155 Days in Burkina and 155 Reasons to Be Thankful!

Where to start? 

What began on June 19, 2012 during the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans came to an unexpected ending 2 years, 4 months, and 27 days later when our family boarded the plane in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso to return to the US. So, where to start? Well, we start and finish with our deepest THANKS!…with many life lessons, many rich relationships, and many impacting experiences…and much, much thanks!

Thank You, Calling One,

for calling us and moving my heart at the Southern Baptist Convention
that Tuesday in New Orleans!

Thank You, Lord, 

for leading us to Shattering Darkness Ministries via First Baptist Vivian!

Thank You, our Creator, 

for making us a part of the family of First Baptist Vivian in the first place!!!

Thank You, God, 

for allowing me to participate in FB Vivian's 2013 Burkina Team with Ms. Paulette Holt and the others on that team and to catch a glimpse of the amazing work
You are doing among the Dagara and Lobi peoples!

Thank You, King Jesus, 

for Ms. Lynn Kennedy and the work You began with her
and the ministry You continue to do through her in Southwest Burkina!

Thank You, Sovereign One, 

for leading us to join with the ministry of Shattering Darkness
when You did, how You did, and why You did. 

Thank You, Faithful One, 

for renting our house at the right time, and thank You for all the lessons we learned
through the many prayers prayed and the many who prayed them!

Thank You, On-Time One, 

for getting us to Burkina Faso inside the open window
just prior to the Ebola crisis hitting West Africa!

Thank You, Our Protector, 

that You have shielded Burkina Faso thus far from being infected with the virus!
Please continue that protection and heal the infected nations!

Thank You, Our Provider, 

for providing us such amazing support by our brothers and sisters in Christ
and our friends and family in the US!

Thank You, Our God Who Hears Our Prayers, 

for hearing the many prayers for our safety and our health.
The girls and me only experienced one brief minor stomach sickness,
and, other than a cold, Tracy stayed well the entire time!

Thank You, Generous One, 

for the house you blessed us with in Diébougou
and the Christian guards who helped to keep us safe.

Thank You, Jesus, 

for my opportunity to visit an important ministry partner (for FB Vivian)
up in northern Burkina.

Thank You, our Father, 

for all the experiences our girls had! What a gift that time was for them!!!

Thank You, Kind One, 

for the gift of our puppy, Skipper, and the joy that little dog brought to us
during our short time together. Thank You for providing the perfect home for him
when it was time for us to go.

Thank You, Saving One, 

for the opportunity to share the Gospel and my testimony through an interpreter
and to be a part of leading 5 people to pray the sinner's prayer.
Please continue Your awesome work in them!

Thank You, God Who Loves All Peoples, 

for the opportunity to befriend 3 muslims at a local grocery store
and to share You with them!

Thank You, Wonderful One, 

for the vibrant worship of Your people during Sunday and Wednesday services.
Thank you for songs in French and Dagara,
and for the jubilant universal language of dance!

Thank You, Good Shepherd, 

for the amazing shepherds of your people in the Shattering Darkness churches.
Thank You for their devotion both to You and to Your people and for Your Word!

Thank You, Language Maker, 

for the blessing of studying French and picking up some Dagara along the way.

Thank You, Never Changing One, 

for the opportunity to learn a new lifestyle: hand washing dishes and laundry outside; learning to make apple pie and tortillas and pancakes from scratch with Burkinabé ingredients. Without a doubt, our apple pies made there were the best we have ever had!

Thank You, Great Comforter, 

for helping us through the difficult days of home sickness and culture stress.
Thank You for showing us that we can live in a 3rd world country. And thank You for also showing us that it was OK for us to cook up French fries, to make pizza on traditional bread, and to live in a close-to-Western style house. 

Thank You, Friend-Giver, 

for giving our girls wonderful friends while we were there.

Thank you, also, for blessing us with the friendships of our tutors, our guards,
pastors and lay leaders, and even some people from within the greater community of Diébougou…even without knowing a lot of French. THANK YOU!

Thank You, Our Maker, 

for making a way for us to know amazing people like Ms. Lynn Kennedy,
Patrice and Celine Hien, Pascal and Maddo Somda, Pastor Marcel, Pastor Bill Mitchell, Pastor Ken Hucks, the Shattering Darkness Board, Christian, Victor, Mimi, Gabriel, André, Mme. Irene, Mme. Margaritte, the ministry center young adults group, and so many others!!!

And thank YOU! 

