There are numerous humorous examples, as illustrated by the picture to the right* - taken by my good friend G-A, with whom I have been staying for the last few days. G-A and Jane are Brits, from my home church in Cardiff, now settled in Minnesota. When G-A told his friends at church he and the family were going home for their Sunday joint, it caused a certain amount of consternation...**

G-A and I went kayaking early one morning down the St Croix River, which was beautiful and calm. I managed not to fall in, and we got to see deer, bald eagles, beaver, osprey, a flock of nesting herons, and all sorts of unidentified small colourful birds.

My time in the US is mostly going well so far, with my visits to churches in Virginia, Wisconsin, and here in Minnesota. Today I fly to Charlotte, NC, where I will be meeting with friends from Burkina Faso and West Africa.

Thanks for your prayers

* "Dumping" in British slang means defecating.
** While a joint in English means a cut of meat, in American it implies smoking a certain illegal substance...

“This guy’s work did really well and he prospered. And he thought: ‘Now what do I do? This house is too small for me and all my stuff.’

So he decided: ‘I know – I’ll get out of here, and move to a bigger place. Then I’ll have plenty of room and can get all the stuff I want. I’ll take early retirement, and live off my pension and investments. Then I can take it easy, enjoy life, and do all those things I never had time for when I was working hard.’

But God said to him: ‘You fool! Tonight you’re going to die. Then all that you have hoarded for yourself will go to waste.’

In this way God will judge anyone who seeks his own prosperity and comfort, but does not give extravagantly to the poor and to God’s purposes.”

(Lk 12:16-21)

The banquet for Africa seemed to go well last night. Tomorrow I meet with the folk from High Point church, Madison.

Thanks for your prayers.

This Thursday (8th), I will be speaking at a Banquet for Africa, here in Richmond, VA, organised by World Horizons.

I will be sharing about the ministry in Burkina Faso, and particularly for the vision for the school we will be building in Gorom-Gorom. We also hope to raise funds on the evening for the school. Please pray for this event.

Thank you.

The Baggies won 2-0 against QPR to win the Championship and seal their place in the Premiership next year.

I was there - but unfortunately in the QPR end... which meant I could only jump up and down with excitement inside. On the outside I was all Fulani calm and serenity.

Well done, Albion!

The website just has a holding page for the moment, but we are working on it...

Read more about the school HERE, and donate to help us build it HERE.

Tags: africa sahel burkina burkina faso gorom-gorom schools building video

Life in Burkina Faso

Family Life. Home life has been great since Pierre, Asetu and family joined Seydou, Monique and me. Everyone is doing well, and the yard is always full of fun and visitors. Pierre is busy with evangelism, and runs the weekly Fulani cell group in our yard.

The cost of living. We are all affected by the price rises caused by the world food crisis. In Burkina Faso, as in other poor countries, this is making food too expensive for many people. Seydou says rice in Gorom-Gorom is 40% more expensive than normal. In Ouagadougou there have been demonstrations and a two-day strike. Pray for peace, provision, and for justice for the poor.

Team. Pascal, Pierre, Michel, and the other pastors are doing well, and continue to do a great work. Give thanks for the increasing unity between denominations and commitment to reach out in the whole region.

Fulani. The Fulani Christians are doing well, and meet every Thurs for a Fulani inter-church cell group, while getting more involved in their own churches. “A”, a new Fulani believer, who used to do the call to prayer at a local mosque, gathers other believers for a 5am prayer meeting each day! “Y”, who used to be a Muslim religious teacher, has been starting to preach publicly. We are finding increasing interest in the gospel – in one village we went to, people refused to go home after two hours of preaching, and kept asking to know more. Please keep praying for the Fulani.

Songhai. We feel God leading us into a new area of work, reaching out to villages of the Songhai people. A cell group has started in one village, and a pastor is getting ready to move into another. A church in the US is interested in partnering with us in this exciting new venture. Please pray for these new openings.

