Tuesday, December 25, 2007

N'Djei Cluster Baptisms

This past Saturday, 14 people from the villages of N'Djei, Ewede, Sogode and Kayahte put on Christ in baptism. This was particularly exciting because the wives and children of several Christian men completed the salvation of their earthly families by leading them into God's family! What a great gift for them to receive just before Christmas. Click on the videos below to see two of the baptisms.



The best part for us as missionaries was that these Christians led each other to Christ, handled the baptisms themselves, and ask us to be there only to observe and celebrate with them. Having a group of such highly motivated and self-sufficient Christians is very fulfilling for our team and our work here. It makes our goal of a sustainable and self-replicating church movement among the Kabiye seem more real with every passing event such as this!



You have to love Kpaatcha, an elder of the N'Djei church, doing baptisms in 90 degree heat while wearing a winter hat but no pants. A more African scene would be hard to find! We love these people and their culture so much, and we feel that we have the greatest job in the world to be able to share in their growing walks with Christ. Praise God!

Thank You!

Thank you so much to everyone at Grace Pointe and Sycamore View for all of the wonderful gifts you sent over with Charles and April's parents! What a special holiday treat! We love you all so much and thank you for your gifts of love.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Our First Visitor!

This last week we were blessed with a visit from Charles Campbell, a member of the Missions Committee at GracePointe, our sponsoring congregation. Charles had the opportunity to see so much of what God is using our team to do among the Kabiye, and he came away with a much better understanding of life in West Africa. He experienced about the worst border crossing in border crossing history, and that probably isn't even his best story!

Thank you to GracePointe for sending Charles over here to bless our lives, and thank you Charles for being willing to come at the last minute. Thank you God for providing us with a great support system of family, friends and a loving sponsoring church!
Here is a pic of Charles bravely stumbling his way through his first Kabiye lesson. It's not for the faint of heart!

Finally, we want to thank everyone who has been trying to contact us by Skype, Facebook, email and blogs lately. Our internet has been very inconsistent since we arrived back in Kara, and we will not be able to talk on Skype until our internet is back to some kind of normalcy. We will try to keep updated on email as much as possible, so let's all hang in there together. You can still call and leave us a voicemail, and we will call you back just as soon as we can! (334)239-3109 (no international fees!) Please understand that we are just as disappointed as you are about not being able to talk to our friends and family. We love you all!