Jim White

Newsletter Oct-Dec 2009

2009-12-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

I am constantly amazed at how God continues to work and how His work continues to go forward. Over the past couple of months, we have seen some major victories at the little village church of Lassa Bas. One of them took place on a Saturday morning while out visiting. A Togolese man and I came across a group of children ranging from 5-13 and decided to stop and share the Gospel with them. It was interesting since at least one of them did not understand French. As I shared Christ’s love to them in French, my friend translated into Kabiye for me. The visit lasted about forty-five minutes, and at the end of the conversation, three of the children made the decision to open their hearts and accept Christ as their Savior. It truly was such a great thing and a wonderful encouragement. I think often of the verse that says that there is a great celebration even as one comes to Christ so you can imagine what Heaven must have been like at that particular moment when all three of these precious children accepted Christ. How good God truly is!

A second wonderful event was the baptismal service of four of our men. They each gave clear testimony of salvation as they respectively entered into the waters to identify with Christ. It was such a great moment to see these men follow the Lord in that first major step of their Christian lives.

I suppose the largest change that has taken place since my last letter has been my return home for a furlough. I flew in the weekend before thanksgiving, and after 24 hours of flying, I touched down on U.S. soil for the first time in over three years. I would ask that you would remember me in your prayers and please pray as I continue to arrange meetings, share the work of Togo with others, and attempt to raise more aid for the ministry before I return in November of 2010. Also, please do not forget the work in Lassa Bas where I pastored for the last 9 months. The church still is without a pastor, and it is our prayer that God will raise up a national to take it soon.

In closing, I want you to know that I am forever in your debt, privileged to be a co-laborer with you in the work of the Lord, and above all extremely grateful for your love, your compassion, your prayers, and your faithfulness to both me and the work of the Lord in Togo.

Last Sunday at Lassa Bas

2009-11-26T15:37:00.001-08:00

This month after having been at the Lassa Bas church for nearly nine months, I had to say goodbye for the last time. We have been working with this great little church ever since they lost their pastor last spring. Since, God moved me there, we’ve been blessed and we’ve see many come to Christ, a few baptized a few weeks ago and attendance grow. While all those are great victories, I think just seeing the folks grow spiritually was my most happy achievement. I’m so thankful to God for the opportunity to have served with this great core of believers for all this time.

Please continue to pray for them. They are currently without a pastor. It has been and always will be our desire to see God raise up a national pastor to take the work. So, please remember Lassa Bas in your prayers. Thanx!

Baptism at Lossa Bas

2009-11-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

As we believe, baptism is an important event in the life of a Christian. The bible commands us to follow the Lord in baptism signifying our belief that He died, was buried and rose again on the third day for us. With this being the subject of teaching for three consecutive Sundays, we were able to question a handful from the church that had not yet followed the Lord in baptism and of which, four of them were ready to get baptized.

Early Sunday morning, while putting my vehicle into first gear, shutting off the truck and pulling the parking brake, I glanced over towards the clock and realized that it was ten till seven in the morning. I crawled out of my vehicle and opened the large gates at the Tomde church. Making my way towards the back of the property, I trapsed through the damp grass and attempted to avoid the mud puddles left from the previous night’s rain. I passed by the church’s large auditorium and continued towards their baptistery. I lifted off the cover revealing the crystal clear water inside and so I being inclined dipped my hand for but a moment to test the temperature. After having confidence it was both sufficiently full and sufficiently warm I turned around and headed back to the truck.

Leaving Tomde I headed toward our church at Lossa Bas. Navigating the roads, I began searching for my turn off. Finding it, I slowly turned off onto the dirt path that makes its way to the church. Several minutes and several small stream later, I pulled up to the church and found myself being greeted by a little Kabiye girl. We chatted for a couple seconds before I walked into the church to start the service. The morning service went great and we had a couple new visitors due to the baptism.

After both mornig services were concluded we headed out towards my vehicle and Lisa’s truck. I can’t really recall how many she put into her truck but I found out that mine can hold 15 despite it's manufacture recommending only 10. We left the Lossa Bas church grounds, fully loaded, spirits high and headed for Tomde church to use their baptistry. The Tomde church is relatively close, less then 2 miles but due to the roads and being fully loaded we took our time and about 10 minutes later we pulled up the church.

When we got to Tomde we all started unloading and heading into the church as their services were concluding. Pastor Moussa walked up to me and welcomed us all before he gave some last minute instructions to the four men that were about to be baptized. When the service concluded both congregations walked out and surrounded the baptistery to watch the four men follow the Lord in baptism. In Togo here, it has been rare to see a baptism done outside of Christmas or Easter. That is just a traditional time to do them. However, on a perfectly nice, warm and sunny Sunday morning with everyone standing around, we proceeded. I slowly waded into the waters and one by one the four men descended down the stairs into the baptistery and one by one they gave their testimony of how Christ had saved their souls and were baptized out of obedience to God’s word.

It was really a great moment for each of the men and a reminder of what it means to be a follower and obedient to Christ.

Finally finishing up the garage at Sarakawa

2009-10-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

Last week, I took a local welder down to what our version of a hardware store would be and we purchased tube steel, angle iron and heavy tin panels. We then transported them out to his shop which is a mud block building with a tin roof and a tin roof hang over to provide shade. If you looked at his welding machine which is a metal box with a bunch of copper wire wrapped into a ball soaked in transmission fluid and has 220 volts of current running into it with a positive and negative line running out of it for welding you would have to admit that first, you are definitely in Africa and second that it sure doesn’t looks safe to be around yet alone using it! However, he was quick and his job was impeccable considering his working conditions. He paid me a visit a few days later to inform me that my door was complete.

Now you must realize that it was last year (November 2008) that I started construction on this project. I joke with the Togolese and often tell them that I’m truly African now because their building project will go on for years. They build a little and stop to save more funds then build a little bit more. This continues till the entire project has been finished. So, a year might seem to be a long time to us but is rather swift for them.

So with the door complete and hauled out to Sarakawa where my container is and Randy’s hangar is along with the new garage building that will house the tractor and other equipment for church and ministry construction projects, we were finally ready to get it installed.

I arranged for a handyman and a mason to come out and assist me today and after about three hours we had the door plum and level and welded into the steel supports in the cement columns on either side of the garage door opening. Now with this final stage complete I should be able to start moving everything from the container, my house and Randy’s hangar over to the garage. It’s been a process or processus (in French) but I’m happy with the way it has turned out. And it’ll aid the work here for years to come.

Flight to Lome

2007-09-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

How long does it take you to get to the bank, the grocery store or even the hardware store? Maybe five minutes? What about 10? Surely not over 20 minutes. And you would for sure agree with me that 20 minutes is a bit of a drive for a two-by-four or a gallon of milk. Well, when you live in Togo you end up driving 6.5 hours one direction to make those errands. Isn’t that crazy?

Randy has been taking these trips for over 20 years now. I have somehow been able to avoid many of these trips till recently. However, I’m starting to go down more frequently to acquaint myself with the layout of the capital city, so that while Randy and his wife are out of the country on furlough I will know my way down to and around the city.

