Don’t Tell Me Miracles Don’t Happen

Why doesn’t God work in signs and wonders and miracles as He did in the past? I hear this asked all the time, but with all due respect to the question, He does.

The greatest miracle happens every day. An infinite gap crossed, an un-payable debt paid, death crossed over to life, a soul regenerated—yes, salvation. Salvation still happens today, and that is the greatest miracle of all. And if you think this is a cheap shot at the answer, consider this: any other miracle God does on this earth is temporary. Even when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it still resulted in a second physical death for him. Only salvation lasts for all eternity.

And the change accompanying salvation baffles the secular mind. Some of the most loathsome people become, to the shock of everyone around them, some of the kindest. Still more amazing is that the change doesn’t end with the night and day transformation from old to new, it continues, growing ever brighter to the full dawn of day, and then onward for all eternity as we come to know Him more.

Sometimes we learn the answers to life’s questions in books and quiet conversation in the house, and other times God teaches them in the dusty, stifling heat of an impoverished village swallowed up in the middle of the African wilderness.

This past January in Nigeria was a perfect reminder of this miracle that continues to amaze me. Thanks everyone for your prayers and support, making this one of the most powerful and encouraging trips I’ve been on yet.

Makoko: Bittersweet Reunion

The town of Makoko is the poorest place I have ever been in my life; people survive in ramshackle huts stationed over still, rancid water full of garbage and human waste. In this terrible place, the life expectancy hovers around 25. If these troubles were not enough, the government is attempting to destroy the entire community for being an eyesore without providing so much as another place to live.

But there is hope. The chief and some of the high ranking officials in the village have professed faith in Christ and are being discipled, albeit slowly. As we pulled up to the chief’s hut in our canoe, I wondered what condition we would find him, since this is the first time I have seen him since the government started tearing down parts of his city. We climbed up the staircase to the upper room where the Chief holds his meetings. It’s sparsely furnished with shaky benches to sit on and rests atop a building about as stable as a house of cards in an earthquake. This is the best Makoko has to offer.

When we sat down and started talking to the chief, he told us how he was fighting for his people, even while he was under pressure from the government and the village. He said that Christ alone would rescue the village, and that he’d refused people’s attempts to get him to use charms from the local superstitions to aid him. On the other hand, he also rebuffed offers by the government to make him a very rich man in return for betraying his people. We were overjoyed to hear that the chief is walking in integrity since his salvation.

But then we asked him, “What will happen if the government still tears down your land and God allows this, what then?”

Without hesitation he said, “Even if they take our land from us, we will still follow Christ wherever we go.”

I was incredibly encouraged to hear this. God does not promise us physical victory over every situation, only the contentment to glorify God and to demonstrate the power of Christ in every situation. In this world we will have trouble, but Christ has overcome it all.

Yet not all was well, because the first thing we noticed about the chief was that he was wearing a Muslim’s outfit with the outline of a beautifully architected mosque. When we asked him about it, he wisely replied that man looks on the outside appearance, but God looks on the heart.

While it’s true that God looks at the heart, man still looks on the outside appearance. This means that your outside appearance can affect your testimony. As an example, even though it would be safer for me to do so, I would never wear a Muslim prayer cap when visiting the Middle East, because I am not a Muslim.

So pray for the Chief. He is doing well in the Lord, but there is yet wisdom for him to grow in, and the pressure on him is unrelenting.

Sprouting Seeds

In one of the villages we visit near the place where we stay, the people mix Islam along with local superstition to produce an idolatrous hybrid of the two. While they attend the mosque regularly, they also sacrifice to the gods of Africa, but even here, the seeds of the gospel planted over the past two years have begun to take root.

When we arrived for our first visit, we went to see the chief in his hut and found several elders distressed at our presence there, complaining that we were there to lead them away from their old religion. And the chief, a Muslim man, actually rebuked them, saying that we had only done good for the village.

This is a living example of 1 Peter 2:12- “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

Despite the controversy, the chief and the elders all came to hear two hours of teaching, and afterward I was shocked to discover that we had finished a fully functioning water well for the village. Since my last visit in May, we not only started drilling, but also completed it, a borehole sunk over eighty meters deep into fresh water. In the commissioning ceremony, we handed out glasses of pure, clean water from the well: crystal clear and sparking in the afternoon light. The chief, several of the elders, and even a few members of the team from the States, myself included, drank of the water!

