Thursday -- Brief Update

Bon soir from Burkina,

Tlhis morning was a great time of fun and relationship-building with the kids in the Compassion project that adjoins the church/school property here.  We began by traveling to each class to trade songs, memory verses, and prayers with the kids and then to pass out candy.  We were amazed to find about 75 kids per classroom, each of a size that would constitute about half of a Davidson county school homeroom.  Yet the kids were well-behaved and enthusiastic.  The joy in their songs put us to shame.

The next few hours were basically an extended "recess" featuring soccer, frisbee, circle games, and a lot of other games that gave us a platform for getting to know the kids a little better.  We came back for lunch exhausted.  After lunch we drove around Ouaga to see the Arnolds' new house, a large school/church complex where the church is just being planted, and the site of the future team center.  Pete's vision is to have a team center that can accommodate at least 60 team members, 20 interns, and possibly an MK school for the full-time workers here in Burkina, where the international schools have taken away the missionaries' 1/2-off scholarships due to financial problems.  I'm sure you'll here more about this when we return.

Please pray for us extra hard over the next two days.  Friday is a food distribution that is guaranteed to break hearts, since we already know we will have to turn starving people away.  It can also get physically dangerous at the end, as families realize they may be left out.  Friday night is a 6:00-to-whenever worship and dance party here at the team center -- again trying to relate to the young people associated with the church here, a lot of whom are not yet believers.  Saturday night is the climax of this process of reaching out here in this area, as we will hold an evangelistic service featuring a film, short messages from Pastor Paul and the local Pastor, and either Brittany or Nilsen sharing a personal testimony.  Pray also for Pastors Paul and Ben as we have both been asked to preach Sunday in different churches.

We are all healthy and doing well.  Thanks for your prayer support -- we count on it tremendously!

PT