Nine Month News

"How long have you been in Burkina?" A new friend asked me today after I just met her. I quickly did the math and realized that today, the 16th of September, marked a special day.

"Nine months today!" I exclaimed. 

In honor of nine months in Burkina Faso, I want to write a special tribute to a God who is doing amazing things over here. Normally, I use this blog to write a little story or personal anecdote, but God has been up to some big things in the past few weeks, and today I can hardly contain my excitement to share with you a much larger picture. 

I think most of you who read my blog know me personally. You keep in touch with me. You support me. You pray for me. Therefore, I tell you these things to invite you to pray even more, support even more, keep in touch even more, and glorify God with me as he builds his kingdom in Burkina Faso. 

Around two years ago, our team received a gift of a piece of land up on a hill overlooking our city. This land was intended to be used for ministry purposes, so for the last two years we have been dreaming. Dreaming and praying. Dreaming big and praying even bigger.

It will literally be like a city on a hill. A church will be right in the center. Leading up to the church will be three gardens, the same three gardens mentioned in the Bible: the garden of Eden representing perfection and the fall of man, the garden of Gethsemene representing Jesus's atoning sacrifice and our salvation, and the garden in Revelation representing resurrection and eternity in heaven with God. As people come up to the center on the hill, they will first walk through these gardens, representing the spiritual experience that each person will encounter on the property. They will arrive first to the church, the center of our mission, and then they will find our ministries spreading out around the church: a center for infants in distress, a medical clinic, an office for water projects that will bring clean water and Living Water to every village in our area, a training center for church leaders. Out of the center of the church come these ministries, which supports the motto of our church movement: "saved to serve". 

Sometimes you dream so long that you don't know if your dreams will ever come true. You just accept that things take longer in Africa. And so you gather and pray once a week on top of this empty hilltop and imagine what it will look like one day as a bustling center of ministry. But until then, you keep praying and waiting. 

This has been our story until these past few weeks when suddenly these dreams that we have been dreaming for so long have started to come to reality. The things that we have needed most - extra people and extra money - have come at just the right time. We have people who are interested in coming, some long-term and some short-term. We have people who are interested in investing, some large amounts and some small amounts. And the timing is incredible because we haven't even officially started a financial campaign, but we have almost all the money that we need. When Geoffrey called me yesterday, he informed me that we might break ground in January, 2016.

We haven't even started to ask people for any of this. But we have been asking from God since this dream started over two years ago. That's why the timing is perfect. That's why we know all this is from God. He's the only one who even knew we asked. 

I got into bed two nights ago with my earphones in. I was sharing a room with Suzanne, and I heard her call my name. I knew it was important for her to interrupt my going to sleep. "I have to read you this email I just got!" She continued to explain that someone just offered to provide a matching gift for our center up on the hill, and he was even in the process of looking for someone to match it. With his matching gift, we would have enough money to start building the center for infants in distress. 

We were both so excited and blown away that we almost started jumping on the beds. We praised the Lord together, saying, What is God up to to be providing for us like this? And why do we ever doubt him? 

After we calmed down a little bit, Suzanne spoke words that I will never forget. "God must want to do something really awesome in this place and with these people." 

Indeed, God must have amazing plans for the Dagara people and their neighbors in our region. That's why I share this exciting news with you. I love telling you little stories about small things that happen, and I don't discredit those things because ministry often happens in the smallest of places in the smallest of ways. But today I share with you big news: God is in the process of providing the people and money that we need to start something new and big and exciting for his glory and his church in Burkina Faso. 

Therefore, please pray harder than ever before! Pray for my family and my friend, Emily, as they consider their place in this mission and ministry. Pray for others I know who are wanting to join more significantly in the work of our team. Thank God for the people who have committed to give their money; pray for a full collection and for its wise and humble use. Finally, pray for us as we take the next step in the process to build in 2016. 

I can't think of a better way to celebrate nine happy, amazing, hard, crazy months in Burkina Faso! There is no place else I'd rather be than here, watching God love and bless his people. Watching him  grow his kingdom in Burkina. And watching him use a bunch of ordinary people to form an ordinary team that can only accomplish extraordinary things by the grace of God and for the glory of God.