This is the first time I have ever drunk any more than an accidental drop of local water, and here I was drinking an entire glass of the stuff, to no ill effect.

What this means is that the water is so clear, so pure, and so healthy that even weak American immune systems can handle it. This will not only change the health of the entire village, but their way of life as well. Instead of walking down a steep path into a ravine with fetid water, now the locals have a source of water right in the village, and the women we asked said it had already changed their lives, and they thanked us profusely.

But even better than pure, clear, drinking water is the living water that Christ offers. No matter how clear the water, no matter how much their health improves as a result, they will still die. So imagine how encouraged we were when we talked to the chief, and he told us that he had turned from idolatry, saying, “The idols cannot save us- because we made them, but Jesus Christ lives in the heavens. Only He can help us.” One of the first converts, a man named Solomon, told us that all of his children had become Christians over the past two years, and his wife had become a believer even over the past year.

The signs of the change are spreading throughout the village. We passed housing for idols that now stood empty, with the locals wondering what to do with their extra storage space. And the chief told us that for the first time in the history of the village, there was unity.

The chief (left)

Born of the Spirit

After the team left, I returned to the village with only one of our translators, finding it surprisingly empty. I was slightly concerned, not even two years prior a group of youth had threatened an earlier team. Would there be a surprise waiting for us?

We made our way through the empty town square, relieved to find the chief sitting in the breezeway in his home. After greeting us, he told me he only had a few minutes because he was leaving for the nearby city. I was downcast because I had prepared a teaching that would take at least forty minutes. Resigning myself to the new circumstances, I began to teach 1 Peter 1:3-8 about the living hope of Jesus Christ, and very quickly, the chief got lost in translation, possibly because my translator still has troubles understanding my English.

The Lord works in many ways to bring humility into my life. I breathed a prayer with a sigh, giving up on 1 Peter. At the Lord’s leading, I switched back to the original plan: recounting Elijah’s life and trials, and weaving the story told in 1 Kings 17 along with the idea that Jesus is our living hope.

As I spoke, men gradually filtered in, including some of the village elders, listening and hanging on every word. The chief’s ride arrived, and he also stayed for the whole time.

This message was not evangelistic in nature, and I know that it was not my superior storytelling that intrigued the men. I was using the life of Elijah to show them that if they came to Christ, it would actually make their lives more difficult. It wasn’t the best sales pitch, but we aren’t called to be salesmen. It is the Lord who calls.

When I finished, and all became quiet, the chief spoke, “Gradually the entire village will turn from idolatry to serve the living God. Please pray that God will give us the power to turn to Jesus Christ.”

That is incredible theology from a man either unsaved or newly born into the faith.

As my translator began to pray for the village, I noticed the chief praying quietly along with the him. When they finished, I felt a strong leading from the Lord to ask if the men were ready to receive Christ, telling them that I would think nothing less of them if they did not, but they were resolute. So I told them to pray—to deal with God right there. We would not tell them what to pray- no ‘sinner’s prayer’ here; this was to be a conversation between them and God.

Before I even knew what was happening, the men had bowed their heads and were praying quietly, and right there in the dark breezeway of the chief’s hut, the men began to pray. The air was electric; something inside me said that the Spirit was moving, and at the moment their lips began to move, the still air in the hut gave way before a sudden rush of wind that blew through the hallway. Not once before was there so much as a breath of air, and not once afterward; it reminded me that Jesus said that being born of the Spirit was like the wind: you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.

When that powerful moment concluded, we said our goodbyes, and one of the elders asked us if he could ride part of the way back with us. As the car jolted and lurched along the dirt tracks I would hardly call a road, I spoke with him, asking him his name and things about his family. Finally, I asked him how what he thought about the teaching and he said, “Today, I received Christ.”

I was stunned and amazed; the Lord used this weak vessel, these frail lips to accomplish the ultimate miracle—spiritual resurrection. Others did the hard work, sowing in hard soil and tilling rough ground, and I reaped what I did not labor for. For the rest of that day, I had a huge grin plastered on my face, even occasionally bursting out laughing for no reason at all, so great was my joy.

People from the village waving goodbye

But even in my joy I also, with guarded caution, ask you to pray for the elder who confessed Christ, that the seed that sprouted in his life has found its way onto good soil. Please be praying for our new brother, bearing in mind that perhaps this was one of the elders who was initially complaining about our presence in the village.

