Light of Togo

In the past couple months I have been quite a terrible blogger.  There has been so much happening every day, and I have not done a very good job with keeping you up to date.  While I can’t promise anything, I do plan on updating the blog more frequently.  In fact, in the next few weeks I plan on doing one very large post with photos, and maybe video, of lots of the things I’ve written about on our blog.  Many of you have been asking about photos, but up to this point I honestly have had no time to respond to those requests, so I figured that I’ll just do it all at once when I get some time.

So, to catch up on the last couple weeks:

The Huffs arrived in Accra safely, we crossed back over the border into Togo with no problems, spent a couple days in Lomé, then drove back up to Kara on the 4th.  That wasn’t necessarily how we wanted to spend Independence Day, but it was great to “celebrate” our return home to Kara.

Speaking of Kara, we’ve been busy trying to find a house in Kara for the Huffs.  We’ve seen around 15 already, and they’ve narrowed it down to one so far.  We’re going to see a couple more, but more than likely they’ll be starting negotiations on that house very soon.  In the mean time they are staying with us, and we’re having a great time together.

Speaking of houses, we are finally getting around to many of the little repairs and improvements that have needed to be done since moving in but haven’t had the time to do.  It’s great to be getting more and more settled in the house so we can spend more time focusing on the more important things.

Speaking of more important things, we had a great Sunday a few days ago.  There were quite a bit more people at church than normal, and as I preached on Colossians 3:1-4 it sparked a good discussion/question session after the message.  The passage deals with seeking the eternal things which are of infinite importance instead of being consumed with the passing, temporary things that attract our attention every day.  We do this because our old sinful nature was put to death in Christ, and we now have a new life and new nature because Christ is our life.  Please pray for me as I’m teaching/preaching through the book of Colossians.  I work hard at trying to effectively communicate these truths to the people, but sometimes it’s difficult with my limited understading of their culture.

Speaking of prayer, please also pray for this church we’re working at.  We have made a temporary commitment to help out there, and of course the goal is to see this church become independent (autonomous) of missionary help, so please pray that God gives wisdom and direction to the pastor, the members, and the missionaries involved so we can see this church reach that goal in the near future.

Speaking of the near future, I’m sure that you have many other things to do in the near future other than reading a very long update by a belated blogging missionary!  So, as they say in French, “À la prochaine!” (See you next time!)

Here is the audio from the sermon I preached last Wednesday night.  You can either listen to it here with the audio player or you can download the mp3 file from the link below.

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In the last post, I mentioned that I’d be preaching a couple times this week.  Thanks to all of you who were praying for this.  I really believe that God worked in a great way through both of these opportunities.  I, of course, can take zero credit for anything that God does.  He simply used His Word like He has promised to do, and He just happened to use me in the process.  It’s incredibly humbling that God would ever use somebody like me, and I give Him all the praise and glory for it.

I’ll hopefully be able to post the audio from Wednesday night’s sermon if I can get it from the sound ministry at church tomorrow.

Only 3 days to go!  We’ll be writing one last blog post before leaving Tuesday, and we’ll give you some details about the trip.

Several weeks ago I was asked to speak at our church’s Men’s Prayer Breakfast on the 31st of this month.  Then a couple days ago our pastor asked me to take the entire service this Wednesday night to preach and share some details about our move to Togo and our soon-to-be ministry there.

So, needless to say, that put me in to “study mode” this week.  I really enjoy times like this when I can dig deeply into a passage of Scripture in order to discover the main, over-arching idea of the passage and then the individual truths that support that idea.  I tend to be a more introverted and studious person, so figuring out how to effectively communicate those truths to other people is usually where I struggle, but I thank God for showing me that I can never rely or depend on my own strength or abilities, but on His grace and Spirit.

On Wednesday, I’ll be speaking from a text that’s very familiar to me, 2 Corinthians 5, mostly verses 11-21.  It’s one that I preached from often during deputation, but I’ll be coming at it from a different angle.  That’s the beauty of the Bible; it can be preached over and over again and never get old.  There is no way in a lifetime - in ten lifetimes - that we could exhaust every truth and every application of every passage in the Bible.

I’d greatly appreciate your prayer for me as I prepare and then as I preach.  I have preached many times, but do not even remotely feel that I have mastered it.  And to tell you the truth, I hope that I never do because that will probably be the day that I stop relying on Christ alone in order to do it.  So, above all, please pray that I will be completely reliant and dependent on the Holy Spirit, and that I will communicate effectively the message of the passage and not my own opinions.  And pray as always that God will be glorified!