Knowing God's Will and Living God's Way

This photo is of our December 08 Short Term Team - from l to r; Vanessa Smith, Janice Parker, Geneva DeVaughn (Jan's sister), Lloyd, Lisa Autry, Ken Rucker, Jan and Carla Christian.

Our 2nd conference for Pastor's Wives and Women and Ministry was a great success! The theme for this year was Knowing God's Will and Living God's Way. Our guests were three dynamic pastors wives from Texas. Min. Geneva DeVaughn - whose husband pastors the Silverlake Community Church in Pearland, TX. Atty. Janice Shelton parker - whose husband pastors the Golden Gate Missionary Baptist Church in Dallas, TX; and Min. Lisa Autry - whose husband pastors Eirene Christian Fellowship in Richardson, TX. This group was extra special to us because one of the speakers - Geneva DeVaughn - is Jan's older sister and the first member of our family to visit us on the field!

(The next picture is Geneva speaking at the conference)

The topics that were covered were Prayer, Faith and Excellence in Ministry. 71 women registerd and attended the conference for 4 full days and they all testified that they will never be the same. They were challenged to pray in faith, to trust in God even when things don't seem like they are going as they should and to strive to give God their absolute best in all things. At the end of the week they spent time in prayer and counseling with the women and answered some tough questions about the Bible's sovreignty over culture. One of the women who was serving lunch for us made a profession of faith in Christ for the first time and is now in discipleship at a local church!

Ms. Vanessa Smith, RN (Houston, TX) provided free blood pressure screening for the women at the conference and thanks to her diligence one older woman who had a serious issue (high blood pressure with low pulse) made a trip to the hospital and was given proper medication for her problem. This was Vanessa's 2nd trip to Ghana and she was once again a blessing and a breath of fresh air. Vanessa has a strong gift of prayer - in other words she really knows how to talk to the Father and her prayer covering during the week was invaluable.

At the same time the women were meeting - Pastor Ken Rucker (New Branch Community Church - Dacula, GA) was meeting with the pastors. Pastor Ken's time with the pastors was centered around discipleship and he camped out with the pastors in the book of Colossians. This is Pastor Ken's 2nd time to Ghana this year - and we are looking forward to his 3rd visit next June - when he will continue the work he has started here. It was great to see the pastors applying the lessons they were learning about expositing scripture as they engaged in sermon development and preparation exercises in a small group setting.

(This photo is Lisa Autry and Janice Parker praying for the elders at Shiare)

At the end of the week all of our guests climbed up the mountain to the village of Shiare. Those of you who have tracked with us for a while know that it is our desire to plant a church in Shiare. Shiare is a village of about 3,000-4,000 people with only a handfull of believers. There is a shrine in the area that is a literal spiritual high place where people from all over Ghana and West Africa come to sacrifict to the fetish for different reasons. Seeing the living conditions there and meeting the people was life changing for all. We do solicit your prayers as we continue to visit the people of Shiare attempting to meet their felt needs - so that we can eventually meet their REAL need!