Pray for Baby Dedication

We have an urgent (but not an emergency) prayer request. I have been hoping to write this email all week, but it did not happen as our week was very full. It was finally decided on Tuesday that we would have our baby dedication ceremony at our house THIS SATURDAY. This is a big event here. We have invited over 100 people and we will feed them breakfast and lunch. Around 11 am we will have a time of preaching and prayer. This will be done by the Senegalese pastor who was my pastor when I lived in Dakar previously. Normally, Muslims will have a baby naming ceremony. They have prayers, go to the mosque, shave the baby's head, and sacrifice a sheep. PLEASE PRAY that our Christian ceremony will be a witness to our friends and neighbors, and that they will ask many questions. PLEASE PRAY that we will be able to speak other languages clearly. PLEASE PRAY that pastor Seikou will have the right words to say, and that the Holy Spirit will move in the spirits of those attending. PLEASE PRAY that all of the last details will come together and that our friends and neighbors will know that we love them! Thank you so much for praying. We will post pictures of the event on the blogspot.

Petitions & Praises

We hope this note finds you doing well. Thank you for continuing to pray for us. At this time, we need all of you to help us in a little project. We have to discover how many people are praying for our family and our work here in Senegal. This is going to be a challenge since our emails are often forwarded or printed out and shared with groups. So, if only you read our emails, you don’t have to do anything. However, if you forward or share our requests in any way (and we really hope you do!), we need you to email us an estimate of how many people besides yourself are lifting us before the Father. We are being asked to report these numbers to our leadership. We really appreciate your help.

So, on to how God is at work! Thank you for praying for Isatou. She was finally able to come to learn how to fry fish in cornmeal. We just laughed because it is so simple. She thinks she will start serving it at their restaurant. She and Crystal had only about an hour and a half together, so they did not get to listen to any spiritual tapes. However, they were able to discuss the aspects that God sees and knows our hearts, He is faithful, and He forgives! God is building a relationship between Isatou’s family and our family. We trust that soon she will hear the Truth and believe. She has asked that we pray for her uncle who was badly burned during one of our many power outages when his clothes caught on fire from a candle. Pray for his complete healing and that God would be glorified.

We are preparing for how we can rejoice in what the Lord has done and is doing as we approach Easter weekend. We do plan to gather with a couple of missionary families for lunch that day after worship services. But, we also want to be able to share with our neighbors the joy and hope that we have as we remember our Savior. Please pray that we will be used by God to share His Truth that day in a way that they will understand.

Normally, we reserve our family news for our blogspot, but we just have to share that we are praising the Lord for two new precious babies in our families. Crystal’s sister, Sheri, and brother-in-law, Mark, had a baby boy on March 21st who is named Jackson Thomas Burgen. And Chad’s brother, Sonny, and sister-in-law, Ellen, had a baby boy named Waylon Dean Reynolds on April 10th. We praise the Lord for His wonderful blessings. We do ask that you pray for us and for our families as it is hard to be separated during these big life events. We will get to meet our new nephews when we are in the States for vacation.

Thank you for praying!! We enjoy hearing what is going on in your lives as well. We are happy to pray for any requests you have. Just let us know! Many blessings and Happy Easter! He is risen!!!!

Odds & Ends

We hope each of you are well. We thank the Lord for His faithfulness in our lives and for providing so many of you to support us in prayer. Instead of one story or topic in this newsletter, we need to share about several issues where we need your prayers.

First, we want to thank you for praying for believers who are being persecuted. Our housekeeper’s family has been allowed to stay in their apartment. The other family is being forced to leave. The landlord even told our friends to try to find some other believers to fill the soon to be empty apartment. This is a huge victory! We praise the Lord for His faithfulness. Please continue to pray for their influence on their neighbors.

God’s spirit is moving. We have been hearing of many open doors for our colleagues sharing the Good News. One of our guards was baptized in the ocean last week. It was a joyous occasion! Pray that he will grow in his faith and study with other believers.

We are having opportunities to be Christ’s influence as well. We had the Dione family over for dinner last weekend. We were able to talk about how important it is to know God’s Word – not just repeat prayers. We talked about how to bring up our children in the Lord. Pray that He will be glorified in their family. They are very influential in our neighborhood.

Chad continues to attend the university where he is surrounded by nonbelievers. Please pray that he will have opportunities to share the Good News with them.

Finally, please be praying for a beautiful young lady named Isatou. She is the wife of our main guard. She is not a believer. She follows another major world religion. We have been praying for her for a while now. Crystal has specifically been praying for a time to talk with her. We always feed any helpers who are around at mealtimes. So this includes the guard every evening. Well, the other day, we had fish for dinner. Crystal fried it in cornmeal, you know, the good southern way. The guard loved it!! He said, “You have to teach my wife how to make this.” They have a restaurant, so they are always interested in good food. Soon, Isatou will be coming to our house to learn how to fry fish in cornmeal! Please pray that we will be able to have a spiritual conversation. Pray that her heart would be open and ready to hear the Good News. Pray that Crystal will be able to speak French and Wolof well enough to communicate.

Thank you for all of your prayers. We really need you to continue lifting us up. The people here are so spiritually oppressed. As we bring the Light, the enemy comes against us spiritually. Some days and nights are challenging to say the least. However, we realize that sharing the Good News IS our reason for being here. Please pray that we will have many opportunities.