You would assume that a city of over 1.5 million people would have a bunch of grocery stores, banks and hardware stores. In reality, there are only one or two grocery stores, and they would be considered low-stocked off-name-brand type establishments in the States. The rest of the stores are “mom and pop” type places. The banks tend to charge more to exchange money then private businesses or individuals on the street, and the number of hardware stores can be counted on one hand. Even those are only about ¼ the size of your nearest Ace Hardware. Sure there are some other fly-by-night hardware stores, and of course one can always find an entrepreneur in a back alley who is looking to broker a deal for a reasonable price. This world is very much different then what one would image in a capital city to be.

The drive south can be considered treacherous at times. Not only do you need to watch the road for seemingly endless pot holes, but you also must vigilantly watch out for the local animals such as goats, chickens, sheep, and even the occasional elephant. While the elephant was an exaggeration, you do have to watch for herds of cattle that often times roam into the road. And if that isn’t enough, one must consider probably the most dangerous element: the average pedestrian. Here, it seems that no one fears vehicles, nor do they yield the right of way.
Sometimes a person will be walking down the road, and a bike will pass them, then a motorcycle will take a wider birth to pass the walker and bicyclist, and if a car driver wanted to pass the person, bike and motorcycle, they drive in the other lane, into the oncoming traffic. While this may not sound like a major concern, it happens all the time. And when others are doing the same thing in the other lane it makes driving unpredictable. Most times you find yourself riding down the center of the road, honking your horn at just about anything that moves or looks like it will move!

Last week, Randy and I decided to fly from Kara to Lomé, effectively cutting a 6.5-hour drive down to a mere 2-hour flight. Astonishingly enough, the flight is just nominally more expensive then the drive, and the time and headache that are saved seem well worth it.

We arrived this past week in Lomé and made all our shopping in a half a morning and one afternoon. We needed to stay in the capital for a bit of business that evening. The next morning we flew back to Kara. We made the whole trip in just over 30 hours instead of the usual three days.

Container Underway

2006-11-12T06:04:00.000-08:00

I spent nearly three weeks organizing and gathering all my belongings to pack them into this 40 ft. shipping container. I had things at the house, at the storage unit and at the Mission Board. I needed to gather all those items together and then pack them solidly into the back of the container.

However, the hang up came when the washing machine (220 volts) and the refrigerator (220 volts) ran late and were not in Jacksonville when they where promised. Consequently, I had things stacked down one wall of the container waiting for the arrival of these two appliance. Well, they finally came! They were a week late and I had to pick them up off of Beaver St. myself but Corey and I finally got them in and began packing around them.

Once the big items where in it was just a matter of time before all the little items would be in place. Little did we know the "matter of time" was really about 2.5 days! We packed the back 17 ft. with personal belongings, appliances, furniture, 50,000 tracts, 10,000 John and Romans (French versions) and then built a wall of 2x4's and plywood to separate those items from the bigger things.

The Lord had blessed me sometime ago with a 451 MF tractor (51 hp) with a bucket, backhoe, box blade, cement mixer and mower. These items all needed to go into the container and be properly strapped and tied down. I think my friend, Corey and I did it correctly. The only way to tell now is to wait and see once it arrives in Togo.

So we finished packing the equipment and other various parts and then we waited. At times, missions seems to be a lot of waiting. So we waited for paper work and after two solid days on the phone with different people all over the South East we got the green light to go. It was a blessing when it came too. It was only the two days before I left the States for Africa.

So she left around the middle of October and is due sometime around the beginning of December.

A funeral

2006-11-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

This month has been something else. I arrived here in Togo just about five weeks ago and have seen some eye-opening things. The latest started out this way,

On the Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving, a mother and son were heading to play practice at the local church [one that Bro. Randy Alderman had started, and is still heavily involved in, but not the pastor of]. The mother arrived a bit early and was tired, so she laid down to nap with her 3-year-old son next to her. She woke up sometime later and couldn't find him. She frantically began to search the church property for the little guy. The first sign of anything familiar was his little flip flops floating in the outdoor baptistry, which was filled with discolored rain water. He had fallen in and drowned, sinking to the bottom.

Honestly, what we would call a "baptistry" is seen all over the country. These cisterns are built and used for construction projects all the time. The church has, in this case, dedicated their's to be the baptistry. Despite the normalcy of these cisterns all over the countryside, this event was a tragedy and a unique incident. He was immediately pulled from the waters and rushed to the nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Randy and Mrs. Alderman (an RN) went down to offer help, but it was a traumatic time. The child had passed and at that moment the mother was inconsolable. The men of the church organized at Bro. Randy's house and held a brief meeting to discuss a plan of action. After this, Bro. Randy and I, along with 14 men of the church, walked in the dark through fields and down dirt roads to the little apartment villa where the mother lived. She was a faithful church goer whose husband was in Benin on work.

By the flame of an oil lantern, I watched as the delegation of men passed single-file by the grieving mother and offered their condolences. It was plain to see she was blaming herself for sleeping and leaving her son unattended. The napping with a child is very common thing. But the loss of your child never is.

The matter was even more tragic because some weeks earlier, a deacon had asked Pastor Moosa if they should drain the baptistry. The pastor rejected the thought, wanting to save the water for an upcoming construction project.

In the darkness of the African night I watched as Bro. Randy, Pastor Phillip, and a guilt-laden Pastor Moosa huddled around the mother and began to pray. Time seemed to stand still. The men just sat and waited, as the custom dictated. They prayed for her and with her and then we departed, heading home but attempting to imagine the loneliness this poor mother was feeling over the loss of her oldest son.

The next evening, I went into town and helped pick up the coffin (hand-made at Randy's request) and brought it back to the house for painting. The sun had set and darkness was upon us. I stood with Pastor Phillip under the light of one florescent bulb and began to paint the child's coffin white for the funeral that would take place the next day. It was a very surreal moment.

Tuesday morning, less then 36 hours after the little guy's death, about a 100 of us gathered in the church for the funeral service. After Randy preached, the coffin was carried out to his truck and three benches were placed in the rear - one in the front of the bed, and one on either side, with the coffin in the center. Pastor Moosa made room for me, and I climbed in. I rode in the procession, down a road sprinkled with pot holes, surrounded with 14 grieving Africans in the back of a little quarter-ton, grossly over-weighted pickup truck.

We arrived at the cemetery some five or eight minutes later. Randy preached a bit more and gave some comforting words to the 70 or so mourners gathered there. Then two men got in the hole and lowered the box into the ground. As they crawled out, a little shovel with dirt was handed to the father who poured it on his first-born. The father knew he would never see his son on this earth again. Many other family members filed by, dropping bits of soil and giving words of testimony.

After the procession, the women left the grave side, and the men began to pull the freshly dug dirt onto the coffin. As I watched, my heart was torn. It was such a sad thing to witness. It was the first time I had ever seen a child buried, and the first time I had ever gone through such an ordeal. Sure, I knew he was in heaven, sure I knew God wanted him there, but still I was hurting for the family, realizing the tremendous unforeseen loss this family had just encured.

It was something else. Something that isn't seen everyday and something that just grips you.

