February 2012
We have just finished a
wonderful four weeks working with the Christian Workers for Evangelism (CWE)
Teams. Tsavié, our church plant, now has a nice new cement/cinderblock
building with a metal roof! We have already had two services in the new
church! Pastor Gatiglo AND Paul Puleo, the President of CWE, reminded
everyone at the church, that the “church” is not actually the building but the
people who make up the church. We are all the body of Christ---His
Church.
The fourth week of the teams,
we had the privilege of helping the CWE Medical Evangelism team. We both
got to go out into 4 different villages, one of them was Tsavié, and use
medicine as a tool to share the gospel. There were 300-400 seen at each
village and many, many professions of faith! (Sometimes over 200.)
Now the pastors from these 4 villages need to follow up with the people who
came to the clinic and see if there are any questions and if there is true
salvation. Please pray for the pastors and the people in the villages.
We were reminded time and
again of the animism/fetish worship in each of the villages all over
Togo. We had a 13 year old boy in one village, whose mother brought him
to the clinic, who had a severe infection of one of his shin
bones---osteomyelitis, which can be very serious. He could lose his leg
if he doesn’t get it treated. He was reluctant to have it treated, as he
was part of a “fetish/witch” group. They meet together every night and
learn how to be witch doctors. This group had demanded that he kill his
mother and father in order to prove his loyalty to the group. (Much like
gangs in the U.S.!) The boy refused, so the group beat him and hurt his
leg badly. They told him that if he got it taken care of by anybody but
their group, they would kill him. Our Togolese brothers and sisters in
Christ who were on the clinics with us, spent much time trying to talk to him
and pray for him to turn from the evil that was consuming and influencing
him. He had very blank eyes and almost no expression on his face the
whole time. Please pray that he will be convicted and accept Christ---the
only true answer for peace!
At another village, there was
a 60 year old lady whom the pastors definitely thought was possessed by
demons! She was seen for enlarged thyroid (goiter) and seemed very normal
(except for the huge thyroid.) After we saw her, she was told that she
had to come to the hospital for surgery, and we sent her to another
classroom to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Suddenly, in the middle of
the presentation and prayer, she just started screaming and screaming and
babbling incessantly. We’d never heard anybody scream or babble like
this. (Even when somebody dies here, there is crying and screaming, but
this was totally different.) We heard from others later, that she was
just shaking and screaming. Somebody touched her and started to pray “In
the name of Jesus, we command you to leave this lady.” She kept screaming
(it seemed like forever, maybe 2-3 min?), and then we were told that she just
started vomiting and vomiting! Then after all this was over, she was very
calm. Talk about THE EXORCIST in real life. The battle is fierce
out here! Please pray for the souls of our Togolese! And especially
for this lady.
One sort of cute story that
happened, is at one village, the chief came up to Cheryl and “gave her” a
little girl to “have,” since our “babies” are all gone. She was
about 9 years old. Very sweet girl. At first, Cheryl thought it was
a joke, and just laughed it off. But this little girl latched onto Cheryl
with her hand and then wouldn’t let go. No matter where Cheryl moved or
went (it’s pretty hard to work with a 9 year old sort of hanging on!)
After a while (maybe an hour or so?), Cheryl decided that this was for real,
and that she better take care of the situation sooner than later, so she asked
one of the Togolese workers, Pastor Jeremie, to help her by explaining to the
girl and the chief that it wasn’t going to work out. Pastor Jeremie said
that they really were serious, as they wanted our help to send her to school
and take care of her, etc. It was tempting, but not in our cards at this
time. The little girl finally stopped touching Cheryl, but she kept
hanging around outside the medical room and giving the huge “puppy dog pleading
eyes!” L Please pray for this little girl to get the
proper schooling that she needs and to grow up in Him.
We continue to be so thankful
for your prayers and financial support! Without you, we could not be here
in Togo on His Team for Togo! We pray that you have a blessed day and a
wonderful March!
For His Glory,
Michael & Cheryl, ABWE,
Togo, W. Africa
Medical Evangelism &
Church Planters