God showed me three things that day: He is strong, He is loving, and He uses even a frail man of flesh like myself to carry eternal life to others.

Sobering Reality

While the gospel is on the move in some places, it appears to have stalled in one of the first villages we ministered to, where the message was first received with joy. Like the seed that sprouted quickly in the rocky soil only to wither away in the scorching sun, the people have mostly turned back to their old ways, exiling Amos, the only man who continues to attend the church, because he refuses to participate in local sacrifices to the gods of Africa.

We exhorted Amos not to grow bitter but to love those who threw him and his family out of the village. Pray for him, even that he may one day return and minister to the community who hated him.

The chief of the village is an old man who my heart is incredibly burdened for. He is over 90 years old, surviving so many years to finally hear the gospel which he at first received, and is now rejecting. Please pray for him, and pray that God would give us the wisdom to know how to show kindness in the face of their persecution, so that perhaps they may also come to Christ.

Preaching the gospel message in the village

Yet even here, the gospel is sprouting in the surrounding communities. In a nearby village, where many people walk thirty minutes to attend the distant service outside the village, the elder and another man asked us for just one thing: Bibles. Imagine that! They know we already put in a well nearby, and yet the only thing the chief is concerned with is receiving living water. Pray for this community, and pray that God would supply the means for us to drill for water here as well.

UPDATE: Since I originally wrote this, eleven people from the village that exiled Amos are now attending services once again. Pray that they would persevere!

Isaac (right)

The Face of Persecution

It is not only Amos who is facing persecution, for in the north, our brothers and sisters are facing death every day for their faith. We spent several days ministering in a home for the orphans of such persecution. And it was during one of the teaching times when I was sitting in the back with an orphan on my lap when the awful truth hit me. “This little one’s parents were violently taken from him, something he may even have witnessed.”

And I looked around at each one of the children’s faces. Each of the 311 children there have lost one or both parents violently. I knew this on a fact level already, but it was then that it hit me hard, and it was all I could do to keep from weeping.

Another boy named Isaac came up to me my first day there and asked me, “Will you be my friend?”

I said yes, hoping I’d be able to pick out his face from among the hundreds, and by the grace of God I was able to single him out the next day. He came with us to minister in the villages, and while we were walking the path, one of the children from a neighboring village was telling me, “I want to be a banker, and my dad’s a pastor!”

Isaac, who was walking next to me, commented, “My dad was a pastor too. But then they killed him.”

Again, I was struck and speechless. The things these children have been through are things that no child should ever experience. This world is broken and fleeting; I pray our Lord comes quickly.

So the question remains: Is Christ worth it? Is He worth our very lives? Is he worth being exiled for and estranged for? Is He worth losing your parents over? Here in the states we do not face this kind of persecution, yet we are timid about sharing the gospel. When will we too count the cost, saying that Jesus Christ is worth it? When will we agree with the apostle Paul that to live is Christ and to die is gain?

I encourage you all to consider the courageous examples of our brothers and sisters in Nigeria who remain true till death. Go preach the Word while it is still legal—while we remain free to do so. Pray for our brothers and sisters who are suffering in Nigeria, that they will remain faithful even to death.

Thank you all for your participation in the ministry through your prayers and support. I could not go and experience such amazing things for the Kingdom without you. Please keep praying that I will share the gospel with boldness as I should, both stateside and abroad.

Pressing on in the faith,

- Paul

Immortality

Though man is mortal, he can attempt to outlive his frail body by attaching himself to a cause that transcends himself. And to an extent, it is true: we remember the acts of great men throughout the ages, their hands stretching across the expanse of time to affect our lives long after their bodies have decayed. We take their names on our lips, remembering their actions and their heroism. Through us, they have achieved a kind of life beyond the grave.

But every cause man devises, no matter how noble, will eventually fail.

To live forever, he must attach himself to a cause that transcends himself- an immortal, indestructible cause that will outlive every kingdom and plot of man. Only the cause of Christ has such power to survive.

Men give their lives for many causes, both noble and otherwise, but the man who gives himself up for the cause of Christ will find the very thing he gave returned to him with eternal interest.

Every other cause takes your life. This one gives it back.

