The Shumaker Family's Blog

This is a day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. I always loved that song in English and I have fallen in love with it in French. Sometimes people ask me what I do all day. That is a hard question to answer sometimes because my day varies from day to day, but I thought that I would give you a detailed description of today.

6:30- My alarm went off, and I had a quick time of devotions. ( I know that it shouldn’t be so quick but I made a promise to Emile that I would be at the clinic by 7:30 or so.)

7:15 – Salif and I left the house.

7:45- We arrived at a health clinic to visit Emile’s friend that has been sick for over a week. (Please pray for him. He is a Muslim and we are praying that God will open his heart). We talked with him and gave a love gift(money) from the church(really my pocket, but I like to say it is from the church).

8:30- We went to visit the little boy that I wrote about earlier(5 year old with a hernia). He had a successful surgery and we wanted to say hello. He was happy and his mother very grateful that we helped her son. While on my way I got a beep on my cell phone. “A Beep” is when somebody calls me and hangs up so I can use my dime to call them back. How thoughtful, huh? It is Pastor Zacharie that works with us. The masons need cement. Kind of hard to get it on the other side of town. My thought(Why didn’t they tell me this last night?) We are building out baptismal pool for our 1st Baptism at Cissin. We should have about 20 to baptize on Sunday.

9:30- Another call from pastor Zacharie. We are on our way home. They need some plumbing equipment for the Baptismal pool.

9:45- Go to that land to give the pluming supplies and the iron workers tell me that they need more cement but not just any cement, cement from Togo(it is supposed to be better but who knows). Again I think, “Why didn’t they tell me this last night?” Togo cement can be harder to find sometimes.

10:00- I arrive at home. I told my wife I would be home at 10:00 so she can take the car to go grocery shopping, but the problem is I still haven’t finished my visits. This is par for the course. She told me that she never expects me home when I say, something always comes up. I get Emile setup for work, as he is translating things from English in French for me.

10:30- We arrive at a widow’s house who has been very faithful to our church for 2 and half years. She wanted me to pray for her. She is having a hard time because her work isn’t going well. She cooks food and sells it, but she is struggling. She owes a shop owner $10 for rice but doesn’t have the money to pay it back. We pray for her and I help her with $14. She has never asked before and is very appreciative. Her friend wants prayer too. The friend tells me that she has bad spirits that bother her and she wants me to get rid of them. Interesting, huh? I tell her that I can pray for her, but it won’t really do any good until she knows Jesus. After 20 min of explaining she trusts Christ. Praise the Lord.

11:00- I have to talk to our church guard. After almost every church service at Tingandogo, somebody asks me for something. After months and months of this I find out that our church guard has been telling everybody in the neighborhood, if you have a problem just come and see the missionary, he can regulate it. Interesting, huh?

11:55 Only 1 hour and 55 min late I arrive home so my wife can go shopping. I decide that I will go with her so it will be quicker, and I will take her out to eat. While having an enjoyable meal together I get another beep, but this is from my day guard. Yes we do have a day and night guard at the house. Somebody asked me why one time. If you want to be robbed and lose everything don’t have a guard. Simple, right? I had in my mind that I wouldn’t answer my phone because I wanted to spend time with my wife, but this is my guard at the house, and my kids are there with the baby sitter so I think, maybe there is a problem. Oh, its Pastor Zachary again. He called on Simon’s phone because he was at my house looking for me. They can’t put the steps in the baptismal pool the way I asked because they put the pipe in the wrong place. Oh well, I will go find a solution in an hour.

2:30 – I get home and unload the car. I get ready to go and play tennis. I know that is carnal but I need the exercise. Before playing at 4:00 I need to go by the church and handle the stair problem. I find a solution and play tennis.

7:00- I get home, eat, play with the kids and check e-mails.

10:15- I start writing this blog.

11:00- Heat some water for Salif, my night guard, he loves coffee to stay awake. I tell him that I am proud of him. He did great with our visits this morning. He did a lot of the talking. If you would have known Salif 3 years before, you would have never thought he would be this bold and out going for Jesus. It is amazing what God can do.

That is a day. I can’t say it’s typical because tomorrow will be nothing like today. That is the great life of a missionary. I couldn’t imagine myself having to do the same job each day. That might not be bad for others, but I would struggle. I could have added more but I didn’t want to write too much as I am sure I already have. God has been good to me today as He is everyday. This is a day that the Lord has made and I will certainly rejoice because I know Him!

I normally would have had some type of Bible Study with at least one person but today it didn’t work out.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 10:58 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.