Heading to Africa

On Monday I’m joining Brian and a team of other pastors to head to Burkina Faso in Africa. West Ridge has been engaged in missions efforts in the country for the past couple of years. Burkina is located in West Africa just south of the Sahara Desert and north of Ghana. The country is 55% Muslim and 40% animist. Animists worship various items in nature as determined by a village witch doctor.

Here’s a snapshot of our itinerary. Among other things we will…

• Visit the Lycee Alliance Christienne (LAC). West Ridge partners with LAC, a high school started by the Christian and Missionary Alliance. It’s the highest ranked school in the country. Because of that, many government officials and other influential leaders send their children to this school. Among other things, we are traveling with a family from West Ridge who will be working at the LAC team center for the next couple of years.
• Visit Compassion International sites. Hundreds of children are sponsored by West Ridge. A couple of the guys on the trip will actually get to meet the children they are sponsoring.
• Meet with leaders in our church planting initiative. This will include visiting Pugli villages. The Pougouli people are an unreached people group. In addition to planting churches, West Ridge and its partners have initiated the digging of 26 wells in these villages.
• Spend a night in The Bush. Whether or not I actually sleep in The Bush is a completely different story.
• Participate in a Sunday morning worship service. No, I’m not going to be preaching. Something tells me my “killing cockroaches” story would not translate very well.
• Watch football. Are you kidding? We can’t miss the playoff games.
• Meet with government officials. We want to continue to express our desire to develop partnerships and offer encouragement and credibility for the church planters we are supporting.
• Go on a safari. If all goes as planned, we may have an opportunity on the final day we are in the country to do a safari. I’d like to see a lion roar…and live to tell about it.

Not sure how much, if any, Internet access I’m going to have during this trip. In the worst case scenario, I’ll try to recap when I get back.

Pray for our team, but more importantly pray for the people of Burkina.