June 23rd outreach

June 23^rd Blog

 After a few hours of rest the team woke this Lord’s Day morning and broke bread with the brethren at Believers Bible Assembly in Daniel’s home. Paul spoke from John 15 in in the Family Bible Hour on Abide in Christ, and bearing fruit for God which was very practical, while the rest of the team members dispersed to their allotted Sunday school classes.  Each child in the Sunday school was given a Ziploc bag containing a deodorant stick, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste at the end of their lesson. By giving the children a gift, our hope is that this will affirm the message of God’s free gift of salvation, especially in a country where works-based salvation is widely believed.

 As soon as the Sunday School sessions concluded, the team had a quick lunch and was whisked away to Sunyani , a three hour bus ride to a rural village north of Kumasi.   The team arrived to find a group of church-goers assembled in an outdoor chapel. There were also about 30 junior high school students, invited by our host, a brother called ‘Ransford’.  Tim made contact with Ransford a couple of weeks prior. Ransford pastors a number of rural churches in his area.  He  expressed keen interest in the Emmaus correspondence courses after his contact with Daniel, and is working diligently to complete his first six courses!  On two occasions Ransford  woke up at 3am to travel to Kumasi, and collect Emmaus materials from Daniel. We were quite impressed by his zeal to learn the scriptures. On his last visit, Ransford was delighted when we suggested our mission team make a visit to the rural church he is working with. He explained how the people in the church were keen to learn more of the bible. We, therefore,  decided to add this visit to an already very busy schedule.   When the team arrived, the congregation had been waiting for more than one hour. They had a charismatic service going on, and one of the brothers who was preaching lapsed into unintelligible ‘tongues’. This is the norm among most of the evangelical churches in Ghana.

After a brief introduction by Daniel with Ransford translating, the team swung into action – starting with a few songs by the choir and a puppet show from Esther and Joanne. Tim then shared the story of Blondin the tightrope walker on the sketch-board, challenging the congregation with the question: what are you putting your trust in? Joseph Frimpong followed up  with a message on eternal security, addressing a point of doctrinal confusion among those assembled – the pastor commented after that both the sketchboard message, and the scriptures expounded by Joseph spoke to him personally, praise God! Daniel concluded the program by promoting the Emmaus bible correspondence courses, and noted there was quite a bit of interest among those assembled. We trust the Lord will bring forth fruit for eternity from the team’s visit this afternoon. We continue to ask for your prayers as we are back on the school circuit tomorrow morning, the team has had much to do with little tim,e and little sleep! Please pray for energy for the team as we begin our last week of labour here in Ghana.