The Shumaker Family's Blog

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.

We have some of the best experiences in Africa. This morning before church got started, I was talking to some of the members. Isaac came up to me with sucker in his mouth. Then one of the African girls came up to me and told me that the sucker was hers. I am not totally sure but the African tradition is when one kid has a lollipop it is necessary to share licks with all the other kids. Yes, that is right. A sucker is a precious commodity. When one kid gets one, they pass it around and every kid gets a lick. I think that Isaac was given a lick but decided that he didn’t want to pass it on. I know what most of you are thinking, “How could you let your kid suck a sucker after 10 African kids have already?” We have learned that:

#1 – It is inevitable, you either lock your kids in the house or they are going to take a lick.  We don’t push it or tell them to do it, but you can’t stop it.

#2 – If you are a germ freak, don’t come here.

#3 – If you want to fit in, take a lick.

#4 – If you want a good immune system, come live with us, we will help you build one.

Seriously, to be a missionary in a third world country, sometimes you have to accept things that aren’t normal. Well, it is normal for them(Africans) but not normal for us(Americans). The Apostle Paul said that he would become all things to all men. So don’t worry, just take a lick.

The other night I visited with Bro. Zacharie, my assistant pastor. We try to visit new members or new visitors on Monday night. We visited one of the women of the church. She has been a blessing for months and has been very faithful. Her husband is dead.

She shared with us the story of her life. She grew up in a Muslim family. One brother and her began going to church. Her brother, after a short time, began being persecuted. He soon went back to the Muslim faith. She told us that after she saw the truth there was no way that she could go back. Her testimony of endurance really encouraged my heart.  She has been faithful the Lord Jesus Christ for many years now and we are glad that she is in our church.

I wanted to give an update on Salie, as I know many of you have prayed for her. She is doing quite well. It is always a blessing to see her face at church. She told us that she wanted to be baptized a few weeks back.

The Lord willing we will be baptizing on the 27th of this month at Cissin. We will have our Celebration Day. We will have our one year anniversary at this church. We will be having Pastor Austin Gardner visiting for us these days.  We will actually start a revival meeting the 24th.  Bro. Gardner was a missionary in Peru, South America for many years and is now a pastor on the outskirts of Atlanta.  You can check out his website at www.visionbaptist.com or his blog at www.visionbaptist.com/blog

We are really interested in having people come and visit Burkina Faso and the work that God is doing here.  We will be having a group trip, that will last about 2 weeks.  Bro. Dean Hamby and his wife Karen will come with the group.  Bro. Hamby is assistant director of Macedonia World Baptist Missions.

We will also have an internship for 6 weeks.  This is mostly for college students.   All of this will happen this summer.  We don’t want groups that are to big, so they will be limited.  If you are interested, please let me know as soon as possible.

We actually have some other people coming throughout the year.  Whenever you are interested, we are ready to have you.  Please let me know.

Twice a month we have youth meeting.  I decided to have it at the house, tonight.  We had a great time.  I feel that we are starting to make headway with them.  I truly believe that they are future.

God gave us a great trip to Roungou.  We showed a film last night and had over 300, in spite of the cold.  It gets cold for two months here.  I know, the 60’s at night doesn’t sound cold but when you are used to 9 months of over 100 degree temp. and sometimes up to 120, 60 degrees can be cold.  This morning we had over 250 for our service.  We had kids coming from everywhere.  We must have had about 200 kids.  God has been good to us.  I only wish we could be more faithful and more frequent to this work at Roungou.