Light of Togo

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How could we possibly describe the desperate situation that Joshua and I found ourselves in during the 14 incredibly long and arduous days without Tiffany?  A few words come to mind: starvation, filth, depression, thai food take-out leftovers…again.

OK, so maybe it wasn’t that bad, but we sure didn’t enjoy being away from the best mother and wife in the world for that long, and miraculously she didn’t either!  I was afraid that she’d enjoy her new-found freedom so much that she’d stay for a couple months!

She arrived back in Quebec exactly one week ago, and this has been one of the best weeks in our lives.  It’s funny how being apart really makes you realize how much you appreciate somebody.  We’ve all had a great time as a family together around the house, not doing anything special in particular, but just goofing around and having fun.

Other than that, Joshua started school again with Tiffany.  He’s doing excellent with his learning to read.  He gets impatient like every kid, but he’s very excited to start reading.

Just as a side note, thank you to those of you who gave me your, uhhh, “recipes” for great dishes such as ramen noodles and PB&J sandwiches.  They were so, uhhh, “helpful” in helping us to survive those darkest days minus Tiffany.

The fact is that I make a very terrible housekeeper.  Some things I can do well, but cooking is not one of them!  After these two weeks, I have definitely decided that I don’t want to be a domestic homemaker when I grow up!

Click here to download a printable PDF copy of this letter: Aug ‘08

It seems like just a few months ago we were writing an update letter telling you that we were arriving in Quebec to begin language school, but now we are thrilled to tell you that only seven weeks remain before we leave here to head back to Oregon! We will be there for a few months doing all the preparing, packing, and “paperworking” for our planned departure to Togo at the end of January. We can hardly believe how close we are to finally arriving in the place where God has called us! In the next few weeks, we will be sending out a special update with more details about what lies ahead for us in the next six months. In the mean time, please be in prayer for us that our French will continue to improve and that we will accomplish as much preparation as possible before leaving here on October 27th.

The past couple of months have been very busy for us, but very good as well. Since our last update letter, here are some highlights of what has been going on.

•I preached my first sermon in French. (listen here)
•My parents came for a week long visit in Quebec.
•Along with two friends, I helped develop a new website for our church here in Quebec. (www.eglisebaptiste.ca)
•My cousin and his wife from Australia spent part of their vacation here with us for five days. We then went with them to Boston for five days and had a really great time with them.
•We started tutoring again with our tutor, Suzanne, after her two months off during the summer.

We’d like to ask that you please continue to pray for all the other missionaries with whom we will be working in Togo. In all, there are five missionary families and two single missionaries. Two of these missionaries are already in Togo, two are in language school, two are on deputation, and one is heading to Togo shortly. As you can imagine, we are all very anxious to get to Togo and begin working in the church planting process, so please pray for God’s direction and provision in each of our lives and ministries.

Thank you for your prayer and support!

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

This is the culmination of all that Jesus has been talking about up to this point.  When a true follower of Jesus abides in Him, walks in Him, and depends upon Him, he will also seek to obey Him.  It is only natural to do so.  But, the question that inevitably comes up is, “What if we don’t keep Him commandments?  Does this verse teach that God won’t love us anymore?”

It must be understood that Jesus is not trying to make a point of God’s love being conditional towards His children.  What He is saying is that in this abiding relationship, we are expected to obey Him, and that when we do we fully experience His love manifested in our lives.  Jesus gives us the example of His own life.  He fully experienced the love of the Father because of His obedience to Him.  As Warren Wiersbe says, “Because we love Him, we keep His commandments; and, as we keep His commandments, we abide in His love and experience it in a deeper way.” (The Bible Exposition Commentary)

Usually when we think of keeping the commandments we automatically think of the “Big 10,” right?  We might have the mental image of a Pharisee in ancient Jerusalem whose life is consumed with following each and every law, commandment, and ordinance in a precise and detailed fashion.  The problem with the Pharisees, both ancient and modern, is that they lack one very important thing: love.  Without a genuine love for the Savior, which is developed from an abiding relationship with Him, one can only merely obey commandments on the outside like a lifeless robot while having a love-lacking heart of hypocrisy on the inside.

What is very interesting is to clarify what Jesus is talking about when He speaks of His commandments. Is He saying that we should be like a Pharisee, one who “just obeys” and nothing more?  Well, let’s think about what Jesus’ response was to the question that was asked of Him about the commandments.  In Matthew 22, He was asked what the greatest commandment is.  Jesus’ response was simple, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”  Then notice that in John 14:15 Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  This to me is one of the great paradoxes of Christianity.  In all other religions, followers are expected to obey mostly out of fear of what will happen to them if they don’t.  Christians, however, are told by Jesus to obey Him not because of what horrible thing He will do to us if we don’t, but because of the great and glorious things He has done for us already!  We love Him because of who He is and what He has done for us, and because of that we should want to and seek to obey Him.  And what commandment does He most want us to obey?  To love Him with all of our being! And this, as we will see in the coming verses, is the foundation on which God can develop a love within us for other people.