The Shumaker Family's Blog

As I have stated, my father-in-law is here with us. Bro. Land and a few of us went to our village work in Roungou last Friday. We sometimes go on Friday to be able to have a night teaching and a Saturday morning teaching. I used to sleep under the stars, but we slept in the church this time. The trip went great and we are really beginning to see who is serious. Our crowd has actually went down since our building was completed. I would have thought that I would have been terribly disappointed by that, but we are seeing who are the really faithful ones. This is necessary for us to be able to train them for the different aspects of ministry.

The highlight of my trip was a story that came from Vieux. Vieux, which means “old man” in French, is a huge blessing to us. By the way, here in Africa it is a honor to call a man an old man. It is not disrespectful. He is a car mechanic and also a chauffeur. When we arrived in Burkina Faso I was introduced to Vieux, and he asked us to go to his village. He told me that he had asked missionary after missionary but they all said it was too far or they were too busy. He told me that he knew Jesus but he doesn’t know how to read or preach and has a desire for his family to hear the truth. I felt burdened to at least go and preach to them, so this is how the work in Roungou began. We have been there a little over two years, and God has blessed. We have baptized close to 50 and seen many saved. I really think that this work will grow and be used to reach many of the surrounding villages.

While we were approaching the village I asked Vieux, “What made you leave the village, when most people never did?” He told me that when he first saw a bike he wanted one for himself. So he decided the only way to get a bike would be to leave the village, find a job, buy the bike and then come back to the village. Vieux left the village and arrived at the first town and didn’t find work, so he came to Ouagadougou. He found work but most importantly he found God or should I say that God found him. He trusted Jesus in 1982. He moved around a lot, but in Dec of 2004 I met him. That is when he asked me to come to start the work in his village. This came to pass all because of a bike. Thank God for a desire to have a bike.

Below is a picture of Tim Land and Vieux.  This was taken in the village and where Vieuxs family lives.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 3:01 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.