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I'm finally back to Lubbock now. I actually returned to the USA on monday but went straight into my last American Thanksgiving with my family. It was quite an event and I had fun, but now I'm happy to unpack, rest, and have some quiet moments.

Obviously I did not get to post a blog while in Ghana, but Ghana was great! Everything went so well. This whole trip was an experiment for me. Can I lead a team well, will the contacts I have there be able to organize things for us, will the people we work with respond well to teachings aimed at first increasing our knowledge of God and His Word (rather than focusing on primarily impacting the heart). Well....the answer to all of this is a resounding yes, yes, yes. It worked and it worked really well!!!! A lot of the success is because God sent me with a really strong team. Plus we have very diverse giftings so while I taught in a very academic fashion and had people taking notes to be able to teach others from, Gary taught from a father's heart and experience answering many questions about how to deal with the hardships of ministry, and Royce & Jennifer taught the people how to live out their freedom in Christ by leading them through personal ministry. After each of our inputs, those who joined us for each of the two conferences were impacted in spirit, soul, and body as they grew closer to our Lord. In all we were able to train pastors and church leaders from 17 different churches who are all equipped to take these teachings back to their churchs. Pretty amazing!

What a blessing to be a part of all of this. Honestly, I wasn't entirely sure if I had the goods to pull this off. I know that God is the one who gifts us and equips us, and I know I have giftings from God. But I wasn't sure if I might be stepping a little beyond what God had equipped me for. But it went really well. Praise God....I was on track with Him and not running ahead of Him. I used to think I could conquer the world in and of myself. God has taught me I can truly do nothing without Him. Now, He's proving I can step out there and do amazing things when I'm in step with Him. He's really good!

I'll share some more about the trip over the next few days. For now, here is one picture from my camera that I really like. The rest of the team took most of the pictures, so when I get more pics from them then I'll write more.

Thanks for reading and keeping up with this blog!

Africa Trips & Shotgun Raffles & All That Good Stuff

Well....I'm off to Ghana in the morning! It has been a whirlwind over the past month or so between missions conferences and Encounter the Cross weekends and some travel here in Texas......and now, I leave in the morning for the first Bible teaching I'll be a part of in Africa. I'm so excited!!!! There are three people going with me and we'll do Bible teaching plus feed children in villages while doing outreaches. How much fun! I'm especially excited about the Bible teaching.....I believe this is absolutely vital to seeing people and nations transformed from the ground up. The Bible tells us that in the Word their lies the power to divide between flesh and spirit. The flesh is where all corruption and eniminity towards God lies.....While the spirit of a man/woman longs after God. The absolute greatest hope of seeing cycles of violence, corruption, and poverty end in Africa is to establish a foundation of the Word of God in the hearts of every man and woman. I am so blessed to have this opportunity to be a part of doing this very thing. To partner that with the village outreaches of actually meeting practical needs is amazing. God is awesome to allow me to be a part of this!

So, as many of you know my life group leaders here in Lubbock are also in the midst of helping me raise money for the move to Africa by holding a Shotgun Raffle.....I love West Texas!

Here's the wild thing......Royce and Jennifer (who have organized this raffle) are going with me to Ghana. So in the middle of this fundraiser we are all leaving the country for a couple of weeks. You really have to trust that God is in control of a thing to be able to leave in the middle of it!!!! I believe that God is going to use our awesome friends who have committed to help with this raffle to be able to get all the tickets sold while we are gone!!!!

Here's a flyer about the raffle for those of you who want to know more. When we get back we'll choose where to hold the drawing.....I'll be sure and put up a post once we know where the drawing will be......I do know the date is Dec. 6.

I hope I can get stable computer access in Ghana....if so the next time I have a posting, I'll be writing from Africa!!

The beginning of my blog

Well, after many months of being encouraged to do this, I've finally made it into the blogger world. I don't know exactly how this will go...but I'm committed to sharing my journey to moving to Africa, to adjusting to Africa, and to falling more in love with Africa. This many not be a pretty process, but I've decided to do my best to be honest in chronicling this journey. I hope you enjoy reading about all God is doing. And I hope this is an encouragement for others out there that would like to step out into new things but aren't sure if they can do it. After a while of reading about my journey, it should be an encouragement that God loves to use the least likely of us all.
Thanks for reading....I hope you'll join me on this journey...and I look forward to hearing from you along the way.