[Dagara Digest] Just the Two of Us

[Burks]

The Carter Family

Well the Carter family is now in the States beginning our furlough. We will be in the Dallas area until mid-November and then traveling on from there. It is a privilege to get to see so many of you and get to share in person what God is bringing about among the Dagara.

Our AT&T cell phone number is 214-578-2714.

The Carters

The Johnson Family

Greetings from a surprisingly rainy Burkina Faso! The Lord has continued answering his people's prayers, prolonging the rainy season a few weeks past its normal cut-off. Please ask him for just a few more showers; most of our friends tell us that’s all they need for a good harvest.

Our family is well. Elijah is developing a three-year-old boy sense of humor, Amelie is getting closer to being potty-trained, and Isaiah is a rolling machine. We were blessed to house our good friends the Hausers for a couple nights. Whenever they come, it works out well – everyone (grown-ups included) has a playmate!

Andy's teaching in Nawule has been more exciting than usual (well, the teaching is probably just as boring, but the responses have been exciting). The past three weeks, he had a lively conversation about practically dealing with idols in this culture, a young man bring two small idols to burn, and a hoodless cobra that we believe was evicted from the church meeting place by prayer. God is certainly at work!

We are flying out next week for our three month furlough. We'll be in Texas for November and January and in California the month of December. We'd love to see (or at the very least) talk with as many of you as possible. Please send us an email or give us a call at our parents’ homes (940-766-5374 in TX or 209-221-6601 in CA).

Blessings.
The Johnsons

The Burk Family

We just enjoyed a good visit with the Hausers recently and had a great birthday party for Dylan(3). This month has been rough with sicknesses and things breaking around the house(toilet and a/c). We had a good visit with the church of Christ in Ouaga. We also heard of more baptisms happening in Wa-jiele. Things are going really well with Romain in Nawn-mare. He continues to learn better how to lead his church and he is currently leading them in evangelizing accross the creek in Nawn-mare ba-gawn. Kpe-zuo has been hard to get together with because of funerals and sicknesses, etc., but we may be starting some new marriage counseling sessions in Dano Pari.

Peace,

The Burks

The Richter Family

Attending Sunday worship services among the Dagara is a little bit like the game "hide and go seek." Some of the villages and the places where the churches meet are a ways off the beaten path making them seem somewhat “hidden” to the non-local eye. As part of being the newest teammates on the field, it's our job to "find" them. So with recently acquired language skills Geoffrey does a lot of asking directions, turning around, and then asking some more. Pavement quickly turns into dirt roads, dirt roads into bike trails, bike trails into foot paths. You get the picture. And at this time of year, the tall grasses and millet have all but swallowed up where the road was supposed to have been. Going to church is always an adventure but we’re taking advantage of the opportunity to do some GPS mapping and creating a database of information along the way.

One of our highlights this past month was attending a baptism service at Wa-jele where Geoffrey went along as the token "white guy." It was the Dagara leaders themselves who assisted this newly planted church with their second baptism service where 27 new Christians were baptized into Christ. It was significant in that there were a variety of ages of converts from young boys and girls in their teens all the way up to three ladies in their late 60's. Seeing their dedication to follow Christ was amazing. After the baptisms we all sat down under a big tree to enjoy a huge feast of rice sauce with chicken pieces.

Back at home in Dano our family is enjoying learning language, building rabbit hutches and preparing our garden project. We also enjoyed hosting our dear missionary friends, the Gray family, from Ouaga.

God bless you all,

The Richter Family

--
Posted By Burks to Dagara Digest at 10/16/2009 09:28:00 AM