Light of Togo

IF YOU ARE STILL CONFUSED AFTER READING THIS, TRY WATCHING THIS VIDEO EXPLAINING RSS

If you are reading this, you’re probably asking, “What in the world is a news feed, and what does it eat?” OK, sorry for the silly pun, but I couldn’t resist. So, here goes an explanation that is hopefully as simple as possible. Basically a news feed allows you to be notified of any changes made to a particular website without actually having to visit that site every day, week, etc. In the case of our site, and most other blogs, you will be given a simple header or title to each new post. For example, for this post you would have received the title, “What is an RSS news feed?” If you’re interested in reading it, just click on it and you will be brought directly to the post on the website. If not, just ignore it! Now you haven’t wasted any time searching for something that you had no interest in reading in the first place. Brilliant huh? Now comes the slightly technical part. This is the part that answers, “OK, so how do I do this RSS thing?” First of all, you will want to look on our website for this icon: It should be near the very top of your screen.

Go ahead and click on it, and choose “Subscribe to RSS 2.0″ It’s very possible that your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) already has built in RSS capabilities. If so, then from here it should be fairly easy to follow the instructions and finish the process. If your browser does not recognize this request and gives you a bunch of gibberish “computer language” stuff, then you probably need to update to the latest version of Internet Explorer or Firefox (just a little tip: Firefox is way better!).

Most websites have news feeds, so if you like this idea, then there is also free dedicated software just for reading news feeds. For Windows, there is Thunderbird, which also does email, or Omea. For the Mac, try NetNewsWire. There’s also the web-based Google Reader. The benefit to these is that you can view all the postings from your favorite websites without having to visit each one. Believe me, this saves a lot of time and a lot of clicking around.

Now, if you’ve followed these instructions and are still having difficulties but still like to do this, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I can hopefully step you through it.

If you have successfully completed all of this, then you should now be able to view the post titles and give it a try. Bravo! You now have your very own RSS. Just make sure to feed him lots of news each day and…alright, I’ll stop now.

The end of deputation is in sight, and we are very excited about moving on to the next stage of journey in language school. However, even though we are anxious to finish our support-raising, we have tried not to forget that our main purpose for visiting these few remaining churches is to “minister grace unto the hearers.” We rejoice that we have had many opportunities lately to minister specifically to children and teens. We have shared our calling and burden for the people of Togo in several Christian school chapels, youth groups, and children’s churches. It is always exciting to see God working in the hearts of young people as He did in ours. We have had several kids and teenagers tell us lately that God is leading them to the foreign missions field. We praise God for giving us the privilege of impacting a future generation of Christians for His glory!

Some great news is that our current monthly support level is now at 83%! We cannot say “thank you” enough to all of you who have partnered with our ministry and support us on a regular basis. There are several more churches that have committed future support, but even with these we will still need a few more supporters. We are confident however, that through the prayers of God’s people, He will meet this need in the same way He has met every other need: in His perfect time.

Being on deputation truly has been a “comfort-zone-stretching” experience for all of us! Usually, just when I think I know how to handle any situation, God will throw me a curve ball. Recently at a missions conference in Los Angeles, the church we were visiting put us in the Marriott Hotel for five nights. In case you are wondering, the Marriott would definitely be considered “out of our league.” As we pulled into the check-in area, I quickly noticed the throng of doormen and valet parking attendants ready to swarm around our dirt-covered minivan. Having never been in such a situation before, I quickly asked Tiffany, “What do I do? What do I do?” She said, “I don’t know!” Having no other plan of escape, I pulled the van over to the curb, and suddenly we were surrounded. Doors swung open for us, luggage carts appeared out of nowhere, and before we knew what hit us we were strolling past the Starbucks in the lobby and into our luxurious room. That was definitely our first experience with a first class hotel, and for the first class hotel, that was probably their first experience of a three person family using every available inch of two large luggage carts!

There’s never a dull moment on deputation! Around every corner is a new adventure, and never-ending opportunities for Christ to minister through us.