Prayerletter

2006-11-28T13:57:00.000-08:00

October/November 2006

Dear Friends:

I boarded a plane on October the 19th heading for Togo, West Africa, with a brief six-day layover in London, England. There I was able to present my ministry and preach to a wonderful church that is reaching out specifically to the American Armed Forces. It was a wonderful visit with new and old friends, and they where such a tremendous blessing to me during my stay.

After leaving England, I arrived here in Africa on the 27th. The Aldermans, who are long standing missionaries here, met me at the airport. We rested a few days in Lomé, the capital, and ran some errands before heading the six hours north by truck to Kara, the city in which I am residing. The Aldermans have been so gracious by extending me the opportunity to live with them until I can get acclimated and settled in.

The container is set to arrive in the first few weeks of December. I am really thrilled with the idea of having my own things, but I was surprised when I arrived to find out that the tariff taxes are more inflated than what was originally quoted. The authorities are now estimating the cost to be much higher then orignially quoted. There is a bit of negotiating room but not much with the port authorities but please be in prayer over this issue with me.

It has been five weeks and counting. What an experience, what a life, what a blessing to serve God!

Yes, it is much different than the States, primarily hotter, dirtier, and much poorer, but all in all I am thrilled to be here where God has called me and placed me!

When I first arrived I began working with my tutor, Monsieur Batcho. We are meeting six hours a week, and I am surprised with my progress. I am still far from being fluent but am understanding more and more everyday. Despite, the limited French, I have at-tempted to get involved in ministry as much as possible. I have worked out on a church construction project with five other Africans mixing and pouring concrete and have also been going on weekly visitation with Philip, a national pastor.

We went out a few days ago and were able to witness to about 40 people. It was amazing. Imagine walking down a dirt path wide enough for only one person and grass on either side of you that reaches up eight feet tall. As we walked down these paths, we would stop every once in a while when we reached a mud hut or home. There we would pull out our Bible and our tracts and present the gospel. True, no one has been saved yet, but I am truly looking forward to the day that God will bless our labors with fruit.

If you would, please pray for our evangelistic services. We have a few coming up in December. We will go out into areas without electricity, set up lights with a generator, and preach the Gospel. Often times, we will include Christian films with the theme of salvation. Please pray that many visitors will attend and that souls will be saved through these series of meetings for the glory of God.

I appreciate your prayer and your faithfulness. It has been and will continue to be worth it!

Evangelistic Meetings

2006-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

What an experience to live and see God work here in Kara, Togo!

On the first Friday and Saturday evenings of December, I jumped into a truck and drove about 10 minutes from the house to a village with Equeta to start setting up for our first evangelistic services of the season. When we arrived I discovered that five wooden poles had been erected for the lighting. We pulled several boxes out of the truck and began preparing the site for the service which was to follow about two hours later.

We attached florescent light fixtures to the poles with mere electrical wiring then ran extension cords to each of the five lights which eventually ran back to one of the two generators we set up for the occasion. While we began to set up the screen and the projector with the dvd player some of the local church members began arriving to assist us with the setting up. Equeta and I focused on making sure the mics were working and the projection was in order while the people set up setting for some 150 people. Parenthetically, you must remember that this church runs only about 30 on Sunday and is a village work where there isn't any electricity in the area.

The services began around "dark-thirty" as Randy likes to call it, really it means just a bit after dark. Our strategy was to show the first half of the films then pause for about 20 minutes (average) of preaching then finish the second half of the films.

The first night we showed a film that was produced here in Africa. It was of a family that worshipped in Voodoo but came to Christ after a Christian neighbor influenced their lives. It was in French and we had a translator speaking in Kaybe. The second night we showed a film on the Life of Jesus in the tongue of Kaybe. It was a bit bizarre seeing Jesus talking Kaybe but it was a neat idea remembering that God can speak in any language He so desires.

The first night after the film and preaching an invitation was given. I think about 30 people responded. I am not sure of the outcome but I am thankful for God's working in peoples lives!

Despite there only being sitting room for 150 people, some 400 showed up the first night and another 250-300 the second night. The second night we had a great crowd despite the "fete danser", a dance festival which is an annual holiday here.

It was amazing to see hundreds of people stand for hours just to see a film and then listen to the Gospel and preaching of God's Word. I watched as the people would get so excited when Christ would perform miracles or when the African family and friends would denounce their voodoo fetishes. However, the reality is that many of them will never denounce their own fetish worship.

I have walked through this village many times with the Pastor, who in preparation for these meetings passed out hundreds of invitations. We have and I have seen with my own eyes the fetishes on the peoples houses and on there properties. It is a real thing that grips them. But I'm so confident that over time God will open this village up and bring revival and many souls will be saved.

The Bible speaks of the harvest fields being "white unto harvest" but says the "laborers are few." I have to believe that if there are labors and the fields are so ripe unto harvest then if we go work them then God will give us the harvest!

God Still Provides

2006-12-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

Randy and I left Kara for Lome at about 6 am on Sunday morning. Now one would think that in Togo, especially Africa that it is always hot! I would have thought this to be true as well till I arrived here about 6 weeks ago. Currently here, we are in the dry/cool season. So it was about 60-65 degrees at 6 am this particular Sunday morning. With our windows rolled up we began heading down the road for our usual monthly 6 hour drive to the capital.

Since it was a Sunday morning, we stopped about two and a half hours into our trip at a remote village work that Randy has been helping. Pastor Kofe has two small churches going and has started them both with the help of Randy. To get to his church, we drove off the pavement and onto a long and windy dirt path. The truck drove this road for probably five or eight minutes before we stopped along the path at this little thatched type building. The building was constructed and held together by wooden stick construction. It at times reminded me of when I was a boy and would build forts out of sticks yet this was much more advanced then anything that I had ever built at eight.

The building had woven palm branches for walls, a thatched roof that peaked in the center, much like a normal house in the states might, and a dirt floor. Randy and I ducked as we entered into the building and found out seats on some hand-made wooden benches. The church had 15 people this particular Sunday morning and because Randy and I had shown up, the Pastor wanted him to speak. Literally, Randy had 5 minutes during the song service to find something to speak on. In fact, he told the church to continue singing at one point so that he could concrete in his mind his topic for the morning. Well, despite the surprise he did a great job preaching on a passage out of Job.

After the service, Randy and I continued for Lome and, after dropping off a Bible Institute man that we had been giving a ride to since Kara, we finally arrived in Lome around 4 pm that afternoon.

While in Lome there are several places to stay but we often choose to stay at CBM. It is a missionary organization that is non-denominational and focuses only on helping the blind and handicapped but they offer nice housing for missionaries passing through for reasonable prices.

Monday morning Randy and I got up nice and early and went to see our Lebanese friend who converts our money for us. It is a safer doing business with him then trading on the streets or going to the bank where you won't always get the best rates. There I passed him a check and in so doing secured half of the monies needed for my container. When our business with our Lebanese business friend was complete we headed off to our port-expert. He was hired by us to take care of our paper work, shipping and the port-fees. [What you must understand is that when I was preparing for my departure for Togo I was informed that the container fees on this side of the Atlantic would be near 4,000.00 However, once we arrived in Lome and went to the gentlemen we hired to process the paper work I found out the figure had inflated 10,000 usd higher then what was originally told to me.] After spending nearly an hour speaking this guy, he informed us the paper work had been filed and was final. All we could do now is pay the fee and wait for the container to be shipped up to Kara.

