Writing….. for Planting...

Summer outreach season is approaching fast and, over the past week, we've been making decisions and preparations for the Planting Together initiative in West Africa this August. Among other things, we've decided to hold our orientation camp this year in the inland city of Thies, instead of in the capital city of Dakar.

Knowing that the balanced ethnic and cultural mix of our group had been one of the keys to the success of last year's camp and outreach, we've been praying that as many African participants as last year would apply. In fact, we do have a lot of interest from Africans in Mali and Senegal again this year; the surprising part is that we have fewer foreign teams than we were expecting. However, we're encouraged that the teams coming from overseas are bringing whole families with them this year, as we know that the younger children play an important role in building friendship with local villagers.

With this year's outreach teams all being either English or French speaking, I've begun work this week on writing quiet time journals in English and French for the three weeks of outreach. The goal of the booklets is to help participants spend personal time with God, hear His voice, and apply the Bible's teaching to their summer outreach experience, as well as to their lives back home.  The Bible passages I've chosen are built around themes such as: Planting Together, Serving Together, Worshipping Together, Obeying Together, Praying Together, Growing Together…. and so on. Thanks for your prayers as I complete the work on those booklets this week.