Greetings from Burkina Faso! I’m back after about 3 weeks of vacationing in Morocco, Greece, and Turkey. I had a great time! It was wonderful to spend a week with my parents, visit some old friends in new environments (Casablanca and Istanbul), and to see some more of God’s amazing creation. I am so blessed to have had this opportunity to travel and visit. I wish I could tell you all about it, but this is not a travel guide. (If I have time I might share some more here later.) However I will share a few of the spiritually significant aspects of the trip. I was told that in Morocco there are less than 1000 believers and it is officially illegal to convert to Christianity. Greece is 97% Orthodox Christian, however, from my short experience I noticed many practices which stray from Biblical Christianity. Lastly, though this is not typical of the country, while I was in Turkey, three believers were tortured and had their throats slit. Turkey is officially a secular state, yet statistics say 99.8% of the population is Muslim. All these people and places need our prayers.
So, back to Burkina . . . I neglected to mention that a volunteer team came to work alongside David and Tami while I was on vacation. Southside Baptist (Lufkin, TX) had a great vision trip among several of the people groups we’ve been promoting. They are now in prayer over which group they will adopt and when they will return. Praise God for them and please pray with them for God’s guidance.
The volunteer marathon is upon us. On May 1st, David, Tami, and I will return to Karankasso-Vigue with a couple more volunteers from Bartlett Baptist (TN). There we’ll have a chance to follow up with Karim and Noufou who you’ve heard much about in previous newsletters. We also hope to continue to spread the word to other’s who’ve not yet heard. Then on May 8th we are joined by another team (FBC Belton, TX and U. of Mary Hardin-Baylor) who will minister among the Lyele (lay-lay) and also do some teaching at our Baptist seminary in Koudougou. There are several more teams to come who you will hear about in due time.
Praise God for:
* a wonderful vacation spent with my parents and friends.
* Southside, Bartlett, and Belton Baptist churches for their interest in the unreached peoples of West Africa.
Please pray for:
* both the lost and the believers in oppressive places in the world.
* Southside Baptist as they seek the Lord’s guidance on how to minister with us here in Burkina.
* us along with Bartlett Baptist and FBC Belton as we seek to share the “glorious Gospel of the blessed God” (1 Tim. 1:11).
Again I am so thankful for my time away but it’s good to be back in Burkina and to know of your prayer for us here. God bless!
kerry spencer
final though:
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
~T.S. Eliot
This is the way I’ve felt since arriving back in Burkina. My short time away has allowed me to notice the peculiarities of Burkina afresh. I feel like I’m in Africa again. I notice more the oddities of donkey carts on the city roads, random objects (sewing machines, chairs, etc) carried on people’s heads, the local music, and much more. I know Burkina (and Kentucky) better for have visited those other counties. I am also more thankful for the freedom we have in this country to share the Gospel and the freedom (at least legally speaking) for people to accept it.
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