Light of Togo

August 3rd was our 8th wedding anniversary.  Because of it falling in the middle of the pastors’ conference, we decided to hold it off until the following week.  My original plan was to surprise Tiffany on Thurday morning by having the house completely empty (the Huffs are staying with us right now), bringing her breakfast in bed, and spending the whole day together with no distractions or interruptions.  Well, I managed to pull it all off except for the surprise part.  She found out a couple days before that everyone would be leaving and that we were doing something special.  As much as we both love surprises, it didn’t ruin it for either of us though!  We had a really great time.

For the most part we just sat around all day and relaxed which doesn’t sound like much fun, but it was exactly what we needed.  We talked a lot, watched a movie, cleaned up the house together, cooked together, and even se up my new Facebook account together.   It was so great, and so needed, that we decided to do it every month or two.

While we were busy doing nothing, Joshua was busy doing a little of everything with the Huffs, Jim, and Lisa at Jim’s house.  They played games, did crafts, and played outside on a homemade waterslide.

Now that our day of relaxation is over, it’s back to life as normal once again!

Last week was certainly one to remember.  I believe it (the pastors’ conference) was a great help to the Togolese pastors as they were able to see every one of their “sister churches” in Togo, get to know the other pastors, and recieve biblical teaching on topics relevant to them.  I personally had a good time getting to know several pastors who I had never met before.  I would like to ask you to pray for them if you could.  Many, if not all of them are struggling to make ends meet, dealing with serious health problems, and trying to lead churches full of people in the same situation as they are.

I had the opportunity to speak two times during the conference.  I basically did a verse by verse study of Jean 15:1-17, dealing with the topic of abiding in Christ.  The main idea was that without a deep, trusting, abiding relationship in Christ, their ministries will only bear the fruit of their own efforts and not that of the Spirit.  The other sessions given by the other missionaries were incredibly helpful as well, and I was really challenged and encouraged by them.

Without going into too much detail about all the rest of what we did during the week, I’ll just say that we drove a total of 24 hours, many of which were spent on roads so bumby that they made my truck beg me for mercy.  In fact, it’s making a few new little noises that I’ve never heard before!  During the last two days, we were in the Dapaong area visiting some remote village churches.  It had rained really hard just a couple days earlier.

Other than my vehicle we had Jim’s, which doesn’t have 4×4.  Just in case you don’t know, remote village roads, hard rains, and no 4×4 aren’t a good combination!  Because his vehicle is larger, he also had the majority of the people (9) in it which just added to the problem.  Needless to say, he got stuck in the mud 4 times!  A couple times were pretty bad and we had to tow it out using my vehicle while everyone pushed on his.  Overall, it was a great experience.  Really!  There’s something exciting about being stuck in the mud out in a remote African village with no cell phone service.  It makes me want to buy a helicopter actually.

So, now that the conference is over and several other time-consuming things are wrapping up,  I expect to have quite a bit more “free” time.  Free time is a very relative term, isn’t it?  What I mean is that I’ll have more time to catch up on all the other stuff that’s been put aside while I was too busy.  So as always, I’ll do my best to keep you updated with anything else that’s going on.  Thanks so much for praying for the conference, and don’t forget to pray for the pastors.