Fetes! Again

A fete is a party/celebration. Last week we had a celebration of a wedding. This week is the church at Fourou's celebration for the groundbreaking of their new building.

This all happened 2 Sundays ago. We've been unable to upload the blog in that time. Sorry.

Hopefully, this will go as planned. :-)

Fourou Fete!
We are so excited about the church in Fourou. Lisa went over there with Ernie and Jan for the church service today. (I stayed behind because I was asked to preach at our church here in Kadiolo.)Today Fourou was celebrating their building project, today was the ceremony of the first brick.The church at Fourou is a small body of believers that began meeting about 3 years ago. They don't have the Bible in their language, and they sing out of a bambara songbook. (many of the believer speak bambara as a second language, but it is not their mother tongue...)They started with 6, and now are between 35-50 regularly. (heavy on kids, more than adults...)They had begun to pray for a missionary and about 2.5 years ago, Tom & Laura Requadt, colleagues from Ivory Coast came to work on translating their language so they can have the scriptures in their language.Shimpere is how you would pronounce the name of their language, one in the family of Senoufu languages.Today was miraculous because not only did God provide the land, (a central location in the village.) and money to help the congregation build their church, but today there were 100 believers encircling the land to dedicate it to God's work! (No, not all of those 100 believers were Fourou members, but it was a huge encouragement to that small group to have so many there. And, when ever has there been 100 believers gathered together in Fourou? Many many years, if ever at all.)So today was special. :-)

Pics:Here is a small part of 100 believers who came to encourage the church today!

Here is Jan and some of the ring of believers, beside her in blue with a gold headwrap is Aminata, the smily face believer who works in our kitchen & laundry. She was so excited to be able to go with us today to celebrate with those in Fourou!

Here is Pastor Youssouf from Kadiolo, Ernie, and in the center is Moussa.

Moussa is from Kadiolo.Moussa is a m-lim. He is a mason, and does cement construction. He has done so much good work for us. So the Fourou church has hired his group to build the church building. Moussa is a good friend, and we continue to pray for his salvation.He's a talented hard worker with a good spirit. But he needs Christ.Anyway Lisa was pleased to see him at the celebration today. He stayed throughout the whole church service, and was invited to eat with the believers afterwards.
It is always so exciting to watch God work to build his church! Pray with us as this group of believers continues to teach Gods word, and to grow in Faith!

Thanks for stopping by,Tom & Lisa Seward