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

Is God at Work in Africa? part 2

So as I continue my "Is God at work in Africa" theme, I went back to the very beginning of our trip and pulled out these photos. In my previous post most of the images that I shared focused on the work of the Zimmerman's in Ghana. This post is going to revolve around the ministry that the Butlers have in Ghana. As I said before it is hard to photograph God at work but I hope these images will shed a light on how missionaries are God's hands and feet on a daily basis. I also hope that all who read and look at this blog will realize that though these are photos of missionaries in Africa, they represent the same things that God expects from all Christians regardless of where we live.
Martin in the foreground and his brother working on Martin's house. Martin is one of the guards employed by the Butlers. Chad and I were able to help put a roof on Martin's house.

Marnie introduces Kelly to one of her friends at a church in Dzakpo on our first Sunday in Ghana.

Head and shoulders knees and toes during a Sunday School hour with the children of Dzakpo village. Have you considered working with the children in your church?

Chad preaching in Dzakpo village.

A great opportunity to share Christ is at the local market. Making friends with the vendors at the market gives you a weekly opportunity to get to know someone. Here in the U.S. we don't normally have a market like this to visit daily or weekly but we do have Wal-Mart and Kroger.

I mentioned cell phone charging in my last post. This lady would regularly bring her cell phone to the Butlers to charge it. This gave them an opportunity to get to know her and will hopefully open into an opportunity to share Christ.

Wednesday was game day in Kodzobi village. Another great way to show God's love to the children. Lead a child to Christ and you have an in road to leading the whole family to Christ.

I hope that I have given you a better understanding of what missionary life is like and hopefully showed you that you don't have to be a missionary in Africa to be used by God.

Gary Phillips

Is God at work in Africa?

I have been asked by some to share images that show what God is doing in Africa. As I look back through my photos and thought through the things that happened during our trip, I decided on a series of images that I am showing in this post and if I don't get sidetracked will continue to show in the next few posts. I also realized how hard it is to photograph God at work! I mean sure it is easy to photograph the moment that someone is being led to Christ or the time when someone is being baptized. Those are obvious God at work moments, what is hard to photograph and document are those subtle moments. The moments when a missionary gets a phone call because someone in a village is sick and needs a ride to the hospital. Or the times when they have a person into their home to share a meal. How about the times when a neighbor who doesn't have electricity brings you a cell phone and asks you to charge it for them. I could go on and on listing little ways that God is at work using the missionaries He has placed in Ghana and Togo but you would just get tired of reading so I won't go on. I was blessed for 4 1/2 months to get to experience seeing God at work firsthand through many different missionaries lives and I can honestly say that God is at work in Africa. I hope that the following images help you see that.

To start this series of photos I decided to go back to Ghana and work my way through the images. On Sundays the Zimmerman's would have an afternoon outreach to the children of Ho.

A game of Volleyball with a giant ball to start the day off for the older kids. You will notice some young men in the photos. These are local young men from the church in Kodzobi who volunteer to help the Zimmermans.

This lady spent the afternoon watching the festivities from the back of her home.

For the younger kids a jump rope session of sorts started their day.

Jump rope turned into get the rope.

A game of tug -o- war,

A drink for the little ones,

Now it is time to head in the building for the lesson.

The building is one room about 15'x15', they were able to squeeze 75 kids into this small room. It was very hot to say the least.

Well that is all for today, I hope you enjoy the photos.

Gary Phillips

Critters

Before I go on about the following photos, I want to let everyone who reads this in on a little secret. Many of you may already know this but for those of you who don't after reading this you will. I am making this blog post from the comfort of my own La-Z-boy recliner. We arrived home on Monday evening and have been trying to get back into the swing of things in the good ole USA. Kelly and I struggled with the decision to come home early, we were at pretty close to the end of our funds and were trying to decide if we should stay and try to make it or leave before we ran out and incurred some debt. It was when we found out that our son was struggling with being here on his own that we realized it was time for us to return home. If anyone has any questions or comments I will be happy to address them in person, in the mean time I would like to continue the blog and post the photos that I was not able to while in Africa. The lack of good Internet made it very difficult to keep this blog going. I would like to finish now while things are fresh in my mind.

Now onto the Critters! These grasshoppers were everywhere and they were more than willing to pose for me.

This is a great image to represent the circle of life, not sure what kind of bug we are looking at but I am glad they are not bigger than me!

Now that he is finished with lunch he is looking for dessert, glad he can't see me behind the camera.

There were also a lot of these caterpillars around.

This lady bug reminded me of home!

This guy is just plain UGLY!

Well I hope you enjoyed the photos, I have more that I will be posting soon. I am now having trouble with my Internet here at home. Hopefully I will be able to get it working proper soon.

Gary Phillips -AKA- Photoman

Just One Touch!

So I received a comment from Norman last week about a picture of me in my last post. To answer your question Norm, Yes, I am sporting a mohawk. It was my girls idea but I actually liked it. Kelly on the other hand hated it and so it only lasted until my next haircut.

While we are on the subject of hair I thought I would show you this photo of Lyndsey. She is sitting with some of the African children who visit the hospital on a weekly basis for a Bible school day. The African people (adults and children) are fascinated by the straight hair of the Yovoh (white person), this little girl couldn't resist Just One Touch touch of Lyndsey's hair.

This is a young lady I saw coming to the Bible school, I have seen many of the African people carry things on their heads. This is the first person I have seen with their Bible on their head.

I will try to post more photos later today,

Gary Phillips

Learning to Ride!

I wanted to try and get some photos up as I promised that I would. Today is my first attempt to upload with my new connection. It is a steady but slow connection so I am not able to upload as many images as I would like to. I will try again sometime after it 10:00 p.m. and see if it is faster. For now I have 2 images to show you they are pictures of me learning to ride a moto or in America a motorcycle. It is a small moto but I eventually graduated up to a larger bike. This was a good one for me to start with. You will notice my new hair cut in one image, it was the girls idea but I like it. Hope you do!



Gary

Tsiko

We finally made it to Tsiko and once again we have internet access that is more dependable. I plan to make a post later tonight that will have some photos, I hope I still have some readers waiting for updates. We are all doing well and looking forward to what adventures lay before us in Tsiko, Togo.

Gary Phillips