Light of Togo

Click here to download this update on our printable letterhead.

New Disciples of Jesus
One of the churches we work in with in Kara had its 15th anniversary this month and as a part of their special celebration weekend, they held two special evening services on Friday and Saturday night.  The members invited many of their friends and neighbors to come watch a film, which is a huge deal in Togo!  The pastor asked if I would take up to an hour and explain the gospel, since there would be many people who had probably never heard it before.

I was quite excited about this opporunity, especially since I had ample time to explain in detail the essential elements of the gospel of Jesus.  I’m thrilled that after hearing the message, many people believed on Christ and said that they wanted to turn from their life of sin to follow Christ.  It is so humbling to be used by God in this way.  Please pray for these new disciples in Christ that they will “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savoir Jesus Christ.”

Peace in Togo
Last month we asked you to pray for Togo with the elections taking place.  We are thankful for your prayer, and glad to report that everything went very well with very little violence.  There were some protests after the election, but nothing which got out of hand.  Living on a continent where conflicts can escalate very quickly, we are very thankful that there is a continuation of peace among the people.

Some “Profitable” Lessons
Over the past few weeks, I taught a series of messages about what the Bible says about money.  As in America, money is very coveted and misused by most people in Togo.  With our level of income being drastically higher than that the average person here, I recognized the potential that my teaching about money could seem condescending.  So, I made it very clear from the beginning that I was not going to teach American ideas about money, or my ideas about money, but simply what the Bible says about it.

In the end, I believe it was very beneficial both to the church and to me, as I was able to learn a little more about the Togolese perspective of money. We had some interesting group discussions, a couple of which got fairly intense, as discussions often do in Africa!  When it was all said and done, however, I think the people had a much better understanding of what God expects from them concerning money.  I’m thankful for a God who is interested and involved in every area of our lives!

Thank you for all your prayer and support!

Click here to download a printable copy of this update on our letterhead.

Today marks one week since we first arrived in Togo. It’s been quite an amazing experience so far, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for us in the future here. We started out by crossing over the border from Ghana into Togo’s capital city of Lome. Our missionary coworkers had quite a bit of shopping to do there, so we stayed for a couple nights before heading up-country to the city of Kara, which is where we will be living. Until we get set up in a house of our own, which could take up to two months, we are living with Randy and Jeannette Alderman, who are the veteran missionaries that we’re working with. We are living in a small detached apartment on their property.

There are two other missionaries here also whom we’re working with: Jim White and Lisa Lewis. We’ve been having a great time with all the missionaries here, but I think that the greatest thing has been getting to know the Togolese people and speaking with them every day. While talking to them, we really begin to understand how much of their culture we need to learn. I also am convinced that at some point I need to learn the main tribal language here, which is Kabiye. It’s definitely not something that is absolutely necessary, as most of the missionaries in Togo only know French, but I believe it’s something that will make our ministry here much more effective in the long run. So, I figure that in about a year from now I will start with lessons in Kabiye.

Joshua is having a really great time here, but is having a little difficulty getting used to the heat, as we all are. He’s been having fun playing in the backyard as he’s trying to catch the very fast lizards that roam the area.

I also have some very exciting news to tell you about starting our ministry here in Togo. Once we get settled a bit more in the coming weeks, I’ll be starting to work with one of the churches here in Kara. It is a smaller church that has had some struggles, so the plan is to work along side the pastor, Pastor Nicodime, to help encourage him and build the church through discipleship and evangelism. Please be in prayer about this that God will give me wisdom in this comfort zone stretching opportunity.

Also, there is a man in that church named Élé who is very anxious to get started in the Bible Institute, but Randy is going to be leaving for the States soon, so he has asked me if I’d be willing to start teaching him a course in New Testament Survey. I think that this will be a great opportunity, and I’m really looking forward to getting started about a month from now.

We still just can’t believe that we’re actually here, it’s so exciting! Thank you all so much for praying for us.

