The Shumaker Family's Blog

This is a video from yesterday. Bro. Austin Gardner is preaching in English, I am translating in French and my assistant pastor is translating in Moore.

This other video is a baptism:

God did much more than we asked. He is good! Our church has been working hard. We have given out over 4,000 invitations in the last few weeks. We had no idea how many people would actually come but I was praying that we would at least have 200. The people started coming and I knew that we would easily reach our goal. We had more than 300 people. It was an amazing site. We also had eight men trust Jesus Christ. We baptized 7 people. Bro. Austin Gardner preached an amazing message. Our people really stepped up to the plate. They came together and got the job done. I was and am so proud of them.

Last night, we had 65. We were again challenged by the Word of God. The altar was full of people after the message. Bro. John Pearson and Bro. Austin Gardner have been a blessing. They have loved my people, they have encouraged my people, they have eaten their food(and liked it), they have laughed with my people and because of all of that, I am very grateful.

This picture was taken at the beginning of the service. If was much fuller.

Bro. John Pearson did a tremendous job with the devotion. Pastor Austin Gardner did a wonderful job preaching. I don’t know the words to sufficiently describe what God did tonight. He really moved in the hearts and lives of our people. We had three professions of faith. We also had about 30 come forward to pray during the invitation. God really did a great work. I don’t believe our church will be the same after this meeting.

Bro. Austin really challenged me today or should I say that he really put me in the hot seat. Everything that he said was absolutely true. I felt overwhelmed and really didn’t know what to do. I was thinking that I can’t do this work. There is no way that I can really accomplish what needs to be done. While translating, I was touched and challenged. It’s tough to translate when God is putting a dagger in your heart. God said, “Hey big boy, you can’t do the work, don’t worry, I will do the work through you.” It’s not an easy work. Some people think that missionaries are missionaries because they can’t pastor in America. I don’t feel that is true at all. Actually the work here is more challenging in many ways, but in my opinion, it’s more rewarding. Fruit doesn’t come because it’s easy; it comes because of hard work. I have been greatly challenged and I am praying that I will never be the same again.

God really blessed tonight in the service. Bro. John Pearson gave about 10 min. on how God wants everybody involved in the work of God, not just preachers, pastors and missionaries. Check out his blog at http://bcwe.wordpress.com/

My daughter Emily didn’t enjoy his message too well though. While he was talking she told Rebecca that she was sick. As Rebecca was trying to take her out of the building, she threw up, right in front of the pulpit .

Bro. Austin Gardner brought a great message about our need to turn the world upside down. Our church was really challenged. We had about 65 at the service tonight. God really blessed, and we are expecting great things tomorrow night.

We had many people come forward during the invitation. I really believe that God is going to do great things in our church because of this week.

Pastor Austin Gardner and Bro. John Pearson arrived at 2:30 this morning.  The church people came together to clean up our building.  We are preparing for our services tonight.  Please pray for our services.  I will give you an update after the services.

This past Sunday God blessed. We had three people make professions in Christ. We had a number of new visitors on Sunday. One of the new visitors introduced himself. We had all new visitors introduce themselves, tell where they live and who invited them. This man wasn’t really clear where he was from and the name he gave of who invited him was someone none of us has ever heard of. After the offering he asked somebody where the bathroom was. He left and never come back. We never thought anything of it until a young lady in our church went out to get her bike, and you guessed it, it wasn’t there. This man stole the bike while we were in services. I was shocked that this happened in broad daylight and not at night but I guess a thief doesn’t really care, as long as he can get away with it.  Losing a bike to us might not be much but to the people here it is almost like getting our car stolen.  The young lady was shaken up as it wasn’t her bike but we decided it would be best to replace it for her.

Pastor Austin Gardner and Bro. John Pearson will be with us for a few days. They will arrive on Thursday morning at 2:30 in the morning. I have really been looking forward to having them with us. Bro. Austin has great experience in missions, as he was a missionary for about 20 years.  He is going to put me in the hot seat, (some of you understand that well) but I need it.  He will help me lots with his wisdom and experience.

We will also be starting a revival/conference Thursday thru Sunday.  We are fasting as a church.  We have grown, and we are going forward but there is so much to be done.  I want more.  I want God to take control, and I want to see His presence and His power on our church and in our services.  I want to see God save hundreds or should I say thousands in the next few years.  I want to see God call young people in the ministry.  I want to see familes that are normal (that would take a book to write about that) and want to serve God together.  I want to see people that love God and want to live above sin.   I feel that this conference can be a step in the right direction.  Please pray for God’s touch.

I almost forgot.  Sunday will be our celebration day.  We are wanting to celebrate our 1 year anniversary at Cissin.  We have passed out about 3000 invitations already.  Our goal is to have over 200 on this day.

We have been working on construction since last week.  It is amazing how God has provided.  We have already crossed the mountain and we are now on the down hill slide.  Here are a few pictures so that you can see the progress:

I had another funny story for you but I haven’t had time to write it. Sunday morning, I finished the invitation and I asked my translator to pray for us. As I began to bow my head, I glanced over at my wife who was finishing up teaching the children. I noticed a little kid, about two years old, who was holding his shorts. He was standing behind my wife a few feet. I was thinking, surly he isn’t going to do what I think he is going to do. Sure enough, he pulled his pants down and preceded to pee on the concrete slab. While he was peeing, I heard my wife talking about a river. Can’t get much better than that! I had to tell my translator after the service what had happened so that he didn’t think I was laughing at him. It actually was his grandchild who did this.

After service I told my wife what happened, I thought she didn’t see it as her back was to this kid. Here’s her version of the story: “Sometimes when I’m teaching, illustrations come to me on the spot. I was explaining that since the fall of man, we have been separated from God. Right next to where the children and I were meeting in the unfinished part of the new building was a slight gap in the floor. I had the bright idea to have them imagine that this was something we needed to cross like, say, a river. Right as I began to turn to point to this section, I noticed the boy right there up front with me about to go potty African style so I tried to walk away from him before I gave my illustration. For the life of me, I still couldn’t think of another illustration in French. I mean, you can’t just talk about a river when someone is behind you urinating. It kind of takes away from the seriousness of the point you are trying to make. Crevice, canyon, any word like that would have worked, any of you who have ever tried to talk in a secondary language, you know that sometimes the words you need just won’t come to you! I kept a straight face and went on about my lesson thinking no one would notice. The kids here, after all are used to this type of thing. It’s a good thing I didn’t know that my husband was peeking outside and snickering at us or I surely would have lost it.”

Jille, I know that sounds like a girls name, but it isn’t. Jille has been coming to our church for a long time now. I thought that Jille was the son of one of our faithful members because he is always at church. About a month ago, I realized that Jille wasn’t a child of our members but an orphan. If I understand the story right, Jille’s mother left him and his father. After his mother left, his father basically left him on the streets. He was left without a home and a family. He was taken in by an orphanage that is about a 1/2 mile from the church. When I realized this, I began to take more of an interest in him and show him some love.

He invited two other orphans on Christmas Eve and they both got saved. This month, he has brought two others that have trusted Jesus. He is 13 or 14. He has a great attitude and doesn’t miss anything we are doing. I have been to visit their home. I really want to show these boys that somebody does love them. I even gave Jille a job at church the other day. You might not think counting the attendance at church is something special, but don’t tell Jille, he was excited.