This is a picture that I snagged of my translator, Joel, taking praying requests after I finished teaching on the six days of creation.

The second week that we were out there, I explained to those in attendance how they could get a Bible. We give them a John and Romans and then ask them to memorize John 3:1-18 and recite it at church in order to get a complete Bible for free. I was so encouraged the following week when a teenage boy approached me before we started the service and wanted to quote the 18 verses. When he finished, the teenage boy next to him wanted to do the same. And when he had finished reciting, a third teenage boy quoted the verses as well!

As we are currently meeting in the elementary school, we have a lot of young kids coming to church on Sunday to the same place they come to school during the week. This youngin is not old enough for school yet, but has been wandering around the school area during our Bible study too.

His “necklace” seems cool at first, until you realize that it is a fetish, removed after an animal sacrifice and put around the child’s neck as a form of physical and spiritual protection. Oh, that these people would understand the one perfect and all sufficient sacrifice that Christ made for us and abandon these voodoo practices.

If I would have titled his post, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the “good” would have been new visitors to church and the teenage boys memorizing large parts of Scripture in order to get a Bible. The “bad” would have been how children are learning about fetishes as young as they learn to walk. The “ugly” would have to be what happened last Saturday in the city of Niamtougou, the last city that we pass through on the way to our village church plant.

A missionary friend of mine gave me a call early Saturday morning telling me to avoid passing through that city as we normally do on our way out to the village.  As he began to drive through the city on his moto, he quickly turned around as he saw a mob of angry people with machetes coming in his direction. (btw – that’s always a good time to turn around and head home).

Apparently, a local philosophy professor was arrested, jailed and charged with “acts of violence against security forces” for trying to cross the road as the presidential motorcade was passing by. The local people were none to happy with his jailing and decided to violently protest it. They did as much damage as possible to both the police station and the vehicles outside as they clashed with the police.

So what do we pray for here?

1. That God would allow us to reach more and more people in this village with the gospel and that He would give us wisdom as we strategize the best way to do that.

2. That God would deliver both the young and old from the darkness of their fetishes and shine the light of the glory of Christ in their hearts.

3. That Togo would remain a peaceful place in which to live and minister.

We are humbled and encouraged by the many that pray for both our family and the ministry here. Please know our gratitude for every prayer offered up on our behalf.

This is the case in the village of Kpaha where we have been witnessing and holding Bible studies for the last two months. These people live on a mountain and the terrain is so full of rocks, large rocks, that they are unable to dig the traditional wells that other villages are usually able to dig.

Ladies and kids are forced to go to watering holes like this one to scoop out enough water for the family.

I found another watering hole that the villagers use, even though it has frogs swimming around in it!

Many years ago the Germans were here in Togo and they put a well in this village that the people are still using today, but that’s not the cleanest water you’ve ever seen either.

Thankfully some organizations have paid the big bucks necessary to have the large equipment brought out to drill down through the rocks and install a hand pumped well like this one put in by the United Nations Development Program.

There are three of these type wells in the village of Kpaha, but when we showed up two months ago, two of the three wells were not working. They had broken and the people did not have the means to fix them, so they just drank dirty water from either the old well or from one of the watering holes.

This is where another great partnering church, located in Graniteville, SC, enters the picture. They have used creative means to raise funds for wells in Togo and have sent us over $1,800 to be used to help in just these sort of situations.

So a missionary friend here in Togo put me in contact with some well mechanics that were able to fix both of these wells for only $400.

And now they are pumping water that is probably cleaner than what is being pumped into our house!

Seeing kids come to the watering hole with their empty buckets and leaving with them still empty because the hole was dry was a tearjerker, and I could not bring myself to take a picture of them in that pitiful state.

Seeing ladies immediately come to the well and start pumping water as soon as you finish repairing it and having them thank you for caring about them was a tearjerker too, a good one though.

The first bit of good news is that the hard to come by cement has not been as hard to come by recently. We have actually been able to buy so much cement that we had to start storing some of it in the Bible Institute. Below are 100 bags of the best cement that we can get here, and both the masons and I are very happy to know that we have plenty of cement on hand now to make sure the work does not come to a stop.

