Turkey & Benin Update - 9/23
Greetings to you, in the name of our Lord Jesus,
Our first trip to Africa this year was from September 10 - 25, Kathy and I traveled to Turkey and Benin. The trip was honestly, “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine” (Eph 3A;20-21)! Though it has been so long since we have been able to get back to WACA, we are completely amazed at how our teams are multiplying laborers for the harvest, making disciples and planting churches among the unreached!
We had our annual World Mission Centre international team meeting on the coastal city of Kuşadasi in Turkey with about 30 other leaders. Kuşadasi is only about 15 miles from Ephesus, which was the highlight of our day off! What an amazing time to walk the streets and see the place where Paul ministered for two years, resulting in all of Asia hearing the word of the Lord (Act 19:10)!
The vision of World Mission Centre (WMC) is to train one million students in Live Schools run by local churches across the world, trusting God that 10% of them become missionaries. Sonrise International’s goal has been to multiply laborers to the harvest in West & Central Africa (WACA). But since March 1, 2020, the Lord has been re-focusing our priorities to specifically focus our efforts to make disciples among the Least Reached and Unengaged Unreached People Groups (UUPG) of WACA. To that end, we have been holding three month intensive Frontier Missions Academies (FMA) to train indigenous missionaries to do just that. The cost of electricity and Live School (LS) not being translated into key indigenous languages spoken by the church nearest the unreached peoples we are seeking to reach often preclude us from using it as a tool to train them. We are testing an audio-only version of Live School in the Hausa language in an effort to show the validity of using an audio-only version of LS, but we have been frustrated in getting empirical results. The two ministries who had begun using it had to stop ministering in those locales due to severe Islamic terrorism. With or without LS as a tool, we are committed to obeying the Lord Jesus to go after the unreached harvest.
Nonetheless, our meeting in Turkey was a true game-changer from anything we anticipated! Willie Crew explained that while WMC still had the goal of seeing one million trained with LS, it was turning to go in a completely different direction, to implement a Project Focus 2.0.
The original Project Focus was in the late 1990’s, when WMC targeted the 100 Least Reached People Groups in southern Africa, from the equator south, with a goal to see a church planted or being planted in all of them by the year 2000. The first LS, which was recorded and is now used around the world to train missionaries, was used to train 50 men and women to oversee the approximately 500 missionaries who were sent to the 100 peoples targeted in southern Africa. Project Focus was the original reason Live School was created. By the end of 2000 there was a church planted or being planted in 99 of the 100 people groups!
Already walking down that path, we were astounded to hear that Willie was doing the same with all of WMC! It seems the Lord is saying the same thing to the entire Body of Christ! “I’m coming back! Get the job done!” Never, in our wildest imagination, did we think that this would happen when we were in Turkey!
Willie spent the rest of the week unpacking the ten strategies WMC used to accomplish the first Project Focus. For Project Focus 2.0 to happen, those same strategies will need to be implemented in each region in some form or fashion.
From Turkey, we flew to Benin on September 19. Originally, we were not going to Benin. In fact, I’d already purchased our round trip flights from Tulsa to Turkey. But in prayer I was impressed to change our tickets to go to Benin on our way home. The reason for doing this was to preserve my friendship with a man we have walked with since 2014. He and another man who works with us in another country got offended with one another, and this friend quit. Grieved, I could not get around the need to go and affirm my love for him, whether or not he continued to work with us. Relationship trumps all.
Several weeks before we flew to Turkey, it dawned on me that when we got to Benin, we would likely be spending one day with our friend…and then what? I decided to invite others from our core teams in Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and a new potential team from Ghana to come and spend some time with us in Cotonou, Benin. Our outlook for this portion of the trip was bleak (2Co 11:28-30). Two of our main leaders had said they were leaving. We needed to completely rebuild our Ghana team. And at the same time as all this, we somehow needed to encourage the remainder of our Benin and Togo teams. We went to Turkey and Benin in raw faith. Again, GOD did what ONLY He could do!
Neither of the brothers who were leaving, left! The four we had invited to join us from Ghana ALL came, and EACH is eager to “roll up their sleeves and get to work!” In fact Jean Louis has already met with a group who is working among the unreached TCHOKOSSI people in the NE of Ghana and is already setting up a “spy out the land trip” with Albert, since we have returned to the USA. And our Togo & Benin teams don’t need encouragement. THEY ENCOURAGED US! As I was formally presenting the new direction we had already been traveling, they gave us presentations and proposal documents to target certain unreached peoples they had researched, which they had in their hearts to reach with the love and truth of Christ! It was as if the Lord was saying to us, “What is taking you so long? Let’s go!” (Mat 24:14) As in Turkey, in Benin God did “EXCEEDINGLY, ABUNDANTLY BEYOND ALL WE COULD ASK OR EVEN THINK” (Eph 3:20-21)! God is out to BLESS you (Heb 6:12-15)!
Before I close, I must share the testimony of our friend Pastor Godly. This is just some of the fruit the LIFE OF JESUS is producing through just ONE person who hosted just ONE training that we did in Winneba, Ghana back in 2015! From then until 2020, Ps. Godly has taken 1,800 pastors through Live School! And in the same time frame, the LS students under his oversight have planted 327 churches (yes, 327), not including another 12 branch churches he himself has planted… We are confident that such would not have happened without our fellow Tulsan, Alicia Crawley!! What speaks even more to the power of the mobilization of the LS training is the fruit! They have even planted churches in Togo now and have some schools operating there, too! You can’t make this stuff up! GOD is doing AMAZING THINGS in our day!!
But He does so through vessels, like you and me, imperfect vessels, who dare to listen and obey. Therefore, do NOT listen to the enemy tell you that you are not good enough. You are a child of God! JESUS’ blood has made you sufficient! SON, RISE! As our WMC brother in the UAE says, Let us “SAY SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING” for the KING of Kings!
To encapsulate, instead of the negative premonitions we had been in spiritual warfare against for months, GOD IN HIS MERCY AND GRACE HAS DONE MIGHTY AND GLORIOUS THINGS THAT WE COULD NOT FATHOM on our trip to Turkey and Benin (Eph 3:20-21). We stand IN AWE & WONDER at how things have turned out!
Thank you so much for your prayer and giving support. Doing so, you are a part of all that GOD IS DOING through Sonrise International to reach the unreached in West & Central Africa.
Lord willing, from October 20 through November 8 we go to Cameroon and Chad. In Cameroon, we plan to spend a week with the second group of Frontier Mission Academy students and graduate them. Then, we plan to go to Koumra, Chad to hold a pastors conference, a women’s conference and an evangelism campaign. The Lord continues to stretch and grow our faith (Rom 1:16-7). But HE IS FAITHFUL!
We will never be more alive than when we are in a position where we must TRUST the Lord to come through in new and different situations! That is where we are, both Kathy and me. We have little to no experience holding large pastor conferences, women’s conferences, or evangelism campaigns, BUT GOD IS GOING TO DO AMAZING THINGS! Is it comfortable? NO.
When JESUS comes through HE WILL BE GLORIFIED! Having seen Him come through again and again, we can say with confidence, “AGAIN, He will do EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY ABOVE ALL WE CAN ASK OR THINK!” (Eph. 3:20)
Knowing that you are joining us in prayer and giving is a HUGE ENCOURAGEMENT and GREATLY APPRECIATED! Together, we are making a difference, as we obey the voice of the Lord.
God bless you.
