We are happy that the heavy rains continued to fall most of the month; by the last week of the month the rains started to get farther and farther apart. We are hoping the Lord will provide one or two more rains in early November to help the late crops.
This month we visited the congregation at Jomani on the 6th; 75 people present for the service. One of the brothers was slated to preach but he kindly gave up his time and allowed me to preach as well as teach Bible class. During the Bible class I used a lesson entitled “What a Christian will not do!” I switched things around for the sermon and went with “What a Christian will do!”
On the 13th of the month we visited the village at Nadundo. This congregation is in the process of building a structure to worship in; since they have no building we met under several shade trees. After services a man who was visiting got up and expressed his thanks to the Lord for helping his daughter to regain her health. Several weeks before, his 10 year old daughter was hospitalized with Malaria and severe anemia. We provided some money to help with the treatment and I went up to the hospital to see the child for myself. The father told the audience that he wanted to know more about the Church so we sat down with him and discussed “The Plan of Salvation. The local brothers are going to follow up and continue teaching him.
We traveled to the village of Jakpumba on the 20th. This is a struggling congregation that has few men because the younger men have gone to school. The Church was happy to receive the gifts that we brought to them; bench, broom, bread, juice, cups, a Bible, pads and a pen. I taught a lesson entitled “What can we see to do for God?” using the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus taught in Luke 10: 29-37.
The last Sunday, the 27th, we visited the congregation at Sakpei. This congregation is also trying to prepare to build a new building. Presently the church building is sitting on a plot that belongs to someone else. They have secured a new plot. We matched funds with them. They got the sand and we gave them money for the cement.
The dry season is when most building works take place because the farmers have harvested their crops by late November and December which frees up their time and money and the rains have stopped which makes the land hard and dry so the foundation is stronger.
I promised the church leaders that I would hand out a copy of the 12 lesson booklet on the men and women’s role that we taught in the monthly class. Timothy Niligrini sat down on his laptop and with Kandie’s help in getting started he translated the booklet into the Likpakpaaln (Konkomba) language. There is very little literature written in their language. The Church leaders now have lots of teaching material to share with their home congregations. The booklets are 70 pages long. Printing the books was a trial! For three days our copier wasted more paper and jammed more times than I care to remember; but we succeeded in getting the booklets correlated, put in binders and distributed.
There was a full schedule of events at the monthly class. We give out the invitations to the November seminar to each of the congregations that we work with. I gave the Church leaders class material for their children’s class. This time each congregation got a flip chart. We also worked on the program for the seminar; we make sure each man that wants to participate in the seminar gets a chance. Roberta, a sister from Bethel, has been working hard in making satchels for the church leaders. We stuffed each bag with a booklet and a flip chart. The men were overjoyed to get the satchels and to receive the printed literature and the flip charts for their children’s class. Another lady, Cherie, has been crocheting bath clothes for us to distribute. You just don’t know how much these small gifts mean to the work here in Ghana.
This month 29 men attended the class. The men reported that 27 people were baptized in the month and 4 people were restored to the church.
Thanks go out to all of you for your continued support of the work here in the Yendi area. As a team we work together to spread the truth of the gospel. We pray to God that He will continue to bless you and this work.
We are scheduled to fly out of Ghana on the 2nd of December. We are leaving a little bit early because Ghana’s national election takes place at the end of that week and we want to be out of the country before the election.
In His service,
Stephen & Kandie Taylor