Science

Meteors streaked through the ancient skies as primitive man stared up into the heavens, hopeless to explain what he saw - clueless to the fact that the millions of lights were in fact, brilliant burning orbs of plasma millions of times larger than the earth he stood upon.

Yet modern science is no more equipped to explain what we see today than modern man was yesterday. We've discovered that the universe is vast - so vast it is beyond comprehension while at the same time discovering that may be as deep and complex as it is massive.

Every millimeter of space holds countless particles we are clueless to even begin to explain, whose properties are wilder than we can imagine, while at the same time, any larger object moving close to the speed of light similarly behaves in strange ways we have just begun to understand.

And this is just the beginning. The science a hundred years from now will mock our feeble attempts to describe the world today, and will still be no closer to having a full picture of reality than we do today.

Don't be deceived; man will never fully make sense of what God created. Science has yet to even begin to understand the human body, and we are as clueless as the first man to describe this universe. Therefore, science is only a lens by which we view the pan-infinite complexity God created easily.

If one desires to know the full reason a work of art was created, he must go ask the creator. Likewise, if we are to understand this reality, we must view through the lens of Christ and His Word.

Next time you stare up into the skies, imagine this: it is not only possible to know facts about the One who created all these things; it is possible to truly know Him - to be loved by Him.

A Thought on Tragedy

When tragedy happens, we find ourselves asking why. It doesn't seem to make sense and we find ourselves questioning why such things would happen.

The question is valid; none of this makes sense because we are living in a broken world when we were meant to live in a place God made perfect. We weren't built to deal with tragedy, we were built for the glory of God.

But God takes senseless evil and turns it around for the good of those who love him, because the day will come when He returns and flips the world on its head. Sadness and pain will become blissful justice accompanied with our shouts of joy.

Genesis 3 brokenness will become Genesis 1 goodness... more so than we can even imagine.

I eagerly look for that Day along with all those who call upon the Name.

Central American Adventure: Salvation, Loss, and Celebration

Some days in missions are a continual celebration of the things that the Lord has done. But for every day of feasting, there have been countless days of trial and perseverance. Just like Paul told Timothy, “The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.”

We have been called to persevere through both days of trial and days of overflowing joy so that we can enjoy a full harvest, and this trip to Central America has seen both of these types of days.

Edwin

Our first full day of ministry in El Salvador, we traveled to the headquarters for the national agency in charge of all the orphanages throughout the country in order to track down the orphans we have come to know and love, since many of them have been moved. While speaking with the director of the organization, she mentioned a troubled youth named Edwin who had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and had been placed in a specialized room where he was restrained from hurting himself and others.

This piqued our interest. Jesus always went to the downtrodden and heavy laden.

The next day, when we traveled to the nearby orphanage, we immediately sought to befriend him, greeting him immediately as a friend. Because the officials at the orphanage have tightened their grip on the children, only five of the children were available for us to minister to. So each orphan had a entire group caring for them and speaking words of truth to them.

Two of our team members pulled Edwin aside and began to speak the gospel to him. And as they did, God opened his heart to respond, and the tears began to flow. After we finished sharing, he gripped the Bible, kissing and caressing it, and requesting that he could have it (though he was illiterate). The change in him was incredible. He embraced us over and over and over throughout the rest of the visit.

Unfortunately, we soon found out that the heads of the orphanage, who hate our work and have a reputation for cruelty, took the Bible from him, something he reacted extremely poorly to, and resulted him in being returned to yet another mental hospital. This news hit us like a brick.

We are in the process of trying to get him to be able to visit La Esperanza for an extended period of time along with another one of the orphans. But in the meanwhile, please pray for him, and pray that God would have mercy and change the hearts of the leaders of the orphanage who continue to oppress those under their charge, locking them up like a prison and showing them no compassion.

UPDATE: We spoke with the workers at the orphanage (who are friendly and love the children) and they said that as soon as we'd left, Edwin was asking if they too knew Jesus and he begged them to read more of the Bible to him when he returned (they already read Psalm 23 to him). So please continue praying for him.


Playground for the Poor
Several days after the orphanage, we commenced a small construction project to build a soccer / basketball court at the school next door to our building. In all the time we’ve known the teachers, they have only asked us for one thing: a court where the children could play that wouldn’t be on ankle-turning rocky soil. We gladly accepted, bought the supplies, and provided most of the manpower for the short project to be completed.

