may 2011 newsletter

Dear Prayer Partners,

Thank you AGAIN for committing to pray for us & the Songhai for another month. We have truly seen your prayers at work this last month as the housing situation in Boubon is resolved! We hope you understand & know how vital your prayers are to us & the ministry among the Songhai. God is hearing & answering them!

Please continue to pray for us & the Songhai this summer as our lives are beginning to get very busy. We love our volunteers & are so excited that SO many have committed to come here during the hottest part of the year to serve beside us. From discipleship lessons to painting schools to sowing seed on unfertile ground, these volunteers are doing whatever it takes so that the Songhai may hear & KNOW that there is only one God & His Name is JESUS!

Don't forget to check out the Songhai blog for weekly prayer requests & other stories we post on there from time to time. In the next few weeks, start looking for the "More People, More Prayer" contest. We're going to ask you to step it up a notch & widen our prayer team by enlisting your family, friends & church to pray for the Songhai. Currently, we have around 600 people praying for the Songhai. We'd love to see that number rise to 1,000! Can you help us? We have seen incredible things happen as a result of your prayers! Can you imagine if there were one thousand people praying for the salvation of the Songhai?! Be sure to check out the blog in the coming weeks for details of how you can help us expand our prayer team.

You can also find us on Facebook (search: The Songhai) & receive timely updates on your newsfeed when we post new information on the blog. You can also find each team member's family blogs listed on the right side of the Songhai blog. Feel free to check them out & get to know the Songhai team a little bit better!

Again, thank you for ALL of your prayers!!


that ALL may know HIM,

Mark & Parker <><

Weekly Prayer Focus: Living Hope Team

Please be in prayer for the Living Hope Baptist Church volunteer team this week. They will be working in Boubon throughout the week with a visit to Ayorou as well. Half of their focus this week will be for the 2 men of the team to "pick up the torch" of the national partners' work in Boubon. Will & Travis will teach stories from the E2E to the groups of men that have formed as a result of the national partners' outreach.

The women of the team (Emily, Erin, Linda & Tiffany) will be working to establish relationships & connections for the ministry that Emily & Erin will continue as they spend their entire summer in Boubon. They will be prayerwalking, sharing their testimonies & also sharing the C2C (Creation to Christ) story as they find & meet with groups of women all across Boubon. We hope that these relationships that they form this week will be the catalyst for outreach groups for Emily & Erin this summer.

One day during the week, the team will have the opportunity to visit Ayorou to meet with & encourage the believers there. Please pray for the team this week as the temperatures are soaring! They will spend almost 8 hours a day outside with little relief from the heat. Pray for their health to remain strong! Pray also for the men & women that they will have the opportunity to share with & pray for. Pray that many, many would hear the Gospel & know it is true. Pray that many would forsake all to know Christ as their Savior.

You can also keep Emily & Erin in your prayers throughout the summer as they will be living in Boubon in a very primitive manner. After the Living Hope team leaves next Friday, they will do an intensive week of language learning. When that week ends, they will pack up & head out to Boubon. They will be living in a house on the chief's compound & their focus will be to minister to women & children through sharing Bible stories using the E2E curriculum &/ cassettes. Please pray for their language, their safety, their health & all the women they will minister to.

Thank you for praying for our volunteers & for the Songhai that they are reaching!

Weekly Prayer Focus: FBC Hurst Team

Please be in prayer for the team from First Baptist Church Hurst, TX this week. They will be traveling to the Mehanna Road to meet with a group of believers & take them through the "D" track using the E2E. The "D" track is composed of discipleship lessons aimed to help the believers grow in their faith & knowledge of the Word.

Pray for the team as they will also spend a few nights in the village. It is extremely hot here & the nights are not exempt from the heat. Pray for safety in travels (about 6 hours round trip from Niamey), their time with the believers & their health. The heat can do excruciating things to your body & your mental state of health!! Pray that they would be able to focus during the days despite the rising temperatures of almost 120 degrees & for their sleep at night.

Pray that the believers who have committed to come will be in attendance for each session & that they would also be able to focus on the lessons & grow in their faith.

Weekly Prayer Focus: Ayorou

Please be in prayer for Ayorou this week. The believers in Ayorou are growing in leaps & bounds. The key leaders of the church are being trained in leadership development & church formation. They are learning to become a church on their own & are meeting weekly to listen to the Bible & study & pray. Even though there seems to be much "good news" coming from Ayorou, there are still hardships. Ibrahim is a single dad & struggles to provide for his family. Hamsatou's family is suffering as there are constantly sicknesses & lack of money to meet needs. The young men are persecuted & cursed in the streets for following Jesus. Yet, they remain faithful to the One who is faithful to them.

But they can always use your prayers for perseverance, for God to bless them abundantly as they have forsaken all to follow Him, for God to bind them in unity as the community shuns them. Please pray for their growth as individuals & their growth as a church. Most are barely 2 years old as believers and some less than that. They are illiterate & rely on a recorded translation of the New Testament in their language. They don't have a LifeWay to purchase books on "How to Do Church" or search online for answers to questions like, "What do I do when my family kicks me out of the house because I'm a Christian?" They rely on His Word & what they have learned in discipleship training lessons. Please pray for them to continue to remain strong & unified & for God to teach them more about Himself than they ever imagined possible. Pray that their relationship with Him would be their own & would be real & vital!