The Shumaker Family's Blog

I know this picture isn’t clear but we took it at night. My dad took it a few weeks ago.  Do you know wheres Waldo?  Well can you find the missionary.  I know it is hard.

I wanted to try and give a quick review of what God did here in Burkina Faso in 2007.

* We started a new church in January in the capital Ouagadougou, in a section called Cissin.

* The first night we had 15 people make professions in Christ, most coming from one family, and they are still faithful members.

*In April, the members at Cissin began digging the foundation for our church builiding/classrooms for Sunday school and also our Bible Institute. We dug for over a month. We have built little by little. We will begin to use some of the building in a few weeks. Many different people have donated, and we are very appreciative. We have never attempted to build a building of this caliber, and we know it will be greatly used of the Lord.

* We built a church for the village work of Roungou. The people did a lot of the work. We had a church dedication with over 300 present. I think we baptized 18 the same day. We had David Lundy and David Velke with us during this time as well. They also helped do a VBS and had over 300 one day with about 200 the next day.

* In September, we baptized over 20 new converts at Cissin. We had our biggest crowd at this church with over 120 present.

* In October we hosted a pastors conference and helped start new work. We had over 70 pastors from all over West Africa. We helped start a new church in Ouagadougou. We are glad to be able to help others start new church plants.

* We had our first missions conference in Nov. We had a faith promise of over $90 a month.

* We had Christmas Eve services at our three churches. We had great crowds. We had over 70 at Tingandogo, over 80 at Cissin, and over 500 in the village (Roungou).

* Our last Sunday at Cissin, the main work in town, we had over 100 present. In less than one year we average over 80. In addition to the normal services we have three times a week, we have many other things going. On Tuesday nights, we have Bible Study and discipleship classes. French language classes are held two times each week. Twice a month we have ladies meetings. Twice a month we have youth meetings. My wife recently started a teenage girls/young ladies meeting. God has truly helped us.

There is no way to list everything without writing a book and I know that I forgot to mention a lot, but God really blessed, and we are expecting more blessings as we work for Him. “Attempt great things for God, Expect great things from God.”

We want to wish all of you a Happy New Year.  God greatly blessed 2007.  I have asked Him to do more through us in 2008.  We have great plans for this year.  May God richly bless you this new year.

We had great services today.  At Tingandogo, we had one man from Togo accept Jesus.  He was very religious but he told me that he saw his need to accept Jesus.  At Cissin we had another man accept Christ.  He is from one of the most faithful families in our church but he has never came to church before.  He finally came today and got saved.    We also had over 100 at Cissin today.  Besides the day of our first baptism, this was the highest day.

The other day, I took my parents to a wildlife game park to see some animals.  We were able to see lots of animals but I took one picture from the car and thought you would like to see it.  It was of a Mama elephant charging our car, trying to protect her young.  She was no more than 10 yards from the car.  It was wonderful and amazing.

I was feeling much better today up until about 5:00 p.m.  I was planning on going to church.  I am not sure when the last time I missed church but I stayed home tonight.  The fever came back tonight.  Thanks for your prayers, I need them.  Please pray for my wife.  She has a very, very hard time when I am sick.

A few days ago, I took my parents to Bado’s(faithful member of our church) village. Bado started an organization in 2002 to help kids with school, whether it be by helping pay for their school or for school supplies. I began to help Mr. Bado in 2005 with his project. My mom has helped greatly with this project. You can read about it at http://www.theharvest.net/Give-a-Child-a-Chance.php

We have helped the past two years in Bado’s village. I wanted my parents to see the village school and the work that we are doing. What we experienced was quite amazing. We saw classrooms with 99 students in the class. My mother couldn’t believe what she saw.

They really honored my parents. They gave them gifts and clothes. They also prepared a meal fit for a king.

After being at the school we went to Bado’s house. Bado has been a great friend and is very vital to the minsitry here. He helps me with governmental paperwork, getting land, etc. His father wanted to meet my father. Sometimes they will give a special gift to visitors(one chicken, maybe two at most). The father gave my dad three chickens, lots of cabbage and a sheep.

They put the sheep on top of the car. My dad asked me what we were going to do with the sheep. He didn’t think that the sheep could ride for two hours on top of the car and live to see tommorrow. Well he did live and we now have a pet sheep. Not really, I don’t normally eat my pets. He will make a good meal in a few days.  My parents said that was an overwhelming day.  They truly honored my parents, which really  blessed me.  By honoring my parents they showed their love for my family.  The work is moving on.

Last night, we had Christmas Eve services in all three of our churches.  There was no way that I could be at all of them but we did manage to go personally two of them that were in town.  We started our service at Tingandogo at 6:00 and went to about 8:15.  God really blessed and we had over 70 present.

Then we had service at Cissin.  We started at 9:00 and went past Midnight.  They love long services on Christmas Eve.  We had a lot of special singing, read the Christmas story, I preached, we ate and then we watched a Biblical Film together.  The greatest thing that happened is that we had three put their faith in Jesus. We had over 80 present.

I sent two young men to Roungo.  This village is about 2 hours away and wasn’t possible for us to go.  Salif came back this morning and said that they had a tremendous service.   He counted 215 Adults and said that many other adults were outside.  He said they had many more children than they did adults.  He must of had way more that 500.  He told me that God really blessed.  It is great to see some of the young men excited about the work and willing to offer their services to travel on Christmas.  I know that they wanted to be here in town but I think they got a greater blessing in the village.

I wanted to write and wish you all a Merry Christmas.  God has really blessed us here in Africa and I couldn’t think of any other place to be.  I did get a great Christmas present about 10:00 this morning.  I was putting a toy together for Emily and Meredith and started feeling bad.  Headache, leg aches, fever, etc.  I think that Malaria has started again.  I broke the fever but it has come back tonight.  Thanks for your love, prayers and support.  We love you all.

We have been out of town and when we got back the internet hasn’t worked for a few days. Yesterday, we our seventh anniversary. I praise God for the wonderful and beautiful help meet that He has given me. We have throughly enjoyed the last seven years and look forward to many more years ahead, serving the Lord together. God couldn’t have given me a better wife.