Prior to digging the footers, the guys made a ton of bricks, literally, and they do it the old fashioned way. Their cement mixer is like my dishwasher, they both have two arms.

I thought this picture, with the digging done, would be helpful to show the proximity of the orphanage to the Bible Institute. How awesome will it be to see little orphans grow up right behind the BI and then, Lord-willing, enroll in the BI and get training to serve or lead in their local churches.

This last picture is one that I took today while standing on top of the neighbor’s roof next to our property. I’m excited that I can start to see the lay out of the building!

This is a big and challenging endeavor, but by God’s grace and because of awesome ministry partners we are on our way to creating a place where lives will be changed for time and eternity. Thanks for being a part.

At one time or another most all of the missionaries here have crossed the eastern border of Togo into the country of Benin to a game park called Pendjari. We had never made the trip before but determined to do so this past week as there was a veteran missionary back in town who knows the game park very well who would be acting as our guide.

The first picture has got to be the best of them all. We just have a simple point and shoot camera but another missionary in our group, Jesse Shanks, had a great camera with him that took this amazing picture.

This lion was literally 20 feet from our truck with nothing separating him from us but the grace of God. That was worth all of the travel and time to get to this park as encounters like that are rare even in a game park such as this one.

We got to see baboons, antelope, waterbuck, crocs, hippos, lions and elephants. The last of that group was definitely Heidi’s favorite animal to see. It was cute to see how excited she got when the elephants got close to our truck.

The lion was a rare and special treat but searching for and finding the elephants was what made this trip a special one.

Our 12th anniversary is coming up next month and I have been thinking about what I can get a wife who is content with what little she has. Maybe, I will make another trip back to that park and see if I can get one of the smaller elephants into the back of our truck and surprise her with it.

Assuming the mother elephant does not kill me, the game park officials don’t notice me leaving the park with a baby elephant and the border officials accept a small gift for allowing me to cross back into Togo with an elephant, this might work.

It’s now been over two years since we started that first church in the village of Tchandida and while we would love to stay there longer, we know that there are so many more villages out there full of people who have yet to hear a clear teaching of the gospel.

One of those villages, called Kpaha, is found among the Lamba people and that is where we believe the Lord is leading us to start our second church. We have been going out there for weeks getting to know the people and have told them that after Easter we would start holding Bible studies on Sunday mornings at 8:00 at the local school.

So last Saturday we went out to the village to show a gospel film and preach a little to the crowd before inviting them to come back the following morning for the start of this new church.

When we showed up the people had just come back from a voodoo dance and were all gathered around drinking the local homemade beer. Not exactly what we were expecting! There is no doubt that this place is going to be a challenge as they have a syncretistic mix of Catholicism and voodoo with alcohol thrown in on top.

The next morning we showed up around 7:40 at this school and waited for the people to show up.

8:00 came and I think we had one adult lady and a handful of kids. Once again, this was not what I was expecting. The longer we waited around the more I started to wonder if this was really the right place for us to plant our next church or if we should keep looking for another village.

The girls where having a good time…

but I wasn’t. I would like to tell you that I was full of faith that God was going to do a great work out there, but that was not the case. I was doubting, a lot. I kept thinking about the stronghold that voodoo has on the people there and how they were probably gospel hardened by repeated exposure to unbiblical forms of Christianity.

We waited around for a while and then I told my translator that maybe we will come back for Bible studies on Saturdays instead of Sundays.O, missionary of little faith I was. But little by little, bit by bit, God started sending people our way.

Heidi started teaching the song “Jesus loves the little children” and then I talked to them for a while about how God had sent us half way around the world to bring them very good news.

When it was all said and done, we had 28 in attendance and I felt foolish for my lack of faith in God. We encouraged them to invite family and friends back for the next week and then we took pictures so that we could work on remembering their names, which can be quite difficult to do.

We don’t know what God is going to do in this village, but we pray He pours out His grace in amazing ways in the lives of these people, delivering them from the power of darkness and translating them into the kingdom of His dear Son.

