Dear friends and family,
Tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. we will get up and prepare to head out on our weekend outreach event. We'll drive a few hours inland to the village of Tataguine, which is where we built a church last February. You should check it out on Google Earth. Over 50 people and counting attend that church now and neighboring villages we have been to in past years are showing similar growth in their churches as well.
This weekend we will tear down a thatch roofed building that over 100 believers have been meeting in and dig and pour the foundation for another church building. We will also be involved in several other ministries in the area including a few new ones this year -- peanut harvesting and millet pounding. Much like the early church, the people in these villages don't tithe currency, rather they tithe a percentage of their harvest. Many of our students and staff will assist in the preparation of these contributions.
This will be our largest outreach event ever with 160 people in attendance. We appreciate your support during this weekend and will be sure and report back in shortly after we return.
If you are interested in knowing specific things to pray for, here is a brief description of what Mindee and I will be doing during the event.
During the day I am the official "documentarian" taking photos and video of all the teams (to see the product of last year's work, see the video link at the bottom of this post). In the evenings I will supervise and work with the sound guys as they set up for and run sound during the evening campaigns. This is a BIG prayer request as the effectiveness of those campaigns is contingent on there being electricity for us to use for our program, the national pastor's message, and the movie. On Monday our tech rehearsal had A LOT of kinks to work out - in fact it was the worst rehearsal of this kind we have probably ever had. It isn't a matter of incompetence or inexperience, there's just something about outreach events where things that ordinarily work just fine simply STOP working. That's why we make sure we pray over the event each night before setting up and ask for God's protection over our equipment. It's a frustrating job and can be extremely stressful when we're trouble shooting so we ask for your prayers for us and our equipment for each night of the campaign. Furthermore, these guys work hard on other teams during the day, work all evening on sound, and seldom get back to camp before 1 or 2 am, so prayer for extra stamina for Saturday and Sunday after long Friday and Saturday nights would be much appreciated.
Mindee will be helping head up the grinding crew. Specifically for her, I think it's important that she doesn't overwork herself to the point where she gets blisters on her hands as she will be playing keyboard during the evening campaigns. She'd also appreciate prayer for the evening events and the instrumentalists' parts in it (as well as the sound system working so she can hear herself and others... :-)
Of course the biggest prayer request is that all that we do brings glory to God and that His truth would be made known to these people.
Thank you so much for your support. We know that a big part of the success of these events is you and other faithful supporters bathing it in prayer.
We look forward to being able to report back to you the many ways God shows himself during this weekend.
Mike
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