Abbie and I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving. We certainly enjoyed ours! Abbie enjoyed great success with preparing and cooking a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner for the very first time. The entire meal, except for two side dishes, was her unaided masterpiece, and it was delicious! We got to spend time with both sides of the family, and we enjoyed making memories during this last Thanksgiving before leaving for Ghana.
Yes, that is right! IT’S TIME FOR A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! After a little over two years on deputation, we have our departure date! We will be leaving for Ghana on January 25, 2017! We have just purchased our tickets, and we have our entry visas approved. Now we just have to take care of all the little details that go into moving across an ocean—and the list keeps growing! We have already sent some barrels to Ghana so that the most important things would get there ahead of us, but we are working on packing more of our stuff so that it will hopefully get there not long after we do. Please pray that we will not forget any important details and that we will get much accomplished in the upcoming days.
I had a special blessing just a few days before Thanksgiving. Having grown up in a pastor’s home, my salvation testimony is not flashy or unusual. However, it was just what Travis, a college student in Kentucky, needed to hear. Travis was the grandson of a preacher and had grown up in church all his life. The problem was that he believed he had to pray for forgiveness every time he did something wrong so that he could go to Heaven. I showed Travis Bible verses teaching that forgiveness of sins is based on what Jesus did on the cross, not our prayers. As I asked questions to make sure that he understood what I was showing him, he would reply, “Yes, but that’s not what my church teaches,” or “No, but that’s not what my church says.” I explained that what we believe is supposed to be based on what the Bible actually says, not on what people say. Still, Travis was having a hard time with what I was telling him until I shared with him that I, too, had once been trusting in my prayers for salvation. I had realized I needed Jesus to save me, but my trust had been more in my prayers than in Him. I had to come to the place where I came to Jesus, trusting Him alone for my salvation, and the prayer was just how I told Him I wanted Him to save me. After hearing my salvation story, Travis was willing to admit that he had been trusting his prayers more than Jesus, but now he wanted to trust Jesus alone. It was such a blessing to see God use my testimony to bring someone to Himself!
The next letter you get from me will have been written in Ghana! Woo-hoo!
Yours for souls,
Micah Christiansen