Over the weekend, we had the pastor of one of our supporting churches come visit us. We had a really great time getting to know him better. Before he came, we really weren’t sure what the reason was for his coming, but it turned out to be a great blessing in so many ways. He shared with us that his church had recently sold their building and had a surplus of money. So, on top of their monthly support, they wanted to give us $3600 to help out with our travel and setup expenses!  We’re amazed, once again, at how God gives us over and over again what we don’t deserve.  Everything we have - whether financial, material, or spiritual - is a gift of His grace!

He also shared with us some of the struggles that his church is having right now and they are really seeking the Lord right now to know what direction to take.  Please pray for this church and the pastor as they are make some difficult decisions about their future.

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours at church told us about his boss at work and about a unique donation that he had given to help missions work.  He works at Cutco, which is a very large knife and kitchen utensil maker.  His boss had heard about remote villages where the people spend countless hours peeling their potatoes and other vegetables with whatever tools they have available, which is usually just a very dull knife.  So, he donated a bunch of Cutco potato peelers to help some remote villages, in South America if I remember correctly.  Anyhow, they had a huge impact on the daily lives of these people.  They were able to peel and cut their potatoes in a fraction of the time it used to take, which freed them up to do many other important tasks around the village.

So after Eric finished telling me this, he said that he wanted to do the same thing for us in Togo.  Eventually, he was able to get 50 potato peelers which he gave to us to take over there and give to people in a remote village somewhere.

OK, so maybe potato peelers doesn’t sound to you like a profound way to do missions work, but as Eric and I talked it was very encouraging to me to see how he had thought through the implications of what a simple potato peeler can do.  He said, “You know, if these potato peelers can make a difference in some people’s everyday lives, that just might be the one thing that opens a door for you to talk to them about Jesus and what He’s done for them, and that is what it’s all about.”  I smiled and said, “You’re exactly right!  It’s all about Jesus Christ being glorified in all the world.  God is seeking people to know Him and worship Him in Togo, and if He can use potato peelers in the process, then He will.”

See, many times our problem is that we “compartmentalize” our lives into the “spiritual” and “non-spiritual” or “secular” categories.  But in reality, as a Christian, every part of your life belongs to God, and He desires that you glorify Him with all of it, not just the “churchy” parts.  What are the everyday, “non-spiritual” things in your life in which you could be glorifying Christ?

We are always amazed to see the unique ways that God provides things as we’re headed to Togo.  Last night we saw this happen again.

In my last blog post I mentioned the problem we are having with getting our appliances for Togo.  What I failed to mention is that it’s going to cost a lot more than we were first expecting.  We mentioned the whole situation as a prayer request in our Sunday School class yesterday morning.  What we didn’t know is that God had already been preparing to provide for the financial part of this need.

Last night at church, some good friends of ours pulled us aside and told us how they had been thinking for a couple months about doing something out of the ordinary to be a blessing to some missionaries.  They really didn’t know the who or how or what yet, but they just knew that God wanted them to do something. One day, the wife really prayed and asked God to show them what they should do.  The very next day, they were notified by their insurance company that they had been over charged a long time ago for some medical bills and that they would be receiving a $300 reimbursement.  Then yesterday when we mentioned the appliances, they knew that this was where God wanted them to direct their blessing.

They were such an encouragement to us as they told us that we were the first missionary family that they have known personally, and that it was a great example for their kids to see that we are just a normal family like them who God chose to go to the mission field.  Now, I don’t know that I would define myself as “normal,” but I think I know what he means.  Many people have the idea that missionaries are some kind of mutant species from another planet and God only calls them to serve Him, but the fact is that we are real people and God has just happened to choose and call us to be a part of His work in another part of the world.  It’s not because we are any more special or different than any other family at church, it’s just that God told us to go and we said yes.

OK, sorry for the rabbit trail.  Anyhow, they were such a blessing to us and we thank God for their friendship, their generosity, and for their willingness to follow God’s leading in their lives.

