The Shumaker Family's Blog

As many of you already know, our family has moved to a new neighborhood.  We lived in the same house for 10 years while working at Living Water Baptist Church.  God blessed in amazing ways.  There have been many saved and baptized.  God called several men to preach in this church, and seven of them have started and currently pastor other churches.  Pastor Justin has been my right hand man for the past few years.  I have joked around about him kicking me out of the church.  He has grown so much in the Lord and in leadership that I am no longer needed like I once was at LWBC. 

We have moved to the west side of town.  God has been leading me for around two years to move in this direction.  Ouagadougou is growing like crazy.  People are moving in from the village.  The Lord has given us a plan of attack.  I turned 40 a few months back.  It is hard to believe how fast the years are flying by.  I came here with big dreams.  I remember driving down the road on deputation in 1999.  I was single.  While driving home in the wee hours of the night I would imagine I was preaching to thousands of Africans that were in front of me.  I would preach my heart out.  I have been called crazy, but I just wanted the God of Heaven to use my life.  I figured that if men were dreaming big for worldly success, I just wanted to dream big and let God do great things.  It is 18 years later from those late nights trying to raise support.  The dream hasn’t diminished.  We have seen the start of it, but as the saying goes, “It is time to go big or go home.”

We would love to have a network of around 10-15 churches in this new area.  We plan to have Wednesday night service at the main work – model church (the one that we are starting now).  Thursday nights will be at new churches that are started after the model church.  The pastors of these churches will be able to be present for the main church service on Wednesdays, and I will be free to rotate amongst their works to help and preach on Thursday nights.  This will allow me to preach in the other churches and also the pastors to come and be fed on Wednesday evening.  One Sunday night a month, we will have a combined service.  We will work as a team. 

We have been hunting land since I moved out here 5 months ago.  It seemed like we were hitting dead end upon dead end until this week.  There is a new neighborhood being put in near the main road.  There isn’t much land available right around us.  In this new neighborhood there are 4 lots that are one right after another.  We need to obtain all four lots to have sufficient room for the church building. In order for us to buy the four lots and do the paper work it will cost us $6,000 a lot.   I live right across the main road from this property.  I was told that one lot where we currently live costs more than $20,000 a lot and there would be no way to get four lots together on our side of the road.  The $24,000 required to obtain these four lots is a great opportunity for us.  These four lots will be gone quickly.  They will probably be bought in the next few weeks.  After purchasing them, if God opens that door, we will need about $10,000 to start our building program.  We are praying for God’s will.

Would you please pray for God to provide?  Would you consider making an investment in the lives of the Burkinabés?  

Like I mentioned above, I am planning on starting 10-15 churches on this side of town.  I want to buy more land in the next few months/years in areas that are developing.  These lots will cost much less and be much bigger than those in already developed neighborhoods.  I am estimating that we can buy a lot and pay the taxes for around $6,000.   We will need around $90,000 in order to buy 15 or so lots.  By watching the trend of development in the area, it is clear that NOW is the time to act. In a few years, land in our target areas will be limited and much more expensive.

Thank you for allowing us to share our burden. Thank you for all you have already done to enable us to serve in Burkina Faso.  God has amazed us with what He has already done. We are so grateful, but we know He isn’t finished.  It’s a big dream for us, but nothing is impossible for our great big God, who desires that “every creature” has a chance to hear.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.