I used to joke around on deputation about wanting to have ten kids, but at this pace it would have taken about 100 years! We were only here in Togo for a month or so when Heidi got sick and I got excited just thinking that she might be pregnant. Roughly eight months later, on 3/31/2010, Annabelle arrived and our lives have been richer since that day.

Annabelle just turned three, and I thought I would take a post to celebrate her with a few of our favorite pictures of her over the past 12 months. She is full of love and sweetness and cuteness and sometimes I just want to wake her up again after putting her to bed, so we can snuggle more and listen to her cute little way of talking. God has blessed us with three precious girls, now please pray with me for the twin boys that I’m still waiting on so we can have a full house.

Walking around the village Annabelle.

So cute that I could eat her Annabelle.

Two thumbs up for the slip and slide Annabelle.

Smiling so big that you can’t see my eyes Annabelle.

Always puts a smile on my face Annabelle.

Little sister turned big sister at the hospital Annabelle.

No longer the baby in the family Annabelle.

Funny face Annabelle.

Birthday girl Annabelle.

Genesis 2:2, no Genesis 1:1 Annabelle

By God’s grace, we have now been able to start this new adventure and look forward to the day when young orphans, little boys and little girls, will be rescued from extreme suffering and given a place where they will be loved, cared for and ministered to in the gospel.

The orphanage is being built on the property that we purchased for the Bible Institute.  The BI is to the left of the rocks that you see lining the left hand side of the picture. The spot for the orphanage has been marked off by the wooden posts in the distance.

The grassy area at the bottom of the property will undoubtedly become their little soccer field.

Even though cement is hard to come by right now, but we were able to get our hands on enough to make over 1,000 bricks so far that will be used for the foundation.

I drew up the plans for the Bible Institute myself, but we decided to hire an architect for the orphanage as it is much more complex than the two simple buildings that we have built so far.

So things are starting to come together. I just bought a bunch of shovels and picks and we are going to break ground on Monday! Thankfully we have had a couple of rains to soften up the ground and I can’t wait to get my gloves on get started digging!

Thank you so much for your partnership with us that is going to make this very important ministry possible.

We had more questions than answers about these new ministries, but we were confident that our Sovereign Lord would give us the wisdom that we needed, when we needed it. He has opened doors for us and allowed us to get connected to many people that have shed light on our path and helped us tremendously. God has provided us with both a great translator and a wide open door among the Lamba to start our first church.

I would like to take you on a little tour of the village where we are going to start that church in less than two weeks. It is among the largest unreached people group in Togo, the Lamba. The village is called Kpaha and it is another ten kilometers down dirt roads after traveling about thirty-five kilometers north of our house.

The most important thing to do when seeking the opportunity to plant a new church in a village is to talk to the village chief and get his permission to do so. Thankfully, we were able to meet with both the village chief and the chief of the region, “chef canton” and they were both glad to have us come out to their village and gave us their approval to start a new church among them. In the picture below, it was very important for the chef canton that our feet were in the picture too. I just thought that was kind of interesting.

We met them both at the local school where they graciously gave us permission to use one of the classrooms for our Bible Studies as we get started out there. The kids were having a big soccer game that day, but you can see the school in the background.

You see a lot of interesting things when you walk around in the villages.

I saw a lady making this long rope…

using this straw.

Wow! It takes several days for the whole process of cutting the straw and weaving the rope and she sold me the ball of rope for $2.20. Let’s just say that if lazy people exist in these villages, I’ve never meant one.

I next came across this young girl in her kitchen cooking up some pâte. It is basically just flour and water. Heidi has tried some before, but she was hardly able to get it down. Time did not permit me to try some. Maybe next time.

At each stop we take time to get to know the people a little bit, learn about their life and share the gospel with them too. At the next stop, I saw another young girl picking fruit from a tree with a long pole and I asked her if I could try my hand at it too. It was not easy to snag the right fruit with the hook shaped end of the very long pole. I enjoyed trying something new, and they got a kick out of the white guy having trouble doing what they do every day with ease.

