Sauder's In Ghana: Transform Conference & more

Tomorrow marks the first day of the last half of the school year, and we have seen men begin to be transformed as they are taught the truths from God's Word. As we look over the landscape of the world today, we see an all-out attack on the authenticity, authority and sufficiency of Scripture. Our desire is that we can train these men to rightly handle the Word. On just about every car and banner alongside the road we see advertisements for miracles, healings, and deliverance services, but the Word tells us the only offensive weapon we have in our Armor of God is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So our focus should not be on signs and wonders, but how we can understand and apply the unchanging Truth into our culture. May God grant us wisdom so we can spread the Truth without letting ourselves get in the way.
We have just come through an amazing time of refreshment as Luke Kuepfer came to Ghana to speak on several topics. We opened up the chapel in the school for 4 days of seminar, in which Luke covered UnveilinGlory (Cat and Dog Theology), Missions 101 (based on the book "When Helping Hurts"), and Lead Like Jesus. Some of our friends from Cape Coast journeyed to Accra as well. The result was homes full of encouraged people, great food, and discussions lasting long into the night which resulted in much coffee being brewed in the mornings. The seminar ran from Monday to Thursday, and then on Friday Luke trained 16 individuals to be Lead Like Jesus facilitators here in Ghana. Luke's desire is to always begin training people to take the message onward, like the ripples move outward in the water after you drop in a stone.

Luke washing all the attendees feet following the Lead Like Jesus encounter

Brittany and Luke enjoying banku and groundnut stew

Luke was joined by his daughter Brittany, who spent the evenings teaching English to 24 children from the village of Terno. She really did a great job and the children loved her. We would return to the Bible School after supper, where she was joined by her helpers, Mike Martin and Isaac Iddrisu, to manage the class.

English class meeting in the new classroom

Brittany explaining nouns, verbs, and so on

Saturday we headed to Cape Coast to tour the slave castle. Although I have toured this several times, it still amazes me how depraved a human being can become to treat another human in such a disgusting way. They even built their church on top of the male slave dungeon, where down below up to 1,000 men were struggling to survive, with the stronger ones chained to the walls. It was heaven on top, hell down below. It was so bad that only 1 out of 5 survived, a fact that leaves everyone puzzled based on economics alone. But according to our guide Kwese, it was done to break their spirits. After the tour we went to Conrad and Katie's house for a wonderful lunch of rice and ground nut stew. On our way back to Accra we stopped at Jon and Juanita's place for a quick tour of their farm before arriving back at Ron's for supper.
We attended Pastor Felix's church in Boi on Sunday, and as usual they treated us with minerals after the service. We had an afternoon program in Adeiso, so we dropped off the family and grabbed our packed lunch. We picked up a van load of guests on the way to Adeiso, stopping in Medie, Dobro, and Ayaa. The goal was to have Pastors Isaac and Samuel do their first Lead Like Jesus encounter with the pastors of our churches bringing their elders and board members. Isaac and Samuel took turns teaching through the material, although we got a late start due to rain. Luke listened through an interpreter and gave them feedback during the breaks. We were very happy with the way they prepared themselves and the way they presented it. We were off to a good start! We didn't get through all the material and so we will return and finish up with the material at a later date.
After some final discussions on Monday morning, we took Luke and Brittany to the airport to continue their journey to Egypt and Uganda. We were so blessed to have them here. He really encouraged us to continue on, to strive for God's greatest glory, and to follow the patterns of the greatest Leader of all time because the best is yet to come!
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I have been involved with the men's fellowship with Elim's International Church. Yesterday we traveled an hour and a half to Kinder Paradise children's home/school in Pram Pram, near Tema. There were many games planned, including basketball, volleyball, tug-o-war, football, sack races, and a nine-legged race. They also had bouncy houses for the little ones, popcorn, juice, sno cones, and even a cotton candy machine! I am not sure how many times my children went through that line. I was team captain of the "Sharks", and we had a blast as we came up with our war cry, our special dance, and competed in the various games. We managed to scratch out a second place finish with an award for team spirit! The day ended with a water balloon fight and a time of worship. The children really enjoyed interacting with one another, and even the adults had a lot of fun, sunburns and achy muscles aside. Since Kinder Paradise is in sight of the ocean, Richmond got to see the ocean for the first time! Next time we promised to let him swim in it.