To Africa & Beyond

Free Preview of To Africa and Beyond: Walking Through Life With A Thankful Heart I can say now, in 2014, at 70 years of age, that there were many times I was tempted to “throw in the towel” and make life altering choices because I was exhausted, disgusted, filled with self-pity, or angry. Physical and emotional fatigue is a great catalyst that the Enemy of our Souls can use against us in an effort to cause us to miss out on God’s highest destiny for our individual lives. And again there is the assurance of Psalm 139:16-18, that each moment and day of our lives is planned by God before we are born. But there is a price to pay for experiencing God’s best in our lives! And that is also what this book is all about! Part of that price being the long hours of study, learning, travel, teaching, hard work, the disappointments, personal betrayals even by those we served and loved. There was language study in France from 8 AM to 11 PM five days a week with only 9 months to learn the language. In Africa, dangerous trips into the jungle to visit our churches, rescuing persecuted African Christians from certain death even as we risked our own lives, or long hours of work at the Bible School in order to train African pastors. Even standing guard, with my 12 gauge shotgun, over the students at the Bible School while they slept at night so as to insure they would not be murdered in their sleep because of the crime wave by hardened criminals & murderers set free from jail by the President of the country. That story, and so much more, is also in this book! If I had quit, or made different choices instead of letting God direct my life and make some important choices for me, I would not be where I am today with a life history that has taken me all across West Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. I have students that I have trained living and ministering in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Senegal, and indeed, so I am told, throughout West Africa. I have had many, many adventures in the Jungles of West Africa, in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and across northern India up into the Himalayan Mountains, and was part of a team of 13 people that traveled with Micah Smith north of Hanoi to open an orphanage near the border with China. I was with another team of men when we were arrested in Nagaland (northeastern India) and then were freed the next day, allowing us to teach and share with pastors in that region. I also met men and women on that trip who had been beaten and left for dead, and had suffered greatly for their faith in Christ. In Vietnam we met with 90 plus members of the Underground Church to encourage men and women and children, all of whom had spent years in jail, suffering greatly for their Faith in Christ. In Thailand … Being part of a team that took two truck-loads of supplies down steep dirt jungle roads slippery with mud and with high cliffs on one side and 1,000 foot drop offs on the other was both dangerous, and challenged our trust in God. But we persisted into the refugee camp and prepared to give needed supplies to new refugees from the Karen (pronounced: “kuh-wren”) Tribe that would arrive shortly out of the Burmese jungle and into the northern Thailand jungle Refugee Camp. I met and visited with people who had lost arms and legs to the land mines planted by the savagery of the Burmese soldiers. All of that provided eye-opening, gut wrenching adventures that a person could never arrange for with a travel agency no matter how much money you paid them. But God had quite evidently seen into my heart and seen my love of high adventure as well as my love for Him and desire to help others, and to make my life count for Eternity. So He put together all those parts and pieces to give me a life that has been extraordinary almost beyond description. The capstone of all these experiences was, for me, seeing 10,000 people come to Christ in one three night meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The story of that meeting and the miracles of healing, and deliverance of Witch Doctors from demonic possession is also in this book. I was there and privileged to be a first hand witness to it all! Preaching, after we returned from Africa, in churches across the USA, Alaska and British Columbia provided free travel to some of the most beautiful and historic places in North America! We were continual tourists even as we taught seminars in the churches, encouraged congregations and pastors and held school assemblies, telling our son’s story and teaching in the public school system, youth detention centers and women’s prisons from Alaska to California. We taught on AIDS and sexual abstinence until marriage; and also on the fact that choices have consequences. These antidotes and much more are what this book is about. And the rest of what is contained in this book is how to learn to walk in obedience to God while maintaining a thankful heart in the midst of difficult and painful circumstances. Unanswered questions: This I do know, that God is compassionate, perfect in love, and faithful! But often we must suffer consequences due to the wrong choices of those we love, and have to express that love with patience and forgiveness when we feel most like ringing their rebellious necks! God is a good God and the Devil is a bad Devil! But too many people get that mixed up thus losing out on the best things in life because of the confusion of unanswered questions, bitterness toward God and other people, self-pity that destroys faith, and the refusal to forgive