Blog Posts

Helping To Reach The Unreached

Reaching those around us We are thankful for your partnership this past year and we are in awe as we look back on what God has done this past year in Togo. We are excited as we see what is ahead in the Vocational Training project and for our family. 

We ask that you pray about partnering with us in this coming year, to be a part of what God is doing here in the lives of the unreached people of Togo. Partner with us so we can continue being your hands and feet on the ground and further the Gospel and train up leaders to take the Gospel into unreached areas of Togo. 


The Way of Christ sports camp where overflow wasn’t a problem. It was prayed for! 
One step closer to finishing the property

Business Classes to start a small business and learn basic budgeting. 

100 Days in Togo! 

Today marks our 100th day in Togo! We are amazed at how far we have come and achieved in this amount of time and look forward to what lies ahead for us. Our children are flourishing in their new environment and adapting remarkably better than we thought they would at this milestone.

Through God’s grace, in the last 100 days we have:

  • Assisted in building the roof for the children’s building at Grace Church
  • Completed roughly 350 hours of French tutoring, between Marci and I
  • Moved into our home and purchased our work truck
  • Overcome 2 spouts of malaria and other infections
  • Grown with our team on the ground and those coming soon

With each of these victories, we have had equal amounts of struggles and difficulties, but through each of the struggles we are reminded of God’s promise from Philippians 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

We are grateful and blessed to have you as our partners in the 6 Degree Initiative and acknowledge the steadfastness of your prayers and support as we strive to be “better together” in life and ministry to the least reached people groups in Togo.

Building For the Future

We are exciting to see what God is doing in Togo and being able to be a part of it here on the ground. This past month we finished construction on the children’s building at Grace Church, which is the newest church plant within the 6 Degree Initiative. The next day they were able to have their first meeting of Court-Yard kids under their new roof! Thank you for those that partnered with us to make this possible. Lives of these kids are being changed and we pray that the Word spreads to their families, if they aren’t attending the church now.
Both of us are feeling more confident in our French lessons and are able to communicate in small ways with those we work closely. This has made us feel more connected to those around us and more grounded here, as well. The kids are doing well in school and are learning more French; seeing our kids singing along and listening at children’s church, even when they can’t speak the language, shows us that God speaks to every heart in His language.

We are thankful to the partners that have been with us all along and those who are partnered with us now. If you would like to partner with us in ministry, please click the link below or feel free to reply to this newsletter.

Click here to Partner with us!

Bon Jour, from Togo!

We have been serving in Togo for a little over a month, now. It still doesn’t seem real that our family is here. This morning I looked at Taylor and said it’s nice to get my clothes out of a closet and not a trunk. Yes, we are settling into our house and have been living in it for a week now. The kids have loved getting their rooms set up and sleeping with their stuffed animals. We were sad to leave the guest house at our team leader’s place and the gracious company we received while there, but we are not far from them and our girls are having a play date today!
Kids in Hunstville checking in to our flight!

We started full swing this week with getting the repairs on the house and French lessons started. The first few weeks I felt like a baby in this country, I didn’t know where I could go or how I could get there, or even the words that people were saying. Now I know why people teach their baby’s sign language to communicate because I was right there with them explaining to the plumber and the electrician where I needed items. They were nice and smiled while nodding their heads, but I knew they had no idea what I was saying. So there might be a few extra holes in my walls and extra piping then what was needed, but in the end, I believe we have everything where it’s needed and working!

Two weeks after we were in Togo, Taylor had the opportunity to attend and witness a Timothy Initiative Pastor’s Conference held in Cotonou, Benin. This conference was for 60 plus pastors from Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria to be encouraged and gain knowledge on leadership in their churches. It was an incredible time to see and hear what God is doing in each of these pastor’s lives and churches and to see them be strengthened to continue spreading the Gospel.

We have been attending Nouvelle Vie, which is the first church plant here in Togo. We have also been to Grace Church that is the newest church. The kids love to sing and dance and participate in the children’s church activities at Nouvelle Vie, even though there is a language barrier, they are always happy to participate and learn new things. The kids have been doing amazingly well in their new environment, school, and culture. Shiloh and Madeline recently had a field day from school at La Solution’s sports camp, where they got to participate and join in the fun. We are so proud of them and love watching them grow in their faith and in this ministry.

As we continue learning the language and culture, we look forward to what God has planned for us this month to serve Him. Thank you so much for your prayers and support for us, now even more, so. We are praying for each of you daily.

The Ship Has Landed

We are blessed and happy to announce we are currently 91% supported and our start-up fund is 100% met! What that means for us to begin our journey in Togo on July 31 is:

  1. $900/monthly partnerships needed
  2. $6,868.00 for our airline tickets

We wouldn’t be where we are today without all of your prayers and support. We are so encouraged by your vision and desire to spread the Gospel to those who have never had the opportunity to hear it.

Other great news, our shipping container has safely arrived in Togo and will be allowed to be unloaded from port July 2. We are happy to hear that it safely made it to port and thank you all for your prayers. We ask that you continue to pray with us for our remaining monthly partnerships to be made and if the Lord lays it on your hearts to make a one-time-donation for our airline tickets. We welcome all prayers for our family as we continue to spend time with family and prepare our family for departure.

We are excited to see how God will use these last 36 days (not that we are counting), to continue building relationships and partnerships so that others might have the opportunity to hear of God’s amazing love for them.

Check out the Video of our family!!

Better Together!

