Weekly Prayer Focus: Accra, Ghana

Please be in prayer for Mark & Cephas as they make their upcoming trip to Ghana. The capital city of Ghana, Accra, is filled with over 50,000 Songhai people. For some of the Songhai, they come to Ghana to seek work to help provide for their families in Niger. For some, they have made Accra their home & there are now 2nd & 3rd generations living there.

As Mark & Cephas seek out the Songhai in Accra, pray they would be led & guide to those who are also seeking Christ. Pray that they would have many opportunities to share the name of Christ boldly & often with those that have never heard. Pray for wisdom of how to follow-up & disciple any of these men or women who seek to follow Christ. There is a HUGE population of Christians in Accra & many churches there. However, many of these churches are not targeting the Songhai. Pray that Mark & Cephas may establish partnerships with one (or more) of these churches to assist in ministering to the Songhai that, literally, "live in their backyards."

Weekly Prayer Focus: Village YK

Please be in prayer for village YK this week. There has been a lot of work going on in this village over the last 18 months & we've seen almost 2 dozen profess faith in Christ. We've also seen 2 key leaders emerge from this group who have a desire to see a church planted in their village. However, in recent days, there has been some "conflict" between these 2 leaders. It is not physical & does not involve persecution, it simply involves lying. And where there is lack of trust, there is lack of growth & unity.

Please pray for wisdom for the Songhai team (specifically Mark, Jody & Cephas) as they deal with this. Pray that the Lord would give them clear direction in how to handle these men & continue to disicple the believers in this village.

Pray for the group of believers who are struggling now with trust. Pray that they may forgive quickly, their unity would increase & their faith would grow through this.

Pray for the main leader involved that needs to truly repent of what he's done to himself, his fellow brothers & restore the bond that has been broken due to distrust. Pray that he would truly have a broken heart over his sin & he would seek forgiveness from all involved.

Pray that the Lord would use all of this for His glory & the church in YK would only grow stronger as a result.

sow with hope, reap with humility

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I’ve tried to grow a garden multiple times.  I’m afraid I don’t have a green thumb.  If anything I have a black thumb.  Plants see me coming and they just start trembling. I’m the grim reaper of horticulture!

However, I continue to try and thus I continue to fail.  Even as I type this, I have begun yet another attempt to grow something successfully. 

It’s gotten so bad that even as I’m planting the seeds into the earth, there is a voice inside my head that says, “This is useless, it’s all going to die, it’s all for nothing.”  And so, even as I’m planting, I’m already defeated thinking this is a fruitless pursuit.

If I’m not careful, I can carry this same attitude into my sowing of Gospel seed.  We see lots of disinterest and even hostility towards the Gospel when we take it out.  Sometimes, even those who quickly believe turn out to be false “conversions.”  If I’m not careful I can hear that same voice inside my head as I’m casting the Gospel seed which says to me, “This is useless, no one is going to listen, no one is going to believe, it’s all for nothing.”  And so, even as we’re out sharing the Gospel, we’re already defeated.

Our Songhai team has adopted a team theme for this year taken from the 4^th chapter of John.  That theme is this:  sow with hope, reap with humility. 

Jesus was talking to his disciples about an unexpected harvest in an unexpected place.  His disciples hadn’t even considered working in Samaria and were simply trying to pass through as quickly as possible.  Yet, here we find many who believe.  John is showing us faith where we’d never expect it (to contrast the disbelief he’s shown us where we thought we’d find it, namely Jerusalem). 

If you’d asked Jesus’ disciples about sharing in Samaria they probably would have scoffed and said, “That’s a pointless pursuit!”

Jesus is teaching them (and us) that we should never carry this attitude into our sowing of the Gospel.  And thus, we should sow in hope.  We try to go out prayerfully when we share with an attitude of expectation.  We expect the Gospel to transform lives and to make dead hearts alive!

However, the other lesson Jesus taught those disciples that day was to reap with humility.  A harvest was literally approaching Jesus as he spoke to the disciples as a crowd of Samarians were coming to Jesus to believe.  Jesus taught them that day that they will reap a harvest where they have not sown.

For us as well, we are in a very fruitful season of ministry.  We’re seeing things so many of our colleagues aren’t seeing and so many of our former colleagues longed to see.  Why is that?  The temptation is towards pride.  The temptation is to think, “This is because of our great faithfulness” or “This is because of our great strategy” when the reality is this is because of our great and faithful God.  We are simply reaping a harvest where we have not labored.

And so we go out expecting God to bring about fruit but when He does, we only boast in Him!

May we all sow in hope and reap in humility.   

