November Newsletter--Evacuation Plan

When I wrote my evacuation plan, I didn’t think I’d ever need it.  But then the president of Burkina Faso announced that he was going to rewrite the constitution to allow himself to run for office again (he’d already been there 27 years), and people were understandably upset.  Like rioting, burning buildings, and looting upset.  As the military combated the situation, I was stuck inside for several days, trying to figure out what was going on from online news updates, which taught me a slew of French words like tear gas, martial law, shots fired, and martyr.  This was when the crisis management team at CEF headquarters called to discuss that evacuation plan.

Fortunately I never needed it.  The president stepped down and fled the country.  In the next 2-day period, we went through about 5 different “interim presidents” as the people continued protesting.  To add to the chaos, random people showed up at the national TV station to declare themselves president.  But after a brief transition headed by the military, in the end, everyone accepted our current interim president.

Throughout the whole process, I’ve been praying that God would change the former president’s heart.  Only God could do it.  Just as only God could change anyone’s heart.

I’ve been teaching an evangelistic English class for adults in my spare time.  Along with vocab and grammar, we study the Bible in English.  At the beginning of the course, I asked students to draw 4 or 5 pictures of things that describe them for a conversation activity.  One student drew a moon and star symbol, showing that Islam is very important to her.  But during our last class, we were talking about Saul’s conversion, and this student said, “I think that God chose Saul to tell people about Jesus because he was such a terrible person that when people saw how he had changed, they would know it had to be God who did it.”  When it was time for me to close the class, she said, “No, this is so interesting. I want to keep discussing.”

What I love about Saul’s conversion is that he didn’t change his mind about Jesus and then just enjoy the new information.  He had a driving desire to share this truth with everyone else.  I pray all the time that God would give me such a desire to see hearts changed, and that He would give the Christians of Burkina Faso this same desire.  The kind of desire that makes thousands of people willing to risk their lives to stand up to the military and the president.  The kind of desire that makes people take the training we give them and start a Good News Club in their neighborhood despite all the obstacles.  Only God can do that.  So I can’t thank you enough for praying with me.