We're proud of them for doing something for the Glory of God out of their comfort zone but still fun. Turning Pointe has greatly impacted our children's lives. We will always treasure these memories.

God bless you all,
Geoffrey, Suzanne, Caleb, Seth, London, Micah Richter

Email the Burks!

Rainy season is in full swing as is the kingdom of God here among the Dagara. There have been two new churches planted since the last Dagara digest, Bafour and Nan-moore.

Daniel finished out his second grade and enjoyed being at the West Africa Missionary Retreat and seeing some of his friends from southern Togo perhaps for the last time, since many of them are moving to Rwanda. Dylan's vocabulary is growing. His two favorite words are "Mommy" and "that," which he shouts while pointing vociferously at various things in his environment.

Various visitors have graced us with their presence. Sonny and Eunice Guild counseled our team in transitioning from the Chankins' moving back to the states in May and the Richters' moving to Burkina in November. The Burnam family encouraged us and led us in many times of worship while they were here. Hillary, our new apprentice, has started her time here in which she will be involved in around 9 months of acts of service not least among which will be the time she spends teaching a preschool for the children on our team. Ryan Jones, our intern from ACU, served the Dagara with a clinic in which he helped us give away reading glasses to and pray over many older Dagara.

May the LORD Bless You and Keep You,

Aaron, Andrea, Daniel, and Dylan Burk