The Shumaker Family's Blog

Today, I finally finished my message on eternal security. It was supposed to be one message but took three Sundays to preach it. It has been 13 years since I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, and salvation seems to get better every day. Some people said that my fire, love and excitement would die, but it has been the contrary; it has only grown. I guess when you dig into the Word and realize what we deserve and what Jesus did for us, it is utterly amazing.

Tonight, Bro. Stephen preached for us. He did a wonderful job. It is hard to believe that his last service at our church was tonight. He will preach and teach at our camp, but he will fly out on Wed. The people clapped for him and are very grateful for all that he has done here. Anything that we asked, he did to the fullest. He didn’t come just for a cool experience or for a tourist trip but to be used of God, and he was. We would be thrilled if God called him here, to work with us in Burkina Faso.

Please pray for our youth camp. We will have about 30-35 of us going to a camp tomorrow. We will start Monday evening and finish Thursday morning. God has allowed us to put together a good schedule. I believe that this camp can change our ministry and the course of the work in Burkina. Would you please say a special prayer for us? We need and want God to work. Pray that God would move, convict and call.

We held a VBS last week.  We did it Thursday night and Friday morning.  God really blessed.  We had about 175 or so on Thursday and over 200 on Friday.  Bro. Jason and Bro. Stephen did a great job teaching and some of our young men did a puppet show and helped with the skits.  I always get picked to play Goliath (I am not sure why).

Bro. Stephen climbed in a tree to take this picture:

If you ever want to come over for a trip, we will put you to work:

That is what I call slave labor. Actually, we started digging a ditch on one of our properties. The Africans sometimes think we are weird because we, Americans, like to have a sense of accomplishment. When visitors come, they want to go back home and say that they accomplished something, and if it is physical labor, that is o.k. We have dug on two separate occasions. This will be the foundation for the wall on one of our properties. Stephen and Jason really seemed to enjoy themselves.

We are hoping to start a kids club at this location in the near future. Then when God gives us a young man, we will start the church.

The Lord really blessed this morning. I preached on Eternal Security. God really moved.

We haven’t been having good numbers at Tingandogo. A few months ago, two women got in a spat cooking the Easter meal. I’m not sure who, I guess everybody, thought it was best to cover it up and not tell the pastor (me). They were afraid that I would never let them cook another meal. Anyhow, a few weeks back, on Thursday night service, tempers broke out. Since that time we have very few women left. I have tried to visit them to resolve the problem but for the moment, I’ve had no success.

The church at Cissin had a great day. We had 136 present. That is one of our highest numbers and the highest non-special day. The walking ministry is a great success. We had many children present, one of whom accepted the Lord as Saviour. God blessed the adult service as well. We had four come forward for salvation. One of them came last week, so I think he is a little confused.

We have been blessed lately in the ministry. We had about 66 adults and 44 children at Cissin. We have been steadily around 100 or more for a few months now. I am seeing a big change in some of our members.

Stephen preached yesterday morning and did a great job. He talked about being and staying in the presence of God and how all of this must come from a desire within. How true this is. We all have a desire for something or should I say, we all have a passion for something. We need to have a revival where men become passionate for God and not self. We had one profession of faith in the morning also.

I have been having a wonderful time with  Bro. Stephen and Bro. Jason. They have both been a blessing. It is rare to have young men that have a passion for God and His work and not for themselves and their work.

We went last Friday to our village work, Roungou. This village is about 2 hours from Ouagadougou. We wanted to have a mini VBS for the children. Bro. Stephen taught on Friday night and Bro. Jason taught on Sat. morning. We had well over 100 and probably close to 150 present. We slept under the stars Friday night also. That is always a treat and our kids enjoyed it. Meredith said that she woves(loves) to go to the billage(village).

Below: Some of the people had already went home but most of them are there.

I wrote about the elephant chasing us in an earlier blog. Stephen took this picture right before he got chased back into the observatory. What a great experience.

I told Stephen that elephants have really harmed and killed people. He came back to the house and read on-line about some elephant horror stories. He told me that he wouldn’t have been so close if he knew about that. Anyhow, he will never forget about his amazing experience.

On Monday night, we started English classes.  The goal is not to teach English (even though we are doing are best at it) but to bring many in and have an opportunity to preach to them.  Monday night was great.  We had two classes, an advanced class and a beginners class.  We had more than 70 present and over 50 of the students where not church members.  Bro. Jason and Bro. Stephen taught the two classes and did a tremendous job.

Tuesday night was also good.   We had many new visitors for the class.  We did the class for only an hour last night and then we started an English church service.  We had over 80 stay for the church service.  We had a few people raise their hands for salvation but they didn’t stay after to talk to us.  It was wonderful that the Gospel was preached to so many people that normally wouldn’t have come to church.

We were able to finish all of the second floor flooring on Wednesday. That was a huge accomplishment. Thanks again for all who have helped. It looks really good.
I am sorry that I didn’t write sooner, but we took our visitors to a wildlife park, for a day and a half. We got chased by some elephants. Mama Elephants are trying to protect their young and get mad. It is a rush. They charge the car. Our guide told me that Americans aren’t happy just to see an elephant, but they want to make them mad and get charged. That’s about right. When I got done paying for our stay, I went to get my family and our visitors. They were at a lookout. They were watching two big male elephants in the water. As I was walking to them and about at the lookout, I saw a big gray spot through the trees. I thought to myself, “I don’t remember a bolder being there.” Well I was right. It was an elephant. He was at the door of the lookout. I saw Bro. Jason and Bro. Stephen run back to the lookout. Then I told a worker next to me what was going on. He said, “Oh thats not good.” Well the elephant decided to chase us away. I ran to my room as he approached. He came and ate from a tree that was right next to my room (I think the tree touched our room even. ) I was only about 2-3 yards from him. Well, he decided to leave. Missionary life sure is boring.

On a personal note, Meredith celebrated her fourth birthday last month, although she still doesn’t have the hair to show for it.  She is a joy to our lives,  and she definitely knows how to laugh and play and live life to the fullest.  Please pray with us that God will save her and use her to do great things for Him.  She already loves to help us hand out tracts. Last week she insisted on taking one to preschool for her teacher and the helper in her classroom.