We just can’t help but give all the glory to God for His goodness to us.  We don’t deserve a bit of what He does in our lives, but we know that He does it because we are His children and He loves us.  It’s our responsibility to simply be content with whatever God gives us, whether poverty or riches, health or sickness, trials or victories, because we know that through all of it He is seeking to bring glory to Jesus Christ through our lives!

Happy New Year, happy birthday, and happy to be done packing!

First of all, I apologize for not keeping you all more up to date with what’s been going on.  We were so busy over the past week that posting something on the blog about our shipment completely slipped my mind.  Our shipment got scheduled for Wednesday, New Years Eve, for “sometime in the afternoon.”  In this whole process I discovered that trucking companies are not very specific with pick-up times!

So, the afternoon rolled around and still no truck.  After a few phone calls I found out that the truck had been stuck in the snow up at Mt. Hood earlier in the day and that had delayed it for a few hours.  Around 7:00, it finally showed up and we started loading.  We had only one hour to load or else they start charging us for extra time, but thankfully we had plenty of people who had volunteered to help us out.  We got it all on the truck and organized with plenty of time to spare.

As I stood in the rain watching the truck pull out of our driveway and down the road, I couldn’t help but think that the next time we see all our stuff will be in Togo.  It was a very surreal moment, one that I probably will never forget.  Then my very next thought was, “AAAAHHHH!!!!  We forgot something really important!”  I had no idea what that “something” was, but it’s the same feeling that I get every single time we move!  I don’t think that we’ve ever forgotten anything really important, but I still get that feeling every time we pack and move somewhere, which seems to be about every six months!

To be completely honest, the last couple of weeks wore me out.  Physically and mentally I came to the limit Wednesday night.  I wasn’t “stressed out” at all, but just very, very tired.  So after finishing, Tiffany, Joshua, and I went to the closest restaurant and just chilled out and ate dinner together.  It was the most relaxing New Years celebration I’ve ever had.  We slept in on New Years Day, which happens to be my birthday by the way, and just took it easy.  It felt very nice to not lift boxes or work out pesky shipping details for one day!

Today, we’re back to work though.  We’ve received our Ghana visas (which is where we will fly in to), so now we’re working on our Togo visas.  On Monday, Tiffany and Joshua will get their Yellow Fever shot, and with this we will be able to send out our applications.  Please be in prayer that these get processed with no problems and sent back to us quickly.

We’ve got a lot of loose ends to tie up in the next month, but it is a huge relief to be done with all the shipment.  In case you’re wondering, from here the truck will take our things to Friends in Action in Missouri, where they will put it all into an overseas container that will be shipped out around the end of January.

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

Fifty-three days and counting!  Over the past few weeks since you last heard from us, we have been incredibly busy in our preparation for heading to Togo on February 3rd.  God is providing in so many unexpected ways, and we give Him all the glory for it.  We discovered shortly after getting to Oregon that our home church, Greater Portland Baptist Church, was going to give their Thanksgiving offering in order to help out with some of the costs involved with the shipping and set-up in Togo.  We just found out the other day that over $7,000 was given!  We can do nothing but give God all the praise for moving the hearts of His people to do this.

Even though we are extremely busy right now with all the packing and logistics involved in our move, God is giving us some great opportunities to serve Him at the same time.  Last night Tiffany and I were able to go with a group from our church into a maximum security juvenile detention center where we had a special Christmas party for the men there and gave them Christmas stockings filled with gifts, including a Bible.  At the end of the party, the gospel was presented and several people believed on Christ and were saved.  It was a great privilege to be a part of what God did there.  Please continue to pray for these guys as they will be discipled in the coming months.  Also, please pray for me as I will be preaching at the Portland Rescue Mission on the 15th of this month.  My desire is to present the gospel as clearly as possible straight from the Bible.  I’ll be speaking from Romans chapter three.

