Although graduation was just 3 short weeks ago, we are quickly preparing for a new school year to start in just 2 more weeks. Our changing from a trimester to a semester calendar makes this summer entirely too short! Even so, we are busy trying to do ALL the normal summer projects in these 5 1/2 weeks. For us, help is on the way – our daughter Gina and her husband Brian are coming to visit us, arriving tomorrow. We’ll put them to work for a week, and then we’ll all take a little time off. We praise God for this special blessing!
Bob’s summer project involves making his classroom a ‘real’ science classroom. With monies provided by some of you, he is having a science demonstration table, sink and cabinet built by local carpenters. He and Brian will be painting this room and doing some other repairs to chairs and tables. My project changes from day to day as others come in with their computer projects for me, but my plan was to add memory, reformat and reload most classroom computers. One of our teachers will be returning from the states with pieces and parts to build some new computers for our much-used computer lab. Gina, who works in the computer lab at her college, will be helping me with some of this.
Even though most of our ministry is here at ICA, we take advantage of opportunities to become involved in other outreach ministries of the school and other missionaries here in Cote d’Ivoire. At the end of April, we traveled with about 50 others to Toulepleu, a village near the Liberian border where many Liberian refugees have settled. While there, our group put a tin roof on their school, staged drama presentations, witnessed on the street corners, and conducted 2 large evening rallies with around 2,000 present each night. Closer to home, this summer we are attending a small Baptist Mid-Missions church here in Bouake, taking our keyboard and playing for their services. While French services are held earlier on Sunday mornings, these services are in English, a ministry to Liberian refugees, Ghanaians and other English-speaking Africans. We hope to continue this ministry throughout the year.
Some of you have heard by now of the armed robbery here at ICA this week. Three of our staff families were directly involved, although we all knew something was going on since gunshots and loud, angry yelling could be heard from anywhere on the upper campus. While the parents were roughed up, and money, jewelry and other items stolen, none of them was seriously injured. The bandits then stole a 4WD and fled campus with one of our men who later escaped. On leaving one of the homes, they shot and killed Soro, one of our ICA guards. Soro was not a Christian; he and his family are Muslim. Please pray for the people from ICA who will attend his funeral and continue to minister to his family. We want to show God’s personal love and care during this time of man’s inhumanity. Pray that God will use this to open up a new area of ministry for ICA among the Muslim people.
As many of you have personally experienced, at times like this, people just need to talk. The past few days have been filled with sharing and drawing closer as a group. We praise God the students weren’t here, and we can see so many ways in which God protected us and kept the situation from being so much worse. Thanks to e-mail, we know some of you were praying for us that evening. One of the mothers involved shared with her children that we can choose to trust or we can choose to fear. As King David reflected in Ps. 4:8, ‘I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.’
One of the ongoing prayer requests here at ICA is that people would respond to the call of God and come and be a part of this ministry. It is sobering to think of all the missions work that would be affected if ICA were not here for the kids. Some MK schools around the world seem to have more than enough teachers, yet ICA is often short on staff. Why don’t people want to come to Africa anymore? I think that part of this answer can be seen in a story I heard from a 3rd-generation African missionary. He said that there was a time when missionaries coming to Africa would pack their belongings in a casket; they knew they would most likely be going home in the same casket. That story struck me as being a visual picture of an inner heart attitude. These missionaries did not pick Africa because it was clean or safe. They came to Africa because this was where God wanted them. I believe that this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote in Romans 12, ‘present your bodies a living sacrifice.’ God expects every believer to figuratively place all their possessions and even themselves in a casket. From then on, we live on borrowed time. Everything we own, every moment left on this earth, belongs to God. He lends it all back to us to be used in His service. Pray that God would raise up people with this kind of commitment.
With hearts of praise, we thank you for your prayers and ask for your continued prayers for the following:
- political stability and domestic safety;
- continued outreach in to the surrounding area, especially to Soro?s family;
- emotional healing for ICAers who were here during the recent robbery;
- staff needs for 2002-2003 school year.