- From Marty - Thank you so much for the prayers that you give on our behalf here. Truly we could not even pretend to work here without the spiritual support we derive from you intercession. Please continue to pray. We need you so much to be able to make an impact eternally among the Watchi people of Togo. As for my week, it's best to begin at the end. Today Murphy and I had the pleasure of fighting in the trenches for Hammer and the Vogan church along with leaders from other churches as we stood against the continual rebellion of some leaders there. It was obvious from the onset that this was the physical versus the spiritual. It was amazing that after Koffi, an elder from Tabligbo, made the reccomendation for the current leaders to relinquish their positions and responsibilities, how those leaders began to exalt themselves and rant and rave. Everyone else just waited and prayed and prayed and waited. One at a time those leaders got up and sought to defend themselves and with many words condemned themselves and revealed their true character. We all just continued to kneel and pray asking God to work in this seemingly unresolvable situation. As we cried out to the Lord in our third hour of prayer members one at a time began to challenge these men and condemn them for their examples and their stubborness. Even though they had sought to take control of the meeting, God had turned it back upon them as we had all just been seeking him in prayer. How mighty and loving God is. By the end of it they left in a huff, vowing to fight for their leadership, leaving the rest of us to worship in peaceful fellowship for an additional hour or so as we prayed and praised together in the unity of love. We had only asked them to submit to their brothers and sisters in peace yet this was so distasteful they chose instead to seek to destroy the church. Please pray for Hammer and Vogan as the old leaders could seek to be disruptive.

The rest of my week was rather normal although we found ourselves more in prayer than in our previous years here. We work, train, teach, plan, and evangelize; but we are finding more and more that God is calling us to pray night and day. Please join us in this. Thank you for your prayers about our support. This last week we had some positive responses for which we are thankful. Please continue to pray for this as we have a very expensive year before us with the survey trip to Rwanda and a longer than usual furlough. Thank you for your love. May God bless you in every way.

- From Louise - It has been a busy week. We were blessed to have one of the Peace Corps workers join us Monday for dinner and stay for our team devo. Travis is a Christian, but has not been able to worship anywhere since coming to Togo. We are glad God led him to us. On Tuesday, our dear friend Dela underwent surgery, so we spent the better part of the day at the hospital waiting with her husband, Hammer. The surgery was a success and she has already seen a reduction of pain. Thank you to all of you who have prayed for her. Tucker turned twelve on Wednesday, but had malaria so he missed school. We had an outdoor theater party for him on Friday night.

Last week we had a morning where the weather was relatively cool. We were still in short sleeves, but you know...for Togo it was cool. We all went out to recess and the boys were commenting on the temperature. Tucker said, "Miss Amy is this what it's like at your home all winter in America? Is it cold like this?" I had to laugh. No Tucker, this would be considered downright warm weather in Washington. It's nowhere near winter weather.

Stephen's math curriculum was teaching him how to write checks this week. We made a list of stores that he would like to shop at: Champion, Walmart, Ramco ("Actually can it be Super Ramco?") and then made a list of items that he would purchase at these stores. The list had things like legos, a bike and a dvd. Then Stephen had a request, "Could you put Doritos on the list? But don't just put any Doritos. Make sure that they are Nacho Cheese!"

Today in French Daniel (our teacher) had my class writing sentences on the white board. Taylor has perfect cursive handwriting and after he wrote his sentences Daniel said, "Taylor I have a question for you. In your mind, do you ever think that you would like to be a teacher? Because when I see your very very nice handwriting I think that maybe you do." I've never heard Tay say that he wanted to be a teacher, but from the smile on his face when Daniel asked the question I think that the thought has crossed his mind. :)

Overheard at school: "I don't mind if you hate me. I like being likeded and I like being not likeded." -Trevor talking to a very bewildered Matthew (I don't think Matthew hates anyone :) ) "But Momma's full name is Aunt Christine and I don't know how to spell that!" -Matthew

- From Murphy - It has been an amazing week! First, we began digging a well in Kpotonou. After four days of work the well is already 4 1/2 meters deep and we are close to water. As we began digging, members of the community came in droves to see the commotion and were so excited about the possibility of having clean water. Pray that God will use this blessing through the Christians to glorify His name and bring people the Jesus.

On my way home one day from the village Kpotonou, I heard a snap and the right side of the car fell to the ground. What had happened three years ago to my left tire now happened to my right tire. You can read the full story on our blog @ http://audienceofone.cc .

This week an elder in the Kpeve church, Emmanuel, pulled me aside after our train & multiply meeting on Wednesday. He wanted to update me on a situation that we've been praying about the last two months. Last year he sold a piece of machinery for around $800. A friend of a friend of a friend of a relative heard about his sudden increase in cash flow and came to ask if he could borrow the money. Emmanuel, whose heart is good, honest and innocent, felt like this was an opportunity to be generous and loan out the entire amount of money. For an average farmer this is almost 2 years salary. Guess what, the man never payed him back:) After a year of trying to recover his money he finally had the man put in jail. Although he did not feel right about this in his heart, he did not know what else to do. We've been praying for this for the last four weeks, asking God to give him wisdom. Today he had decided to let the situation go to the courts and let the judge decide the man's fate. If he was able to recover his money, great. If not, he was going to move on with his life.

