Saturday in Freetown

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? (2 Cor. 12:5).

Folks, we are spent in the service of the Gospel. Justin wasn't feeling well this morning so Steve and I went to Tengbeh Town for a study with the preachers in the area by ourselves. No fans. No air moving. 95+ degrees. Over 3 hours of intense teaching. I don't mind telling you that I am whipped. Thankfully we have this afternoon to rest a bit.

Forgive me for whinning, but I want you to know of the difficult conditions in which we labor and in which our Sierra Leonean brethren labor.

Steve and I spoke on the "Dying Request of Jesus." Steve taught on things that inhibit this unity and prevent this unity. I led a study from Eph. 4 on that things God has given us that make unity possible. These brethren are in the midst of an intense conflict over institutionalism and some things have been done and said that have inflamed this conflict. Brethren have not always acted as brethren should. It was a needed and profitable study.

I have made the observation in the past that our brethren are good at one thing -- hiding their buildings. How many churche sin the US do you know that are off the beaten path? Tengbeh Town (where we were this morning is no exception). It is at the bottom of a long and steep gravel, sandy, rocky path. It is almost steep enough to make a good climbing wall. Take Steve with his bad knees and me with my bad legs and we were a sight trying to keep each other from falling, esp. on the way back up.

Steve and I had a bit of a familyreunion at the African Market today. It seems that we were everyone's friend, brotheror even cousin. It is a great place to buy souviners, but nectic doen'st quite do it justice. We made our purchases and quickly escaped to the quiet of our car.

As we end our first week of work in Freetown, we are grateful and thankful to our great God for the blessing of this opportunity. It is very different from previous trips. We have not taught people who need to come to Christ so there have not been the baptisims of past trips. We have taught brethren who need to understand the error of insitutionalism and turn from those perverted practices. Stand for truth are being taken. Brethren are willing to pay personal prices for their stand for truth. It has been a good fisrt week.

God is good all the time.
All the time God is good.