Mary Crowgey

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Prayer Letter/Ministry Update

November 4, 2011 update

Once again, thank you for your prayer support over the past months.

Prayer requests
1. Lycee Maranatha, our Christian high school, has started another school year with a healthy enrollment of over 960 with more still coming one by one (grades 6 through 12). Most students are from non-Christian homes. We had a great start with good morale when after just a few weeks of class, the part-time secondary school teachers went on strike throughout the city of Bobo. Most of our classes are taught by part-timers but we limped on with the handful of full-time professors we have for a week. In the second week students from other schools began coming by with their whistles, a sign that they want us to shut down or they will throw rocks at the buildings and students if they remain, so we automatically let them go in these cases. So far the association of school founders and the professors’ union have been unable to reach an agreement over a requested salary increase. Parents are frustrated, as we all are, and patience is wearing thin. Please pray for a solution to be worked out soon.
2. Please continue to pray that many will find Christ through the school’s ministry again this year, and that we are able to find a way to help them make up the missed time.
3. A team of dentists is coming this week to work in the village of Banzon with our colleague, Kevin Oberg, and I am privileged to be able to accompany them and lend a hand with translating for people. Please pray that their visit will open doors for the gospel and strengthen the church there.

Thank you so much for your continued support of the Great Commission Fund which keeps us here in Burkina!

February 26, 2011 update

Thanks to all of you who have continued praying for the work in Burkina Faso.

Praise items
1. Morale of both the personnel and the students is good at Lycee Maranatha this year.

2. Over 100 people accepted Christ in four nights of open-air evangelistic preaching in a suburb of Bobo where a Christian primary school has opened to serve the poor children of the area, most from non-Christian homes. Their parents were especially invited but the meetings were open to all. The area does not have electricity so the electric lights, microphones, and film shown after the preaching all served to draw people.

Prayer requests
1. That once again this year by the end of the year, many of our almost 1,000 Lycee Maranatha students will have given themselves to our Lord.

2. That the Lord will enable the Alliance pastor who has been put in charge of doing follow-up on the new converts where the evangelistic meetings were held. His name is Pierre.

3. That peace will return to C�te d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast, the country on our southern border). Those of you who follow international news know that the former president has not allowed the newly elected president Ouattara to take over. This is causing major problem s and already hundreds have been killed, mostly among the newly elected president’s supporters. A new outbreak of civil war is not out of the question. Please join us in fervent prayer that innocent lives will be protected, that a workable solution will soon be found, and that the unrest will cause many to seek and find peace in our Lord. The current instability is disrupting the country in many ways, such as schools being unable to function in parts of the country.

4. That peace will reign here in Burkina. Last week it was claimed that police in one of our towns beat a student who then died as a result of the beating. The police say that he died of meningitis. It is a little complicated and students there organized a demonstration to show their unhappiness. Several students have been killed there. Soon after, students in the capital also protested, and there was talk of the same thing happening here in Bobo, so yesterday the Ministry of Education told local schools to let their students go home until Tuesday. Of course this affects us at Lycee Maranatha. Please pray that a solution will be found that will allow peace to return to our campuses around the country.

Thank you so much for your prayer support and for your support of the Great Commission Fund.

Summer 2010 update

The past few months here in Burkina have given many causes to praise our Lord.

Praise items:

1. Our two Bible schools, Maranatha Institute which is taught in French, and Poundou, taught in the trade language of Jula, graduated 14 students each, adding much-needed workers for the harvest.

2. ACCEDES is the Burkina Alliance’s development office, as CAMA is for us in North America. This spring they received the great honor of being chosen by the government as the organization responsible for overseeing the national volunteer program in this region, something a little like our Peace Corps. Many very high-ranking government officials participated in the ceremony to initiate this new relationship.

3. We are rejoicing in the results for Lycee Maranatha (Maranatha High School) of the ninth-grade exit exam. Out of 171 students that we presented, 96 passed the test, giving us a passing rate of about 56%. It is too early to have heard the national passing rate, but this compares favorably with what our professors saw in the juries they served on where around 30% was the norm. Thank you for your prayers for Lycee Maranatha!

4. As has been true for the past few years, well over 100 students at the lycee prayed to receive Christ at some point during the school year. Weekly Bible classes are scheduled for each of the 14 classes, thus exposing our almost 1,000 students to the gospel on a regular basis.

Prayer requests:
1. Our senior high school students take their exit exam this coming Monday (June 21). Please pray that they will be able to keep a calm attitude and not panic during the exam so they can remember what they have learned.

2. Pray for the safety of the many on our team who are in transition. Out of a team of over 20 members, we are temporarily down to five in country due to the comings and goings. Pray especially for those who are saying painful good-byes to aging parents and other loved ones.

3. Pray that the lycee director will be able to find more Christian teachers between now and September to fill part-time teaching positions. All our full-time teachers are Christians but so far it has not been possible to find Christians qualified to teach all the subjects, especially things like German or physics.

Thank you so much for praying for the work in Burkina, and for your continued faithful support of the Great Commission fund which keeps us on the field.

Mary Crowgey

Spring 2010

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for praying for us here in Burkina. It is truly what enables us to make a difference in the lives of people and in the life of the church here.

Many of you know that our mission has sent representatives both from the mission and the national church to South Africa and Niger in the past three years to attend conferences on Christian education in Africa. The concept of reaching our youth through Christian schools is beginning to build steam now and we look forward to seeing more and more schools opening and the existing ones grow in number and quality.

One of our Alliance laymen opened a primary school last year here in Bobo with one first grade class with fewer than 15 students. This year he welcomed over 170 students in four classes (grades 1-4)! He is truly seeing the Lord’s blessing on his efforts and we are rejoicing with him. Start-up costs are high so for the moment he has not been able to hire a pastor to come teach the children Bible stories part-time but this is high on his agenda. The parents pay the tuition for their students in this school.

Our Alliance primary school across town is also in its second year and has grown from also fewer than 15 students in one grade to 38 in two grades the last I heard.

A pastor from Iceland, from a sister denomination, began a primary school called ABC here last year for children of the very poor on the outskirts of town which has grown to around 150 students this year. These students are sponsored and good relationships are being built with the families whose children attend there. It is a thrill to see children from the majority religion here learning Christian songs and singing them with gusto! Plans were in place to have an evangelism campaign in the school area last week but due to church calendar conflicts, this has been postponed until September or possibly later, after the rainy season.

Mary Crowgey

Many thanks to all of you who faithfully provide the support we need by giving to the Great Commission Fund.

Prayer Requests/Answers to Prayer

Please see in the above section.

Burkina Faso

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