We are working on finalizing all of the details with our shipping company, so pray for wisdom in that as well.  We have a LOT of packing to do in the next 10 days or so, so if you don’t hear from us for a while it’s probably because we have collapsed from exhaustion!

Thank you again for praying for our big move, and for supporting us through it!  You are such a blessing to us.

Last night we had a special Thanksgiving service at our home church.  We did not know until just a week ago that the church had been planning to donate their annual Thanksgiving offering to help with the cost of our Togo departure.  We were extremely surprised but elated to see God once again using His people to help get us to Togo.  We have no idea yet how much the offering is, but whether it is $100 or $100,000 we are giving God thanks and praise for His provision in our lives.  And we thank God for our church being willing to help out in this way.

Our pastor asked me to give a testimony about our lives and how God has brought us to where we are right now.  The main point that I tried to get across was that God’s goodness in our lives is not what makes Him worthy of praise and thanksgiving.  God is worthy of glory and our adoration whether we live in poverty or riches.  Many times, I have found myself being more thankful for the “stuff” than the Giver of the stuff.  God has really been teaching me that I need to detatch my heart from “things” that it can be attached only and completely to Him.  That’s a hard lesson for a materialistic American like myself to learn!  But it is an absolutely necessary lesson in the life of every Christian.  If we are to seek God, we must come to the point where we are content with Him and Him only, where He is the soul possession of our heart.  God has blessed us with so many “things” to have, but He alone is to be our heart’s sole possession.  The greatest way to show thanks to our Creator and Provider is to abandon our desire for things, and to seek and pursue only Him.

A couple days ago, I briefly started looking around at airline tickets to Togo. Since we’re planning to leave around the end of January, I figured that we should probably order them pretty soon. So, after a bit of looking around I decided that it would be much cheaper to just swim. The cheapest price I was finding from Portland, OR to Lomé, Togo was around $6,500!!! That was the amount we have been expecting all along, but it still is very shocking to imagine spending that much on three plane tickets.

That very same evening, I got an unexpected call from J.J. Alderman who is one of the missionaries we will be working with.  He mentioned that it’s sometimes possible to save some money by flying into Accra, Ghana and crossing over the border into Togo.

Anything sounded better than $6,500 so I decided to take a look at tickets to Togo.  At first look, all I found were prices similar to those going to Togo.  Then I happened to stumbled across a website that serves as a travel agency for missionaries.  I did a quick search and couldn’t believe my eyes.  Surely it must be an error, I thought to myself.  It was listing a price of a little over $800 per ticket!  I thought it couldn’t be true, so I went to another travel website, did a search, and sure enough it found a similar price, but with the indication “Special Fare” next to it.  That same site also listed non-special fare tickets at over $2,000 per ticket, so I knew that this lower fare was probably just a limited-time deal from one particular airline (United).  So, going back to the missionary travel site, I saw that if you contact them directly with your desired itinerary they can sometimes find better prices.  So, that’s exactly what I did.

To make this long story just a little bit not-so-long, I’ll summarize from here:

We bought our tickets at $2,289!

We saved over $4,000!

Praise God!  Of course, we really don’t believe in coincidences and we know that it was all because of God that we found these tickets at such a good price.  We’re leaving on February 3rd, 2009 so it is now officially official!  For the past few days, we have been elated to finally have a departure date and we can’t stop talking about it!

Thanks for continuing to pray for us as we get ready for our big journey!

There were many of you who were praying for my first sermon in French, which I preached on Sunday night. It actually went much better than I thought it would. Sections that were tripping me up in practicing (yes, because it was in a different language I did “practice.” Sounds weird, but it helped!) didn’t seem to be difficult at all once I was in the flow of the message. People said that it sounded very natural and easy to understand. I say all that not to brag, but to say GLORY TO GOD! All of the praise goes only to Him, because without His direct enabling I would be entirely incapable of preaching or learning a second language.

