prayer for the 2013 Women's Conference...

Hello praying friends!  The annual Burkina Faso Baptist women’s conference is just around the corner and the excitement is building.  Remember our theme?   Women on Mission:  The Role of Women in the Advancement of God’s Kingdom.  The women arrive on Monday from all corners of the country for a week of learning together, praying together, playing together, dancing together, and challenging one another to be WOMEN ON MISSION WITH GOD.  With the generosity of WMU, we will have some ladies who will be with us for their very first annual camp. 

As we gather, we are partnering with the women from my home church in Kilbourne, Louisiana.  These women, accompanied by some of the men from the church, have already been on mission -- reaching out to the uttermost parts of the earth.  They have been busily sewing children’s clothes – dresses for girls and shorts for boys – which we will distribute to our young widows with children and to the children of Bible school students who are training to be pastors. They’ve made quite a few, so what is left will go to a local orphanage that is run by an American missionary friend. 

To all ladies, I wish that you could be here with us during this incredible week!  You wouldn’t even be bothered by sleeping on the floor, using a squatty potty, or temperatures of 105 degrees.  We are going to have the time of our lives!  Stay tuned for an update at the end of the week and the opportunity to give praise to the Most High God for what He will have done. 

Thank you so much for praying with us for this all important time.  Please lift up to the Father:

• Inspired teaching times focused on the challenge of missions and the call to obedience to the Great Commission for every single woman present.  Pray for clarity in the translation process as women who attend will speak at least 5 different languages.
• Unity and organization for the leadership team and the host association of churches.
• Safety in travel – some women will travel two full days by bus to arrive at the conference.

a day in the life... // chapter 4: we've a story to tell the nations

You’ve heard much from Jay about telling God’s story.  Read, enjoy, and praise the Father for these summarized excerpts from the newsletters of our precious friend and colleague, Kathy Daniel, as she shares about an influential training that she and Jay were recently involved in:

 I received news from Togo this week.  Their main market in the capital city burned.  The fire trucks from Togo arrived, and they had no water to fight the fire.  The fire trucks from the neighboring country of Ghana were trying to come, but the border guards would not allow them to enter the country because of formalities.  Seems unbelievable, I know.

In the days in which I find myself, I feel like the fire is burning stronger and spreading way past control, and I’m praying that the fire trucks will never arrive.  We are in the midst of training 24 people from 4 language groups about how to craft stories from the Bible in ways that are accurate, understandable, and reproducible.  Most all of the participants have been trained in how to use the stories for evangelism and have been doing that for a year or longer.  That track record was their admission ticket to this training.  Now we want them to be able to have an arsenal of well-crafted stories, continue to fill this arsenal with stories, and now expand into discipleship with these stories.

Today, some of the embers of this fire were spread between language groups and countries as they shared testimonies of how they have been using the stories up until this point.  Let me spread some of the fire your way;  one people group has started 6 churches using stories, another people group started 8 churches, and for the trucker stories, they are now being broadcast on the radio in Togo, and the director of the radio station and her husband have accepted Christ.  And by the way, he has felt called by God to be a pastor and has enrolled in school.

The training continued through Feb 1^st.  Many folks were involved from the trainers to the participants.  The Lord orchestrated so many things logistically in the lives of almost 30 people for these two weeks to take place.

• What happens next and how can you pray? The “long haul” is beginning now as the trained teams return to their towns and villages with assignments to craft, test, and record 4 stories before we come together again in March.  Please keep praying that they will be faithful to complete the task.  Pray that they will accurately handle God’s Word as they craft these stories and that they will “shine like stars in the universe as they hold out the Word of Life.”