Darkness has not overcome the Light

Our Songhai Team adopts a team verse and a team theme each year.  I’ll be blogging later about our team theme for 2013 but wanted to share with you our team verse here.

Our team verse is John 1:5 which says “The light has come into the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John’s Gospel is full of light/darkness references and we too find our ministry best understood in these terms.  We see our job as taking light into some of the darkest places on planet Earth.  Places that have never heard of the Light and have lived in darkness for literally centuries. 

John’s Gospel promises two things: 1) there will be conflict when light enters darkness and 2) light wins.  When light enters darkness there is conflict because those in darkness want to remain there.  Light means being exposed and revealed and we don’t like that. 

The Songhai, for the most part, are still in darkness.  Taking the Light to them is challenging on many levels and there are times that it looks like darkness is winning.  However, we cling to this promise (and others) from God’s Word that the darkness will not overcome the light.

A recent trip to a new area of work for us reminded me about this reality.  It is a new village where 2 men actually believed on hearing the Gospel for the first time ever.  I referred to this village as Mayberry as it was so peaceful.  A friend from Ayorou even accompanied me on several follow-up trips and we both remarked how kind people were even when they didn’t agree with us.

Well, darkness is never passive.  It’s not enough to try and remain in darkness but instead the darkness is aggressive when light comes. 

We pulled up to this village a few weeks ago and were on our way to meet with the few believers when several village elders approached us.  They didn’t greet us (very un-Songhai) but instead said, “You are the ones claiming you built our mosque and we want to go to the chief and have you judged!”

How’s that for a welcome?! 

We tried to explain the foolishness of this statement.  If anything, we told them, we would build a church!  

They were not appeased and insisted we go to the chief.  At the chief’s house there was a lot of shouting (on their part) as we sat quietly and listened.  They kept saying “the chief says…” although the chief sat there quietly and seemingly embarrassed at the scene. 

At long last, the real reason for their anger came out.  They weren’t mad about this so-called claim (because they knew it was a lie) but were upset because we were preaching Jesus in the village i.e., Light had come to town.

They said, again speaking for the chief, that we were no longer welcome in this place and needed to leave immediately.  The chief returned the gifts we’d given him and we were about to head back to our bush taxi when one of our friends in the village (not a believer) began to scold these elders and even the chief! 

He shamed them about the way they’d treated us because we were visitors and visitors are supposed to be kings to the Songhai.  He shamed them about making up this lie.  He then shouted that he would build a church in his compound and they could do nothing about it! 

We tried to calm this man down as this was not our first encounter like this.  But the man gathered up all people who were not intimidated by these elders to meet at his house where he gave us the floor to share the Gospel with about 40 men!  Light wins.

It’s not always so immediate though and there are plenty of times it looks like darkness is winning.  As I type this I’m so heartbroken over the news of one of our solid believers who has been severely beaten by his father for accepting Christ.

We know light wins and we cling to this promise.  We know that we won’t always see it in this life.  We know that it’s about a bigger battle that’s been won.  Light winning isn’t always about our health or our safety, it’s about the victory Christ has won as he defeated death.  It’s the victory of salvation as he frees these former slaves to sin and makes them into sons of righteousness. 

And so we cling to this verse even when (maybe especially when) we can’t see it.  Light wins.

NLTS 3 - The Gospel of John

Almost a year ago while Randy, Cephas and I were in Accra, Ghana we began to dream about a future ministry location we hoped to call the HUB.  Out of that came an idea of an oral theological training school.   We were in totally uncharted territory but felt God’s guiding hand as we began planning. 

Now we have just finished up our third course (of 12) of said school at the HUB.  It’s been an amazing ride and it just keeps getting better!  Thank you for your prayers through every step of the way.

Okay, on to NLTS 3.  I wish somehow I could capture the week with words but I just can’t.   It was such a sweet time of fellowship with 15 brothers from several villages. 

I personally grew so much as I prepared to teach the Gospel of John.  It has always had such a special place in my own spiritual growth and I was so excited to walk through it with these dear brothers.

But how could I teach 21 chapters of John in 5 short days?  This was my fear.  Our goal is never just knowledge and we always want our believers to walk away with an understanding of how to use this knowledge.  Typically this means we spend lots of time on repetition and make sure they can repeat back the stories we tell.

You just can’t do that in 5 days trying to move through 21 chapters so I decided to focus on what John himself says the purpose of his Gospel were.  He states in the 20^th chapter that he has written these things so that we might know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that we might believe in Him and have life.

