The Shumaker Family’s Blog

I am sitting here, listening to my wife teach Mamata. We have talked about her before. She comes from a devout Muslim family. She trusted Christ back in 2005. She has been very faithful. Her brother Omar trusted Christ and was very faithful until he bent under the pressure of friends and family. He has not been very faithful lately. He told his sister the other day that he wasn’t going to church because he didn’t want to get hassled. We learned yesterday that Mamata’s sister, Fatimata wanted to come to church on Easter Sunday. She even asked for and was granted permission to take off from work to come. Since they aren’t close to our church, we pick them up on the way. When I arrive on  Sunday, normally Mamata is waiting for me or comes out in a few seconds, but last Sunday we waited for her for a few minutes. That is not normal, but I was actually early(big surprise) so I didn’t think much about it. She came as well as Omar this time and her younger sister Bibata. We found out that the reason it took them a few minutes to come out, was the family (mother and other family members) were in a heated discussion saying that if all of them come with us to church then the neighbors will really give them a hard time. So Mamata finally said, I can’t keep the pastor waiting and left. Unfortunately, that is why Fatimata didn’t come. I don’t think that they have ever been physically abused, but they are definitely mentally abused. I thank God for Mamata’s stand and love for the Lord. They have given her a hard time and she said there is no reason to even do that because I am not going to change now.

We had a wonderful Easter.  I will try to get some pictures up soon.  We had a special service at Tingandogo and Cissin.  At Tingandogo we had 140 people come.  100 of them were children.  We also had about 120 at Cissin.  There were over 70 adults present at this church.  God really  blessed in the services and I really enjoyed preaching on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We celebrated with a meal at both places.

One would think that after 6 and half years of speaking another language that you shouldn’t have to many mess ups. I will say that I struggled and I mean struggled to even say a few words in French even after a year  but God has been good to me and has allowed me to communicate in another language.

This is not the first time that I have done this but the second. I was preaching and explaining that we need to have a good testimony. I shared with the church that before I gave my life to Jesus, I drank some. After I got saved, I was celebrating New Years Eve with some friends. Of course alcohol was present. That was in 1995. After I started drinking, I felt a pulling at my heart. The Holy Spirit was telling me that I am now a child of God, why was I being a bad testimony. That is the last time that alcohol has touched my lips. Anyhow, I told them that it was 2005 and not 1995. There is a big difference. I have done this twice. Good testimony for the missionary to be drinking after he has already come to Africa in 2002. Speaking in another language can be very interesting.

Last week, I was able to pay the price to change the land into my name. I want to thank all that gave. We had $3,500 given to help with this expense. I praise the Lord that I was able to borrow the $1,500 that was left. I will have to repay this a little bit later but I was thrilled to get it paid off before we would have to pay a penalty.

We had one profession of faith last Sunday. We are preparing for Easter. We will have service tonight(Friday).  We will be having a meal as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  We don’t know how we will have for this day but I suppose that we will have a bunch of visitors.

On different occasions, I have talked a lot about Salif and Simon. They are our guardians. We have a night guard and a day guard. It is necessary because of the theft. Anyhow, both of them came to Christ a few years back and both of them help tremendously in the ministry. Whatever needs to be done, they are ready. They are a huge help. I wanted to send a photo of them. This is for you brother Gardner.

Last night I woke up and heard our tin making some funny noises.  I thought, that sounds like rain but can’t be possible.  We aren’t suppose to get rain for at least 2 more months(sometimes in April but very rare).  It wasn’t a downfall or anything, really it was a drizzle(whatever that actually is).  An older man told me that he has never seen rain in March.  Trust me, it didn’t fill up any lakes but it sure made the day feel good, for once.  A break from 108.

We are literally at a standstill with our church building at Cissin. We have made so much progress and I hope that you can tell it by the pictures. As I stated, we must pay about $5,000 in taxes by the 14th or it will supposedly double. This was a tax that I wasn’t expecting, next time, I suppose I will be prepared(but in Africa, I am not sure you are ever prepared). We praise the Lord that $3,500 has already come in. We have had to stop construction also due to lack of funds. The second half of the building is ready to pour.  As you can see in a picture below: the iron is in place,  the wood is in place, the bricks are in place.  We will need to buy some more granite, a little bit more sand and 200 sacks of cement.  The only problem is that we don’t have it.  I know that is Gods timing we will.  We need about $4500 do finish this.  Thanks for everything that you have done, especially your prayers.  They are greatly appreciated.

Today we had the joy of celebrating Emily’s 5th birthday.  We are so thankful for the wonderful children God has blessed us with.  They love Africa and our church family here.  Even at her young age, Emily is curious about things of the Lord, although she does want to know if God will give out candy in heaven.  We pray earnestly for the salvation of all three of our children when they are old enough to understand.

I had a previous post about how kids eat a lollipop here in Burkina Faso. If you missed it, you can read it here, everybody gets a lick.

Rebecca’s aunt, Anne Land, read the post and said that she was going to send some lollipops, so that each kid could get their own lick. Well a few weeks ago we received them. We wanted to take pictures but our digital camera gave up the ghost. Just a few days ago I was thinking, I have an old digital camera. One from the dark ages, maybe Moses had it at the red sea. It is a 1.3 Mega pixels. That was only a few years ago, but it seems like longer since technology changes so quickly.  Anyhow, I am sending a few photos of the kids at Tingandogo. We gave them out at two different churches yesterday. They didn’t have to share for once but got their own. Aunt Anne, thanks.

I am awake at 4 a.m. Our power has been off and on for the last few days. Last night, it was off so I decided to go to bed at 9:00. I thought I would get a good nights sleep for once. Isaac woke me up at 3:30 and I can’t go back to sleep. Funny how that works. God has been so good to us lately. We have been challenging some of the young men to give their all to the Lord and they have been responding. We will be starting our Bible College in September. I am thrilled about that. I feel that we have a great group of men, women, young men and children at the church at Cissin.  God is preparing a group of people to do an amazing work.  Thanks so much for your faithfulness to pray for us.  We really need it.