Prayers for Lary as He Goes

Lary leaves for Taiwan on Tuesday.  As he goes, he has asked that we, as his church family, pray the Prayer of Jabez daily for him.

The Prayer of Jabez

"Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request." 1 Chronicles 4:10

Please be in prayer as he leaves on Tuesday at 6:10 am.  Pray that God would be the 'pilot' of his plane.  He has some short layovers before connecting flights.  Please ask that the planes be on time or even early to these locations and that manuvering through what might be unfamiliar airports be smooth and simple.

He is scheduled to arrive in Taipei, Taiwan at 6:25 pm their time and 4:30 am Missouri time on February 25.  Additionally please ask that it is simple to go through customs and that the person who is picking him up is on time and easy to find.  Upon arrival begins the adjustment to their time zone, so please pray that he is able to sleep when he is supposed to and able to be alert and awake when he's supposed to.

Be looking for more updates and prayer requests from Lary in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Togo Winter Trip

We just returned from another trip to Togo and it was a great one!  On this trip we focused on two areas: 1) business development, and 2) researching the unreached Anii people of central Togo.  

Our main objective in Togo is to see people won to Christ.  Why then do we teach business classes? Because we believe that strong business create jobs and wealth, which in turn increases the resources necessary to plant new churches, which in turn win more people to Christ.  We partner with a church in Mision Tove, Togo in a church planting strategy that desperately needs resources to plant new churches.  While we as a church could simply send them money, that is not sustainable and is not the best method of church planting.  We really want the local church to spearhead these efforts with minimal funding coming from the US.  Most every missions agency agrees that the method with the greatest long term sustainability is to have active local involvement and buy-in.  

Therefore, we are trying to do what we can to get the resources necessary from within Togo to plant these new churches.  We believe that strong businesses owned by members of the church will do just that.  They already have a heart for that.  We have seen our partner church plant five churches on their own and we want to put more fuel on that fire. 

The team taught business classes in two villages, Mission Tove, and Atsave with 41 and 27 business owners attending, respectively, The topics taught were: How to analyze profitability, how to set yourself apart from the competition, and how to set up record keeping for management decisions.  The members asked a lot of great questions which we tried to answer thoroughly.  While this took a lot of time, many of the questions applied to everyone there so it was beneficial for almost everyone.  

Stay tuned to hear more about the Anii people group!  Kevin Ginnings led that trip and we hope to hear more when he gets home from Togo in a few days.

We would love to answer any questions you may have about the trip, so please let us know!  Keep in mind, we have two more trips this year if you feel God calling you to serve internationally.  The dates will be July 12-23rd and October 2-15th.

--Dennis