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September 15, 2007

Recent developments

There have been a few interesting developments in our work recently. Your prayers are appreciated:

1. New Workers for Gorom-Gorom!
It looks like we will be getting two new workers for Gorom-Gorom, an answer to prayer for us:

  • The Fulani Pastor. It seems Gorom-Gorom will be getting a Fulani pastor! My good friend “M” is spending time here, and is hoping to move up permanently in the not-too distant future.
  • The Evangelist. Another friend, “P”, who is a fulfulde-speaking evangelist, has also just been approved by his church for moving to Gorom-Gorom. He will live with Seydou and me in our yard. P grew up in a Muslim family and so is able to relate to the challenges of local people as they consider the good news of Christ.

Both of these friends will be a huge blessing for the work in Gorom-Gorom and area. Please pray for them as they prepare to move up to join us. Once things are clearer, I will tell you more about them and post their photos here.

2. Baptism.
Pascal is hoping to baptise 3 or 4 local people next Saturday, including: “L”, a young girl who came top of her class and who is hoping to go to the Christian college near Ouaga; “B”, who is blind and has leprosy; and “D”, a Songhai believer from Doumam, who uses our donkey cart to help support himself and his family. Please pray for these and any others as they prepare for this step of commitment to follow Christ.

3. Sharing My Heart With 50 Pastors.
I had a great time with about 50 local pastors from around the region, as we talked and prayed about strategies for our work in this area. It was very encouraging, and there seems to be a lot of new vision and motivation for reaching out with the love of Christ across the cultural barriers, and for working more closely together.

4. Essakane Gold Mining Town.
I spent a few days in Essakane with Ousseini, the pastor there. Essakane is a gold mining town, where people have dug for gold by hand for years, in pretty appalling conditions. Now Gold Fields, the 4th largest gold mining company in the world, have finished their exploration and are discussing the potential investment of $346million to mine the area. Of course, such a move has all kinds of potential consequences, not least that the whole of the Essakane mining village, and perhaps 6 other smaller villages, will need to be completely moved. I will be writing more about Essakane in future posts, but please pray for Ousseini and the church as we seek to find what God requires of us in this situation.

Thank you.


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Posted by Keith at September 15, 2007 12:53 PM