Tuesday we pondered and on Wednesday went back to pay him what money we had. However, the entire time I couldn't understand why God wasn't answering my prayers. God had given me a set amount of money and this exceeded that. It didn't make much sense to me but I just moved forward. After much prayer, God had provided exactly 11,000 dollars for this container on this side of the Alantic. Now I am not a rich man and indeed this is a ton of money but this was money that God had given me through prayer, not something I merely had laying around in some bank account. In fact, about a week ago I only had 7 grand saved and God gave me 4 more grand just days before I was to leave for Lome. These monies where totally unexpected. So I had 11 thousand saved and couldn't understand why God wasn't answering my requests. It was His things after all, not mine. It was His plan for me to be here and not mine. And it would be Him that would need to provide for me because I couldn't do it on my own.

Randy and I pondered for a while and decided that he would lend me the money to get the container out of the port and shipped up here with all the fees paid off but I would need to pay back the nearly 4,000 usd that I would barrow. Well, on Wednesday when we went back, Randy had a conversation with our broker and explained to him some issues and concerns we had. The man was bit offended at one point but we worked through it and past it. Randy and I left his office and just about an hour later he called us and asked us to return with some specific paper work that we had in our possession.

We returned to his office later that afternoon with the second half of the money in our hands, nearly 9,000 usd. When we arrived he began to tell us that after we left his office that morning he left and went to visit a friend who had just become the head of the port-authority here in Togo. He began to share with him our situation and the new official gave him the authority to reprocess our paper work. In doing so it would drop the fee from 14,000 to 11,000 usd and in doing so would answer the prayers that we had prayed so diligently for and pay the container with the exact amount that God had given me.

True some might be skeptical and say well, it was persistence or chance but I was there on Monday when he said the paper work was final and I was there when he told us he had found a way to rework the paper work. True, the price is really high. 11,000 dollars...that is crazy! But what isn't crazy is the moral of this story; GOD STILL PROVIDES!!!

Container Arrives

2006-12-21T06:21:00.000-08:00

Things are different this time of year, this year. Usually, I am with my parents, sisters and brother-n-laws sitting around the t.v. or listening to Christmas music while just being a stone throw away from a window that would pear out into the snow covered foot hills of the Appalachian Mountains and my parents 68 acre farm. But this year I find my self in a drier hoter climate! I am just south of the World's largest desert, the Sahara and a few degrees North of the equator. So it would seem that this year I have definetly moved to the opposite end of the spectrum.

However, in some ways it feels like Christmas has come a bit early. My container has arrived from Lome, the capital where it sat for 16 days before making the overnight trip up here. The delay was initiated due to the port-fees surging through the roof at the last moment. At first, it looked for a brief moment that the fees would run about $11,000 but in the end the cost was nearly double that figure. Despite this seemingly bad news, God is still good. I don't always understand His leading but He has always seen me through everything and has NEVER failed me.

Sunday morning the container arrive and sat till Monday morning so that Mr. and Mrs. Aldermans, 10 africans and I could all unload it. We worked about 9 hours and got most of it complete.

The container was divided into two sections [17 ft. personal and 23 ft of equipment and the tractor. We opened the doors around 8:30 am and began to unload any loose things that where in the back half with the equipment. All these things went directly into Randy's hanger. From there we drove the truck over to an area about a tenth of a mile from the hanger to a dirt mound and unloaded the 51 hp Massey Furgeson Tractor and all its equipment. Then the truck relocated again to the hanger which is about 12.5 miles from our house in Kara. We proceeded to take down the plywood divider around the middle of the 40 ft container and began to unpack everything else into the hanger. After the custom agent was please with what he saw he left and it was back to just the group of us.

We then took the empty container and chained it to a tree and had the trucker pull forward. [There is nothing outside the port of Togo large enough to pick up an empty 40 ft container weighing in at 8,000 lbs./4 tons.] So along with some effort and a bit of elbow grease we got her off and then took the tractor and move it into its final resting place. From there we began to seperate the items that would stay out of the container like the Alderman's person effects, the 10,000 John and Roman Bibles (French) that where donated and the 50,000 tracts that where also donated by a wonderful church in Eden, N.Y. Then those things that where left over were placed back into the container till I can get permant housing and transportation.

It was nice to finally have my belongings. The container was packed in September and I opened it for the first time almost four months later. Suprisingly enough, nothing was broken. Sure the Aldermans had one oil bottle spill and I had some "bubble bath" [that I promise you isn't mine!] spill with some other things but all in all nothing was broken or damaged in the move.

The prayers definetly paid off and God protected the container all the way here!

Christmas Eve Baptism

2006-12-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

It was Christmas Eve morning and I was up at about 7 am and at the church for the Baptism service at 8 am. Randy has trained many men through his Bible Institute and on this particular day he had two men who have started churches under his leadership and guidance bring about 26 people to be baptized.

Chalem and Moosa both had personally led many of these people to the Lord and had walked them through an intense "Baptism class." It is actually more like a discipleship course but still is much needed due to the culture and other religious teachings that are prevalent here.

So after each convert took between 2-5 minutes giving their testimony, Randy broke in the new baptistry. The water had been running to fill the cystrine all morning and was pretty cold with the African air at about 72 degrees and a good steady breeze. He began to go through each of the converts with about 150-200 others cheering and watching. In between each baptism there was a brief verse of some song and this lended to the morning being charged with a festive celebrator type atmosphere.

Finally, Randy got to the very last convert. This women came to Christ within the past year. She is handycapped and is parilized from the waist down. She gets around in her homemade wheel chair which is a three wheeled scooter with a bicycle peedling system built for here hands instead of her feet. She peedled this particular morning with her hands about 2 miles on bad roads and up and down dirt village roads that I wondered if our 4x4 pickup truck was going to make it on, the first time I had ever taken them. Randy looked over at me and asked me to crawl in and help. It reminded me of this women. She will crawl into the village church on the dirt floor until she gets to a bench and will pull herself up and sit down to listen to the teaching of God's Word each Sunday. She does this every week and is so incredible faithful!

Randy had asked me to come into the waters and the men of the church took her out of her wheel chair and handed her to me. I lifted her up and then down into the waters where we had a folding metal chair resting for her. Randy took one side of the chair and I took the other and He began to address the church. When both he and she where ready we tilted her back and under the water and brought her back up. It was so moving to me. Here was a women, serverly handycapped. If anyone had a reason to not get baptized it was her. But she peddled miles one way to trust two missionaries to tilt her back, knowing that she could not get up if were to let her go and still she wanted to obey God. Her obedience to God meant more to here then her own fears. What a testimony.

A two day get away

2007-01-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

Have you ever just sat back and dreamed about how you might spend a long weekend? Have you ever looked forward to a break from the normal day or the routine of work? Well, it is no different for the average missionary. Lest you think the missionary's life is always a hard one, let me share this adventure with you.