This last month has brought a big decision for me (Marci). I knew I would be leaving my job that I’ve had for the last 7 years. This was my first job straight out of college, and I have loved every minute of it. I’ve had the opportunity to travel around the United States and I’ve met many of our amazing police officers who sacrifice so much for our communities and cities. As we approach leaving, it has been a fear of mine to leave my job, but as we know, fear is not from God. He created us and knows everything about us. We are special to Him. When He calls us, He uses our name, but my fear was not using my name. Fear was telling me, “that you don’t need to quit your great job you have but stay until you leave.” Taylor and I both prayed about this and we knew that what I was feeling was indeed fear and not from God, but what God was telling me to do was quite opposite. I needed to take a leap of faith and make the next step to leave my job in order to finish strong and be there for my children, as they begin to ask detailed questions about leaving the states, family, and what their new life will be like in Togo with us.
Our container with our ministry supplies and personal belongings is still crossing the Atlantic and will be in Togo, ready to unload July 2! We have also recently received 90% of our start-up fund that we will need when we have sandals on the ground in Togo for our house, vehicle, and language school! We are so blessed to be where we are and thank you all for your continued prayers and support. We are currently at 87% and we are setting a goal of being 100% by the end of June. For those wondering what that looks like, we are needing $1,300 monthly in order to be 100% and approved to make the move to Togo. We know God has spoken to people and people have reached out about partnering with us. We ask that you pray about being that person or persons to help us cross the finish line and begin this great ministry together in Togo.

 

Cross Cultural Training- March ’19

The past two weeks we have been at the Center for Intercultural Training (CIT) in North Carolina for a four-week training period to prepare our family for missions cross-culturally. This has been an intense, yet spiritually fulfilling two weeks, and we are looking forward to the next two weeks of training.
Some of the topics we have discussed so far have been spiritual warfare and effective cultural communication tactics. These two have been extremely helpful to us as we prepare for ministry in Togo and ministering in a Voodoo culture. Though we recognize one can never truly be fully prepared for cross cultural missions, CIT has done an incredible job of educating and opening our minds to a different way of processing and communicating in a third world culture.
As our family learns how to be better communicators of the Gospel, we also have been working diligently in raising support partners and preparing our supplies and tools to send to Togo. We will get back from training April 13 and turn around April 15 to head south with our Penske truck full of supplies and equipment to send on a shipping container to the field.
As we enter into April, we ask prayers for smooth transitions and moving processes. We also thank each of you for your continual support in prayer as we go through training, packing, partnering, and moving. This is a busy time for our family, but we are enjoying every step and day with the relationships we have made along our journey. We are currently 74% and our start-up budget is almost complete. Please pray for partners to join us, so that together, we can spread the Gospel to unreached peoples in Togo. If God is leading you to partnership with us, click the link below!

Overflow

February has been another busy month for our family of six, as we continue moving forward to our goals of moving to Togo, and as the ministry continues to spread in Togo. We attended a 4 day missions conference last week in Prattville, AL, where we were encouraged in our ministry and blessed beyond measure with supplies for our ministry and needs for our up-and-coming missionary kids. Words cannot express the gratitude we have to this church and love and friendships made with them and the other missionaries who are going out to spread the Gospel.

We reached 73% of partnerships this month and are ecstatic as we continue to get closer to our Go-Date in just 3 short months! We are constantly humbled and amazed at how God is continuing to call His people to partner and help us to further His kingdom and reach the unreached with the Gospel.

Our next steps coming up are to attend Cross-cultural training, where we will learn to effectively build relationships with another culture of people, as well as clearly share the Good News with them. This is a training program for our entire family and we are excited to learn and grow during this month of training from March 16 – April 13. Soon after we return from culture training, we will finalize packing our tools, belongs, and supplies and send out our shipping container to Togo.

As these next steps are fast approaching, we are continuing to speak and raise support partners and ask you to prayerfully consider partnering with us in prayer and financial support to spread the Light to the darkness in Togo. Our personal goal is to reach 90% by the end of April. Please join us in prayer for those individuals/churches/businesses to partner in furthering God’s kingdom to the Wachi and Gen people groups.

Prayer Requests:

  • Family preparedness as we continue to pack and gather tools and supplies to take
  • Cross Culture Training to be helpful for all six of us: March 16 – April 13
  • Financial Partnerships to be made as we press forward in reaching 100% partnered

Pressing Onward

January was a fulfilling month and we are looking forward to the few months ahead of us, as we move closer to moving to Togo! God continues to move in Togo and expanding His church with new church plants and salvations spreading like wildfire. We are excited to soon join our team in Togo to continue God’s work among the Wachi and Gen peoples.

We are currently 69% funded and have set a goal to be at 85% by the end of the first quarter. We know this to be a God-sized ask and goal, but as all of you who have followed us through our journey know, God can and has done big things!

We want to express our sincere gratitude for those of you who have already partnered with us, we ask that you continue to pray with us for the hearts of those we will be serving to continue being open to the Gospel and for us as we press on towards this goal.

For those not partnered yet, we would love for you to pray about joining us on our journey to Togo as we work to spread the Good News to the unreached peoples. Below is an example of a breakdown of how you can partner with us.

2018 Year End Achievements  

December has come and gone, now January is already upon us! We have had a busy-ministry filled December and are anticipating an equally exciting January. As you all know our end-of-the-year monthly budget goal was to be 75%, we were able to achieve 65%, with many others making commitments that will start in January. Another achievement has been made through our current monthly/annual partners and one-time support partners, by having our Start-Up Fund become two-thirds complete! We are currently on track to have our Start-Up Fund complete by April. Our Go-Date is May 2019 and we are looking forward to a busy Spring term of raising support partners, packing our belongs, and preparing our families and loved ones for our departure!

This past month was an energetic month for our churches and pastors holding evangelistic campaigns and youth camps. Many people who had never heard the Gospel were provided the opportunity to hear and receive it. Please continue to pray for the movement of the Word to continue spreading rapidly through Togo.

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