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June 27, 2007

Wanderer's return

Thanks for your prayers during these last few weeks. I had an excellent time both in France and in Burkina.

France
My visits to the two churches in France were very encouraging and I received a warm welcome everywhere. It was a privilege to spend time sharing fellowship and vision for the work in Burkina Faso with Christians and church leaders in both towns. I hope that we will have groups from both churches come out to visit next year. I also especially enjoyed an evening at a cafe gathering organised by one church, where we spend several hours in friendly but animated discussion with some Arabic Muslims who had come along.

Burkina Faso
The time in Burkina was short, just 10 days, but was very encouraging. Here are a few highlights:

  • Barke Alla: Christians in the north of Burkina Faso have formed an inter-denominational association, called "Barke Alla", to work together in evangelism, support for churches in the area, and community development. This is a great encouragement and reflects the growing vision and commitment of the church there. The name "Barke Alla" means "God's blessing" in the three local languages.

  • Fulani Christians: Two Fulani who became Christians following the flood in August last year are continuing to follow Christ and are involved regularly in church. The Fulani Christians in Gorom-Gorom have also started a mid-week Fulani cell group in order to pray, worship, and study God's word in their own language. They are from the different churches in Gorom.

  • Food Aid: Following on from the joint efforts by the two churches in Gorom-Gorom for the Muslim population there following the floods, they have two further joint ventures planned. One of these is the distribution of further food aid in the coming months, the most vulnerable time, following the failure of last year's harvest. According to Reuters: "A recent OCHA evaluation mission in the Gorom-Gorom commune of Burkina Faso showed that the 6,000 people there would need humanitarian assistance "at least" up to the next harvest in September 2007."

  • Kids Camp: The other joint venture is organising a Kids' Camp for local children, to be run with support from my home church, Glenwood Church in Cardiff in August. They expect about 100 children to join the camp for a week.

  • Business and Mission: Paul and Tim, from Cardiff, accompanied me on this trip and were a great blessing and encouragement to have along. They were primarily there to look, listen, and learn. But they were also looking at possibilities for what role business might have in supporting the mission of the church and community development, and have come back with lots of interesting ideas.

  • New Pastors: A new pastor has moved into Oursi, north of Gorom-Gorom, and is doing well. And up to 4 more pastors are seeking to move into the area. These "pastors" are in reality missionaries, working cross-culturally, and are men of great commitment and vision.

  • More Fulani Encouragement: During the trip down from Gorom-Gorom to Ouagadougou, we picked up a young Fulani hitch-hiker. We stopped off to visit a pastor on the way. The young Fulani man asked the pastor a lot about the story of Jesus, and finally said he too wanted to follow Christ. He is now in touch with a Fulani pastor in Ouaga. In Ouagadougou itself, we visited a gathering of Fulani Christians and pastors from different churches, who are meeting to pray and join together to reach out to Fulani throughout Burkina Faso.

It has been a very encouraging time. Please pray for all these things. I hope to be heading out again to Burkina Faso at the end of July for a couple of months.

Posted by Keith at June 27, 2007 07:23 PM