The Aldermans (four of them) and I left Togo at about 8 am heading for Benin. I had never been to Benin so naturally I was pretty excited about the prospect of having a visa and another stamp in my passport. There's something about collecting country stamps that gets the normal traveler excited! We arrived at the border and some twenty dollars and an hour later we left for about a five hour drive. Most of that drive was along dirt roads. We had to wind our windows up when oncoming traffic would pass, due to the dust storm that would ensue. These roads had not been graded in some time. They were often like wash boards and we could only go about 40 kilometers/hr. The journey was long, despite the distance being only about 200 kilometers. But five and a half hours later we arrived at our destination.

I had heard so much of this place, but was but more thrilled with the prospect of a National Game Park just thirty minutes up the road then I was about seeing a waterfall and staying in some third-class bungalow. Let's be honest, who wouldn't be thrilled about going on a "real African safari"? That, I was sure, would supersede anything else on this trip.

We arrived at the bungalows around noon but had to wait a few hours before our rooms were ready. In the mean time, we decided to hike to the upper falls. It was all of what I hadn't expected. It was awesome! It was a huge waterfall towering some 60 feet over a cliff and had a pretty little emerald lagoon at its base. We spent two afternoons relaxing on its rocky shores and swimming in its near-frigid 72-degree waters.

The bungalows were something else. The interiors were nice, but only had power for three hours after dark and a few hours in the morning. The power was provided by a noisy generator located only a couple hundred feet from my bungalow. The water that feed the sinks, toilet and shower were literally pulled out of the spring feed creek about twenty feet away, and placed into water barrows or cystrines.

One amazing thing I have discovered is that it does get cold in Africa! One would not think it to be so, but the dust blowing in from the Sahara Desert and blocking the sun makes for much cooler days and nights during this time of year. So there we were, in our little primitive bungalows, battling the 60=degree temperatures every night. Now I realize most people would embrace the 60's, but here - when it reaches into the humid 90's during the day - a drop into the low 60's with a strong breeze will send you shivering all the way to your warm bed!

On the second day in Benin I decided to get up at 3:45 am so I could head into the Game reserve around 5:30 am. It was an amazing trip. I didn't see any elephants or lions. However, I had only covered a small portion on the lower part of the park. I did see some hippos, crocs, tons of birds, a bunch of different types of deer and maybe some monkeys on a far shore. It was a nice trip and a cheap experience.

After two days we headed back to Togo, appreciating the much-needed rest and relaxation we had enjoyed on our brief holiday vacation.

Village Church on New Years Eve

2007-01-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes growing up in America we hear all the Bible stories. We know about David and Goliath. We know about Adam and Eve and we have most certainly heard about Christ coming as a baby born in a manger. And as we get progressively older, we sit in more Church services and hear more and more about Biblical topics and subjects until we eventually forget that there was a time that we didn't know such things.

Also by growing up in the States we have the luxury of being blessed with a great nation with a godly past and heritage but here in Togo things are often much different. With over 60% of the people practicing Voodoo and 20% more following the teachings of the Islam faith, we find the majority of this nation have never heard of such stories and have not such a great legacy.

So, I find myself riding with the windows up in the truck because the temperature is in the low 60's. That may sound warm, but it is extremely cold for Togo and after living here sometime you would find yourself agreeing. Randy and I where making the half hour drive to a village church. It was my first time out to this little, somewhat remote church. It had three rooms. The main room was where we and all the adults would meet for the services. The other rooms where for the children. The walls inside the church did not fully extend the height of the interior. Hence, there was a gap that allowed the children's voices to travel over into our preaching service.

The morning was chilly, maybe more chilly then most. While the services began I watched as more and more adults slowly began to arrive on foot. Most of the women in attendance would meet once a week with Mrs. Alderman for a Bible study. I noticed that they were shivering as they sat down in the dreary, drafty building where we were meeting.

We spent three hours working through a Sunday School lesson and then a Preaching service. There were a couple guests in attendance and all in all it was a great morning.

The topic for the Sunday School hour was on giving thanks to God in all that we do, whither it be eat or drink. Remember this is a new and foreign teaching for many of these new Believers. Somehow the topic detoured for a while and we arrived at the subject of eating things that where sacrificed to idols. Now this isn't something that we might have to even given a thought to, but here it is very real. It is so interesting to see how the stories and illustrations used in the Scriptures almost 2000 years ago are relevant for this society today. They are still relevant for ours, too, but we no longer sacrifice animals or struggle with such deep superstition.

It is so amazing to watch these new Christians. They are like sponges. They just absorb God's word with such excitement and enthusiasm.

Dedication

2007-01-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

I went to a village church this past week with the Aldermans. It was the first week in a long while that Randy has not had to teach. Usually because he is the visiting pastor (really he has effectively started these churches and trained these men but the churches are not self autonomous) so they ask him to speak during the Sunday school hour or even in the morning worship service.

The church was down a small dirt road and took about ten minutes to traverse once we left the house. This small church is sitting up on a hillside next to an enormous tree. We arrived and the wind was blowing with gusts upwards to 30 mph. The tempature was resting at a comfortable 60 degrees which in reality is not so comfortable to the Africans nor for me.

Mrs. Alderman immediately began to play her accordion. I know it sounds funny and no there was not a polka song to be heard! She played the instrument which resonate through the hillside telling the villagers that we where about to begin our services. When the people arrived she moved inward and we began the song service. Some of the song where sung in Kaybe and yet others where in French. Most of them had a familiar melodies of hymns that I would sing as a boy yet the words where very much different.

When the song service concluded which it did rather swiftly the pastor began to teach with the translator at his side. It is typical for the pastor to preaching in French while another translates into Kaybe or another Africa tongue. This is common because there will be some who join the services and only understand one tongue and not another. So it becomes essential.

On our hand made bench there was just enough room for three people, Mrs. Alderman, her husband Randy and me. I looked over a couple times during the Sunday school service to notice a few interesting things. First, I watched as the handicapped lady arrived. This was the same women that Randy and I baptized together on Christmas Eve. She is wheelchair bound and her chair will not make it into the little dirt floor, thatch walled, tin covered building. In fact, she recruits her children and friends to help push her up the slops of the hill so that she can come to church. She arrived a couple minutes after the service began and I watched as she crawled on the ground into the church and then lifted herself up onto a bench. It was really something to see her dedication.

Then I looked over again and noticed that Randy was still holding a little girl that I presume was about two years old. She had a little tattered purple ballerina dress on with flip-flops and a pullover (but dirty) sweat shirt with a hood and despite her layers was absolutely freezing! Randy had picked her up and held her the entire service just trying to keep her warm. She a couple times even fell asleep in his arms. Here was a missionary of 18 years to the African people holding this precious little fragile cold two year old in his arms trying to keep her warm.

When we left the church that morning I asked him about the little girl. I wondered if her family was present and Randy told me something that made me flash back to when we had first arrived that morning. I recalled the little girl walking up the hill with an older brother and sister but thought nothing of it. He reminded me that her older sister would get both her and her brother and walks them to church every Sunday. This was even more amazing when I realized that her parents do not attend the church and that the oldest of the three children is only 7.

