There’s a lot that has been happening lately in our family and ministry, so I’ll jump right in and give you a “rapid-fire” update. Last weekend we held our 8th intensive training at the Oikos School, which went very well. My teaching abilities were stretched to the limit as I taught for 3 hours straight(…)
bible study
Update on Patrice & Jeanne
I know that many of you have been praying for Patrice and Jeanne (Palakiyém & Éoda are their Kabiye names), so I thought I’d give you a quick update from our second visit to their house yesterday. We had asked them to gather some of their friends, family, and neighbors together so we could begin(…)
A Potential Family of Peace
During the recent Disciple Making Movements conference in Lomé, the Lord showed me a few deficiencies in my approach to making disciples and training others to do the same. One thing that I became well aware of is that I had begun to develop a mentality that, because I am now busy training others to(…)
Prayer reminder – 2nd School Session
Recently at our update presentation, we announced the launch of our school in Togo where we train disciple-makers. We decided to name the school the Oikos School for Church Planting. Our first session took place at the end of February with 15 students. Since that time, Andrew and the teacher/mentors have been traveling all over(…)
Overcoming the Fear
A couple weeks ago we posted a story about Atchonim and Soba, who were ready to become disciples of Jesus but had some questions about what they would do about their fetishes. From the Bible studies they had already done, they were pretty sure about what God thinks of idolatry, but there was still some(…)
A Modern-Day Cornelius
In the four gospels and book of Acts, we see many examples of what Jesus calls a “person of peace” (Luke 10:4), such as the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, Lydia, the Philippian jailor, and the Ethiopian of Acts 8. One of the most striking, however, was Cornelius in Acts 10. Some(…)
The Unhurried Journey to Faith
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about living in Africa, it’s that everything takes longer than you expect, and making disciples is no exception. When we first begin discipling a family who desires to follow Jesus, we take them through a series of Bible studies called “Discovering God.” It’s 20 lessons long, and we try(…)
We Haven’t Been Eaten By Lions
Some people have very unrealistic ideas of what Togo is like. We get asked the question quite often, “What kinds of animals do you see there?” What they expect to hear is, “Lions, elephants, zebras, and giraffes,” but the real answer: mostly pigs, goats, chickens, mangy dogs, and the occasional even-more-mangy cat. However, it’s been so(…)
Opportunities among opposition
First, a quick accident update It’s been a while, three weeks exactly, since our last update, and the last you heard I was in a motorcycle accident and mostly couch-bound. It took a good while for me to get vertical again, but I am finally completely recovered other than a little soreness in the scarred(…)
One step back, two (gimpy) steps forward
Chapter three of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time and season for everything. In our lives there are times for action and seasons of rest, and while sometimes those seasons are in our control (or so we like to think), other times they are definitely not. The past couple weeks of my life(…)
What in the world is a DBS?
I’m so glad you asked! DBS stands for Discovery Bible Study which is a method of Bible study often used in modern church planting movements. By using this tool church planters have seen rapid multiplication of disciples and churches even in places that are described as “hostile” or “impossible.” For a method like this to(…)