[Dagara Digest] Happy New Year from Burkina Faso

[Burks]

The Johnson Family

Greetings from blustery North Texas! We have enjoyed a great furlough here in the States. It’s been a blessed time of catching up with family and friends and reporting on what God has been doing in Burkina Faso. We head back to Burkina February 2.

Our team has also been raising funds for our leadership training curriculum and a Dagara-language children’s bible. If you are interested in participating in either of these projects, please email our family at almjjoh...@yahoo.com – we’d love to talk with you about this tangible way for you to be involved in our team’s ministry.

Blessings.
The Johnsons

The Carter Family

This has been a difficult month for us. Our return to Burkina in the first week of January was emotional because it would be our last time. After prayerful consideration with our family, team and supporting congregation, all have decided that this is a good time for our family to finish well and phase out of Dano.

It is a bittersweet time as we say farewells to churches, friends, and teammates and prepare the way for a new family to arrive. We return to the States on March 4th and will be based in Oklahoma City. Until August 2010, we will be working full time on translation. The first priority is to finish the illustrated children's bible that Zondervan will publish during the summer. After that we will complete all that remains on Train and Multiply, so that it can be widely distributed among the Dagara and assist in maturing the leaders and elders who are shepherding Dagara Christians.

It is exciting to see leaders telling the missionaries what to do (Aaron's training seminar) and spearheading new projects (well rehab in Nawile). From the very beginning, our team has sought to work ourselves out of a job and it is to God's glory that the day for us has come to pass the baton.
After our return, there will be a Victory Potluck held at Richardson East to celebrate what God has done and is doing among the Dagara.

Thank you for your faithful prayers,
The Carters

The Richter Family

During the month of December God enabled our family to be able to give a gift of love to our neighbors by rehabilitating an open hand dug well. Funds for this project were made possible through the generous support of friends and churches. This well, which is located just outside our front gate, serves more than 200 people each day. We thought it would be a good place to start and a good opportunity to learn the “ropes” of installing and maintaining simple hand pumps.

For months we have observed how many people use this well daily, and unfortunately how many animals do too. Can you imagine having to stand in a dirty pool of water to try and draw clean water for your family? Since this was an unsealed well, the surface contaminates quickly leach back into the well polluting the water with harmful bacteria. We also discovered little red worms in the water which were making people sick. Then, there was the safety factor to consider when wells remain open that sometimes small children or animals can fall into the wells. Water is collected from the shallow well by the use of a rope tied to a bucket which often carries contaminates into the well with each toss of the bucket. All of these problems had to be addressed.

For more pictures, and the rest of the story click here.

For Those Who Thirst For More,
The Richter Family

The Burk Family

At this time, we are praising the LORD for a new year in His kingdom and His ministry to the Dagara people in Burkina Faso. It is already uncharacteristically warm for this time of year. The kids are getting back in school and are still enjoying their Christmas presents. We received a huge Christmas present this year in one more village coming to the LORD. On Dec. 25th, people from the village of Nabie were baptized and many of them also dedicated their marriages to God as well. This makes the 25th village where a new church has been planted since our work began.

We are starting the new year off with a bang, to read about it, see our blog.

The LORD Bless You and Keep You,
The Burk Family

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Posted By Burks to Dagara Digest at 1/15/2010 10:06:00 PM