Anne and Daniel Kompaore
God's Vision, Our Commission

01 BP 1632 Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso

January 20, 2008

Comings and Goings

Hello all,
 
I had been intending to write about various happenings as they occurred in the past two months,  and now I have some thing urgent to write about. So this will be of necessity, short and brief.
 
First of all though, thanks for your prayers for the Deutero-canonical translation recruitment last December. It pulled off just wonderfully, with all participants thoroughly enjoying every minute and learning lots, it seems.  I would also have liked to share with you my trip to Dagaraland for the New Testament dedication. Another time - or maybe on my new website that is currently under construction. Except to say that on the way back to Ouaga, our mini bus collided with a donkey. Poor donkey did not survive, but none of us suffered injuries. We were thankful too that the headlights were not affected, as night was rapidly falling.
 
We made it into the new year with the usual fire works, but with also the sad news that Valentine's (our daughter-in-law) younger brother succumbed to tuberculosis on January 2.  But the consoling news is that with the help of women of the church who sat with the bereaved mother, reconciliation was achieved in that family after years of living in the same courtyard without communication with each other.  Praise God!  This is also a great relief for Valentine, who communicated with them all and often had to be a go-between between the different parties.
 
And then yesterday on January 19, a number of us went to a fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration out of town for a pastor friend of ours, and president of Daniel's denomination.  We made it back alright but not Daniel's brother and wife and two other pastors who were traveling with them in their car. Benoit was passing a very slow truck as a last in a series of cars, and collided head on with a car coming from the other direction. It is quite astounding that not more damage was done. All passengers in both cars were injured, but four have already been released from emergency. The two left are Benoit and Sarah.  Sarah has a broken arm and leg, and Benoit has no broken bones but is being kept for further observation.  Benoit is Daniel's brother who was so badly beaten by the military a year ago December.  But when I visited him at the hospital this afternoon, his spirits were up, and he has this persistent trust that everything is in God's hands.  One nice thing for them is that they are keeping the two of them in the same hospital room!
 
This comes just two days before I am to leave for the town of Reo for the Lyele Bible Translation Recruitment workshop. This time my Bible Society Supervisor is accompanying me, and we will be sharing the teaching load. For that I am thankful.  We are anticipating 20 participants - we could have had 40, but we limited it to 20. The Lyele church community is quite anxious to see the beginning of the translation of the Old Testament in their language.
 
Please pray for the healing of Benoit and Sarah, and the other injured passengers, as well as for safe travels and and good workshop for me during this week.
 
Thanks much!
  
Anne Garber Kompaore