My Friend, John

I'd love for you to meet my friend, John. He and I have been friends since my childhood here in Burkina Faso. His father is a pastor; one of the first to go to Bible College in the early days of missions here in Burkina Faso. Because John's dad was committed to honesty, he would not lie in order to sign John up for school. As a result, John did not have the opportunity to get an typical education. But John taught himself to read and write. He learned 9 languages proficiently. He also begged me and bugged me to teach him English. I never could understand why he was so persistant to learn English.

Over the years, others saw John's intelligence and encouraged him to go to nurses training. He did so and did well, in spite of the fact that he did not have a formal education. Because he spoke English well, he was assigned to work with visiting surgeons when they came to work at the Baptist hospital. Rather quickly, John learned how to perform surgery. When pressed into service during some difficult days, John was THE surgeon at the hospital. Quite an accomplishment for a man who never had a formal education. That's my friend, John. And I'm proud to know of his accomplishments. He is retired today, but still very active. He loves God and wants to continue to serve Him.

I'd love for you to meet him.

Strategic Meetings

This weekend, we will be meeting as a Field Leadership Team. We have these leadership meetings about 4 times a year to discuss the various decisions that must be made for our missionary team. On Saturday, we will meet with the national church leadership to discuss our common vision of impacting the nation at every level. We will conclude with a visit to one of our districts and then will make a "vision trip" through a very neglected area of the country, where we hope to partner together to bring the light of the Gospel to this area.

It will be an exciting weekend, as we seek God's mind to make decisions for the future of His church in this country! Pray for us.

A Follow-Up on Mr. G

On November 15 I wrote to you about "Mr. G", who became a Christian out of a background out of Islam. Things have not been easy. He recently was ill, as he suffers from diabetes. He hurt his toe and it wasn't healing. He went to the hospital and they initially thought it would be best to amputate at the knee. He ended up with an amputated big toe. On the local Islamic radio station, they were talking about "this man who left the 'road' and is now paying dearly for it. They also stated that he had had both legs amputated, which was not true.

As Mr. G does not have gainful employment now, we are looking at the possibility of helping him start a small chicken project with egg layers.

Please pray for Mr. G and his family. He needs your prayers for healing and for courage to press on.