We thank all of YOU who are reading this post, who have supported us and loved us
and prayed for us from the beginning until now. None of these blessings, gifts, photos,
and our previous posts would have been possible without you!

Our thanks goes on and on and on…………

In God's goodness and timing, He brought us to Burkina Faso to work with an amazing ministry called Shattering Darkness. In God's wisdom and timing, He brought us home to take care of our family and to continue following after Him here in the US. 

Going into it, we could never have imagined that we would be heading home for unforeseen special family reasons. However, God knew. 

Though it was only 5 months, our journey of the last 2+ years, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was God's will for this Manning family and fulfilled His purposes for us during that time. 

We learned so much about our Heavenly Father's provision, sovereignty, and protection! 

We learned so much about how God moves through the prayers of His people. 

We learned that sometimes what we want to do and what God wants for us are 2 different things. Why? Because He sees the BIG picture. He knew our time would be limited in Burkina, so it was His best for us to study French in our place of ministry and not in the capital as we had originally planned. He also protected the girls from the political turmoil that the country went through recently. If it had been my own will, we would have been studying French in Ouagadougou (Burkina's capital), the center of the recent protests and upheaval! God knew, and He protected us. He knew that we needed to spend as much time as possible there with the people and ministry of Shattering Darkness. And then He knew when and why He would release us to return home when we did. 

Now, there lies many unknowns and wonderings before us…and yet God knows each one of them and will help us and guide us just as He did during our journey leading up to our June 12th departure for West Africa. He was faithful then. He is faithful now. And He will continue to be faithful in the days to come. Thank you for your prayers for our family as we prayerfully move forward. 

WE LOVE YOU AND PRAISE GOD THAT YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE JOURNEY WITH US!

Note: This post DOES NOT CLOSE THIS BLOGSPOT. Our journey continues, and we will keep you posted. 

2 Days, 5 Souls, and Many Gifts from God

Back in the middle of September, on Tuesday the 16th and Thursday the 18th, God blessed me greatly. In fact, these days have been a major highlight of our time here in Burkina, and I wanted to share them with you:

Pastor Ken Hucks of North Carolina was here to teach a seminar and to minister in the villages. As an aside, when he taught that first day of the seminar (which was about our personal spiritual life), Tracy and I felt like two parched people drinking from a refreshing fountain. We had no idea that after a couple months of only hearing sermons in French and Dagara we were so thirsty for the preaching and teaching of the Word in our own heart language. It both surprised us and blessed us!

So, in the village of Nakar, there was a 3-day youth conference held during the second week of Paster Ken's ministry here. Day 1, the preaching of the Word, with Pastor Ken as the keynote speaker. Day 2, prayer and fasting. And day 3, evangelism in the village and surrounding area. I participated in the first and last days.

After we arrived, the ministry director turned to me and asked if there was anything I had to share with the group. Well, it was an "instant-in-season-out-of-season moment for me. Actually, I should have known that if I was going to be there, then most likely I would be asked to participate in the teaching portion of that first day.

Our faithful Father helped me share that day. It was such a blessing because I got to give my testimony and encourage them to not run from the thing(s) God calls them to do. I actually began the teaching time followed by Pastor Ken and then Bro. Patrice Hien. God brought it all together beautifully, as He so faithfully does when we cry out to Him for help…which I did, needless to say. I told the youth that it was all because of Jesus that I am alive, am married, have children, was called into ministry, and now am here with my family in Africa. So that day was a gift from Him.

Skip Day 2, and fast forward to Day 3. After a time of Dagara praise and worship, the leadership taught the youth about the basics of evangelism. For many, this was their first time to evangelize door-to-door. I found out later that, along with sharing the Gospel with folks, the youth were also inviting them to come see the Jesus Film in Dagara at the church that night.


After splitting the large group up into smaller groups, all heading in different directions, our group of 12 or so headed out on foot. We walked together for a while up to a certain point and then began to break off, two by two. I was paired with Christian, my tutor.

Wow, it was amazing. I had brought a small evangecube in my pocket and was given opportunity to use it 4 times that day! We walked up to a house, were invited into the courtyard, were given chairs to sit in, and then, after some initial intros, explained why we had come and went into sharing the Gospel using the Gospel cube. Our first stop was the house of a member from the Nakar church. A good place for practice.

The woman just left of me
asked if she could become a Christian also.

