Dear Prayer Partners,
~The church in Ouega is bursting at the seams!
~The Maxi (mah-he) people of Benin, 320,000 strong, are still enslaved in
their Voodoo
~Oxen, goats and high temperatures greeted us along the road to Ouagadougou
The Ayizo church in Ouega is still going strong after all the trials it has
been through. Fifty to sixty folks are there every Sunday! Their church
building is already too small and they are looking to purchase the land
situated in front of the church for a new building and hope to use the old
building as a school! Wow!!
We left Calavi early Sunday morning to commence our drive to Burkina Faso
and stopped in the village of Logozohe (low-go-zoe-hay)-three hours
north of Benin's coast--among the Maxi (mah-hee) people, to attend church.
The pastor, a graduate from our Benin Bible School was thrilled to see us
and invited Jeff to preach. Jeff inquired of him how the work was going
among the Maxi (or Mahi) people of Benin. A people group 320,000 strong.
They are the largest unengaged people group in Benin. Although his church
is made up of purely Maxi folks, he stated that all his evangelical pastor
counterparts among the Maxi have full churches, but of transplants into the
area, not Maxi people. This news greatly surprised us. Jonas continued in
saying that the Maxi are very difficult to win to Christ, but he is
committed to reaching them, not other ethnic groups in the area. As you
pray, break the bondage of Satan over these people that they would be won
to
Jesus, and pray for Jonas, his ministry, his church and their outreach and
his family of 4 (+1 incoming) children. Jonas had 4 preaching points up
and
running. These have all folded for the men he'd trained to lead the work
all moved away and he is experiencing transportation difficulties that have
disabled him from getting to these more remote locations. He is praying
that
God will raise up new men to train. At the time of the church service his
wife was in the maternity ward, in labor, expecting their 5th child! We
stopped and prayed with her before continuing on. We intend to stop back
by
there on our journey home and we'll let you know the outcome of that work!!
On the final leg of our drive to Ouagadougou past the Burkina Faso border
we
passed village after village of round earth-tone mud huts in family
clusters; brilliant spring green grasses sprouting up due to the freshness
of the rainy season; many small mosques; and a man plowing his field under
the searing sun with two enormous, skinny oxen pulling a wooden plow. We
also watched as our vehicle's thermometer climbed from humid, balmy low
80's
just south of the Burkina Faso border to a dry, wickedly hot 104 degrees in
Ouaga!
Love in Christ,
Barbara and Jeff
Barbara J. Singerman
Author of Beyond Surrender
Serving the Peoples of Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo and Cote d'Ivoire