After talking to these villagers for a moment, I noticed that the young boy had caught a bunch of frogs and was drying them out on his roof before eating them. Did I ever explain why I do not eat village food? I know the missionary prayer, “Lord, where you lead me, I will follow, what they feed me, I will swallow.” But I have never prayed that prayer and do not intend to.

Now take another look at the picture and notice the clay pot to the left of the picture. Any idea what that is? A fetish for their voodoo worship. They pour the blood from the chicken sacrifices into the pot and also put the feathers on the outside. That’s why we are planting a church among these people. God in heaven deserves the worship that they are currently giving to their false gods.

This last picture was of a very well spoken man that I talked to for a long time about the gospel. He had lots of reasons why he should reject this “white man’s religion” and why he should not reject his ancestor’s religion. I felt like I was living out my years of studying apologetics and I guess I was.

There was a strange sense of confidence that filled me while trying to answer his reasons to refuse the gospel. Even though this man seemed so unwilling to believe the gospel, I know he is no match for the overwhelming grace of God and the awesome power of the omnipotent Holy Spirit. I look forward to speaking with him again and prayerfully sharing the good news with you that he has accepted the good news that I’m sharing with him.

Because the people are very poor, only a very small number of people have vehicles. Most people pay a moto taxi to get around or find a way to buy an inexpensive little moto that is more like a glorified moped. This moto goes new for about $800.

We always get a chuckle out of all of the things that we see people carry on their motos. Just the other day, I saw four adults riding on one moto! The driver looked like he was siting on the gas tank! I’ve seen cows transported in small cars, but another way to transport a bovine is to cut it up first and then have your passenger carry it’s head on his head!

His buddy had the rest of the animal on his bike, it looks like they were headed to the restaurant. Bon appétit!

So the lack of vehicles here brings me to this past Saturday morning. My good pastor friend, Moussa, called on me to assist the church by transporting the body of the recently deceased mother of a church member. So I showed up at the carpenter’s shop at 5:30AM and picked up the casket before heading over to the morgue to get the body and then to the family’s house for the funeral service.

When we left the family’s house thirteen people got into my truck with the casket to head to the cemetery. My poor tires were not handling the weight well, so I asked two people to get out and wait for us to return after the burial or pay a moto taxi to get to the cemetery. While they started the graveside service, I aired up the tires and was then able to take fifteen people back to the house where they spent more time with the family.

There are no domestic flights in Togo. They do have train tracks, but no working trains and relatively few vehicles. So it’s not exactly planes, trains and automobiles. It’s more like motos everywhere and a few vehicles, that also act as hearses when needed.

For some unknown reason the water company only sends water out to our house during the night and unfortunately that is not every night. When we first got here, we knew that we needed to buy some water tanks that could be filled during the night so that we would have water during the day. We bought one tank and then soon figured out that was not enough, so we bought another, and then another. Now we have two tanks on the ground and one on top of the house.

We decided to buy a pump too that would pressurize the water for the house as the water pressure was pitiful without it. The problem comes when the water company goes several nights without sending any water and then the tanks dry up. We can tell when this is happening and we go into rationing mode, i.e. taking military showers and holding off on doing laundry or washing the truck.

One other problem with the lovely water company is how the dirty the water has been of late. We take advantage of the times when the tanks run dry to scrub them out, but when the water comes back on, the tanks get dirty in a hurry.

In an attempt to deal with the dirty water, my plumber found us a filter in town. The filter is trying it’s best, but it is not quite up to the task. I called him today and asked him if there are any better filters around and he is going to see what he can come up with.

Thankfully that dirty filter is only the first line of defense and not the only one. The water gets filtered again as it comes into our house and then we fill up our Katadyn filters for any water that we want to drink. From there the water goes into a water cooler or to about twenty-five 1.5 liter water bottles that we can refrigerate and also have on hand for when the water runs out.

Living in Togo teaches you to be grateful for the little things in life, like having constant clean water. Hopefully we are learning the lesson well (no pun intended).