At the second stop, we had about 7 or so adults and children present. There I not only got to share the Gospel through the help of Christian (I spoke in English and he in Dagara), I also was able to share my testimony. Well, God used it, and one of the women asked how she could become a Christian also! I was thrilled!!! It was the first time this had happened to me. We told the group how one becomes a Christian and then led her and 3 others to pray the sinners prayer!!!! It was an AMAZING GOD-GIFT!

The man to the far left is who said, Yes, to Jesus.

The third house, we shared again with a family, the husband came a little bit into our sharing. At the end, he also wanted to become a believer! Now, as I left the 3rd house, I just wanted to know, now what?! What is follow up like here? Have they truly had repentant faith? Are they going to go to the church now? If they have idols and fetishes, are they going to burn them? Grant it, some of these are only answered in the context of discipleship. I asked Christian some of my questions, and he said that it was the pastor's job now to do the follow up. The initial responsibility, though, lies solely in the heart of the one who said YES to Jesus. Of these 5 whom we had the opportunity to lead to Jesus, they then had to make the next step (or steps) to the church. They had to now peruse Jesus themselves. After they visited the church, the pastor would then reach out to them individually. For me who was anxious about their next steps, it was a matter of trusting God and praying that the Devil did not detour them from following Jesus.

I have never had an experience quite like that day before. Truly 2-by-2 is vital in evangelism. I found that segueing to my testimony was very effective and natural. Laying out the Gospel first using the Gospel cube as a visual aid (both for them and for me), sharing how Jesus saved me and changed my own life, and then finally asking them if they would like to turn to Jesus for salvation and turn away from their sin was an effective outline that the Lord blessed that day.

Our 4th sharing was planting or watering and not reaping. A man was walking and so we talked with him as we all walked in the same direction. At that point, he did not ask Jesus to save Him. I later on found out that his son goes to the Nakar church, but that this man has not yet taken the step to himself publicly confess Christ and change his ways. He knows that if he asks Jesus into his life, he will have to destroy his idols, and he is afraid, since he is the patriarch of his family who does the sacrifices, that if he stops the sacrifices, the spirits will kill him. It is really intense. Please pray that God opens this man's eyes to see that Jesus is infinitely greater than an idol or a deceased relative, and please pray that the Lord will use this man's son to bring him to saving faith and set him free from the bondage of his traditions and of fear.

On our way back, I timed how long we had walked away from the church and it was near 45 minutes! I had never experienced "door-to-door" like that before, and I will not soon forget the gifts God gave me in allowing me to participate in that youth conference. I realized that day that this is what it is all about. Thank you for your prayers!!!

Providential Peanut Butter

God knows. God knows all. He sees where we cannot and makes provision ready for us before we even realize we have a need. During our last night in the US, we discovered (through the recommendation of one of our partners) that our girls will actually take their malaria medicine crushed up in peanut butter. Well, at that time, it was too late for us to have yet another footlocker and that filled with 50 lbs of American peanut butter! So, there came a point several weeks into our being here in country that we realized our meager supply we had brought was not going to be sufficient for the weeks between then and the fall teams that were scheduled to come. Well, Tracy put out a call on Facebook, asking if our friends knew of anyone who was coming this way sooner than later. There was no favorable response to that inquiry. HOWEVER, a number of you DID RESPOND to Tracy's post by asking, "Where can we mail you peanut butter???" And WOW, DID YOU! THANK YOU!

Now, due to the Ebola crisis in some West African countries (Burkina and the immediately surrounding countries not yet impacted), teams have been postponed until a later date. You can imagine our praise to God that you mailed us the peanut butter when you did. THANK YOU, LORD, AND THANK YOU OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!! God lovingly looked out for our girls and used your generosity and action to be the means of His care for them. Thank you for loving our family and mailing us American peanut butter and other things that are hard to come by here. We love you! 

Surrounded by the Gospel Story

The Gospel story is present on the very walls of the ministry center! The inside of the Kpakpara church building has been painted so that one could share the Gospel with its broad bands of vivid color. ("Kpakpara" sounds like "Bak-bara," with British "a"s.) 

From bottom to top:

BLACK representing our sin...

RED representing the blood of Jesus shed for the forgiveness of our sins...

WHITE representing the righteousness accredited to us after we recognize our sinfulness, repent of our sin, believe God's love for us and His way to salvation through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, and call upon the Lord to forgive and save us...

GREEN representing the new life God brings us through repentant faith and the work of the Holy Spirit He gives us when we believe and are saved...

And GOLD representing the certain hope of Heaven we have, that the day is coming when we will be with the Lord, the One who died and rose again for us, in Heaven forever!

