Weekly Prayer Focus: Discipleship Training for Women

Please be in prayer for the Discipleship Training for women that will be happening starting today! You may remember a prayer request about this in January. Unfortunately, in January, none of the women we invited were able to attend. We were afraid that this type of teaching for our female believers would never happen due to the demand & responsibilities placed on women in the Songhai culture. But the Lord knew that January was not the time & this month is what He had planned all along.

Starting tomorrow, 14 women will be traveling to Niamey to attend the FIRST EVER discipleship training for women. We are so excited!! Considering the total number of female believers among the Songhai we work with, 14 is like 75% of those women!! We are beside ourselves that the Lord is bringing all of this together & we cannot wait to dig into the Word with these women!

Pray with us for the Lord to use this time for His glory & reknown. Pray that these women would grow deeper & deeper in their relationship with the Lord, in their knowledge of Him & His Word & in their love for their Savior. Pray that the walls of defense that these women have built up after having been immersed in a male-driven culture for so long would break down ... that they would see their worth in their Heavenly Father's eyes, they would know His love for them & that He would soften their hearts to Him. Pray that they may be able to stay focused & attentive during the lessons & retain all that they are learning. And pray that they would take His Name & the story of His salvation & love to their friends, family, children, husbands, etc in their villages.

May 2014 newsletter

Dear Prayer Partners,

We hope this finds you all doing well & enjoying nice temperatures in the States. We are actually experiencing a "cool" day today in Niger. It is below 100 degrees!! It's 99 to be exact. But it's still below 100!! We had a nice, big rain on Sunday evening that keep sprinkling into yesterday morning & the cloud cover has stayed around for another day. Our Africans friends say it's cold outside!! We are just enjoying a few days without sweating! Ha!! : )

Thank y'all so much for praying for us through this last month. We are so very grateful for your prayer support for our family, our team & the Songhai people. We are also so very grateful for your gifts to the IMB that keep us here on the field & allow us to do what we have been called to do. We never ever take for granted that your giving allows us this opportunity to minister among the Songhai & we never ever take for granted that your prayers are what sustain us. Thank you.

For the first time in our newsletter history, I had to make a 2-page newsletter! There's just so much to tell & so much going on that it wouldn't fit all on one page. But I was also able to include a few pictures for your viewing pleasure. : ) Thank you again for your love & prayers & support!! We are so blessed by each of you!


that ALL may know HIM,

Mark & Parker <><

Weekly Prayer Focus: NLTS 0

Please be in prayer for a large group of new believers that will be receiving our initial discipleship training course, NLTS 0, this weekend. The lessons will be taught by a team from FBC Hurst, TX & will be conducted over a 2.5 day period. Pray for understanding of all 12 lessons that are taught including teachings on Creation, The Bible, Jesus, Salvation, Faith, etc. Pray for growth in these believers' faith & wisdom as well as a deeper love for their Savior. Pray for sweet times of fellowship with other believers as well as times of encouragement between the men. Many of these believers have faced persecution for following Christ & while that is never easy, it is an encouragement to know that there are others who share your burdens and can pray in understanding for you.

Pray also for the team of 2 men from TX that will be teaching. The days are incredibly hot here right now (up to 115 in the day) & although their teachings will take place inside the "HUB" there will be no air conditioning, only fans blowing around the hot air. Pray for stamina & health for these men.

april 2014 newsletter

Dear Prayer Partners,

Thank you SO much for praying for us for this last month!! We have had quite a few "stresses" (I guess you could say) regarding personal or family matters on our team. I think each one of our families has been hit hard by something this last month. From the Saleebys (& really, all of us as a team) dealing with the medical issues surrounding Randy to the Foxes trying to finish their term well amidst the rising temperatures & cultural stresses to our family dealing with an ailing parent in the States & a bout with malaria for Mark, it has been a month of trial for each of us personally. But we are SO very encouraged to know that all of you are praying for us - both for our personal lives & our ministry. Thank you. Even when you don't know all the details, we know that you are faithful to pray & that brings us so much encouragement on those "hard" days.

I also wanted to say a HUGE "THANK YOU!!!!!!!" to all those who are participating in the Adopt-a-Road project! Just this morning I added our 100th prayer partner to that project. I am on the verge of tears as I am just so amazed & humbled & grateful to the Lord for answering our prayer to have 100 people praying for these roads where we do ministry!! Even amidst our personal trials, we have been so encouraged & blessed by what God is doing among the Songhai on these roads! God is truly blessing the ministry of your prayers & the bold proclamations of the Gospel along these roads. Thank you!!

We are also excited to have Randy home today!! We met him at the airport this afternoon & were so glad to hug his neck!! We are blessed beyond measure to have a team who loves each others & feels each other's absences with great pain. We are so glad Randy is home!! Thank you for praying for him while he's been on medical leave & for his continued health & healing.

We love all of you so much & are so blessed by your partnership with us in reaching the Songhai!!


that ALL may know HIM,

Mark & Parker <><

Volunteer Testimony: FBC Franklin (March 2014)

If you have the opportunity to go on a mission trip and are able to go, I pray you will say, “Yes Lord.”  Perhaps you are afraid, lack the money, or feel inadequate. Consider how big our God is. He will clear the way.

God does not need us to accomplish His purpose. Instead, he allows us to be a part of his plan. WOW moments from our team included: Being the first person to say the name of Jesus in a village that has never heard His name, sharing the gospel with a woman who has persecuted Christians and then praying with her as she repented and accepted Jesus and then seeing a new light in her eyes, witnessing to workers at a goldmine and seeing the crowd grow as they pressed in to hear the true treasure of God’s word, helping believers learn a new skill so they can support their families and seeing believers have joy and hope in a hopeless environment!