I had intended to record it on video to put on the blog, but unfortunately I miscalculated the remaining battery life in the video camera and it shut off right after the singing and announcements.  Oops!  Fortunately, they recorded it through the church’s sound system and I should be able to at least put the audio up in a few days once I receive it.  Not that I expect non-French speakers to listen to the entire message, but I figured that maybe you’d like to at least hear what it sounded like.  By the way, have you ever heard yourself speak on a recording?  It’s really bizarre, right?  It’s even more strange in a foreign language!

It’s amazing to think that we have been living in Quebec now for almost one year.  We have been thinking a lot lately about our first few months here and the amazing ways that we say God work in our lives.  Here’s a brief summary:

May 6th, 2007 - last meeting of deputation, Pasco, WA ~ May 7th - La Grande, OR…journey begins ~ May 8th - weird van noise, overloaded back end, prayer ~ May 9th - really weird van noises, squealing, grinding, more prayer ~ May 10th - arrive in Quebec, 2,851 miles in 4 days, decided never to do that again…no apartment reserved, no furniture, no French, no plan, no idea…more prayer…stay with missionaries we’ve never met, poor missionaries ~ May 11th - meet another missionary we’ve never met, gives up his whole day to drive us around and translate…thanking God…appointment to see the only available 3 bedroom apartment in all of Quebec City…nice, good price, 5 minutes from the university, no bugs or crazy neighbors…we’ll take it…thanking God again ~ May 12th - thrift store marathon, no translator, lots of hand motions…and prayer…not finding furniture…receive random phone call from unknown furniture-collecting lady, offers furniture, next thrift store, receive call from furniture-collecting lady’s friend, offers more furniture…thanking God ~ May 13th - Sunday, church…what are they saying? ~ May 14th - classes start at university…what are they saying?  more prayer ~ May 15th - morning classes, more random calls from more unknown furniture-collecting people ~ May 16th - classes, still no idea what they’re saying, is this even French? …moved into apartment, slept on floor…thanking God ~ May 17th - classes, feeling very lost…prayer…another call from furniture donator, this is borderline weird, wondering where they get our number, only explanation is God…thanking God ~ May 20th - fully furnished apartment, everything free…speechless ~ May 9th, 2008 - Jesse still trying to regain sanity from 2,851 miles in 4 days, Tiffany doesn’t believe it will happen

Without going into every little detail, all we can say is that what God did was nothing short of a miracle.  Since then we’ve seen God work in so many other ways, but mostly in giving us the ability to speak and understand French…finally.  I know that we’re not fluent, but just to be able to carry on basic conversations is light years ahead of where we were a year ago.

We really appreciate all of you who have prayed for us in the past year, but please don’t stop.  Many people have told us that our last several month in language training will be the most important because we are now at the level where we can make the most rapid progress.  And as we look ahead to January of next year, we see the next big obstacle of getting to Togo.  We really have no idea yet how it’s all going to work out…we just know that it will.  It might not all happen exactly as we plan, but it will happen as God has planned, and we just want Him to get all the glory for everything, good or bad, in our lives.

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

The theme in April for our family would definitely have to be “transition.” At the end of the month, I finished my last semester of French studies at Laval University and immediately jumped into a five week French theological course with Tiffany’s tutor. So far, this has been extremely helpful and useful as I am learning the proper French vocabulary and grammar for things like: how to pray, how to preach, how to share the gospel, how to share my testimony, and many other things. At times, it is easy to get impatient in wanting to reach that eventual goal of fluency, but the main thing that we must focus on each day is progress. We can see how God has greatly blessed us by giving us the capacity to make progress each day, little by little. Thank you so much for your continued prayers for our language studies.

Around the same time Malerie, our nanny for the past year, left to go back home for the summer before heading to college this Fall. This was, and still is, a huge adjustment for all three of us. When you are used to having an extra set of hands around the house and suddenly they are gone, it is easy to see how much they are missed! Malerie was truly a blessing to our family and she has become our dear friend. Please pray for her as God directs her life in His will.