Ongoing Developments

School. Plans are progressing for building a Christian primary school in Gorom-Gorom. We have bought the land, and are discussing designs etc. Our plan is to open the first class in temporary accommodation this October, and have the first phase of the school built by Oct 2009. Burkina Faso has the lowest adult literacy rate of any recorded nation, and this is a tremendous opportunity to bring God's transforming grace at every level – social, educational, and spiritual – to those often left behind. If you want to support the school, see HERE.
I will continue to keep you informed, but if you want to know more, go HERE.

Water of Life. Following our initial exploratory trip, we now plan to drill 6 boreholes, and repair a further 5 pumps in the region in the month of November. We will put the pumps in villages with great need for water, where local pastors already have ongoing relationships. We will work with the Friends in Action well-drilling team, and plan to take teams out to help with the drilling. Each well will cost about £3,000. If you'd like to help, please send money to the SALT Trust at the address HERE, stating it is for well-drilling.

Church Partnerships. I am helping start partnerships between churches in Burkina Faso and others in the west. Such partnerships are partly to resource the Burkina churches in their mission to bring God’s love to their communities. But they are also partly to explore what God might want to say to the western church through the church in Africa. They are two-way partnerships, where we serve each other and wash each other’s feet. I am setting up a charity, called the Acacia Partnership Trust, to help facilitate these partnerships and all the work I am doing in Burkina Faso.

Other News

USA. I am going to the US from 5 May-11 June. I will be visiting churches in 6 different states to share about the work in Burkina Faso, and the bring the vision of church partnerships. Details of my itinerary are HERE.

Admin Help Needed. As you'll see, there is a lot going on, and I really need a bilingual administrative assistant to help me out with a lot of the admin on this. Please pray for the right person to join me.

Thank you again for all your support and prayers in all these areas.

Keith

1 million people die of malaria each year - that's one person every 30 seconds. 90% of these deaths are in Africa.

Ban Ki-moon wants to eradicate malaria in Africa. The solutions are possible, if not always easy.

What do you think? Shall we do something about it?

I wrote a series of articles about this a couple of years ago - you can find them here

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), the price of essential agricultural staples has gone up by more than 50% over the last six months. Seydou says a 50kg sack of rice in Gorom-Gorom now costs 18,000cfa (about £20).

The Effect on Poorer Nations
As Relief Web explains, when you are already spending between 50 and 80 percent of your income on food, you don't have much room for manoeuver. Poor nations like Burkina Faso have been feeling the effect worst, with price rises in many countries bringing hunger and sparking riots. Kofi Annan warns of increasing instability if the issue is not addressed: "The doubling and tripling of staple food prices in some countries has put many poor people in a desperate situation."

This month, a two-day national strike in Burkina Faso protesting high food prices remained peaceful, following criticism of violence during the protests earlier in the year. VOA reports: "Union leaders in Burkino (sic) Faso acknowledge that the government has taken measures to curb the high cost of living, including a continued suspension of import taxes and a reduction in water and electricity prices. But they say those measures are not enough." They are demanding a 25 percent increase in salaries and pensions backdated to January 2001. But the government says salaries had increased in 2005 and 2007 and increasing them again would fuel inflation.

Causes of the Food Crisis
Grain stocks are at their lowest in 30 years, and we are consuming more than we are producing. Causes of the food price rises have been identified as:

• Weather. Erratic weather and climate change, leading to crop failures.
  
• Population and Diet. The growth in middle-class population (especially in India and China), who then want a richer, meat-rich diet (as in the west), that uses more land. We probably need to eat less meat.
  
• Biofuel. An increased focus on biofuel is taking crops meant for poor people's food, and putting them in rich people's cars.
  
• Oil prices. High oil prices have increased production, fertiliser, and transport costs.
  
• Speculation in Commodities. Following the collapse of financial markets, dealers have been taking money out of equities and mortgage bonds and ploughing them into food and raw materials.

