One Brick at a Time

I ran my fingers along the rough surface of the bricks as I walked alongside the wall. A line of people preceded me, almost six hundred people to be exact, and I was one of the last ones to take my place in the line and walk around the wall while praying a prayer of dedication and blessing. 

"Over 25,000 bricks were used to construct this wall," Geoffrey explained to the church on this Sunday morning. Each one of those 25,000 bricks is unique because it was hand cut from the local laterite rock quarries. "As you walk around the wall, think of each brick as a person." A person impacted by the church and the ministries of the church that will take place on this property. 

The brick wall encloses the rather large church property, which currently includes the church hangar and will be the future site of the infant rescue center, a teaching and formation center, a diagnostic medical clinic, offices, agricultural and development projects, and more. It will be a holistic ministry center, each ministry an outreaching arm of the church, and it is our prayer that every person who comes will encounter God. 

As my hand ran across the bricks, I thought about the three hundred infants that have gone through the infants in distress program since my arrival in 2015. Three hundred bricks make up the first two and a half sections of the wall, and there must have been at least a hundred more sections that followed. It made me think about the thousands of people - babies, women, families, the sick, the hungry - who will be impacted in the future generations by the work God will do through his church within this wall. And that's not even the limit! I pray that what happens outside the wall will surpass even what goes on within.

May the light of Jesus not stay confined to this property, but may the people of the church take the light to their neighborhoods and street corners! 

And may it begin here. Today. With these six hundred people. Even with me. Send us out, Lord, as brilliant lights to a dark world that is longing for you. 

Take a moment to pray for the church in Burkina Faso. Pray for the village churches that have long existed and pray for the new church plant in our city. Pray that the preachers and people in all these congregation will catch fire for Jesus, truly surrender their lives to him, and share Christ with their own people. Pray for the construction of the infant rescue center and all the future ministries of the church. Pray that we will be a city on a hill, a lamp that is not hidden, and a people that carry the light of Jesus with them wherever they go.