September Newsletter

God has given us prayer, not primarily as a method for getting things or changing circumstances, but as a means of cooperating with Him. – Dr. Tom Elliff

Dear Prayer Warriors,

 We wanted to give you a brief glimpse into our life here at training. Below you will find various pictures from around campus as well as pictures from the past two weeks.

Our quad: Home Sweet Home

Building where we spend most of our time in class

She looks very good for her age.

The amazing salsa which Julia made from scratch.

Our beautiful campus

Julia making dough for pizza

Arial view of the campus

The women hard at work. Don't worry the guys cleaned up!

Cutting up the Pepperoni. Harder than it looks.

Final Product!

Not only have we been hard at work listening to lectures and learning how to cook from scratch. We have also been studying Philippians 4:13 and Matthew 5:8 in our quiet time these past two weeks. Please follow these links to read my thoughts on these verses. (Do NOT worry!) & (How to stay pure in a pornographic culture).

Praises from the past two weeks:

•             Julia and I have yet to catch the virus which is going around campus. Every room in our quad has had at least one person sick but we are still feeling well.
•             We have been able to focus in class and have enjoyed the concepts which have been taught the past two weeks. The instructors have provided us with more hands-on/role-playing activities which have helped us to focus. (Yes, we are in our 20’s and yes we still love to play games in school; in fact the more games the better!)
•             We survived contingency (security) training. We had two and a half days focused on how to respond in muggings, carjacking, kidnappings, and interrogations. We learned to keep our cool and stay within “our box” when being interrogated by government workers and criminals. Julia and I are very thankful for this training. The likelihood is high that we will be mugged and/or carjacked while in Africa. We are thankful that if this happens we will know how to respond.
•             Our travel agent has received all of our Visa paperwork. We have heard from our travel agent that we should be receiving our Passports with Visa’s stamped inside on September 10^th!

Prayer Requests: 

1. We received an email this week from our travel agent informing us that there has been talk about moving our departure date from October 4th to October 16th. If the date is pushed back to October 16th we would go straight to another training in Burkina Faso instead of our house in Ghana. We would have to spend a month at training with ALL of our luggage. Please pray that we would be able to leave on the 4th instead of the 16th. Pray that if the date does change we would have peace with the decision and take advantage of the extra days we have in America.
2. Pray for our trip to Washington DC on September 13th. All of us (kids included) will be boarding buses early in the morning in order to drive up to DC. Once in DC we have several assignments which we must complete. These assignments include observing an activity involving internationals in Union Station, identifying as many languages as possible, assisting one or more internationals, riding the metro, and intentionally bringing an international closer to Jesus. Please pray for us as we will be planning and preparing for this trip. Pray that we would be able to research and determine where internationals live and hang out. Pray that we would have an opportunity to interact with/witness to individuals from Ghana or from another West African country.
3. Please pray for sermon preparation. I have been informed that the likelihood is high that I will be asked to preach on numerous occasions. I have been told that there will be no warning, I will be visiting a church and the Pastor will call on me to preach. I am preparing two sermons to have up my sleeve in case this happens. Pray that I would choose texts which would be applicable to churches in Ghana. Pray that God would teach me through my study of His Word. 
4. Please pray that we would focus on contextualizing the Gospel to an Animistic/African setting. I NEVER want to change the Gospel; however, there are times in which certain aspects of the Gospel should be emphasized rather than others. For example, in America we emphasize law and justice. We broke the law and God paid our fine. This is a great way to evangelize in America, however, in Africa where their justice system is corrupt the analogy breaks down. Therefore, in Africa we hope to highlight two aspects of the Gospel. These two aspects are honor/shame and power encounters. When we are sharing with Muslims we will highlight honor and shame. We will explain how sin brings shame between us and God; but, God sent His Son Jesus to take away our shame and bring us to a place of honor with God. When we are sharing with Animists we will emphasize the power of Jesus over other god’s. We will say your gods are powerless to save you from demons, but Jesus is more powerful than the demons in fact He crushed Satan’s head under His feet! We will then proceed to story through the Gospel. Pray that we would share the Gospel in an appropriate way and not water down the Gospel.
5. Please pray that we would be obedient and submissive to the Holy Spirit. We know that God is already at work among the Mamprusi people and we want to join Him in His work. Please pray that we would develop rapid immediate obedience to the direction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Please pray that the Holy Spirit would convict us of sin and conform us more and more into the image of Jesus. Pray that we would learn to rely on Him on a daily basis.

Thank you for your prayers! 

Serving Him,

The Welchs