So with that, we set out to pull those two points out of every verse of this amazing Gospel.  Joneo created some great visuals for the 8 miracles and the 7 “I AM” statements John records for us.  We turned these visuals into a small book for each believer with the hopes that as they listened to the Gospel with their lost friends, they could use these visuals to pull out these 2 main points from the story. 

During the week there were also some chances to put into practice what we were learning.  As we read about Jesus washing His disciples feet, we too washed each others’ feet.  I shared on Facebook that this was unlike any other foot washing I have been apart of. Instead of a somber affair, it was one of rejoicing as one by one they started singing and dancing.  Then, as we talked about serving, an opportunity arose for us to do some hard work (that nobody else wanted to do) for a local school damaged by the flood.  The guys did it again with rejoicing.

The last day I gave the guys a few gifts to remind them of our week.  They each got a loaf of bread to remind them that this bread will run out but Jesus is the Bread of Life that gives life everlasting. 

I also gave them a lamp.  We looked a lot this week at how John talked about light and dark climaxing in Jesus’ “I AM the light of the world” statement.  This lamp was to remind them to walk in the light and to be a bright light in their dark villages. 

Finally, I gave them a cloth to remind them to pick up their cloths and serve one another.

The guys then surprised me with a gift.  They gave me a bow and arrow.  Someone then read from Psalm 127 (the passage about a man with a full quiver).  The point they brought out was towards the end of the text where no one debates with the man with a full quiver!  In other words, he is a powerful man.

The guys said I had started the week with a full quiver but as the teaching went on I was giving each of the guys an arrow i.e., the training was teaching them how to do spiritual battle when they go home.  They said I needed to refill my quiver so that I can continue to equip others for battle!

What a humbling gift and a great week!

My bow and quiver!

Jonathan Oglesby created some great pictures to go with our study of John.

The book we made out of Joneo's pictures

This was the guys after plowing up an area about 100 yards by 30 yards using only the tools you see here!

March 2013 newsletter

 

Dear Prayer Partners,

Thank you again for your faithful prayers for our family, our team & the Songhai people for another month. As January & February were extremely busy with family, friends & churches visiting us, March has had a bit of a slower pace. The heat has kicked into high gear with days above 110 & nights that don't seem to fall below 100. We are thankful to all be healthy even though we're hot! And we're thankful for the opportunities the Lord has given us tom minister alongside our Songhai brothers & sisters during this "slower paced" month. Mark has been able to return to the Road to Gaya twice already & is currently leading a week of NLTS seminars for our believers. We count it a privilege & a blessing to not only minister among the Songhai but, many times, we get to minister ALONGSIDE them! Six & a half years ago, when we started our ministry here in Niger, we only envisioned when the day would come when we'd be no longer toiling by ourselves but to do it with a Songhai man or woman who saw the true need of taking the Gospel to the corners of the earth. We can only give the glory & honor to God that we are now seeing it & living it. And we thank you for your countless prayers (day in & day out, month in & month out, year after year) for this to be a reality. We also can never thank you enough for your gifts to the Lottie Moon Offering/Cooperative Program that keep us here and enable us & our believers in ministry. All in all, THANK YOU!

We love our prayer partners dearly & count YOU a blessing & are so thankful for your partnership with us!

that ALL may know HIM,

Mark & Parker <><

Volunteer Testimony: FBC Franklin, February 2013

The gate is open. 

All are welcome and encouraged to come in. 

Some rush in to see what is going on. 

Some that walked in leave thinking I will come back later or think this doesn’t interest me.

Some walk by with curiosity but think there is plenty of time. 

Others have no interest at all and keep walking. 

Please come in, please come in all are welcome the gate keepers encourage. 

There is plenty of room.

Several others come in while others linger at the door, curious but unwilling to risk the unknown. 

All of a sudden the gate is closed. 

Inside the gates there is laughter. 

There are fun new games.

There is beautiful music.

What are they doing? 

Things are going on inside the gate that have never been seen or imagined by the villagers. 

It looks like so much fun. 

Many would like to come in now but the gate is closed. 

They are turned away. 

They missed their opportunity. 

All they can do is look in the gate and watch the unimaginable things that are going on. 

Oh how they wish they had gone in when the gate was open. 

They could be experiencing the fun, the joy, the new adventures, the blessings if only they had accepted the invitation. 

This was the scene in village G. that we visited. Many were left to watch from the fence once the gate closed.  Cephas related this scene to accepting Jesus to all that watched from the fence.  The gate to enter heaven by accepting Jesus is open but will close without warning just like the gate to the compound closed. What a powerful analogy Cephas portrayed to the villagers.  It has left a lasting impression on me.  I pray all reading this will accept Jesus to be able to enter the gate before God closes it.