The Shumaker Family's Blog

I have been out of town for over a week.  We (my whole family) traveled to Ghana for a conference.  We had a wonderful trip.  I preached for Missionary Stephen Volonte.  He has done a great job.  We had about 250 adults present.  I am not sure how many kids they had.  We had 6 or 7 decisions for Christ.  It was a great day.  Then I preached in another church Sunday night.  Again God blessed.  We had a wonderful conference where I was used by God and where I was also blessed by the preaching.

I know that God could do His work without me, but I sure am glad that He is doing His work through me.  What a wonderful God we serve.  The very God of heaven, wants to use my life and also your life.   I am greatly privileged.

Pastor Austin Gardner has been with us since Saturday morning.  He has preached Sat. night through tonight(Monday).  He has been a great blessing to our church.  He taught four hours this morning and tomorrow he will teach 2 more.  He has greatly challenged me.  It is a blessing to have a wonderful brother in Christ that will come and help the ministry to grow.  He is a wonderful man of God.

Sunday morning, we had 6 profession of faith at Water of Life Baptist Church.  Salif is the first missionary directly sent out of Water of Life Baptist Church.  He is going each week faithfully to Roungou.  He told us Sunday night that an elderly woman got saved.  I couldn’t help but to praise God because of this.  There is the possibility that she wouldn’t have gotten saved if our church didn’t send Salif to go and preach the Word of God.  Amen!

I had the opportunity to preach and another church this morning.  It is a church that we are helping due to some problems.  We will probably send somebody over there in a few weeks to help them.  God gave us great liberty as I preached the Word of God.

I got some wonderful news about the service at Water of Life Baptist Church.  A young man named Mamadou preached.  He is growing and is a wonderful young man.  He is being used and will do great things for God.  Four people accepted Jesus this morning.  Last night, another young man preached and did an amazing job.  I am thinking about the possibilty of staring a new work and letting Konate and another young man start that.  The ministry is growing by leaps and bounds and I know that it is God that is doing it.  Please continue to pray for us.

Maybe dogs and cats get along better than most Baptists do.  Just kidding but I really did want to share this photo of my dog and cat.

I knew that the American economy was in trouble but when the president had to open up his own hair cutting place, it is really bad.

Thanks so much for your prayers for Celebration Day.  It was absolutely wild, but it was amazing.  Last year we had about 300 for this special day,  and I thought we would have just a few more than last year.  Our people really worked in getting people to the service.  We had well over 500 present.  There were 300 children and more than 200 adults.  To be honest, it was a little difficult with all of the children, but God blessed in spite of the noise.  The youth acted out the story of the prodigal son.  They broke it up into 5 different segments.  I preached in between each segment.  It was wonderful.  We had 10 people come forward for salvation.

We invited everybody to return that night, and we had about 130.  I gave the invitation and tons of children and teens raised their hands.  I told them that if they were serious to stay after the service.  Some left, but about 25 stayed and accepted Jesus.  What an amazing day.  I am so proud  of our people.  They worked hard, and God blessed.  I don’t know what else to say but PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to talk just  a little about celebration day but first I wanted to thank the Lord for the two salvation decisions that were made last Sunday.  These were some teenagers that have been coming for awhile but never had trusted Christ.  I was thrilled by their decisions.  One of them is about 14 and his name is Andre.  I really expect God to use his life in a great way in the future.

We will be having our celebration day this Sunday.  It is our 2nd anniversary at Water of Life Baptist Church.  Last year, we had over 300.  This year, we are expecting more.  Please pray, as we will have tons of visitors and I know that many of them will be lost.  We need God to move.  We want God to move.  I know I can’t do it.  He must!  He can!!!  Pray that God would move me aside and that He would preach.

Yesterday, we went to Roungou.  My in-laws are here with us right now.  So Bro. Tim Land went with us.  Normally, we go on a Friday night or a Sat. morning but today we had our first Sunday morning service in this village.  God blessed.

I have talked about Salif many times in the past.  He will be going to the village and leading the church.  It is exciting when the young men that you are training begin to hit home runs.  The people love Salif and he loves them.  I told Salif that it was up to him to take the church to a new level.  He is a great young man.

I tried sleeping under the stars last night but it got cold about midnight.  So I chickened out and slept in the church building.  I was broken last night thinking about the thousands villages that need a Gospel preaching church here in West Africa.

Since coming to Burkina Faso, I enjoy our Christmas Eve services more than any other.  We usually have a bunch of songs, specials, the youth do a play and preaching.  I don’t mean to brag(actually I do)  but our youth are amazing.  They put together a play about the birth of Jesus.  It was absolutly amazing.  I have seen big churches who couldn’t even come close to what they accomplished.  I wish I had a video of it.  We had a wonderful time together.  I woke up at 5:30 AM and didn’t get to bed until 3:30 AM on the 25th.

I got my Christmas present a day late but none the less, malaria struck the 26th.  Last year it was on the 25th.  I suppose the long tiring day of the 24th provokes it, but it was worth it.

It is with great joy that I get to announce that Caleb was born into this world.  He was taken by C-section on Saturday night due to the cord being wrapped around his neck twice.  Rebecca and Caleb are both doing fine.  He weighed in at 7’11.

Emily was born in Togo.

Meredith was born in Ivory Coast.

Isaac was born in America.

Caleb was born in Burkina Faso.

Is that wild or what?  Here is a picture: