Togo Memory #8: Teaching and Being Taught Words of Life in Kabiye

Perhaps this is one of my top 5 precious memories of the last 10 years in Togo.  I find that my words fall short when trying to describe the treasure of this blessing.  In the early years when I could only read Kabiye and not understand more than 5 to 10% of the words I was reading as I taught there was still a blessing watching women, especially, hear God’s words in the language of their heart, many for the first time.  Looks of surprise and incredulity danced from face to face as they realized that Esso (God) would talk and use expressions like they would. Many times over the years I have experienced the serendipity of communicating truth which God in those moments empowered me to use exactly the right examples, words or phrases in Kabiye and watching the truth penetrate hearts, aware of the glorious reality that I was simply the vessel that God’s wonderful words of life could pass through to enter the open hearts of His people.

The last 3 years, I have invested my time in studying with and discipling Mazalo and Christianne, 2 ladies who have shown themselves to be devoted followers of Jesus.  As we strategized, studied, and prayed and planned together as a team we realized that our resources are most effectively used by investing heavily in a few and then encouraging and training them to do the same and those they disciple training others etc.  This was Jesus’ method so it seems like the best one.  Our influence looks like it is smaller in the beginning but exponential growth over time gives much more return and there is the blessing of deep training in relationships.  Christianne and Mazalo have been blessings to me as we’ve studied and discovered God’s word together.  Especially hearing what God shows them as we study passages together and how they will obey what He is asking.  Sometimes we’re thinking very similar things as I contemplate how to obey or respond to God from what is in His word.  And sometimes we see very different aspects of ways to obey and I learn to see God and my response to Him in new ways.  We deepen one another’s faith, we share deeply our praises and struggles, we pray for one another and as their older sister in Christ I have equipped them as God has led me to do the same with other younger sisters.

I love how alive His word is and how it penetrates joint and marrow and lives within us and becomes a part of us by His Spirit.  And being a part of all of this in a tribal language so very different from my own in Togo, West Africa gives God much glory.  His word shines all the brighter for me, uniquely powerful to transcend every language and every culture, including my own.  I have learned in these years that God’s kingdom, or His culture, is in no way deeper connected to one human culture than another.  He has placed eternity in the hearts of men from every nation so that all cultures can comprehend Him.  And the beauty in experiencing Him through another cultural worldview is that I experience parts of Him that are hidden from me in my own culture.  I learn to see Him outside of my natural eyes and the eyes of my heart are all the more enlightened.  How beautiful He is through the eyes of His people from ALL nations.

Please pray for the immediate families and people under Mazalo and Christiannes’ influence:  Mazalo’s older brother has welcomed us into his home in Ketao to study every week.  Pray for Him to become a follower of Jesus. They are pictured here together.

And please pray for Christianne as she teaches and mentors the 9 orphans that she and her husband, Jean Marie, have taken into their home to raise. Pictured below: Both of these women desire to teach other women and families all throughout Kabiye land  but they are beginning with those nearest them.

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