But that's not the exciting news that I have to tell you. The exciting news is, that after he told me this story of how God had brought peace to his heart, he said, "I really want to send out a missionary." His plan is to save a 10th of his earnings for the next three years in the hopes that he could support a missionary to an unreached area for three months during the dry season to evangelize and plant a new church! After telling me his plan, he asked me if I would pray that God would bless him in the next three years so that this could come about. I praise God for his faith, his passion for lost souls, and his desire to personally sacrifice to advance the Kingdom! We have a lot to learn from our African brothers and I'm thankful that I can walk side-by-side in the faith with Emmanuel. Thank you brother for giving your whole heart to Jesus!

Yesterday (Saturday) I experienced one of the worst and best meetings of my life. As the Vogan meeting went on and on with the shouts and rantings of the rebellious, Marty and I found ourselves getting lower and lower to the ground on our knees. At one certain point during the meeting we are both crying and weeping, begging God to come rescue His church from the evil forces that were seeking to destroy it. Our wisdom was gone, we had tried and said everything that we knew to do. Our strength was gone, we had nothing left to fight the fight. If God didn't do something, the powers of darkness were going to destory this church.

So we cried out to God in whom our only hope rests to come and rescue his saints. Oh God, let truth prevail! Let the arrogant be humbled! Let the darkness in the hearts of men be revealed! Let peace return to your people and fill our hearts with joy! In answer to our crying out to him the false accusations, yelling and screaming increased to a new level of intensity while the righteous stood silent and took the abuse. They yelled, "I am not trouble maker!" "I am not arrogant!" Then, all of a sudden there was quiet. The rebels just got up and left! For the next hour we had the most beautiful time of worship that I've had in a long time, with people crying out to God confessing their sins, asking for His salvation, and praising him for His faithfulness! Our meeting ended in joy, peace and a calm assurance that Jesus had fought this day's battle and won the victory. Praise His name!

- From Christine - Murphy told me a funny story this week. On Friday, when the workers were ready to continue digging the well in Kpotonou, they discovered around 50 frogs and a huge scorpion inside the pit. Several men tried, with no success, to kill the scorpion by throwing large stones in the well. Finally someone climed down in the well and killed the scorpion and then they hauled the frogs up in three bucket loads. I wish Murphy had taken his camera.

The boys are doing great. Right now they are in their bedroom building a "race car". Their train track box (a small footlocker) is the body of the car and we will see what assortmemt of items they use to build the rest :)

Today we worshiped with the Batoe Christians. During one of the lessons, one of the older women answered a question as well as she could. She was critisized by the others as not understanding the lesson. She became very upset especially at one other older woman. Please pray with us for Batoe that they will mature in their faith and encourage each other rather than criticize. Pray for this woman, Kojono, that she will grow in her faith and not be discouraged by what happened today. I go tomorrow to Batoe to meet with these women. Pray that God will give me the right words to encourage them. Thank you so much for your prayers!

We had a fire drill of sorts during school last Wednesday. People were burning the field next to the school today (in typical dry season fashion) and as the flames got close to the wall behind school our classrooms filled with smoke even with all of the windows closed. It sounded like rain because of all of the falling ash. Amy and I tried to coninue teaching class for a while, but it was just too much. So we told the boys we were going to have a fire drill like schools in America and they had to follow Miss Amy out the room. The boys put hands or shirts over their noses and ran for the side yard. I grabbed our read aloud book and followed behind. So the boys all lay down on the "basket ball court" (the paved part of the yard) and Amy read. We were outside for about 20 minutes before the field had finished burning and smoke had cleared out a little. We turned on all of the fans in school to try and clear our the classrooms. The sidewalk in front of school was covered in flakes of black ash. There is never a dull school day in Tabligbo :)

Friday the boys gave me several occasions to laugh. The first was during recess when they were playing cattle ranch (we think they ment cattle drive). Tucker and Stephen had Taylor tied up with ropes because he was a cougar they had caught, and Matthew was using Trevor as his horse. It was a very funny game to watch. Trevor fell down dead at least five times and then Tanner would yell at him to "Get back on my cattle Ranch!". I laughed really hard again after lunch. If the boys finish eating before it is time to start class again they can go play in the side yard. I had just finished eating and was going to check on them when I heard them shouting at each other. As I walked around the corner I saw all six boys chasing a chicken across the yard. I laughed so hard! Evidently the chicken jumped over one of the walls into our compound. The boys wanted to catch it and then release it back outside the gate so Toby (our dog) wouldn't get it. It was so funny to watch them chase the chicken under a bench, across the yard, into a bush, through the banana trees, up into the fort, and then finally Taylor caught it. They all followed Taylor to the front yard and out the gate to release the chicken outside of the gate. I got to laugh at all of them again when we did our special Friday afternoon activity (we don't have French on Friday afternoons so Amy and I make up some special activity). This week Amy came up with making crazy hats. We brought out all of the art suppllies: pom-poms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, foam shapes, feathers, and markers. It was so fun to watch them be creative and make funny hats.

I have a Trevor story from today. He was supposed to read the word "nine" and he has learned a phonics rule that says - e at the end of a word jumps and makes the first vowel say its name. Today he told me the e captured the i and played a jedi mind trick on it (think Star Wars) and then yelled at the i until it said "iiiiiiiiiiiii"(hands wavinging in the air). It was even funnier with him acting it out. The letter e continued to play mind tricks all morning on the other vowels (like a in the word Jane). Last Thursday he spent the whole morning trying to convince me the vowels were a,e,i, o,and D (not u).