August 25, 2007


Thank you SO much for writing on our wall - it is a true highlight of our day when we read those posts together!

Great news - we now have internet at our home; kind of (we have to go on our back porch outside to connect to the office which is about 50 yards and 4 concrete walls away). We are so excited to be able to catch you up on our happenings and be more connected with back home.

A lot has happened since the last time we posted . . . here is brief update.

1.      We have started a tro-tro route. (I would describe a tro-tro as one of those old Volkswagen van type things – it seats 14 passengers) Our route is in Asawase. I would say 60 percent of the people there are some sort of Christian denomination and the other 40 percent are Muslim. Our first week we had 42 in attendance (37 of them rode in the 14 passenger tro-tro). Our second week we had 72 in attendance with 39 first time visitors and 15 of them got baptized. Last week we had 63 in attendance and we are still waiting to find out how many of them got baptized.  This morning we went to the soul winning meeting at the church in Kumasi and 10 teenage boys were there from Asawase to learn how to win their families and friends to the Lord. We really enjoy the tro-tro route – we are averaging about 10 adults a week – and it has been a privilege to be able to go to the children’s and teenagers houses and win their families to the Lord.

2.      Last week (August 16th – 17th) was our first Vacation Bible School. Brett was heavily involved with the preparation, planning, and execution of the school. The morning sessions (from 9:00 – 11:00) were for children 4-11 yrs old and the afternoon sessions (from 1:00-3:00) were for the teenagers 12-17. I was the coordinator for the 4-5 year olds in the morning and taught the 15 year olds in the afternoon. The funniest part of Bible School was when the Devil (Caleb Stubblefield) came climbing down from the balcony for one of the skits. (I must admit it was pretty scary!) Anyway, all of the 4-11 year olds got so scared they tried to stampede out of the auditorium towards the one main exit. You can only imagine how it looked when Brett and some of the other workers were trying to hold 100+ kids away from the door. All in all it was a great experience – there was a total of 1600 in attendance for the 2 days with 514 saved and 149 baptized. Amen and Amen!

3.       God has blessed the church tremendously since we have been here. When we first arrived there was a big push to try to get 600 people for Sunday morning (We had been running around 550), and just last week we had 815 with no special promotion. He has also blessed our Sunday school Primary Church services. When we first got here we had around 130 4-7 year olds and last week we had 219! Praise the Lord. I will make sure to take a picture of our class tomorrow so you can see! And once we get our internet in the actual house I will post some video as well.

Well, I guess that is all for now. It just started raining out so I better get inside. We love and miss everyone so much.

P.S. Thank you to Kari, Mom and Dad Beil, Mom and Dad Guarneri, Aunt Janeen, Grandpa and Grandma Campbell, Danny and Esther Wruck, and WMS Ghana circle for the letters and packages you have sent us.  You don’t know what a blessing it is to hear or get anything from home.