November 17, 2009
Tarkwa, Ghana, West Africa

Hello to all!

I trust this note finds everyone well and joyfully walking in the light and truth of His presence!

By God's grace yesterday we made it safely back from our time up in Bole, (the "e" is pronounced as long "A" sound!)
We are grateful for the work the Lord accomplished in and through us. As I had said the Bole council of churches, which is made up of 9 denominations, invited us to come and so we started out with a diverse group of about 30, mostly men. This was quite a tremendous undertaking and certainly impossible without the Holy Spirit! We were impressed with the unity of the Spirit we saw, even prior to our coming. Because of schedule conflicts we saw the numbers dwindle to about half towards the end of the program. However, to our knowledge no one left because of doctrinal disagreements, even though there were a few! To this fact we must thank the Lord and give him the glory. Throughout the course of the teachings it seemed no matter the subject the centrality of Jesus as Lord and the absolute necessity of having personal fellowship with him was always coming out. For many, mental assent to a creed and faithful attendance to a building was thought to be enough! Praise the Lord for His faithfulness to open the spiritual eyes and ears and reveal to them the life and reality of true discipleship.

Now I must be honest and say, the Lord still has a great deal of work to do! While we were blessed to see the personal lives of the disciples grow and begin to take root, there now remains much work to be done as far as the corporate body of Christ is concerned. As the Lord led we spent a healthy amount of time towards the end addressing the immediate issue of all the denominations and accompanying false doctrines. An obvious example being, three denominations that honestly are not that much different meet in the same school complex. All three have their meetings at the same time and due to the obvious proximity, while sitting in one you can hear--quite clearly--the others singing or preaching. To us it just seems so ridiculous! Well as time went on and as the Spirit gave light they began to see what a deep problem denominationalism is, among others. We had great boldness to teach the word of God, but we also wanted to be careful not to throw in our own solutions to problems so big and deep only the Lord can and must lead and give His solutions. So we are praying earnestly for the brethren there, for clear direction from the Holy Spirit and then of course the grace to to walk in obedience. They have a lot to chew on and meditate about.

Last Saturday we went up to 
Sawla for Peter's wedding, he was the young pastor we stayed with for the discipleship program back in April/May. Well again, I must be honest and say we were very disappointed with the religious pomp. The big cheese of Peter's denomination performed along with many others. The wedding lasted 6 hours, no joke, and was dominated by singing and dancing around the offering bowl. It's common here to take a collection or two at a wedding--but this was way way over the top. The repeated plea to give to the "anointed man of God so that God will open the windows of heaven" was sickening and painful to endure. Now it was our intention to meet with all of the guys we had taught and to check up on them and perhaps to have some additional teachings. Well! As much as we wanted to speak out we just felt it wasn't the Lord's time. However, we are praying about taking another trip in a month or two with the intent primarily to exhort and challenge the brethren in Sawla, and then also to assist in evangelism in Bole. Please pray the Lord would lead and guide us and give us the words to speak.

Well we are back in 
Tarkwa and looking forward to getting back into the evangelism and our weekly bible studies around the area! We have been challenged by the Lord to seek out the body of Christ and not to write off the multitude of assemblies here in the south. However we are still seeking the Lord as to the best way to go about establishing relationships within the church here in the south through discipleship.


I have been 
remembering you all in my prayers during this busy last month as the fellowship dealt with the issue of elders.  I praise the Lord for His faithful guidance of His body.

May the Lord bless you all as you continue to walk in the Light and abide in the shadow of His cross.

Much Love, Timothy