MALI MISSION MARCH09: Journeying onward toward villages

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TRANSCRIPT:  “This is Keith calling from K’ba about 2 PM Mali time.  *[K’ba is where they will pick up Pastor Barry and meet the IMB JourneyGirls and a translator.]

“We arrived through a different route, traveling southeast across Senegal on what were remarkably great roads. As we approached K’ba, the roads became rough, similar to what we will experience in the in the mountains of Mali as we approach the villages, and the driver became agitated. He was concerned that he might not be able to drive on such rough roads. So PRAY for the driver, that he will be calm and confident and that he will see this challenge as one of the ways that God grows him. He is Catholic, and we think that he’s a believer, but have yet to confirm that.

“This evening, about 7 PM Mali time (2 PM Texas time), we will be arriving in the compound of Phillip the Evangelist [Village X, where there are about 20 believers].  There we will spend the night before driving on into Village F [the largest of the villages], where we will greet and begin to teach.

“Tomorrow evening [still at Village F] we will show with the Jesus Film and give those people an opportunity to respond to the call of Christ. [PRAY that many will be given faith to believe and begin walking on the Jesus Road.] Thank you for your prayers that sustain us. God bless you all.”

*[editorial comments]

MALI MISSION MARCH09: Safe arrival and travel across Senegal

Keith arrived safely in Dakar, Senegal, late Wed. evening in Texas / early Thurs. morning in Africa, along with all bags and trunks of food and equipment.  He and his driver immediately headed east across Senegal, resting tonight near the place where they will rendezvous with missionary Penny Warner tomorrow.

Please PRAISE GOD

• for His great love of mankind,
• for His plan to redeem people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
• for His goodness in granting safe travel.

Please PRAY, ASKING GOD

• to strengthen Keith during these grueling travel days with little rest,
• that the vehicle they have rented will be reliable throughout the trip (Four stops have already been made to check on and repair the vehicle.),
• for an uneventful travel day Friday, all the way into Village X Friday night.

Fantastic Finish

Day 5 of the MT2NM 09 was a great conclusion to a great week of serving the Lord.  We were blessed this week beyond our imagination and we are left with a feeling of gratitude that God would choose to use normal people like us to impact his kingdom. 

The morning began with a little fun and fellowship with a great game of Ultimate Frisbee.  Many new friendships were forged as we took time to get to know one another in a more competitive atmosphere.  This seemed to really help our team connect with one another and developed a great sense of teamwork as we were about to begin our day.

The church had been used heavily from the block parties throughout the week so we spent the morning cleaning the facility.  Teams were assigned to clean the auditorium, bathrooms, kitchen, parking lots, block party trailer, and the storage shed.  We worked diligently, many of us outside of our comfort zones, especially the bathroom crew.  We left the church looking great thanks to our hard working students.

Before lunch we visited the Isleta Native American reservation to learn about the atmosphere in their communities.  Many of our students had a different outlook on their own lives and possessions after that saw first hand how these indivduals lived.  We prayed for the Native Americans as we drove through as they are in the darkness of ritualistic worship.  We pray that God would do a mighty work in those reservations to free them from the bondage of spiritism and pagan worship and bring them into his marvelous light!

During lunch a group of our freshmen girls had the opportunity to share the Gospel with a university student.  It was obvious that the student was wanting to talk about his own belief system and our freshmen girls did a great job of sharing their faith.  They were able to recall many of the Scriptures that they had memorized and quoted them during their witnessing encounter.  We pray that the seed that was planted in that university student’s heart would grow as God continues to work in his life through the testimony of those brave girls.

After lunch we took a ride on the Sandia Peak tramway.  This tramway is the nation’s longest aerial tramway that took us up to the peak which was at an elevation of 10,396 ft. There was quite of bit of snow up there so we had a great time of snowball fights and sled rides at the Sandia Peak. 

Our students led the praise and worship service at Carlisle Community Baptist Church tonight and they did a great job.  Our students shared testimonies of how they had grown this week while serving the Lord and everyone was encouraged by all of the great things that God chose to do through our group this week.

The night was capped off with a great time of food and fellowship with the students and members of Carlisle CBC.  Our students had a great time of dancing and hanging out and it was a great way to celebrate what God had accomplished this week.

We are sad that the trip is drawing to a close, but we know that our mission field really exists in our homes and schools so our students are ready to take the same passion of sharing the gospel with others that they experienced here in New Mexico back to Keller! 

Please pray for us tomorrow as we will be leaving at 7:00AM Mountain Time and be driving practically all day tomorrow.  We should arrive back in Keller at approximately 8:00-8:30PM CST.

MALI MISSION MARCH09: Begins today — PLEASE PRAY

Keith Arnett departed for Mali at noon today, March 18, via Dakar, Senegal.  He and his French-speaking-only driver (!) will be joined tomorrow by Penny Warner, a missionary specializing in Yalunkan literacy materials, along with Pastor Barry, two IMB ‘Journeygirls’, and a translator.  Greg Pruett, of Pioneer Bible Translators, who has been translating the Bible into Yalunkan, was unable to travel with Keith as planned due to the sudden death of his sister.  Please keep Greg and his family in your prayers, as well.

Ø Pray that the Holy Spirit will move mightily in Village F.  It is the largest Yalunka village in that area, and so far few there have stepped out to say, “Yes, I’ll follow the Jesus road.”  Pray specifically for the two Chiefs (one of whom made a decision to walk on the Jesus Road last June), for the women in that village, and for teenage youth.

Ø Pray that the believers in Village X will make a new level of commitment to their walk of faith, and that the Church might begin emerging among them.

Ø Pray for the Church in Village Y, that the Holy Spirit will demonstrate His power and empower them as He brings forth leadership from among them.

