The Shumaker Family's Blog

Stephen Knickerbocker has arrived.  He in the other young man that will work with us this summer.  He will stay for about one month.  He just finished his second year at Crown College.

I have known his family for a long time.  The night that I surrendered to preach the Word, his father Pete Knickerbocker preached.  They helped us when we were in language school.  They have been a blessing to us.  We sure are excited that Bro. Stephen is here to work and help us.  God will use him and Bro. Jason greatly.

I read this from John Maxwell. It is powerful.

“One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned is that the people closest to me determine my level of success or failure… The only places where my influence and productivity were growing was where I had identified potential leaders and developed them… Spending the time with them had been like investing. They had grown, and at the same time I had reaped incredible dividends.”

Mark 3:13-14 – And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach.

We had a wonderful day today. I suppose that I say that most Sundays, but that is the truth. I love church, love being with our people and I love preaching to them. We had a good crowd at Water of Life Baptist Church.

The walking ministry was a success. Bro. Jason and Mamadou brought about 20 kids. That is a wonderful start. I am sure that they could have had more but I really wanted them to get to know these kids and become their friends. They told me that their parents were very appreciative that they would walk and pick up their kids and bring them back after church. Some of their parents said they will come next week. We will see.

We had about 7 adult visitors also. God really moved during the message. My message had seven points, and I only finished one. I was teaching on eternal security. We had five professions of faith. Praise the Lord!

We also started a little competition among the youth. They are getting excited about it. They will receive points from faithfulness to the services, memory verses, reading their Bible each day and visitors. There are two in a group. We will have a winner among the young ladies and a winner among the young men. This is also Bro. Jason’s idea and he has agreed that we will take the winners out to eat at the American Rec. Center. This will be great. It is already heating up.

I have had another individual interested in supporting a young man in the Bible College. We now have two sponsors. This is such a help and a blessing.  As of right now, we will need support about 8 young men.  It could be more or a little less but I am not sure.

The brick mason will come on Tuesday.  He will pour the cement for the other half of the second floor.  I also heard that iron will go up 15% each month for the next 8 months. If that is true, that will be a struggle for us.  I will try to figure out how much iron we need to finish the building.  God has blessed so much and we are truly grateful.

Our greatest desire is to reach these wonderful people with the Gospel.  The building is only a tool to help but we know that having a beautiful building without the touch of God would be a disaster.   Please pray that God would move in our services and that sinners would be saved.

Last Wed.  night Bro. Jason preached for us.  He had a great message and two people made professions of faith.  He and Mamadou went out this morning to start our walking mininstry.  They have a good number of children that said they will come to church with them tommorrow.  We praise the Lord for a new ministry.

We would also like to start a bus ministry.  The problem is the cost of the bus.  I think for about $10,000 we can have a nice church bus.  The bus would be a blessing in so many different ways.

Bro. Jason has been doing great here.  He has already been a big help.  He asked me if he could leave a little early on Sunday morning and walk around and bring kids with him to church.  We have two young men, both whom want to be in the Bible College, finish a discipleship course last week.  So I thought, I would invite them for some pizza and coke, because they worked hard.

We were talking about evangelism and Jason told them about bus ministry.  They said that was good.  I told them, we don’t have any buses but we can do something similar.  On Saturday, we can visit and meet some kids.  Ask them if the want to come to church.  Then, tell them to be ready and we will meet them on Sunday morning in front of their house.  They will walk with us, as we pick up the rest of the kids.  Then we will walk to church.  We will learn their names and learn about them.  We will show them love and compassion and that we are interested in their life.  Most of the time, their parents don’t even have much interest in their lives.  We will try to became their friend and mentor.  After many weeks, we will hopefully be able to gain an open door with their parents because they see that we love their children.

Mamadou told me that was a great idea.  I asked him if he wanted to start with Jason this Saturday and he said sure.  Praise God for a willing young man and a new ministry.

That is kind of a funny title but we have tried to find the right quality and quantity of cement for the last two weeks.  It has been a little difficult but Praise the Lord.  I just received a call and  we have it now.  We hopefully will be ready to pour rest of the floor on the second floor this Friday.  We bought 200 sacks of cement.  The price has went up and up the last few weeks but we are glad to have it. The cement cost us $3,262 this morning.  Thanks for all of those who have prayed and given.

We had a great day yesterday.  As I stated, we gave all of the mothers a bar of soap.  They appreciated it very much.  They even got up in the evening service to thank me for honoring them and for the little gift.  We also gave out lotion to mother with the most children, the oldest mother and the mother with the youngest child.  We had 6 new visitors yesterday at Cissin and some at Tingandogo.  We are gearing up for father’s day.

We are still trying to find the right kind of cement.  Cement has become difficult to find as of late.

Jason Rishel has been a great blessing since arriving.  He is trying very hard in the language and he is also working hard.  We are blessed to have a wonderful young man here, that loves God and wants to be used.

Tomorrow is our Mothers day.  We will be giving each mother a bar of soap.  I know what you are thinking.  A bar of soap on mothers day.  A missionary, a few years back, gave each mother a flower on mothers day.  They got their flower and said what good does this do for us.  We can eat it, we can’t cook with it, it has no value.  I was told that soap has a value and they will love it.  Life sure is different.  Please pray that God will preach to the saved and to the lost.  I desire to see souls saved, lives changed and believers grow in their faith.

I looked at the date of my last blog and realized that I haven’t written lately.  We had good services Sunday.  We have had some new visitors lately and others are becoming more faithful.  We are making plans for the summer months.  We will have our first youth camp.  We will have VBS at different locations.  We are expecting God to do great things.  I am often reminded by what William Carey said, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”  That is what we are trying to do here.

God blessed with a gift ($1,500) to pour the rest of the flooring on the second floor.  I was also informed that this wonderful couple wants to support a student for one year.  Praise the Lord.  We are expecting that we will have about 7 or 8 students this fall.  God has provided in so many ways.

This morning at 3 A.M., a young man named Jason Rishel flew in.  He will be here for over 2 months.  He visited us in 2006 and feels that God has called him to Africa as a missionary.  He will be a big help this summer.  He just finished his freshman year at Crown College.