October 2004

Harvest Prayer Warriors is a periodic eNewsletter from the Crowson family working among the Watchi people of southern Togo, West Africa.

Greetings from Watchi Land in Togo, West Africa. We hope and pray that you are doing well and the Lord is blessing you in your service to Him!

It's been over a year since our last Harvest Prayer Warriors eNewsletter and a lot has happened in the growth of the Watchi movement. We thank you for your continued prayers for our ministry and the growth of the Kingdom among the Watchi.

We hope that you've been able to keep up with our family and ministry through our team's weekly eNewsletter, Tabligbo Times. If not, you can subscribe to Tabligbo Times via our web site.

We are discovering though, that our prayer needs are greater than the space allotted in the Times. Thus, we are going to begin (again) to send out this eNewsletter to keep you up-to-date with our prayer needs and victories here among the Watchi.

Here are some of our prayer victories for the month of September and prayer needs for the month of October. Thank you for your intercession, He is listening and He is answering!

I meet with these four elders every Wednesday for Train & Multiply sessions (my parents are also included in this picture). Their names (L to R) are George, Chardey, Israel, and Emmanuel. Please pray for these men, their families and their church.

They shepherd a church of 50+ in the Adangbe region of southern Togo. Right now they are working on building a more permanent church building as well as making plans to evangelize a nearby area called Lakoto. They tried to plant a church in this region last year without much fruit. They have revamped their strategy and have spent a lot of time fasting and praying for the lost there, that the Lord will raise up a harvest of souls and plant a new church.

Pray that God will bless my time with these men so that I can encourage and equip them in their shepherding. Pray that God will bless their building project and their efforts to evangelize Lakoto.

I meet with three Adidokpo elders and two Gbagu Kope leaders every Wednesday afternoon for Train & Multiply sessions. Their names (L to R) are Kossi, Nukunu, Patrice, Francois, and Nazere. The two churches combined have 40+ members and have close fellowship together. Please pray for these men, their families and their churches.

God answered our prayers this past month for Kossi (far left). He was working close to 80 hours a week trying to buy a motorcycle which wasn't leaving him time to help shepherd the church. In answer to prayer, this past month Kossi realized this and gave the motorcycle back to the owner so that he could focus more on Kingdom work.

Pray for these two churches, that the Lord would bless their leaders with vision for the future and a passion to evangelize the areas around them.

I meet with the Sendome/Batoe leaders every Thursday. Denni is the leader from Sendome (seated next to my dad). Komlavi and Daniel are the two leaders from Batoe. Please pray for these men, their families and their churches.

Sendome planted the Batoe church last summer and both continue to grow in faith and in number. They are currently praying for God to use them to plant a new church in their area. One interesting fact about this cluster is that they are a mixture of Aja and Watchi people. I have a hard time knowing which language to speak when I with them:)

This past month was incredible! There were five baptisms in this cluster; three new Christians in the Sendome church and two new Christians in the Batoe church.

Of the three in Sendome who were baptized, one was a Huno, a voodoo priestess, who discovered that God is the one true God. She had an illness and spent almost three year's worth of wages on sacrifices to the voodoo gods to find healing but found none. She finally went to some Christians. They prayed for her and God healed her. For the last month she's been studying with Denni, the leader from the Sendome church, and yesterday she gave her life completely to Jesus!

Antoine, another person added to the Kingdom from Sendome, was a "wife" of a god. I know it's hard to imagine a man being a "wife" of a god. I'm still confused about that. But we are the bride of Christ, so I guess that a man can be a "wife" of a voodoo god. Anyway, he had dedicated his life to serving a particular god. But about a month ago he showed up at church and said he was fed up with worshipping the idols who have no power and he wanted to worship the living God. Again, he studied with Denni and yesterday gave his life to Jesus.

Ton, another man from Sendome, has been studying with Denni for almost six months. He and his wife have suffered tragedy after tragedy as several of their children have died after childbirth. This past spring his wife became a Christian while she was expecting another child. We prayed fervently for her, that the Lord would bless this child with life. Sadly, this child also died shortly after childbirth. Obviously this was discouraging to her and to her husband who was studying about God with Denni. Ton also struggles with alcoholism. But in spite of their hardships, yesterday he put his faith in Jesus and became a "new man" in Christ.

The two people from Batoe are both in Komlavi's family. One was his son, Elom, and the other his sister-in-law, Tanti. We praise God for He is certainly working to seek and save the lost! Keep on praying for God's Word to spread, He is listening and He is answering!
This is a picture of the Kpotonou Christians. I work with the leaders from this church (Koku and Mawuko) every Friday. This is a new church less than a year old and they are remotely isolated. Pray for these Christians and their families. There used to be two other churches close by: Koleve and Agbeku. In the past year both of the churches have stopped meeting, but we are lifting them up in prayer that the Lord will revive them again. In answer to our request, I heard this week from men from both villages that there is a desire to revive these churches. This will be a great encouragement for Kpotonou and strengthen the whole area.
The ladies' in most of the clusters continue to meet once a month or once every six weeks. Many of the clusters have women capable of leading the meetings and teaching the lesssons. Once a month I go to Sedome to teach at their ladies' meeting and mentor them in leading the meeting. I also continue to teach monthly at the Atitogon cluster ladies' meeting. Please pray for these two groups of women. They do not have many women who can read which makes teaching very difficult. Pictured above are women from the Atitogon cluster. I also continue to meet weekly with Edemno, a Christian women in Tabligbo. She goes with me to the various ladies meetings and we have recently begun to co-teach lessons. Please pray for Edemno and her desire to grow in her abilities to teach.