Ø Pray for Village K.  There 33 new believers are awaiting baptism.  Pray that this demonstration of new life in Christ will stir everyone in the area to seek Him who has power over death and the grave.

Ø Pray for all those in the mining camp near Village F.  The camp manager, while friendly, has been reluctant to engage in a discussion about faith in Christ.

Ø Pray for no difficulties in reaching the Yalunka villages during the days of ground travel.

Ø Pray that nothing would hinder the group in Village F who has been asking to hear the gospel from hearing and responding in faith.

Ø Pray for wisdom for the team as they seek ways to deepen the Yalunka people’s ability to hear, read, and understand God’s word in their own language.

Another FULL day of ministry in New Mexico by FBCK youth

What a blessing today has been!  Praise God for answering many prayers we’ve made about this mission trip:

• For our youth to serve others,
• For discipleship with the people of Carlisle Community Baptist Church,
• For people in this community to come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord & Savior,
• For our work to be done without injury or incident to anyone,
• and many other prayers…

We completed our 2nd day of work at Love INC (In the Name of Christ).  We completed 3 days of setup for block party activities/engage with the community/take down block party activities.  This labor of love has been SO rewarding to both youth and adults alike.  Again, may God be praised for His hand upon all of us.

A team of 9 of our youth and 2 adults made a delivery of furniture this morning to a family in need. We prayed over that family as we left and encouraged them to participate in a place of worship where the Bible is preached, such as Carlisle Community Baptist Church.

In the afternoon we setup the final day of block party activities.  Today’s turnout was more than we had attend the previous 2 days.  Four youth stood on the sidewalk corner next to Carlisle Street which is a block away from the actual church and waived in as many passing cars as they could.  We know this seemingly silly technique was blessed by the Lord because one brand new Christian told us so.  She was a nurse coming home from work who had avoided coming to the block party yesterday, but when she passed the enthusiastic youth pointing to the block party area and holding a sign, her two young kids convinced her to stop today.  This stop was no accident, it was a divine appointment that changed her life starting today.  Praise God!

After shutting down the block party today, we met in the church sanctuary to recap major events of the day and give “shout outs” to those we observed serving Christ throughout the day.  We heard two youth tell about leading 4 different kids to the Lord who came to the block party.  An adult leader spoke of the nurse who accepted Jesus as her Lord as well. Another youth who was a brand new Christian spoke of an opportunity she had to pray for the needs of an individual today.  By this time it was almost 8:30pm, but they could have gone on talking about how God was working in our midst today that we probably could have kept testifying for another hour!

Instead, we loaded our vans and enjoyed a great meal at Fuddruckers where we celebrated Meredith Freer’s 15th birthday by eating some cake afterwards.  

Today we saw the wonderful work of God’s powerful hand upon our youth.  All the adult leaders were glad to see the love of Christ shared with this community in such as powerful way today through our youth. 

We’ve added even more pictures of the past few days posted to our picture site:
www.fbckeller.smugmug.com/missions

Please continue to pray for this mission trip as we get some rest tonight and do a little clean-up work at the church following our block parties in the morning.  After that we plan to visit a nearby reservation and do some sight-seeing in the afternoon on Sandia Peak.  Tomorrow night we plan to have a worship service at 6pm and many of the folks who came to the block party have promised they’d come to the service tomorrow.  Please pray for even more opportunities for us to share the love of Jesus Christ tomorrow!

God Uses Students for His Glory

Day two of the High School Mission Trip was a testimony to the Lord’s sovereign natue.  At the end of the day we are all left with a feeling of awe because of the way that we have experienced the Lord working around us. 

The day was under way around 9:00am as we stepped on to a job site of a ministry called Love INC.  We quickly discovered that this ministry was not called Love INC because they carry the incorporated status, their name stands for Love (In the Name of Christ).  We worked alongside the minstry’s leaders to help organize all of their goods.  Recently, Love INC received a grant from Home Depot to be the beneficiary of all of the local Home Depot’s returned goods….so we had an eventful day of organizing toilets, bath tubs, vanity’s, medicine cabinets, and the like.  Love INC processes requests from local churches to aid members of the community who need these types of goods but may not be able to afford them. 

In the afternoon, day two of our community block party was under way.  We had an exciting time of fellowship and outreach with many members of the community who currently are not attending church.  One family of a young man named Gilbert who was in attendance at the block party with his fiance and four children received a special blessing today.  As one Julie Durrwachter (one of our students) was making bead bracelets with Shania  (Gilbert’s daughter) she presented the gospel message to Shania using the colors of the beads representing sin, Jesus’ blood, new life, etc… and Shania asked Julie if Jesus could come into her life and save her from her sins.  Julie prayed with the Shania and she accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. 

At the same time Gilbert was speaking with one of our adult leaders about spiritual issues when he too realized for the first time that he was a sinner in need of a Savior.  At that time, our adult leader was able to present the Gospel and Gilbert too accepted Christ as his Savior.  God drew two members of the same family to himself at the same time!  He is awesome!  All glory to him!

While we were eating dinner at CiCi’s pizza tonight one of our leaders was approached by a man name Presley who stated that he was driving by and saw the name of the church (Carlisle Community Baptist Chruch) that we had written with shoe polish on the windows of the vans.  Presley stated that he had been having suicidal thoughts that evening and had just left the house to get away and go to the grocery store which was adjacent to the CiCi’s.  Presley stated that he saw our vans and wanted to talk about what was happening to him that evening and to have someone pray with him.  One of our adult leaders met with Presley and presented the gospel message to him and encouraged him.

We stand amazed tonight at the way God is moving all around us.  It cannot be explained except to say that He is still God, and He is still alive and working all around us.  We feel priviledged to be used by God in this way and we are giving God all the glory for drawing people to himself!

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