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
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