Hello Friends!

Hi. We're glad to be here for you to see once again!


Village church visit. This last Sunday I took a carload of youth out to one of our village churches. We wanted to encourage the pastor who is there. Members of his congregation have been leaving church because they think they should be paid to attend church. Also, the church has the age-old problem [maybe your church isn't this way.] of having lots of older people, but not many young people. So we went to invite youth to church, and to make a good contact with them.
It went really well. The youth sang, and the people really enjoyed lively music, and I preached. The pastor asked me to have a sermon ready. So I did.


Church under the Mango trees!



I talked about the benefits of the Gospel, and being a child of God. Everything from sins forgiven to power in Christ to being a co-inheritor with Christ.
I started with our condition as sinners, and used a rope magic trick to illustrate our lack of communication with God when we are in a state of sin.



Magic tricks, even Gospel ones can be tricky in africa, but these people seemed to get the point, and enjoyed my amateurish trick!


I also asked at the end of the sermon, Do I have to pay to go to church? No.
Does the church have to pay me? No. I explained that a church is like a family. When was the last time you went to your dad and said, Dad unless you pay me I quit being a Seward, and now I'm going to be a Smith. You can't do that.
I explained the benefits of family, but that does not include an obligation of being paid to be a member. I explained that my father would say that he feeds me, clothes me, educates me, etc. Same in the church, we are fed spiritually, encouraged, exhorted, etc. Church is family... Of course this is the very short version.

New family near us!God has brought a new American woman and her daughter to Kadiolo. She is here to help cousel families who have members with aids. She is a volunteer with an english NGO, non government organisation. Pray for her as she's come from Detroit, has had little training for africa. Pray that we can help fill gaps to help her as much as possible. Her little girl, 9 years old is in government school in french. At this point the girl has very little french. It is going to be a tough spring for her, but she will come out of spring speaking french very well.






Thanks for stopping by again!
God Bless,
Tom