Sunday was a day marked with dedicated people. The women that was dedicated to recruit people to help her up the hill then to crawl into the church and up onto a bench, the dedication of a missionary that left everything he had or every could have in the States to dedicate up to 18 years and counting to a people that most would never know, see or care about and the finally the dedication of a little seven year old girl that gets her little brother and sister ready and brings them to church every Sunday despite the weather or the distance.

Dedication…I pray that God will give me that type of dedication!

Prayerletter

2007-02-01T03:35:00.000-08:00

December 2006-January 2007

Dear Friends:

Anticipation was in the air at the beginning of December. I was excited about the idea of my personal effects finally reaching Togo some three and a half months after they were carefully packed into a 40 ft. sea freight shipping container. Around the middle of December, the container finally came. Despite the high cost for port-fees, nothing inside the container was damaged. Sure there was a spill by one bottle of oil and another liquid based product, but other than that everything from a glass lamp and its fragile lampshade to the two-and-a-half ton MF-451 tractor and all its attachments made it without problem.

December was also the month that I was able to participate in about ten evangelistic meetings, many of which where in villages. We set up the generators, lights, microphones, amplifiers, and video equipment. Most of the services we showed a film about the life of Christ or one that had salvation as its central theme, and after the film we concluded with some preaching. It was amazing to see time after time how people would flock by the hundreds to watch these movies and the stay to hear the preaching of God’s Word!

On one occasion at a newly formed church that is less than a year old and running on average forty on Sunday morning, we counted nearly four hundred people in attendance. It was amazing! Though there was only enough seating for two hundred people or so, many people just stood for hours listening to the movies and then the preaching. What a tremendous blessing!

Christmas came and went. It was different this year. No snow, no turkey, no family, but exactly in the center of God’s will. Being away from loved ones is never easy, but it sure is a consolation to know and then also to have that inner peace from God that you are right in the center of His will.

January has been a blessing. We are gearing up for the extreme hot season. Once the Harmaton (dust storms from the Sahara Desert) lifts, then the heat will really begin to be poured on and can push far past 100 degrees and even reach into the 110’s.

If you would, please be in continuing prayer with me over a couple things. First, pray that souls will continue to be reached, saved and discipled. Secondly, pray with me that God will continue to meet my needs. Finally, pray for a situation that has arisen in five of the churches here in Kara. They are young and are not able to be autonomous as this point. I am not at liberty to go into the details, but it deals with a doctrinal matter. Please pray that God will work in a mighty way and that this major issue can be put to rest.

I truly appreciate your prayers and sacrifices and never take them lightly. Thank you for partnering with me!

Survey Trip

2007-02-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

Randy, Yow, and I all took a flight about 40 minutes south of Kara for a survey trip. God has laid on Yow’s heart to start a new work in a village that has about 20,000 people and only one current work running about 120.

We left the house in the afternoon when it was about 90 degrees and drove the twelve mile drive to the hangar. When we arrived we pulled the plane from the hangar and began to work through the preflight check lists. After about 20 minutes we were on the dirt run way and beginning to accelerate to 80 miles an hour for lift off. It was hot and semi-humid but oddly enough for this time of year there was some cloud coverage. This week just happens to be that one or two weeks in the middle of the hot season where we might experience a few rain showers. It will be, if the come the only rain we have seen in three months. The rains are called “mango rains” and will split the Harmaton (dust storms from the Sahara desert to the North) and the extreme hot season (110 degrees plus).

We climbed in the plane to about 3,000 feet in elevation and found our heading. After a quick report to the air traffic controllers (which ironically enough has to be in English and this is a French speaking country) we began our short flight down to Soutibo.

Arriving over Soutibo we descended to about 2,000 feet and began to circle the village looking over the growth and the potential growth areas. Yow, who had only been up in the plane maybe once before and was pretty excited about the ride. It gave him a great opportunity to see the place where God has been laying upon his heart from the air.

Yow has been in the Bible Institute for some years now. He is about to finish this spring and we are going to couple with him in starting this new work. It is so exciting to see first off his joy, enthusiasm and excitement for serving the Lord but also realizing the part that we get to play in his efforts. We will be instrumental in visitation, encouragement, instruction, leadership, supplies and the basics for establishing the work such as a building, Bibles, materials and other varies needs.

After our survey trip we began the flight home. Randy interestingly enough gave me the privilege of flying for the first time. Sure I had taken the yoke before and held it for a minute or two but this time I flew for about a half hour or so. It was really a great experience. I felt like I was 16 all over again sitting an a Chevy Corsica with my drivers ed instructor all over again!

Please pray for Yow as he is finishing up his schooling and prepares for the 2.5 hour drive south to Soutibo to start another desperately needed work.

Dapaong Trip

2007-02-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

Randy and I just returned from a three day trip to Dapaong. Dapaong is a city that is about two and half hours North of Kara. We left on Friday morning but we sent a tractor trailer up the night before with 48 church benches on it to be delivered to a local pastor’s home. We arrived up there first thing on Friday morning and began immediately to deliver the benches to the villages. There where two works that we wanted to distribute these benches amongst. Both works were in remote villages and took about 45 minute one way from Dapaong.

Originally, we had only been able to carry four benches in Randy’s little ½ ton pick up truck but due to the shear amount of benches we soon engineered a way to carry up to seven in one trip. This turned out to be a huge time saver but we still spent all day Friday and Saturday making just 7 trips. This was mainly due to the dirt road conditions that forced us to drive an average speed of about 12 miles an hour.

One of Randy’s churches in the States had donated the funds to build the benches and the villagers where so incredibly grateful for them. As we would pull up to the churches villagers would begin to gather around the truck and immediately start pulling them from the vehicle and carrying them into church building.

Of the two churches, one of them is still currently under some construction. So, when we where done unloading the benches on two occasions we took three runs to a near by river bed that was dry due to the hot season. We were so far northwest in Dapaong that this river was the boarder for Togo and Ghana. We took some of the men with us and they helped us fill the truck and the sand went towards the construction efforts.

These villages are so remote that they don’t have running water, electricity and in fact the church in one village is the only cement structure and in the other it is the only one of three. The rest of the buildings are all mud block construction.

On Saturday we arrived in one of the villages for the first time on this trip. In Togolese culture it is absolutely essential that you find the Chief of the village and greet him. So in this little village where the church is the only cement structure we found the old little Christian Chief relaxing under a tree and we greeted him. Soon into the greeting I found myself on my knees before this man, which is the custom to show absolute. He couldn’t speak a lick of French nor English so it was an experience communicating to him through hand gestures. We took him up to the church which was only about 200 or 300 feet from his mud hut to show him the new benches. He was so thrilled that we had brought benches for the church. Until this point they had been sitting on maybe four hand made wooden benches of which one was broken and the rest of the seating was just planks of wood resting on top of cement blocks.

Dapaong was a harsh environment. It was so hot. The ride back was over 100 degrees yet it was so refreshing to see the excitement over something so small. These villagers, the people, the Christians and the Christian Chief where so excited that we would take such an interest in their villages. But we are so thankful that God is working, moving and saving souls in these villages and are just merely happy to be playing a small role in it.

Container Foundation

2007-03-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, the life of a missionary isn’t always knocking doors, passing out tracts or even preaching. Sometimes it is taking care of the necessities and getting your hands dirty for a few days or in my case a week.