Meanwhile the teachers allowed us to go into the classrooms and to teach short Bible lessons, which the kids readily enjoyed. Over and over the teachers expressed their appreciation, and let us know one more need; they would love to have someone come and teach both the teachers and the students English for several months so that the children do not fall behind.

Please be praying that God would send someone who is capable of teaching both English and the Scriptures to this poor school and imagine with me for a moment that God uses us to turn this poor country area into a source of brilliant future leaders of the country who have not only been taught well, but who also fear God. Imagine the change that would bring this community!


The Only Help
After completing the construction project in El Salvador, we traveled to Honduras to continue the work there, where we spent the day climbing a local mountain up into a tiny Guatemalan border village, where we ministered the gospel to a crowd of eighty. Teachers from the local school brought their entire class to come and see us. After we had presented, they told us with incredible gratitude that they were grateful for the gifts and supplies we’d brought the children back in December when we’d visited.

They told us that everyone had forgotten them and that we were the only organization who was there to help. They asked us only to continue to meet the needs of the children, pointing out a local child’s shoes, which were almost completely worn to the point of being unusable. If you have the ability, please consider donating shoes, because this is one of the biggest needs we face in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nigeria, and wherever else we go. Imagine your children having to walk over mountains and glass strewn roads with threadbare shoes or none at all. So please join us in praying that God will provide for each and every one of these precious ones.



The teachers we spoke with ride a bus an hour every day just to go teach in this tiny mountain village. Yet their primary concern is for the children, not themselves. This is a pattern in the schools we have ministered in. The teachers asked us to remember the poor children, something we are more than willing to do, and it rings of the scriptures, where the leaders of the early church asked Paul to remember the poor. (Galatians 2:10)


Celebration


The next day, under a beautiful blue sky dotted with white wisps of clouds, we sat on the banks of a flowing river, enjoying a beautiful mountain breeze in what is one of the finest moments in missions – baptism.


Two weeks prior, the number to be baptized was eight. The day before the baptism, the number swelled to eighteen. And on the day of baptism, twenty-eight were baptized into the name of Jesus Christ, including one girl who confessed faith that very day. This means that roughly a third of the entire church got baptized.



About a hundred people came from both sides of the river, crossing from the nearby village to participate in the celebration. We sang together, shared a word on baptism, and then started the festivities. And as we continued to baptize, more came forward to proclaim their death to the world and their new life in Christ, including one of the former leaders of a group that is hostile to the gospel.



The young, the aged, the single, and the married all came forward to proclaim their love for Jesus Christ. And on the bank, a man from the nearby village sat down and watched the entire thing, as person after person came forward to the waters of baptism.

Was the entire thing blissful? Not exactly; many of the members of the church, especially the aged, cannot swim and looked about as comfortable in the water as a fish on dry land. They seemed eager to get out as soon as they could, clinging to those doing the baptism with surprisingly catlike reflexes. So humanly, it always doesn’t look pretty, but spiritually it is fantastic.

Each person represents a life changed, a life Jesus has rescued from domestic abuse, from drunkenness, from violence and sexual sin, and most importantly, from the just and righteous wrath of God. Each person has a new hope and new life. Each head that drops in the water is a testament to Christ’s burial along with our sins, and each person that is lifted out of the water is a symbol of Jesus’s resurrection and the new life He provides us.
And so in baptism we proclaim that we are clean; Christ has cleaned us from our sin and we are now free to live for righteousness. So praise God, He is continuing to grow his church in the villages of Honduras and Guatemala. Pray that God would draw those who publically proclaimed Him closer to Himself and that He would help them through any persecution that may come from such a bold declaration.

Joyous days like this only come through careful work and through bold preaching of the gospel to the lost, even at great personal cost. This could be the norm in the United States as well, so pray that we would become bold like our brothers and sisters in Honduras and preach the gospel like they do, that we may too share in the Lord’s harvest.

“Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.”
Psalm 126:5,6

In Christ,
- Paul

Confidence in the Son

It’s now been over a month since I got back from Nigeria, and memories from the trip are still flowing strong, reminding me of the great things the Lord did, and is still doing there. I have absolute confidence in the Lord, who continues to work in the hearts of men to bring them to repentance and to transform them into the likeness of His Son.