Nancy Roman of the UN World Food Program says: "In the near- and medium-term food prices will be going up, which will bring more hunger. It will be a different kind of hunger. Food shortages in developing countries used to be caused by drought or other similar factors. That’s why people had nothing to eat. Nowadays, most countries have enough food. But it’s so expensive that people cannot afford it."

Please pray for Burkina Faso and our friends there, especially as they try to make ends meet in the run-up to the hardest time of year before the next rainy season starts in July. Thank you.

Tags: africa sahel burkina burkina faso food crisis

In partnership with the Burkinabe church, we are working to build and resource a primary school in Gorom-Gorom in Burkina Faso.

I have now uploaded pages about the school HERE, and you can DONATE to it HERE.

THE VISION

Glenwood Church in Cardiff is committed to support the church in Burkina Faso in building this school, and is looking for partners and donors in this project.

EDUCATION NEEDS IN BURKINA FASO

BUILDING THE SCHOOL

Tags: africa sahel burkina burkina faso gorom-gorom schools building construction

In a certain village among the Gourma people, when it is harvest time, all the young people will first go and harvest the field of the village chief, before going to harvest their own fields.

The young men harvested the millet, and the young women then gathered up the heads of grain to take back to the compound of the village chief. The men laboured through the heat of the day, and finished harvesting the whole field by nightfall.

The village chief was watching the women gathering up heavy loads of grain in large bowls on their heads to bring back to his grain store. But he noticed that there was one lazy woman, who would only gather a little each time.

Towards the end of the day, he spoke to the women and said:
“Hey, you see how hard the men have been working. They have finished harvesting the whole field. Now, before you go home, I want each of you to make a special effort to bring one more really big load of grain.”

The women went off, and piled the grain high. They came back straining under the load. But the lazy girl just gathered a small amount as usual. When they arrived back at the chief’s yard, and were about to unload their grain, he stopped them.

“Thank you for your hard work today,” he said. “The load you are now carrying is for you to take home with you, as my thanks for what you have done today.”

All the women who had made a special effort to fully load their bowls laughed, and headed home with their reward. But the lazy one was ashamed to go home with the evidence of her laziness. She tried to pour out her load for the chief.

“No!” said the chief. “You will take home what you have worked, so that everyone can see how lazy you are!”

(cf 1Cor 3:8)

* A young man, S, has said he wants to follow Christ. Please pray for him as he pursues what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

* A pastor, P, has said he wants to move to the region to start work in one of the Songhai villages. Please pray for him and his family as they prepare to move.

* Gold has been found in a nearby town, and this has started a gold rush. It has also drawn bandits to the area. One of the pastors was stopped by bandits recently, robbed, and beaten up a bit because they didn't believe he only had the £5 that he was carrying. Please pray for protection and security.

Thanks

Here is the northern section of Gorom-Gorom. By zooming in, I can tell that the picture must have been taken during the first half of 2007, because my house is not yet finished, and just at the bottom of the picture below, the flood victims from 2006 are in their blue UNICEF tarpaulin tent camp following the flood of 2006.

There is a photo of Steve and me sitting on the rock at Tondi Kara here, and of course, pictures of Gorom-Gorom, including the market, and a photo taken from Tondi Kara here.

This is my home, as seen on Google Earth. Looks dry doesn't it...

The photo below was taken maybe a couple of months later. That's Seydou's house on the left, the meeting place in the middle, and my house at the back. Pierre's house is just out of shot to the right:

I haven't worked out how to upload photos to Google Earth yet, nor how to send you a link to my house. (Simple instructions, anyone...?) But if you go to 14°26'56.5"N, and 0°13'40.2"W, that's where you will find me...

The last couple of days were nice, and I did manage to take a few photos:

I also managed to get out for a day to have a look at Positano, the Amalfi coast, and the hills around Ravelo:

Now back to work...