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We are the Smith Family (Randy, Tonya, Jonathan, LaRee, Benjamin, and Joshua), independent Baptist church planting missionaries sent out of the Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who are serving the Lord in the city of Ouagadougou, the capital of the West African nation of Burkina Faso. We have been serving in West Africa since January of 2004. After spending 13 months in language school in Albertville, France, we served in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), West Africa from January 2004 to October 2005. These two years of preparation included an outbreak of severe anti-western rioting in November 2004 and a near fatal bout of cerebral malaria that Tonya survived in July 2005. Through it all the Lord's protection and answered prayer helped us to continue on through these and other trying times of our first term. God used these trials to strengthen our faith and cause us to grow as His servants.
While in Ivory Coast the Lord brought 4 people into our lives with whom we had daily contact: Bagbila, Fatou, Adama and Miriam. All four of these people had one thing in common - they were all from Burkina Faso, the northern neighbor of Ivory Coast! Two of these, Bagbila and Fatou, were saved members of the church there in Bingerville, while the other two, Adama and Miriam, were Muslim. The Lord used these four people to touch our hearts to begin thinking and praying for the people of Burkina Faso. During furlough in 2006 the Lord confirmed His leading and we made plans to move up to Burkina.
For the first 18 months after arriving here in Ouagadougou we oversaw the work of another furloughing missionary. On February 1, 2009 we held the first service of the Eglise Baptiste de la Grâce (Grace Baptist Church)in Bendogo, a neighborhood in the capital city Ouagadougou. The Lord has given us steady growth and in January 2011 we averaged 60 on Sunday morning and 30 on Wednesday. The Lord blessed us with 180 on our Second Anniversary Sunday in February 2011. The Lord has sent an Ivorian pastor and his family, Pastor Daniel Barou, as missionaries to Burkina Faso. Pastor Barou was saved and trained under the ministry of our Pastor, Dr. Tom Vineyard, while he served as a missionary in Anyama, Ivory Coast. After having graduated from the Fundamental Baptist Institute of the Fundamental Baptist Church of Anyama, the Lord used Pastor Barou to start two churches in Ivory Coast. This allowed the Barous to gain nearly 10 years of pastoral experience before they were led of God to move up to Burkina and watch the work for us during our 2011 - 2012 furlough. Upon our return in summer 2012, we look forward to helping the church find a permanent property and help them with the construction of a building and pastor's home.
We place an extremely high value on the prayer support of God's people. We invite you to become a financial and prayer partner with us in reaching Burkina Faso with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus!
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