My 40 ft. container that weighs close to 8,000 pounds empty came in to the country back in December. Till now it has just been resting on the incredibly dry hard African ground which hasn’t felt rain since October 19th of 2006. However, with six months of rain coming around the end of April, I realized I needed to do something to prevent this container from deteriorating. Currently it is storing my personal effects, a tractor and some equipment.

The idea that I came up with was to move the box about 40 or 50 feet away from Randy’s hangar and then jack up the container and pour some cement pillars to hold the container off the ground and hence prevent direct contact with the soil or the future rain. Metal containers with wooden floors don’t usually fair to well in extreme humidity and rain for very long! After the container would be relocated and the pillars poured we would need to construct a ramp that would allow the tractor to easily traverse in and out of the container.

It sounded good in theory but took much longer then expected. I had planned for the project to commence and finish within five days but it went over by a few. The container didn’t move exactly as planned and instead of taking an hour or two to slide the four ton box the 40-50 ft. on rails it took all day. So from there I began to realize it was going to take longer then I had originally planned. The project was further complicated but not stalled due to the conditions of Togo. First, we had to transport everything to the site; the wood, steel, cement, stone, sand and most of all the water. Second, the humidity was around 20%. That might not register as a problem but it is a strange feeling to consume literally a gallon of water in a mere 5 hours and not need to use the restroom. Also, to find your lips chapped in the middle of a hot afternoon is a bizarre feeling that I thought was only kin to the winters I experiences near Buffalo, NY and Quebec, Canada. The humidity was a huge factor but being only six degrees from the equator and enduring in the intense heat all day is exhausting. Around three pm in the afternoon it was 100 degrees in the shade. Thankfully we rested each day noon till three p.m. during the peak hours of extreme heat.

I
n the end, the project took a couple extra days, cost a little more then budgeted but was worth the time for so many reasons. One reason is you could never afford to build a building here for the cost of putting a foundation under the container and an eventual slanted tin roof. The time, money and effort were worth the storage space for current supplies and future supplies for the ministry. True it wasn’t a Church or a Bible Institute but the contents with in the container will help to construct those things in the future.

The climate, conditions, resources and labor in Togo is so much different then those we are accustomed to in the States but after a while you begin to slowly adjust and realize that God is doing and is going to continue to do some great things here. Today it was a container’s foundation and I am looking forward to the day where it is a Church!

Second Survey Trip

2007-03-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning after Yow was finished with his week of class at the Bible Institute we loaded up the truck with his small motorcycle and began the two and a half hour drive down south to Soutibo. We had visited this town once before together but it was only via Randy’s plane with an aerial perspective. However, this time we went with the goal of searching for property and paving the way to commence some Bible studies within the next month or so.

To get down to Soutibo we must go through the mountains. Togo has one major route heading north and south. This road is only a two lane street with one lane in each direction. When you get to the mountains often times if not all the time there are numerous trucks broken down along the way. This makes passing and traversing the road much more difficult especially with no guard rails and several 200-300 feet drops only mere feet from your vehicle.

This time through the mountains was normal until we came upon a broken down truck in the middle of the road. We were forced to pass on the side nearest to the cliff because a giant excavator was leveling the newly constructed piece of road on the mountain top. So when we first approached the to top of the mountain and an African looked at me and motioned that I would need to pass between the broken down truck and the drop off my first reaction was in English, “You must be nuts! There is no way!” Of course no one understood me but still I felt better for the outburst. They expected me to cross over a small pile of gravel take a sharp turn to the right and squeeze between this massive truck and the edge of the cliff which honestly was a mere couple feet at the very most. The drop was at least 300 feet and certain death if I messed it up. After a few moments realizing this would be the only route if we where going to continue anytime soon. I finally gathered up the nerve and put the truck in first gear and began to slowly, very slowly moving toward the truck, past the truck and eventually over the summit. Now with our first major obstacle out of the way we continued.

On our way, I knew that this time alone with Yow would give me an opportunity to understand and talk with a man I really knew very little about. With my poor French and his total lack of English we began to communicate and I was soon able to get to know him and his vision for Soutibo a little bit better.

We arrived in Soutibo a little after noon and immediately drove the location where we will begin a work. Since, there is already one Baptist Church in this town of 20,000 we drove past it and greeted a Togolese friend, Kujo. This helped us know what our boundaries are for starting the new church. Nobody wants to build upon another man’s ministry. We found the “grand antenna” in town and had decided that anything southeast of that would be a great place to begin a new work. The town seems to be growing in that direction. There are also some schools and a hospital near by. This would be far enough away from the other work in town but right in the middle of an area that hasn’t any church or outreach currently.

After we drove around, chatted, rested and saw some tracts past out our time eventually came to an end. If I was going to return to Kara by night fall, and trust me you don’t want to drive at night. Many truckers and other vehicles don’t run down the road with lights. It makes night travel extremely dangerous. So I took Yow about ten kilometers north of Soutibo and left him with some family. He returned this past weekend to begin some evangelism. Prayerfully next month we will start some regular Bible Studies followed by an official church commencing sometime around December of January of 2008.

Easter Sunday

2007-04-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

Easter Sunday doubled as not only Resurrection Sunday but also as the Bible Baptist Church’s first Anniversary. We are averaging about 40 but had a high day of 50 in the morning service. We had been out walking from house to house inviting folks for the big day. The unique thing was that we actually saw more people come for the evening service then for the morning. We had about 90 people with about 25 of them being adults. We sat around for three hours and sang, played Bible trivia games, listened to special music (all with out actual music) and then had some preaching with and invitation at the end.

The Evening service required a bit of extra preparation. The church itself and the local area it is situated doesn’t have electricity. So took a small generator some cords and a transformer to convert the electricity from the standard US 110 volts to 220v international. We Enjoyed the sunlight for about an hour but after we cranked up the generator and enjoyed the rest of the service under the three small florescent bulbs the church has strung from the ceiling. Since we had some rains the last few weeks it seemed that the humidity and moister brought every living thing out into the open. It really is a nasty feeling having insects constantly crawling on you!

The lights seemed to attract a bigger crowd. We started with only about 20 or 30 but as the night progressed the crowd slowly increased. The prizes would be basic and really nothing to write home to mom about. However, the Africans were really thankful for them. One prize was a brand new Bible for quoting the books of the Bible in order. A young teenager won that and everyone was impressed. The rest of the prizes besides the occasional free piece of milk candy or some sort of caramel candy was spaghetti or pasta. Strange I know but still the Togoleses loved winning their little package of pasta. When the basic staple is a type of potato rice and pasta being to expensive then that type of gift is very much appreciated and seen as a luxury.

So the evening ended well after dark with a bunch of young folks and one adult responding to the invitation after the service. Over the next few weeks we will follow up on those who came forward and try to talk to them more about decisions they either made or wanted to make that evening.

Truly it was a nice day! Furthermore, it was great to see faces we met while out in the villages, on the side of mountains and off the beaten trails show up for church on Sunday night. So God is still good and still working.

