Loving greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!
“I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. Many, Oh Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee: if I would declare and speak unto them, they are more than can be numbered. I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart. Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified!” Psalm 40:1,5,8,16
We are rejoicing in the goodness of God and for His love toward us! It is humbling to think that our Awesome, powerful, God wants to commune with us and have a personal relationship with us! We read this Psalm this morning and it was such a blessing to see how it seemed to fit our present situation! God is so good!
It has been a while since I wrote last…. And it seems like not much has happened the last while. We did go to Togo, a neighboring country, on Monday almost 2 weeks ago. We had to cross the border and come back to renew our visas for another 60days, till we can get our more permanent paperwork. We had a safe journey there and back! Godwin, our friend from the town here, took us in his car to the border about 1 ½ hours from Sogakope. Since the Capitol city of Togo was at the ocean front we went to a nice hotel/restaurant to have lunch and enjoy the ocean! It was a beautiful place and we really had a relaxing time…. Going barefoot along the sandy beach with the waves lapping at us! The children seemed to enjoy it for the most part too! We left Togo around 2pm and got home around 4pm!
A good part of our time is spent learning the language. We have classes 2-3 times a week and usually have homework and studying to do in between. In some ways it seems like we are advancing fast…. But we really can’t say or understand much more than the simple greetings! Our language teacher has taught us a good many words and is teaching us sentence structure…. And we can form our own simple sentences!! But the key is knowing how and when and where to use our sentences in the proper way and form! There seem to be several little ‘articles’ that can be interchanged and mean one thing in one sentence and have a different meaning in another sentence! Anyway, you can pray that we can figure it all out and be able to understand what is being said! Of course we can read almost anything but we don’t know what we are reading!!! Our teacher thinks that it is fantastic that we can read Ewe in the short time that we have been having classes! Please continue to pray that we can have open, understanding minds to be able to grasp this language!
We are doing well physically…. Praise the Lord! We are enjoying the cooler nights and mornings during the Harmaton season! The Harmaton is dust blown south from the Sierra desert….. it makes a haze of dust out in the horizon that looks almost like fog! So, it does make for a lot more dust in the air and on furniture etc.!
We are all excited to be getting visitors soon!! Conroy & Katrina Martin, and Moses Martin [Chad’s brothers] and Zach Wagner [a young man from our church] are coming and spend a week with us! They arrive on Tuesday and will be with us a week then go north to visit Chad’s Uncle Ross & Aunt Cynthia Ulrich and also Preston & Carolyn Oberholtzer [Katrina’s brother]!
May the Lord richly bless you all this coming week and may you feel His presence dear you!
Learning to wait on the Lord! ~Chad & Elizabeth, Elayna & Chace Martin
