Baptism Service In Dapaong

While in Dapaong last week we had the opportunity, with the group from the States present to witness the first baptism of 18 converts from two local village churches. One of the churches walked a little over two miles in one direction just to witness and participate in the baptism while the other village was the hosting church whose building was just completed nearly two months ago.

Pastor Sopa personally won most of the people to the Lord and took them through a Baptism class which doubles as a discipleship course. At the end of the class and upon a true and clear profession of salvation they were baptized.

The service was supposed to begin around 8:30 a.m. but due to the folks walking from so far a distance we began an hour later. When everyone from the Baptism class had arrived we began to walk the quarter of a mile down to the local lake. This same lake is home to about twenty gators who mostly migrate into Ghana during the rainy season however there is always the possibility of having a stray one or two stick around. Hence, we found it necessary for a guard to be posted in the waters just shy of Randy as he baptized each of the converts.

The Baptism was something the two villages had never seen. Pastor Sopa and Randy have been working in these villages for years and with time they are now getting to the point where they are beginning to yield fruit. It was really something else to watch each person as they went into the lake’s waters and were baptized one after another much like I imagine was done in the N.T. times.

Interestingly enough, Pastor Sopa called us about a week after the event to tell us that the Chief of one of the villages who is a professing Christian has asked to go through the Discipleship/Baptism class and then specifically asked for Randy to baptize him. It is such an honor for Randy to do this but it is such a testimony for this Chief in his 70’s to stand up before his village of whom many are steeped in voodoo and show his really faith, obedience and devotion to Christ.

Dapaong Youth Rally

This past weekend we had the privilege of taking group from the States up to Dapaong to participate in the ministry. They had planed a village rally and the Chief of the village had been promoting and encouraging attendance. When we arrived around three in the afternoon, after a 45 minute ride down a dusty dirt road from our hotel’s, we found that some folks had already begun to assemble.

We all got our of the truck and bus taxi and began to greet people until we saw the Chief walking down a path heading to the church. We paused and Randy then I began to walk towards him.

The usual formalities were discarded at the leading of the Chief and instead of us bowing and shaking his hand we embraced the 70 something year old believer with a hug. He was so thrilled to see us and the group. He later said that there was know way to find the words to thank us for what we had done but that he was so thankful for what God had done and has been doing in his village.

The group had planned and organized the event to a tee and thus we (Randy and I) just sat back and allowed them to run the show. JJ Alderman, who had grown up here and is fluent in French, was the main translator and so the testimonies and preaching went through him. However, he does not speak Moba so when it came time for the group to speak it went from English to French to Moba via two translators. It really was something to see.

The group which consisted of about 7 women, 6 men and 13 total did a fantastic job. They sang in English and one you person even brought her violin from the States. It was the first time that any of the folks had ever heard a violin.

Jason Tracht brought the message. It would have been about a 5-8 minute message in English but due to going through two interpreters it stretched out to about 25 minutes or so. It was a great message that was relevant to the Togolese.

After the rally, the village folks and Chief surprised us. They asked us to stay around for a special dinner. They pulled a couple benches out of the church and put them in the shade of the church building and we sat down. Some of the women in the village had prepared been preparing us a meal. They first brought us out Cokes and Sodas. Now your must realize that these folks only live on about 25-50 cents a day and that a Coke is about 50-60 cents each. Most of them can not afford one yet even with there being sixteen of us total gathered not including the Chief and Pastor Sopa who is the village pastor, each of us was given a drink. The appetizer came next. It was cooked goat skin. I took a bite then called a little African kid over and handed him the remainders. He ate it like it was like it was a Snickers. The rest of the group struggled through it but were really excited about the opportunity to eat “Authentic Togolese Cuisine.”

From the drinks and the appetizers came the main course. It was goat meat prepared in tomato base sauce with pema which is like a hot green pepper. They put that on top of white rice and that is what everyone ate. Despite this meal being a “authentic” and possible a bit “exotic” it was the very best that the folks could offer. It would be as if we invited some one over to our house and served them the nicest meat and then the nicest drinks and appetizers. These village folks sacrificed to entertain us and to show their thankfulness for us coming and being will to ministry and put on a rally.

It really is hard to describe in words how terrific the experience was for me as well as the group. Going to the village is always nice. The people are so much more thankful, kind and loving. They are so happy for all the work that we put into the rally and we were thankful for the opportunity to speak to some 300 plus folks.