Imagine that! Those of us who have believed are being transformed into the very image of the Son of God! And we have hope that since He has begun such a work in us, He will finish it. It is with this firm hope that I am able to go to places like Nigeria with absolute certainty that God will work through me.

The Stephen Centre: Joy and Forgiveness

We spent a large portion of the trip ministering among the children of men and women who were killed for their faith in Christ. Everywhere we went, tiny hands grabbed for ours. And we spent our time teaching the love of Christ and the forgiveness of Christ in the classrooms and as we walked and talked with the orphans.

The time in the orphanage was full of powerful teaching and incredible, joyous insanity. We would often go from a time of incredible teaching into a time of celebration or a game. One afternoon, we gave some of the boys an American football, and then were horrified as we watched them play an incredibly violent variant of rugby / football on concrete. As I watched them hurl each other into the pavement, I remember thinking, “They’re going to kill each other!”

Seeing the problem, we quickly rushed in and began to teach them how to play properly (two hand touch!).

By the end of our time we’d formed teams and had a small series of matches, which they enjoyed incredibly. I ended up coaching / quarterbacking for one of the teams. While we were playing, a young man named Yakson walked up and joined our game. The people on my team said, “Oh, he’s fast.”

So, not knowing what to expect, I handed him the ball the next play. He took off like a lightning bolt, dodging and weaving through the defense to score our first touchdown. When it was over, I had to collect my jaw from the floor. They said he was fast, but I’d never seen anyone run like that. If he were in the States… well… watch out college football!

The most meaningful part of our time there was a precious moment where the leaders of the Centre asked us to lead a time of prayer with the orphans. We prayed with the orphans through Romans 12:10-21, especially the verse that says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”

With tears streaming down their faces, the children prayed for the people who murdered their parents.

It’s incredible that God would so move that a child would seek to forgive the men who took away those who were most dear to them on this earth. And after that prayer, I received a letter that said, “When my father was killed I swore never to forgive those who killed him, but when my Sunday school teacher told us about how Jesus died for my sins, I forgave them.”

While we were there, twelve of the children confessed Christ as their Savior. Others were excited about the prospect of going out and ministering to the very people groups who had killed their parents.

The gospel is that powerful. It teaches us to forgive and to love as Christ loves us. It utterly transforms us, and that is why I am not ashamed to preach it.

Makoko: Hope for the Hopeless

We continued our ministry to Makoko, a sprawling slum built over a lake that more closely resembles a sewage treatment plant than a lake. Due to malnutrition and disease, the average life expectancy here is twenty-five, the only method of transportation is by boat, the only shelter is a small tin roofed hut, and the average person survives off only $1 a month, but amidst all this hopelessness, the prophecy from Isaiah 9 continues to be fulfilled:

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy;”

As we prepared to leave for the school, a young man named Noah, the school teacher for Makoko, jumped on our boat. Joy literally radiated from his face like I have never seen before. And when he opened his mouth, scripture poured forth as he recounted the promises of God to us.

This reminded me that amidst all the sickness, the disease, and the pain, God is providing these precious ones with hope and joy.

Noah received Christ three years ago and has been preaching the gospel throughout Makoko since that moment. He is now looking forward to the opportunity to serve with us in other locations. When we told him about the next place we were planning on ministering, he began to grow excited: the very people we are planning on ministering to are his original people, and he speaks their language fluently. God’s providence continues to amaze me.

Pray that Noah would get the opportunity to serve powerfully among his people as he has in Makoko.

Otere: God speaks through His Son

The last day of the trip was honestly the day I was looking forward to the most. For some reason, since the beginning of the trip, I felt a strange confidence that God would do amazing things in this village. Up til this point, the gospel had been preached many times, but no one in the history of this place had ever become a follower of Jesus Christ, although they were willing to add Jesus to their list of gods and beliefs.

Jesus is not another belief to be added to a list of good luck charms. He is the only one able to satisfy God’s just wrath and the only one able to satisfy our deepest longings. Because of this, we all resolved to preach on the superiority of Christ and the sufficiency of Christ as He is found in Hebrews 1.

Unfortunately, the night before this was to happen, I became fairly ill, and I’ll spare my readers the details of said illness, but suffice to say, it was unpleasant, and left me lying on the floor aching the next morning. It was five minutes before the team was to leave, and I was considering staying at home, but God gently reminded me that I didn’t want to miss the events of the day.