What an awesome and beautiful interior design of a church!!! The supporting beams running down the center are also painted. The first is black, the second red, and so on until you reach the platform and a gold pillar. The entire curved wall of the platform is painted gold also.

What a beautiful picture of how, when we sinners come to the Lord repentant and needing Him, He cleanses us, makes us whole, and brings us back into joyous fellowship with Himself. The Gospel that, by grace through repentant faith, saves us once for all time, is also the Gospel that daily restores and shapes us our lives for His glory and our good.

Dagara Worship

Kpakpara Ministry Center

We wanted to share with y'all a glimpse of what a Sunday morning looks like for us here in southwest Burkina Faso. Sundays here begin pretty early. "Prayer and Adoration" starts at 7:30 AM. This is a time of prayer and worship. We usually get picked up around that time and do not arrive to the ministry center until about 7:45 or so. Ms. Lynn has been bringing us around to the 12 different churches of the ministry so as to introduce our family to the congregations. When we leave to go to the bush churches, we leave around 7 am! When we are not traveling out to different villages, however, we attend church at the Ministry Center about a 10 minute drive from the house in the neighboring village of Kpakpara.

This needs no explanation

In all the churches we have been in thus far, the men sit on the right as you enter the sanctuary and the women on the left. Children either sit with their moms (or sometimes dads), in the back of the church or in a middle aisle. Nearly all the women wear skirts or dresses and some sort of head covering. When we first began visiting churches, I would usually head to the right with the other men and Tracy and the girls go left. However, for a while now, both at the ministry center and at other churches, I have been given the honor of sitting "devant" or in front of the congregation. On a slightly raised platform, there are chairs for the pastor and other ministers in the congregation or other participants of the service. What an honor, to say the least! It allows me a front-row seat to see how God's people there worship and praise Him. However, I do not know most of the songs (though at least some are now familiar) and I can only understand a very small percentage of what is being spoken.

Here is a song my tutor taught me in Dagara

Oh, and let me tell you. The Dagara can praise God! …and dance! There are several different kind a dances. My favorite is the dance circle, when sometimes up to half of the congregation joins in and circles around the sanctuary in joyous praise, accompanied by a drum kit, one or more djembes, and a balaphone. Most everything is said twice: first in French and then in Dagara or visa versa. Most of the children, youth, and younger adults can speak French, while some of the older adults and elderly cannot. In Burkina, French is the language used in education and government. I have learned a few songs, a couple in Dagara and one in French. Sitting up front is an honor and often means that I am asked to pray at some point during the service, often for those who are sick. It was very hard at the beginning but is getting a little easier praying in French. As I mentioned in our Newsletter, my tutor helped me draft some prayers that I now draw from.

Praise and Adoration leads into a time of Louange (Praise) in both French and Dagara. Then, the offering time is another act of corporate worship where the entire church makes its way down the isle to offer gifts to the Lord and His work there in the local church. After that the message, translated both in French and Dagara. And lastly, prayers for the sick and for closing, including a prayer of blessing over the congregation by the pastor. The last formal aspect of the Dagara liturgy is the fellowship line after the benediction. Starting with the pastors, the entire church greets one another by leaving the church building and shaking the hands of those who left before them…until the entire church stands in a line of greeting and blessing. When I first saw this back in 2013, I was blown away.

A post-service greeting line

Tracy and the girls have a different experience since most churches have the kids leave after the worship time for a children's time in a different building. Here is Tracy's account of a typical Sunday: After the announcements, the children usually exit to go to the children's building for Sunday School. The girls do fairly well considering since they were 6 weeks old (3 weeks for Grace!) they have been in a nursery. When the daddy is in ministry it is what happens. So they have only known going to play with lots of toys and learning about Jesus over goldfish and juice.  The girls like the music and clap along to the children's songs for about 10 minutes or less into it we are out the door since they don't understand the language and I cannot help them yet! One Sunday I brought a mat and we sit under a tree and read a story out of their children's Bible as the kids outside the church climbed up in the tree to look at the pictures in the Bible! A really cool moment! Not alway easy to worship with your children….that is right no childcare! The kids go into service with us from beginning until the kids leave to go to sunday school. So even though I don' t usually hear the message I do not understand most of it right now anyways! So pray for us as we are the only ones discipling them and teaching the about Jesus. They have wonderful helpers and teachers here and the children's program are great but we don't understand what they are teaching so pray for us as we teach Maleah and Grace. Thank you!