It’s impossible to describe the heaviness of our hearts as we realized that the thousands of people we passed on the road are going to spend eternity in hell unless other Christians respond. The population of Niger is 17 million. Over the week, our small team divided into three groups and shared the gospel with perhaps 2000. Only God knows if the seeds we sowed will mature and be harvested.

Last year we conducted Bible School in a village. Perhaps 50 children received t-shirts with the logo “His Sheep Hear His Voice.” Jonathan ran across a child in the market wearing one of the t-shirts. The odds of seeing one of the same children was astronomical. I see it as God affirmation that He will reap the harvest.

One of our team members used his artistic gifts to develop pictograms to educate the Songhai on water sanitation and purification practices. For more information go to this link: www.wkunews.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/water-research-westafrica  Jonathan Oglesby’s work is groundbreaking and may revolutionize teaching methods in the poorest places on earth. He said, “As much as they suffer for water; they suffer more for the living water.”  This is an example of how God uses each of our unique gifts to grow his kingdom. But we have to step outside of our comfort zone and be obedient. What are your special gifts?

I plan to return to Niger in 2016 and hope by then there are no more villages that have never heard the name of Jesus. For that to happen, someone else must go. I’m committed to continuing to go, as long as I’m physically able. God does not call us to go, He commands it. I pray that you will say, “Yes Lord.”

If you have time and would like to read about the experience of someone on the mission field who is afraid and inadequate, check out my personal blog at www.sheliastovall.com.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll make a post for each day. If God can use me and my limited talents, He can use you.

Weekly Prayer Focus: NLTS 7.1

So sorry that I've let a few weeks go by without doing any of these. Things have been crazy busy around these parts with volunteer teams & other going-ons. We also launched our new Adopt-a-Road project & with sending out updates (sometimes weekly & sometimes daily) for 8 areas, I've let the ole blog updates slip up.

But for this week, would y'all please pray for our 7th installment of NLTS? We are so humbled & amazed at how God has taken this dream of training our believers in theology & made it bigger than we ever imagined. We never dreamed that it'd get so large & reach so many different peoples, that we'd have to divide it up into 2 segments. This week, we have the privilege of training men from the Road to Ayorou, Niamey & men from a people group other than the Songhai.

This week these men are studying the book of Acts. Mark posted on Twitter recently: "Message of Acts: The church is powered by the Holy Spirit & grown through persecution so that she might bear witness to Christ. We pray for the power and we hope for the witnesses but we don't want the persecution."

These men can definitely understand what it means to be persecuted. This is not a foreign concept to them. Pray that they will be able to retain all they learn about & from the book of Acts this week. Pray that God would use these men to grow His church in Niger. Pray for these men to have a passion to share His name with those in their villages that have yet to hear. And pray that God would give them the endurance to withstand the needed persecution to grow His church in their villages.

Volunteer Testimony: LHBC (February 2014)

"...And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?"
             -Romans 10:14

Stop and ponder that statement by Paul for a moment.  How often in your day-to-day life do you actually come by someone who has never heard the Gospel?  Whether we are at work, running errands, or at a sporting event or concert, do we pass by people who do not know the love that God has for them?  Are there people out there who do not recognize their need for a Savior to pay the sin debt that we have no hope of satisfying on our own merit?

Our missionary team encountered this very scenario time and time again this week, and it was truly a privilege to be witness to the shining of the light of Jesus on lives enslaved to darkness.  Our team departed on the Road to Gaya with the intent of living out the motto on the Songhai team website: sow with hope, reap with humility.  There were some challenges that had the potential to interfere with our ability to share: would our bodies hold up to several days on a difficult-to-travel road?  Would fatigue set in and cloud our minds and confuse our words?  Would stepping out of our "comfort zone" make us too uncomfortable?  God took those worries and used them to humble us.  We never gave these concerns another thought once we started our journey.  As our pastor at Living Hope has said before, "Everything is small to God."

It was apparent from the initial contact in the first village that God had gone before us to open the minds and hearts of His people.  We encountered an openness and willingness to listen that could only be the result of the work of God.  In a country that in 99% Muslim, the message of Christ was proclaimed with little to no opposition or argument.  We were welcomed in each of the 9 villages we visited.  Even in villages where no one was ready to accept Christ, we were told by everyone to come back and share again because they need to hear more.  Many times, we were sought out by an individual rather than having to approach them; God was sending His sheep to us!  A man told the team that this message needed to be shared with the women (a radical statement in Islamic culture).

Whenever a person expressed a desire to become a follower of Christ, we emphasized that the Bible calls them "a new creation," and that their old religion and its associated beliefs were no more.  Each man, without hesitation, affirmed his decision.  The look of amazement and wonder on the faces of those who had never heard the Gospel story was something I will remember the rest of my life.  It was as if you could see God "putting it all together" for them as the plan for salvation was revealed.

God provided a plentiful harvest.  In all, 30 men accepted the invitation to become followers of Jesus.  While only God can know their heart, my hope is that all these men were sincerely drawn to God and will remain strong in their new faith despite the radical life changes or persecution that may come.  Chains were broken as these men experienced true forgiveness of the sin that had shackled them their entire lives.  There was great rejoicing in Heaven at the redemption of these men.  I praise God for a safe journey and the honor of serving alongside the Songhai missionary team.  I pray that these men will grow in their faith and can be used by God to continue to call the Songhai to Himself.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
 - John 1:5


--- Caleb B, LHBC, Bowling Green, KY