And somehow, I got up. And not just me, but another member of the team who was suffering even more severely than I was!

We arrived at the village, greeting the chief warmly. And he in turn told us that, “God had sent us” and not to worry for our safety, because, “God was with us.”

After our time with the chief, we got to work, each of us in turn preaching the gospel for two and a half hours. And at the end of that time, eight men stood up and confessed Christ, forsaking all others. And their first question as new believers was this, “When are you coming back to teach us again?”

This is why I have confidence to preach Christ and Christ crucified, and to rely on Him to bring the increase. We did not go to entertain. We did not bribe with gifts or money. We preached Jesus Christ, the One in whom I have absolute confidence. He is the only One who has the power to turn back God’s wrath and to bring us safely through death.

God used our faithfulness and His word to bring eight new brothers into the fold—the first believers ever in the region. And I am overjoyed to the point of tears, even as I type this. These men are even now receiving weekly training in their new faith from our Nigerian brothers who work hard for the gospel.

Know that the God we serve is still, as always, mighty to save.

In the service of Jesus Christ, my Savior, my Hope, and my Confidence,

- Paul

Prayer Requests: Pray that God would encourage our new brothers and sisters in Christ, and that He would continue to grow His church. Pray also that God would raise the funds so that we are able to dig water wells and provide for both the physical and the spiritual needs of the people there. And pray also for me, that I would preach the gospel fearlessly as I should.

If you would like to partner with us or contribute to the ministry, feel free to send a check to:
SOS Ministries,  PO Box 16712,  Clearwater, FL  33766  

Please put the particular project you have in mind in the memo. If you wish to donate to my support, write “Paul W. Support” on the memo.

All donations are tax deductible. Thanks for your prayers and support!

Water of Life

Yesterday we visited the church in Akankan, a village that had never heard the gospel preached prior to our coming two years ago. In a climactic moment in the middle of a thunderstorm in 2010, most of the village professed faith in Christ.

And ever since we started ministering in that village, we have also been attempting to put in a water well to provide clean drinking water, which would be a massive improvement to the current system of drawing water from a fetid pond about a quarter mile away.

But for whatever reason or other, our attempts to drill the well using several different companies have all failed. And as a result, many have left the gatherings, saying that we were unable to provide for them.

When Jesus preached about the four types of seed, he spoke of a kind that only grew up for a moment, but as soon as trouble came, it withered and died. Unfortunately, that appears to be the case for those who came to the faith only expecting that we would provide water. Their interest is in physical things, not spiritual realities.

And yes, drinking water is unbelievably important, and we are still doing everything we can to get the right drilling company out there, but the whole situation reminds me of the woman at the well that Jesus spoke with over 2000 years ago in John 4.

Her concern was physical water, and not having to walk to the well to draw it.
Jesus’s concern for her was for living water, and her finding eternal life.

“… whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Whoever drinks physical water will be thirsty again. And no matter how healthy that water is, he or she is still going to die. Whoever drinks living water has fellowship with the source of life, God Himself. And the person who drinks living water will never taste death, nor will he ever need anything else to find satisfaction.

This is the message that we preached. That God does not promise physical water. Because although physical water is important, it is also temporary. God is far more concerned with our eternal joy than our temporary happiness.

In reality, God doesn’t promise physical prosperity. He promises trouble in this life, saying:

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
and
”In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

The promise is not that we will avoid trouble. The promise is that no matter what we go through, we have joy, because we know that we have friendship with God. We not only experience life, we experience it more abundantly and eternally.

And as we preached these things, those who have remained in fellowship were agreeing vehemently. For them, following Christ is the primary joy and the primary aim of life, not a mere water well.

And the amazing thing is, there are now men and women traveling from four different villages to hear the preaching of the word of God every week. These men and women are our dear brothers and sisters, and the reason we have traveled across the Atlantic to brave mosquitos, blazing heat, dangerous roads, and the loss of almost every comfort we have in the states.

It’s worth it for our family that God has redeemed. And it’s worth it for His glory.

As you have time, pray that God will continue to grow and strengthen them.
Pray that God will help us to finally drill a well to serve the whole village.
Pray that God will restore those who have fallen away.
And pray that God will continue to spread His good news of hope and joy throughout the region.

In the service of Jesus Christ,
- Paul