Wednesday night service is held outside when it is warm and inside when it is cool.
A generator runs the lights for evening meetings.

An example of a children's choir

Lynn Kennedy sharing at the end of a service

Tomorrow Is Not Ours Yet; Now Is God's Gift to Us

"Aren't the Mannings close to that Ebola crisis in Africa?"

I imagine there are many of you who have asked this question or something similar to it, such as, "Aren't they coming home?" To answer the first question, yes, we are in West Africa and relatively not far from all that is going on. First, I want to share with you what Ms. Lynn Kennedy posted on Facebook today: "Our Ministry Team in Burkina is sad today. Three Impact Teams from the US have 'postponed' (and rightly so) October and November and December ministry visits here. By God's GRACE, Ebola has not entered here, yet we can not presume on God's protection when 'flying into' a hotspot of danger. Pray for the teams in the US and our ministry team here." (Posted on Facebook by Lynn Kennedy, Sept. 27, 2014)

In this blogpost, I want to let you all know that the crisis is very much on our minds and hearts. By the grace of God, Ebola is not here now. And we praise Him for this. As Ms. Lynn said, we are very sad that teams will not be coming this year. If there are no teams, what are we doing here? The Lord has a plan.

God, in His grace and wisdom, answered the prayer that we began praying about 2 years ago, "Lord, raise us up and send us out." Later on we added, "...in your perfect way and timing." Well, God indeed did just that, and we arrived in Burkina on June 14th, now just over 3 months ago. Early on when we were just in the beginning stages of looking at Shattering Darkness Ministries, Tracy had a dream, a very urgent dream, where someone said to her, "Hurry...leave now." Later, a man from our church on more than one occasion told us that we needed to get here quickly. This past week, it all came together for us. If we had not left the States when we did, say 2-3 months later (say, around now), do you think we would be here right now? Nope. Probably not. As of just the other day, all the teams have been canceled for the remainder of the year. So why are we here? God has a plan without a doubt. And His way and timing of sending us out was perfect. 

Now, here we are in West Africa. We realize that at any moment we might receive word that Ebola has infiltrated Burkina. And do we feel stuck or anxious or scared? By God's grace, NO. Because of His preparing long before our arrival, we see that we must be about His business while we have the time to do so. Currently, Tracy and I are praying and thinking through an exit strategy and will update you on our plans once they have been approved by our ministry board. I just wanted you all to know that it is all very much on our hearts and minds and that your prayers mean much to our family! Please pray for God's wisdom in our evacuation planning. THANK YOU!

Along with praying that God will continue to protect Burkina and the ministry here from this terrible sickness, please pray that we use each day to the fullest and in the way that the Lord would want. This week marks some big changes. Tracy will begin assistant teaching for 2 hours each afternoon at the new Lighthouse Christian School, and I will start preparations to teach on an upcoming Wednesday night IN FRENCH. Both of us will be stretched...and, we pray, used of God in the stretching. Official language training is coming to a close for me. I will now begin to spend more time with leaders and doing ministry. Tracy will continue language study alongside her teaching at home and at the Lighthouse. For us to be able to do all this with our girls, we need a God-picked child-care provider. Please pray that the Lord provides the right woman for the job and that the girls will love her and that she will love them. THANK YOU!

We came to Burkina committing to 2 years and believing that we would be here for that entire time. It remains our intention to fulfill that commitment. However, as it is with all of us, the tomorrows before us are not promised us. It is the "now" that we have as a gift from God to use wisely for His glory and for other's good. Please pray that we use our "now" here in Burkina to its fullest and that we complete the work He has called us to do. THANK YOU! 

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:8-10 (NASB)

Long Time No Blog...

OK, so for the past month plus we have not dropped off the face of the bloggable earth, though I greatly apologize that such seemed to be the case. Can I say it has been busy? Well, yes. It has. Each day is filled with various tasks and experiences and responsibilities that tend to push blogging to the end of the day. And then, once there at the end of the day, one is not necessarily ready to blog but instead...to go to bed. But really there is no excuse. Thanks for loving us and praying for us through this quiet time. I am so grateful for Tracy's periodic Facebook posts. For those of you who Facebook, I think they have been a quick and effective way to keep y'all connected to us. For those like my dad who don't, again, I greatly apologize. There has certainly been much to blog about as is evidenced by the plethora of pics we have and the line up of blog subjects just waiting to be written and published. So, with all that said...let's have at it.