Weekend Ministry

Weekdays are pretty full for Lois and I working at Sahel Academy; however, sometimes the weekends are also full with rich and rewarding ministry. For example, last update we wrote about a village that had been devastated by the recent flooding. Two hundred families were rendered homeless and without food. With some relief funds that were donated to our mission we were able to show the love of Christ by supplying each needy family with an arm load of food.

Recently I went along to help on one of the Sahel Academy outreaches over a weekend. We took the students out to a village to assist missionaries with a project. Some friends of ours are helping Christian families who live in outlying villages and have no opportunity to educate their children.  We took 10 Sahel students out there to paint the dorm just before school started. The days were filled with painting and a soccer game with the local children. They also had a game night with the Christian youth group who had never played games like Twister. On Sunday we went out and sang at the Baneira church that is close by. It is great for these kids to rub shoulders with people who may be very poor but are rich in faith.

The next weekend I went out to the Baneira church to help with a baptism. This is the church we have spoken of before that was started by an African believer from one of our local mission churches. He was concerned for his village and rode his bike out each weekend. Today over 90% of the village of Baneira professes Christ. They are also reaching out to nearby villages and planting churches there. This work is not done by missionaries; they don?t even have pastors, just believers who are doing what the Bible says. One of their church plants is growing very fast. We believe that it is due to the fact that they have prayer meeting four evenings a week. Our mission helps out when we can, but they are doing so well that we don?t want to spoil it. We did recently help to build a church building in Baneira that is now overflowing each Sunday. One Sunday a month an EBM missionary teaches at the Baneira church. We were asked to help with the baptism of over 69 new converts last year. This year we baptized 46 in the muddy waters near the village. I might add that four of the lay leaders have expressed interest in attending a Bible school in nearby Burkino Faso. We are looking into ways to help fund the education of these future pastors.

Please continue to pray for the staff needs here at Sahel Academy. We believe God will provide, by I admit we\’re beginning to wonder who is going to teach Math next semester. Our current Math teacher is leaving in December. If you are interesting in working with MKs and TCKs in this way, check out the school website at www.sahelacademy.com for more information.

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