Update from the Skiles

Greetings,

Traveling with my old friend and colleague Ed Enns was a joy. Eds tenacity to the ministry is a blessing. He is a walking epistle of 1 Cor 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

During my travels through Ghana I met four young men who had come through the SFMI training in recent years. They were ministering in Ghana and preparing to move into the northern region of Ghana where the Gospel has not been widely communicated. Jim and Fran Lucas along with their granddaughter Janelle were faithfully laboring in the His Mission training center. They were laboring, but are also a result of others labors. I know some of those who labored for them and with them; the labor is not in vain. The Voetberg family was spoken of often as I visited the Africans in Ghana and Togo.

As Ed and I traveled to Togo we met with Emanuel Kangni and Nat Abimbola, and many others who labor for Jesus and His kingdom. They labor but I know people who labored in their lives. The labor is not in vain.

The ministry of Ethnos Mission from Nigeria is a blessing, as West African nationals press to the unreached people that lay just south of the Sahara desert. They call it the 10/15 window. Ed Enns calls it the Bibleless belt. Whatever we call it, it is a ministry that begs for labor.

In grade school I remember a story of Johnny Appleseed. A man who sowed apple seeds in Americas new frontiers. A google search taught me a lot more about the man, but the patience and tenacity of him still impress me. It takes a long time for an apple seed to make a producing apple tree.

I came back from Ghana and Togo with a new appreciation of Heb 10:34-39.

For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

I had a brief time in the Dagomba tribe. The elders wanted me to stay, and I wanted to stay longer, but a schedule was set that I needed to keep. Next time, I will stay longer. I was not able to contact Hovare, but went to the Ghana/Ivory Coast border on the proposed day we were to meet. He was not there but I did have a providential meeting with a man who knew me and Hovare. He was able to carry my greetings and messages to Hovare.

During my trip I received encouragement from the US embassy in Ivory Coast concerning the rebel leader in the northern area where I work. The embassy talked to the warlord on my behalf and it sounds like the meeting went well. I hope that the contact will reign in some of the lawlessness in the region.

In His Love and Grace,
Jerry Skiles