Greetings from Ghana! Abbie and I are getting settled into our new home and are making new friends. While it was difficult saying goodbye to our loved ones, we were not at all sad to say goodbye to cold weather! I am happy to report I have not felt cold even once since getting off the plane! (Yes, I have to rub it in for all of you dealing with winter.)
Abbie and I had a packing adventure the day we left for Ghana. Abbie and I very carefully packed our check-in luggage so that each piece was just under our limit of 50 pounds. The problem was that we did not weigh our carry-on items! When we flew internationally before, our carry-ons had never been weighed, so we did not bother checking their weight. However, this time the airline did weigh our very overweight carry-on items. Oops! We spent almost an hour selectively discarding items and creatively repacking our luggage in the airport; but when we were done, our carry-on items were not overweight, and all of our check-in luggage weighed exactly 50 pounds. The moral of the story—weigh your carry-on luggage ahead of time!
Fruit to Your Account
The souls God uses Abbie and me to reach are fruits credited to the account of those of you who have given so that we can go. Here is the story of the very first of these fruits from Ghana.
I was out soul winning with Rancy, an experienced soul winner from our church. As we walked down the street, I saw two young men. I called out, “Brothers, Mo hu te sen?” (Rough translation: “Hey guys, how are you doing?”) They turned in surprise and asked in Twi, “Do you speak Twi?” I was able to speak one or two more sentences before having to switch to English. Fortunately, Michael and George both spoke decent English.
As we talked, I found out that they both believed that they must do good works and keep God’s commandments to go to Heaven. After I showed them several verses, they admitted that their good works could not get them to Heaven. I thought they understood, but as I got toward the end, I asked them how we accept God’s gift of Heaven, and they said, “By keeping God’s commandments.” Aaaaah!
Then Rancy stepped in and used even more verses and culturally relevant illustrations to strongly show them that their good works could not save them. They seemed to understand that salvation is simply by belief in Jesus. Then Michael revealed that he had been taught in church that one believes in Jesus by keeping the commandments. I then stepped back in, using Galatians 2:16 to show that salvation is through faith and NOT the law. Finally, they understood that Jesus alone saves us through simple faith. They prayed and accepted Jesus’ gift of eternal life. This was some real, tag-team soul winning! George and Michael were really fairly typical Ghanaians—deeply indoctrinated in works salvation. Thank you for your prayers and support so that we can “open their eyes, and . . . turn them from darkness to light.”
Yours for souls,
Micah Christiansen