After 14 months away from my beloved African pastors, it was so sweet last week to return to them and offer a refresher course, preach in churches, and draw near together in relationship.

For this first trip, the location was Lome, Togo, West Africa. I’ve spent nearly three years working with this network of pastors, and although several were away with ministry responsibilities, we still had a decent turnout and deeply enjoyed our time together.

The focus of the training was refreshing Pathways steps and tools that the pastors had previously received, such as observation, context, asking good questions, analyzing the structure of the message toward understanding the author’s central point to the original readers. Then we introduced some of the changes we’ve made in one of the workshops called “The Bible’s Whole Story” and ended with the Statement for Today and application, bringing the message for audiences today. We worked through several passages, practicing the tools, and were pleased to see much growth and “refreshing” throughout the week.

Both on Sunday and Wednesday I was asked to preach in church services, which was a joy.

Pastor Emile asked me to preach on the Holy Spirit, since Pentecost was approaching, and this was their focus as a church. So I focused on Jesus’ words in Acts 1:6-8, where he commissions his disciples to be His witnesses in the world, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It was my joy and delight to see at the end of the sermon that one man, named Michel, came forward to place his faith in Christ. Pastor Emile made a plan to disciple this man in his new faith. Glory to God!

Certainly there were travel challenges and rigorous protocol to follow along the way, such as masking, taking three COVID tests, and flight changes that led to us nearly missing our flight home. But in all, things went very well, and I’m eager for my next trip to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in 2.5 weeks.