Thursday, January 27, 2011

Is God at Work in Africa? part 3

In this post I am going from the beginning of our trip to the end. I have mentioned in previous posts that I had been overseeing the construction of a new church building in Agou, Togo. Because I had to ride a motorcycle to the job and there would be no where to keep my camera equipment safe while I was working I was unable to take any pictures until the building was almost complete. So I am not able to show you pictures of the the progress but I am finally able to show you some images of the construction of the building. In this first image you will see a home that is being constructed, this is the future home of the pastor of this church. He has hired men from his church to construct the house to keep the finances separate.


Below is the church building itself, it sits only about 20 feet from his new house. As you can see there are doors but no windows. It does not get cold here so they only need a way to get air movement through the building so they use special shaped blocks that when put together leave holes in the wall for fresh air to get into the building. They will also leave the doors open unless it is raining very hard and blowing in the doors.


The majority of the time that I spent on this project my transportation was a moto or motorcycle. On a very rare occasion I had the privilege to drive this beast (see above image). Let me tell you it was a lot of fun, I loved driving in Africa but when I got to drive one of these trucks it was even more fun. The ride was terrible in a car or light truck but in this guy it was down right scary, I loved it!


When complete there will be steps up to this porch and this will be the main entrance into the church.


My first metal roof, I had a lot of fun with the guys when we put this roof on. I wish I had some pictures of the men but they were not around when I took these photos. Not speaking French was a challenge but I learned very quickly how to communicate with them.


From the roof a view of the neighboring families family compound. I saw the pastor talking to one of the ladies from this family and I asked did they attend his church. he told me no but that he had invited them to and they said they would start coming when the church is opened. They are not believers so pray for this family that this church can see them come to know Christ. In the lower left corner of the photo is a metal roof covering a large round structure. This is a bread oven, we bought bread made in this oven every day for a meal. We were able to be a blessing to this family by buying their bread and they were a blessing to us by filling our bellies. I miss the African bread, we just don't know how to make bread in America.

So to answer the question "is God at work in Africa?", I say, yes He is definitely at work in Africa. This building is a miracle in an of itself but that is a story for another post.

Hope you enjoy the blog,

Photoman

Welcome to our blog.

This blog is an attempt to chronicle the things that God is doing for us and through us both here at home and while we are in Africa. We will be updating this blog weekly while we are home, Africa will be a different story. Due to unreliable electric and Internet we are not sure how often we will be able to but we plan to update daily if we are able.

If you would like to support us financially for this trip to Africa you can send checks to us through our church. Make Checks payable to Emmanuel Baptist Church with a note for West Africa Missions Outreach. Mailing address is 1120 S. Detroit St. Xenia, Ohio 45385 Phone is 937-372-5887.