My apologies for missing our Musings last Sunday. We had a busy week, with an unplanned trip to Lome on Thursday and Friday to pick up a team of men coming from Idaho, and then spent Sunday visiting a church being planted in the Tamberma region. I'll include some pictures.
The road to Nadoba was awful, but the trip was great. The Tamberma are perhaps the most idolatrous people in Togo, with a host of dried mud mounds outside each house. Each one represents a family member, with the biggest mound representing the father or head of the house, on down to small ones for children and newborn infants. The people are all steeped in animism from the time they can recollect anything, and the gospel has been a hard sell. Often we see chicken feathers stuck to these images with dried blood. Every time someone gets sick or is facing a problem, it calls for another sacrifice (usually a chicken). The people are very poor, with much of their wealth used to appease the spirit world they fear is attacking them. But little by little the light is coming in and driving out the darkness. We visited the house of an elderly lady, who allowed her fetish images to melt away in the rain, as she has placed her faith in Jesus Christ. A number of young men and several women have turned from their idols to worship the true and living God. They experience persecution, but have remained true to their declaration of faith in our Lord. 
We must pray for Pastor Kpatcha and his wife, who have come as Togolese missionaries from Kara to the village of Nadoba. Their work has certainly been very difficult, but God is giving them a harvest, and I'm amazed at the joy I see in that family.
Esther has stayed busy with her Bible studies, but has now turned them almost all over to Anna Chubb and Faith Drake. Cindy McFarland has been a great help as well, and we are so grateful to have a good team in place to pick up where we have left off, and move the work along, (we are certain), to a higher plane than we could ever reach. It is a blessing to work in concert with our fellow missionaries. Each one has joyfully taken on responsibilities we previously held, and we know we can leave in three weeks with full confidence that this team is going to do a magnificent job for the Lord here in Northern Togo. I don't know who said it, but it's true. "The future is as bright as the promises of God!" You know, there are some missionaries who are "Lone Rangers," but we are very thankful to work with a mission that
has always emphasized teamwork.
Today we made our final visit to the church in Dapaong, with Pastor Laré, and were so very encouraged to find that he now has three deacons, along with their wives. He has struggled for years trying to find leadership to help him in his ministry, and God has started to answer his prayers. It was so different to be in a church with families. Pastor Randy Cook, from Meridian First Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, brought a message on John 3:16, and people listened carefully, even though it had to be translated from English into French, and then into the Moba language that is spoken in Dapaong.
Later they gave Esther and me a dress and shirt as a goodbye gift. As poor as they are, it struck me that they want to give. It's like in
the message that Randy Cook preached; when you love someone you want to give. "For God so loved the world that He gave. . ." It was fun to reminisce on the church building that we put up in eight days. Pastor Laré said it was nine days, but he was counting a Sunday, on which we did no work. So we put it up in eight days! I remember a neighbor coming by to say that he had gone to Lome the week before, and when he came back and found a church building on his street, he thought he must have made a wrong turn somewhere. Putting up a building in eight days just wasn't something that happened in Togo before we did it. That was largely due to John Teusink, who came up from Tsiko, and it once again shows the value of teamwork.
Speaking of teamwork, the fourteen men from Idaho have been a huge blessing. They have installed ceilings, electrical cables, and are working on kitchen cabinets. I've seen them using picks to chip away at the super hard laterite rock, so that we could run electrical conduit from one building to another. Not an easy task in the heat of Mango. They have moved flagstone, and building blocks. And they have even found time to work on our own kitchen cabinets that have doors falling off. It's great to have men who know how to use tools! And we have them for another week!
And just for your information, we now have city water on the property. It's not yet hooked up so we can use it, but it's there! And that should make our life a lot easier from this point on. Please pray about our well. We will need to pull the pump to see why it's not working, and there is fear of a cave in, which might make it
impossible to do that. We've asked you to pray about the well in the past, and would you please remember to do that once again.
Yours in His service,
Tim & Esther Neufeld
the message that Randy Cook preached; when you love someone you want to give. "For God so loved the world that He gave. . ." It was fun to reminisce on the church building that we put up in eight days. Pastor Laré said it was nine days, but he was counting a Sunday, on which we did no work. So we put it up in eight days! I remember a neighbor coming by to say that he had gone to Lome the week before, and when he came back and found a church building on his street, he thought he must have made a wrong turn somewhere. Putting up a building in eight days just wasn't something that happened in Togo before we did it. That was largely due to John Teusink, who came up from Tsiko, and it once again shows the value of teamwork.
Speaking of teamwork, the fourteen men from Idaho have been a huge blessing. They have installed ceilings, electrical cables, and are working on kitchen cabinets. I've seen them using picks to chip away at the super hard laterite rock, so that we could run electrical conduit from one building to another. Not an easy task in the heat of Mango. They have moved flagstone, and building blocks. And they have even found time to work on our own kitchen cabinets that have doors falling off. It's great to have men who know how to use tools! And we have them for another week!
And just for your information, we now have city water on the property. It's not yet hooked up so we can use it, but it's there! And that should make our life a lot easier from this point on. Please pray about our well. We will need to pull the pump to see why it's not working, and there is fear of a cave in, which might make it
impossible to do that. We've asked you to pray about the well in the past, and would you please remember to do that once again.
Yours in His service,
Tim & Esther Neufeld
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