As we get closer to the end of our time here in Quebec, our attention is being drawn more and more to all that will be necessary in order to reach Togo by early next year. Many years ago my thinking was that getting to the field was a quick, easy, and cheap process for missionaries which simply involved getting some shots, buying a plane ticket, and going. Boy was I ever wrong! What we’ve realize is that this project is beyond us and our means. We are confident that God, just as He always has, will provide the necessary funds and resources. In fact, we know that He will likely use many of you in helping us to get there. We will be keeping you up to date in the coming months regarding our progress. We just ask that you would continue to pray with us to the God who provides all that we are and all that we have.

Thank you for your prayer and support!

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It’s hard to believe that we’ve already been here in Quebec for almost a year now!  In another week, I will be finished with my classes at the university and will not continue studying there because of the rise in tuition rates. What is really great though is that Tiffany’s tutor, Suzanne, is offering a French theological course starting the very next Monday, on the 28th.  This should be a great opportunity to learn many of the biblical, theological, and ministry related terminology in French.  It will last for five weeks and there will be two other missionaries taking the course with me.

I’m really excited about this, as we will be learning many vital communication skills like learning how to pray in French, how to deliver a message, how to share the gospel with some one, and many other things.  Please be praying for me during the month of May that I can learn as much as possible and retain it! That seems to be the hard part for me; I seem to catch on to things very quickly, but retaining the knowledge in long-term memory is sometimes a challenge.

I recently called our veteran coworker, Randy Alderman, to discuss our coming to Togo in Jan/Feb of next year.  We had a really great talk and it made us all the more excited to finally get over there and be involved in the ministry.  One thing that he really stressed to me is the importance of proper planning for the things that we are going to need and use in Togo.  Without explaining all the details, it basically comes down to the fact that there are many things which are better to purchase in America and ship to Togo rather than getting them there for a much higher price and lower quality.  Because we have never had a house of our own and all of our current furniture/appliances are either borrowed or extremely used, it will be necessary to set up our house from scratch.  On top of this, there are many other expenses that are associated with moving 7,288 miles away and getting set up in a new country.  After getting off the phone with Randy I realized, “wow, this is going to be expensive!”

God has already taken care of every single need, financial or not, that we’ve had and we know that He is going to work as He wants in this situation too.  We have seen Him use churches and individuals to meet many needs before that were completely beyond our own capability.  What we ask of you is to pray for God’s provision, and ask Him if He might want you to be a part of it in the coming months.

If you’ve read our updates over the past several months, you probably already know that Quebec passed a new law that raises tuition rates…no, let me rephrase that…skyrockets tuition rates for non-Canadian students.  We were told that because we started school before this new law was passed that we would not be affected by it as long as we enrolled in a “certificate program.”  Since doing this we have completed the fall and winter sessions and I was looking forward to going back in the summer.  Just to be on the safe side, I emailed the program administrator to see if I would still be charged the normal rate during the summer.  To my (not-so)surprise, she said that the exemption from the new law is only during the regular school sessions.  This is about the 827th time that we have been told something different!

Well this might sound like bad news, and I suppose it could be, but over the past several weeks I had been having an overwhelming urge to study more on my own rather than in the classroom setting.  I have progressed through the university’s French program fairly quickly, and I really feel like because of this there are some grammatical areas that I either have not fully grasped or have missed altogether along the way; not because I didn’t learn it by the way, but because I have skipped some levels in the program.  Unfortunately, in a class of 20 people I can’t stop the teacher and ask him to cover something that I should have learned as a beginner.

So the plan now is to study with Tiffany’s tutor and individually until the end of June, which is when the tutor begins her summer break, then on my own for July and August, and then with the tutor again until we leave at the end of October.

We know that this is God’s clear direction in our lives at this point, and I am actually very excited about studying on my own once this semester ends on the 25th.  I guess that I’m having a relapse of my old “home-schooled syndrome!”  Just please pray for us that we will continue to make the progress necessary for us to communicate effectively in Togo.