Yovo Church

Today we had what we call Yovo Church. “Yovo” is what the Aja people call us…means “white man”. Periodically, we’ll have Yovo Church in lieu of going to one of our village congregations. Honestly, we just need English worship from time-to-time. Our teammates (Steven & Dawna Price, kids: Ashley, Weston and Austin) are kind enough to come to our house every time so that we can enjoy “home field advantage” when it comes to our kids! Kelly and I need every leg up we can get!

Our time of fellowship started with viewing a couple of DVD’s from the recent Global Missions Conference. We enjoyed Dan Rodriquez and we loved listening to one of our favorite mentors, Monte Cox (how many more of you could say the same thing!) Both were inspirational messages yet also gave us a lot of good discussion afterward. We wrestle with many issues on the field, especially regarding how to use our money to bless the Aja people and not create dependency. Monte especially gave us some very practical guidelines to follow. He and Dan are both experienced missionaries and we can learn a lot from them. By the way, our short-term missionary friends from our home church, John and Linda Glover, were also in the “pews” this morning at Yovo Church.

Thanks for the comments on the Wine and Bread. Some more have trickled in…I just saw my friend yesterday, and because of new events in his life, we didn’t even talk about the Lord’s Supper! Yesterday I spent a few hours in his village talking with him about everything from persecution, to finances, to healing. His name is Mathias (in French, we pronounce it “mah-tee-ahs”). Went later to visit another family who had a scary week, almost losing their two-year old to a severe case of malaria. We were able to pray together and encourage them with some financial assistance. Man, I hate malaria. Had it once myself, and it is no fun! But when it hits little kids, it’s so very scary. The same thing happened last week to another church leader’s little newborn (less than 6 months old). Praise the Lord that in both cases, the children are healed.

Mathias asked why he thought he was undergoing so many trials and persecutions. His nickname in the village is “the man with problems” (he laughs about it). For him, it’s one thing after another. I told him that we should consider our own lives at every turn, wondering if there is any sin in our life that could be creating consequences. But I also encouraged him by pointing him to many examples in Scripture where people suffered because of the Name of Jesus (I believe this is the case with Mathias). He was talking about how discouraged he was from all the trials. Delicately I empathized with him, yet also told him that if our faith is weaker after the trial, then the refining process didn’t purify us but rather annihilated us. I remembered the promise from 1 Corinthians 10.13 (won’t encounter more than our faith can handle). I explained to him “if this is true, than God must think you have great faith!” It was a new thought to him that trials don’t come from God but rather are allowed by his permission. He began to feel encouraged that God thought so highly of his ability and faith (he already knows the story of Job really well and feels a great kinship with him!)

Back to today….we enjoyed the DVD’s and then shared a meal together. Corn dogs, sandwiches, chips, Coke….you can tell we’re all Americans! We love sitting around with the Prices and Glovers and enjoying sweet fellowship.

We moved into a time of worship in song and then a celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Now after all the comments, especially those of Professor JMH, you’ll all laugh that we didn’t take the Communion elements as part of our regular meal, but rather brought out the traditional grape juice and saltine cracker! Guess we could have used some of our Coke and chips, huh?!

It was almost 4pm before we split up and I headed out to the village of Gbotayidohoue (let’s call it “bow-tie”). We’ve been preaching in this village for the past couple of months and anticipate a congregation forming very soon. It was a low turnout, but it was still a good meeting. The best part was seeing my friend Ega. Ega is the lead evangelist on our team and is the reason we started preaching in this village. He was doing well tonight and I got to see his other children. He was so thrilled that Lael is doing so good. He was a man full of laughter and joy tonight…I’ve missed laughing with him. I know he is still grieving the loss of his wife (I can still see it in his eyes). But he was completely engaged tonight in the preaching of the gospel. He is one of my very favorite Aja Christians.

Kelly sure was the trooper…the house was well in order when I returned 4 hours later…even with 4 kids in the house (3 under the age of 3)! I love walking through this life with my wife….she is so steady when I’m so frazzled. I may not show it on the outside, but it reminds me of a plaque that used to hang in my bathroom when we first got married (back then when we still had our OWN space!) It was a picture of a duck, calm, cool and collected above ground and paddling like mad below the water!! That’s me a lot of the times….God bless my wife for her long-suffering!

Oh, the electricity AND water were both out most of the day…frustrating! The former returned about 8:30pm and the water is just now slowing dripping out of the faucets about 11pm. Just being candid, but this is this is no doubt one of the very irritating parts of living in a developing country. Of course it’s annoying because I’m a spoiled American who likes my comforts. I was reminded of this when I was visiting with Ega and the others and none of them knew anything of a power outage (most don’t even have electricity in their mud huts)! Thank you, LORD, for YOUR patient grace.

Here’s some pictures below we took after I got back tonight….cute bunch of kids!!
-Randy