Children's Outreach

Within the next couple of weeks a group of around 30 Loron children and young people in our village will be completing a series of 85 chronological Bible lessons. 

Pray for the Sunday school teachers, Serafim, Frederiki, Yozef and Alisi as they teach the children and explain the Gospel to them. Pray that many of the children will understand the message and trust Christ are their Saviour.

Click to enlarge

Translation and Literacy Seminars - Nov '13

The last few weeks we spent in the village in Ivory Coast during November were pretty hectic, but, praise the Lord for what took place. Marina was able to spend a week with sixteen literacy teachers from numerous Loron villages,  bringing them up to date with all the new literacy materials and techniques. 

And then Pastor Matthew worked with a group of seven French-speaking Loron believers who will be getting more involved in the Loron Bible translation project. He taught them basic Bible translation principles and he was a very effective communicator. 

Please continue to pray for translation and literacy among the Loron.

Pastor Matthieu teaching Bible translation principles to Loron translators

Marina teaching Loron literacy teachers

Photo Blog Spring 2013

A few photos from the past couple of months in Ivory Coast and Guinea, West Africa (click photo for larger image)...

Literacy in Ivory Coast

Got some new wheels to visit villages in the bush

Literacy with Joel in Guinea, West Africa

Luke's Gospel in Loron

Children's workers' training, May 2013

Football (Soccer) Evangelism

Seraphim, literacy teacher and children's worker

Ladies conference

Keep in Touch!

Check out current updates, photos, etc on our Facebook pages and Picasa:

Paul

Marina

Photo Albums (2012) Senegal, Guinea, Mozambique, Burkina, Ivory Coast, N. Ireland (click picture below)

Return to West Africa

June 29, 2012

We are in the process of making final preparations for going back to West Africa. We have booked our flights to Burkina for July 14.

While we have been home we’ve had the opportunity to speak at dozens of prayer meetings and small groups in the UK and North America and we believe people have been encouraged and challenged as they have seen what the Lord is doing in West Africa. We met a lot of wonderful people along the way.  

On returning to Africa, in two weeks time, our immediate goals will be to get our vehicle back on the road, help a new missionary family to get their bearings in Burkina, and then travel to our village in Ivory Coast for a month to complete some checks on the book of Luke that we translated into the Loron language last year.

After that, at the end of August, we plan to begin a 3-month trip to various locations around West Africa. We hope to visit our missionary teams who are working in Senegal, Guinea and Liberia.

We would appreciate your prayers as we finish off our time here in the UK and as we return to where the Lord has called us to serve Him. It’s going to be difficult leaving family and friends again, but we know the Lord will give us the grace to cope when we need it most.

Thank you for your prayers and interest.

Continuing by His grace,

Paul and Marina

Missionary Videos on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/paulbriggsy

Evangelism Update

Last week the NTM website in the US featured this update from the Loron work:

Missionaries Paul and Marina Briggs are on home assignment in Northern Ireland. But thanks to modern technology they can telephone Joel, one of the Loron church leaders in northeast Ivory Coast.

Joel was a teenager when the Briggs came to the Ivory Coast 25 years ago. He was one of the first Lorons to accept Christ when they gave the Gospel message.

Currently he is an elder in the church and is leading and guiding the believers as well as reaching out to help others understand the light of the Gospel.

When Paul called on a crystal clear cell phone connection, Joel was more than glad to give him an update on the status of the Loron church. He also told Paul about an evangelistic outreach to a small village nearby.

“Please be praying that Joel and the other Bible teachers will be able to clearly communicate the Gospel to these dear Loron folks who ‘sit in darkness,’” wrote Paul. Pray that the light of God’s grace will penetrate the hearts and minds of these tribal men and women who have never heard about the Lord Jesus or what He has done for them.”

Pray that as Joel and the others teach Firm Foundation Bible lessons that the message will resonate with the hearts of the Lorons in Gori and that they will trust Christ as their savior.

Africa Challenge

We showed this video to the students at the NTM missionary training centre in Missouri during their Field Fair this week. You might enjoy it. It's only 98 seconds long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIpSCCh54XA

Free Background / Wallpaper for your computer

Here are a few pictures of Loron Christians in Ivory Coast. 

The images below are 1280x 800 resolution. If you would like a different resolution, send me a note (briggsntm@gmail.com) and I'll get back to you.

Click on image to get to the full-sized picture (it doesn't appear as the full size, but it downloads the full version), then right-click and select 'save image as'. 

Once you have downloaded the image to your computer, right-click again the image and select 'Set as Desktop Background'.

If you have any problems downloading the pictures, let me know and I'll email them to you.

Gorée Island Revisited

Marina and I visited the island of Gorée yesterday. It is located just off the coast of Senegal and was used as a staging post to transport around 70,000 West Africans into a life of slavery in the Americas. For a summary of some little-known facts about the slave trade, click here. 

Click on picture for larger image

Point of No Return