Dapaong Storm

2007-04-16T02:41:00.000-07:00

Thursday a horrible storm passed through the area. We thought that it might just be local, and were grateful for the showers, not just because they brought cool weather, but also much needed water. Some local construction had damaged a water pipe down the street and we desperately needed water for flushing the toilets and washing our hands. However, these storm showers weren’t as localized as we first thought. Dapaong is about 150 miles north by car. It seems they were inflicted by the same storm we experienced. On Friday we learned that the high winds had damaged the roof on a Church that is currently under construction. The roof is made of tin. Each sheet is about two feet by eight feet and costs about $30 (US).

Randy made the call that we would travel by plane first thing on Saturday morning to the remote village to check on the building. Ahead of us went Aquete and one other Togolese. These men left Kara at 4 am for Dapaong and besides being side-swiped by an 18-wheeler they made it up there without any problems. The truck is a little damaged but their safety and the extra tin in the rear was never compromised.

At six a.m. Randy and I were up and preparing to leave for the hangar. We left the airport (which is just a dirt runway) at around 8 a.m. and flew the one hour flight. Randy, to my delight, allowed me to take the yoke and fly for upwards to a half hour if not more. It was good experience. When we where only a couple miles out of the village, Randy took over once again and found our landing strip. It is a small dirt road, only about 10 feet wide at most, and is used for local village traffic, which is very sparse. We found the runway, did a fly over and landed without any problems. We spent the next hour and a half surveying the damage to the church and discussing how to go about the repairs. The damage was repaired temporarily, but eight new pieces of tin will have to be purchased in Lome and trucked 8.5 hours up to Dapaong .

When we arrived several Togolese saw the plane and rushed out to greet us. When we were ready to depart there was a crowd of about 200-250 people watching. These are village people. They don’t have running water, electricity, front doors, or beds. Many of them don’t even know how to open a car door. With such depravity they are captivated by seeing a plane so close up.

While there we saw the pastor of the village work, Pastor Sopa, and spoke to him about some issues with the ministries in Kara and also about our next two trips to Dapaong, which will be at the end of this month and the beginning of July. The trip was a brief one but was highly productive.

Prayerletter March/April 2007

2007-04-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

March/April 2007

Dear Friends:

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, and you just couldn’t sleep? Have you ever woken from that sleep, and your sheets were absolutely drenched from the 95 degree temperatures at three in the morning? Have you ever woken up from that type of situation and went into the restroom to look in the mirror because your face was aching only to find out that in a period of a few hours a staff infection had caused your right side of your face to swell like a balloon? Well, I hadn’t either until this past month. Living in Togo has been an experience, and God has really allowed me to…how would you say it? Experience some truly “special” things! But I am so honored and thankful to be here!

Thank you so much for your faithful prayers. The doctrinal issue that I mentioned before with some of the local pastors trained through our Bible Institute is still on going. However, thanks be to God, we have gained some tremendous headway and are coming out much better than we had anticipated. Please continue to pray with us over this issue as we desperately want to see God honored in this situation.

In February we took a trip up to Dapaong. It is a city about two-and-a-half hours north of Kara where I live and about eight to nine hours from the capital city in the Deep South. We shipped almost 50 benches up to two village churches that until this point had been meeting in their church but were sitting merely on planks of wood resting on cement blocks. The pastor, chief, and people of the village were delighted that we had brought these to them. The benches were made possible from a donation given to my colleague, Bro. Randy Alderman.

March flew by, and I found myself working more on my French, but less in the classroom setting. I shipped a container over when I first arrived here to Togo. Since then, it has been doubling as a personal storage unit and also a temporary garage for the construction equipment. With the rains to commence some time in May, I decided that I needed to get the container off the ground where it could possibly be flooded. I spent a little over a week, eight to ten hours a day, with three Togoleses that spoke no English. It really was a challenge, but I am happy to say that with opportunities like that one and God’s help, I really am progressing with my studies.

Easter Sunday, the church that I am working with officially celebrated its one-year anniversary. We had 50 Sunday morning and ran a special evening program which saw 90 people in attendance. If you would, please continue to pray with us for souls.

I appreciate your prayers and your faithfulness. Thank you for joining with me to reach Togo and West Africa for the Lord.

Meningitis Injection Sunday

2007-04-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Vaccination Sunday as I like to call it! One of the Bible Institute graduates, who also has the largest church (it runs about 150 each Sunday), decided to make available Meningitis Vaccinations for his people. One single dose costs about $5. Now compare that to the fact that the average Togolese is probably unemployed but if he works will make only about
$3 a day. So the vaccinations can be very expensive for them. It would be like us paying $100-150.00 for a shot. Well, if a 50-dose bottle was purchased, the price dropped $5 per dose to only $1 each. The church came up with the money and the church members began coming at 3pm on Sunday.

Mrs. Alderman, an RN from the states, had pre-filled 46 needles in anticipation (despite what the bottle said, it did not contain 50 doses, only 46). We had the names marked down and the members began to show up one at a time. Also present was an RN with the Southern Baptist. She agreed to come over and help us with the injections. I was there to watch and be the “moral support.” However, they decided that if I so wished, and I did, I could give a few injections. It seems that there are no regulations against it and the procedure was very sterile and efficiently done. I probably injected about ten members and the RN’s did the rest.

It really was an interesting afternoon. I only had one bleeder and that was just a drop or two of excess blood. We actually had more people wanting shots then we had doses for. This was an example of low-end field medicine at its best!

A Day at Pya

2007-05-01T13:17:00.001-07:00

Tuesday not fully know what the agenda of the day would be I embarked on a very interesting eight hours to say the least.

Randy and I departed the house with Mr. Bogow, a cousin of the current President of Togo (who is also the nephew of the former President who passed away a little over two years ago). Our drive took us to the small town of Pya, about twenty minutes North of Kara. It is where the former President was originally from and also where a new monument and museum were built in his honor.

As we pulled up, I saw the crowd that has gathered for the opening day. There were diplomats, affluent business men and their wives, and many chiefs. The front door was barricaded with a barrage of people wanting to take the next tour. We nonchalantly walked around the side with the Mr. Bogow and his assistant. We were immediately granted entrance and were given the next guided tour with a few other Togolese. The museum was fascinating and chronicled the life of the President that sat on the throne of Togo for nearly four decades. From the museum, we went to a small village on the mountain side via a little dirt road. The village is where the former President was born and is the location of an annual festival.

This day we were to witness a very unique fetish (voodoo) parade. The President had died over two years prior and according to fetish beliefs, his soul has wandered in the fields for all that time. They needed to make sacrifices for him to free his soul. They had killed nearly fifty goats for the event and filled their corpses with air to make them seem more prestigious. Along side these fifty goats was an additional 350 other animals slain. For nearly two hours, The Togolese paraded the heads of hundreds of cows, cape buffalo, water buffalo, two lions, a zebra and a tiger past the stand where the current President and other important cabinet and elected officials where resting. The people danced to music and sang in their native tongue.

We started off the day not knowing what we would encounter and ended it with an experience that might never be matched in my life time. This sort of event is extremely rare and the who’s who of Togo were there.

In the midst of the event, Randy commented that what saddened him the most was to over look the vast crowd of 5,000 plus and imagine that most if not nearly all are without Christ.

Togo has a lot of unique things to experience but there is also a lot of work that needs to be done.