We have lost all the email addresses of those that receive the daily Yendi Notes. The server we were using merged with another server and the email addresses were not ported to the new server. The Yendi Notes are a vital communication tool that we use to let everyone know what is going on with the work. Many of you enjoy getting the Yendi Notes. We are begging you to help us get as many people signed back up on the Yendi Notes as possible. If you know someone that would like to receive the daily Yendi Notes please send their email address to our son, Aaron ,and daughter-in-law, Melissa Taylor. If you could also have a short announcement put in your church bulletin to let people know how to sign up it would be greatly appreciated. With that said, Melissa is requesting anyone wishing to have the Yendi Notes delivered to their own email box to please send their name and email address to melissajoytaylor @ gmail.com. The Notes are still being posted and can be viewed on the website at ghanamissionfund.org
Thank you for helping us solve this problem.
We had hoped to leave for Ghana a week earlier than we did but were hampered from doing so by a roof leak in our house in Athens. It took us from the time we arrived back home in December to just a couple of weeks before we departed to get a roofing contractor to come, secure a contract for the job and arrange everything with the insurance. We have major interior damage to the sheet rock as well but that portion of the job we will take care of when we go back home in June. Our son Aaron agreed to oversee the exterior work the contractor will do which will require replacing the flat roof and skylight. The roof was damaged last July when a storm came through causing a huge walnut tree to fall on Aaron’s workshop and house directly behind our house. Aaron and Melissa’s house was damaged and Aaron’s shop was a total loss. The tree caused the power lines to short to our house literally blowing up our meter base that in turn ruined several of appliances and the wind ripped up a corner of our metal flat roof and removed a few shingles. All of this happened a week before we left last year in July for Ghana.
At Huntsville airport we again were told that we were only allowed 4 bags each. This time they said the airlines had placed luggage restrictions on our flight into Ghana. This really puts a kink into Kandie’s packing. When we bought our tickets there were no restrictions. We found out on Saturday before we left on Monday that there were restrictions. Our daughter Charity and the grandkids rushed to the house on Saturday to help repack the luggage and leave behind some of the things that were not a necessity.
With the exception of the luggage we had an uneventful flight. We arrived into Kotoka Airport around 3pm on the 20th of February as scheduled. After getting the luggage loaded into the van our driver, whose name is Richard, took us over to the domestic terminal so we could purchase our tickets to fly to Tamale later in the week. We had some business to attend to so we spent a couple days in Accra. Our plane to Tamale was delayed for about 90 minutes. I was glad because the Africa World Airlines agent was terribly slow. I forgot to leave the key to the apartment we rented so our friend/driver Bismark took it back to the apartment for us. A female AWA supervisor didn’t like Kandie’s purse/carryon even though she has carried it many times on this flight. Kandie had to unload her cameras to reduce the weight, which she wore around her neck, she reloaded them when we were away from the check in counter. We were upstairs about to go through the security check when the gate agent caught up with us and said they had found a suspicious item in one of the bags and needed me to go back downstairs while they opened it. Come to find out it was the new pair of manual hedge shears. We were very glad the plane was delayed after all that happened.
The village of Yowando was scheduled for the first Sunday we were back in Ghana but the church leader called and said they had to cancel because there was a funeral and everyone would be involved in the funeral preparations so we visited Kulkpeni instead. We rescheduled Yowando for the 3rd of March.
The monthly class had 24 men in attendance. The leaders reported that 8 people were baptized in February. Timothy said he has begun teaching the last lesson of the series of 12 lessons that we wrote on “responsibility”. As soon as Timothy has time to translate the lessons from English to the Konkomba language we will print then bind them into a booklet that will be given to each Church leader for ease of teaching in their home congregation.
It is hard to believe we have been coming to Yendi since 2001 and many of you have been faithfully supporting the work for more than 23 years. None of this would be possible without the help of God, family (biological or spiritual), and our friends. We thank you for the love, prayers and support. The congregations here that we work with also extend their appreciation for the help you give us so we can in turn help the churches.
May God bless you all!
In His service,
Stephen and Kandie Taylor
DONATIONS CAN BE MADE OUT TO GHANA MISSION, C/O WEST HOBBS STREET CHURCH OF CHRIST, P.O. BOX 506, ATHENS, ALABAMA 35612
THIS WORK IS OVERSEEN BY THE ELDERSHIP OF WEST HOBBS STREET CHURCH OF CHRIST, 1602 WEST HOBBS STREET, ATHENS, ALABAMA 35611
WEBSITE: WWW.WESTHOBBSSTREETCHURCHOFCHRIST.ORG
PHONE 256-232-4705
EVANGELISTIC EFFORTS – 2023
1. Recorded baptisms -173
2. Recorded restored – 52
3. Helped with church building projects in 12 congregation
4. Continue replacing wooden doors on the church buildings with metal ones
5. Built a training center on the mission property to facilitate meetings and classes
6. Wrote and translated a 12 lesson booklet on the Roles of men and women and taught at monthly class
7. Distributed children’s teaching material
8. Held monthly classes for the evangelists and church leaders (paid for the men’s transport to and from class)
9. Annual seminar 595 registered (housed and fed the people- 6 meals)
10. Provided gas for several men to go into the bush and preach
11. Bought and distributed new bicycle tires and tubes to the evangelists and church leader (twice during the year) also repaired many bicycles (most of the church leaders and evangelists do not have motorcycles so they do their preaching and visiting work on bicycles
12. Helped 26 churches with their registration fees (the Ghana government requires churches to be registered but the churches do not have the amount of money it takes to register each year)
13. Supplemented the cost of the communion juice and Bibles
14. Had contribution bags made and distributed them to the congregations
15. Provided the churches with benches, chalk, dry erase markers, communion juice, bread, pens and tablets
16. Started buying a broom for each congregation so the ladies would have a good way to clean the church buildings
17. Helped with funerals and gave sympathy money
18. Distributed shirts and ties to the evangelists and church leaders so they would have something nice to wear at the seminar
19. Going to the villages and preaching every Sunday.
