63 Outreaches, 3 Teams, 21 Evangelists and 8 Days.

Sprinkle in 5 different vehicles, 2 generators and African timeliness, and you also have a recipe for disaster…

This is how it happened:

Operation Christmas Child invited me to train all the Children’s Pastors who were participating in this years outreaches - 65 churches.  The training was awesome!  130 showed up (2 from each church) and it ended with us laying hands and praying for over 30 of them who felt a call to full/part-time children’s ministry.

Then I had the crazy idea - why not train some of them in drama, skits, puppets and create teams so they can go to each distribution and really make the distribution of shoeboxes an extra-special event?  This would also ensure that the focus of each distribution will be more on the Gospel, less on the gifts.

We got 21 volunteers, so Heidi and I paired up with some of our “Give a Kid a Christmas” veterans to train them in 3 days.  Heidi took the Jesus Skit, Issaka and Gregoire took the “Sin Chair skit” and I took the puppets.  We also spent the 1st hour of each day to explain basic discipleship.

All of that was great…  But then we had to find a car, sound equipment, costumes, food, water, gas, etc… for each team.  Sound easy?  It’s not!  But God is good, and thanks in large part to our home church: Newspring, we are able to work it out (they sent 2 speakers, a generator, mics, and of course, a Ford F150).

Then we split all 65 outreaches among the 3 teams (Lightening, Gideon and my team, Ebenezer) based on proximity to each other.  Each team chose a rendez-vous point, then we had to confirm each outreach with each pastor.  Anyways, it’s been a circus!  But we have successfully completed 8 outreaches already.  Here’s our 1st great testimony:

At one church a lady stood up, in front of the entire crowd, after the Gospel presentation and said:

“Before we had great hate in our hearts for you, the pastor, but now, we understand, and we are letting our hatred go.”

Wow!  The community genuinely felt the love of God and for the 1st time understood the Gospel message (told in stories) and are now opening their hearts to the church.  That is EXACTLY what Operation Christmas Child is all about, and that is what Vision 2020 is all about.

More to come!

Here are a few pictures from the training that Heidi and I conducted for the Evangelism Team.  There’s also a few pictures from Joel’s team’s very 1st outreach.

More explanations in the next blog.

Today was the 1st day of the Kid’s Camp that we are having out in Niok-Wayalbin (don’t hurt yourself pronouncing that).  We have been preparing for a while, and it was a huge success!!  There were around 50 kids (most Muslim) from the community, and today they had a great time.

We started with games (red light, green light and ’sharks and minnows’), then a couple of songs (Panga Wennam), then a Bible lesson (God created the earth).  Funny story:

Joseph: “Who created the earth?”
Kids: “Wennam!” (God)
Joseph: “Who created animals?”
Kids: “Wennam!”
Joseph: “Who created the skies?”
Joel: “Blaise Campaore!” (The Burkina president)
Kids: “No!!!!  Wennam!”
Joseph: “What did God do on the 7th day?”
Joel: “Eat rice?”
Kids: “No!!”
One very cute little girl: “He made macaroni and salad!”

Well, at least most of the lesson came across :) 

Then the kids made a very cute little craft (I personally despise crafts, so the ladies took care of that).

Then we presented one of our favorite skits “God doesn’t love me”.  I think there’s a video of it HERE.

Great morning!!  More tomorrow.

Just thought I would give a quick update on our busy weekend:

The Youth outreaches - Amazing!  The youth did an amazing job on the dramas (they were taught by the best - Heidi!).  We had 3 groups each day come for both Thursday and Friday, 300 people total.  We performed the Gospel Drama, then the “chair skit” where we had a bunch o’ fun.  Cool testimony:
Read more…

It’s going to be a busy weekend! (Check out the Calendar.) Here are the things we’ve got goin on:

1. Thursday and Friday (7-10:30 am) We will be helping the youthgroup with some outreaches here in Ouagadougou.  Heidi did a fantastic job teaching them our “Jesus Skit” (Check out the video of it).  The youthgroup (ex-pat kids here in Burkina) raised $20,000+ to help a ministry here that does food distributions.  Heidi and I will help them perform and share the Gospel
2. Friday, Monday and Tuesday (7am - 3pm)  Dr Peter is giving physicals to about 500 kids here in Ouagadougou! (check out a report on a previous one)  We generally help out by doing social and evangelistic outreaches, but it’s going to be hard this time - we REALLY need an evangelism team that go out even when Joseph and I are swamped…
3. Saturday, Sunday (3pm - 9 pm)  Soccer Evangelism at a field near Joseph’s house.  Neighborhood teams, church teams and even the “Kids of Hope” garibou team are all competing for the trophy.  During the matches, the Gospel is shared, and at the trophy ceremony (Heidi is going to make a soccer cake for the winners), we will show the “Godman” video, give out Book of Hope books, Joseph will have a live concert, and we will share the Gospel.  Fun!!
4. Saturday (10:30 am) Silas’ 2nd birthday!  Yahoo!
5. Sunday (10:30) Heidi and I lead worship at the “International Bible Fellowship”.
6. Sunday (6 pm) - One Week  This is the one I am most excited about!!  We are welcoming 12 children pastors from 4 different regions of Burkina Faso. These are the leaders from the areas we have already trained, and they are coming to get advanced training, and to talk about a new followup program.  I promise that there will be much more info about this!

Be praying with us - this will be a fun but busy weekend.

Yes, we are alive!  And we are doing very well.  I (Joel) have been a bit uninspired and have not sat down to write much.  Sorry.

I hate reports!!!  Let me rephrase that: “I HATE REPORTS with a venomous passion”.  However, every once in a while, one of them can really amaze you.

One of our partners, Book of Hope, asked us to make a report showing how many kids we’ve reached using their resources.  Well, I was amazed at the results!  This is all the outreaches we’ve done since we returned from the US this past summer (November 2008):

29 different outreaches
5 different languages: (French, Moore, Gourmanche, Fulfulde and San)
Shared the Good News to 12,404 kids!!
Shared the Good News to 2767 Adults!!

Praise God!  I guess reports can sometimes be OK…