 Missions News
Africa Trip Testimonies (2006 February) – Week 1
 Dear friends,
Greetings from Africa! I’m writing this first report, including testimonies, of our Africa mission trip to encourage you of what God did in this first one week of the journey.
Tira, Ps Foil and I left Bangkok for Africa on Sunday, February 05. Tira left us to enter Addis Ababa for her 3-month stay to strengthen the group that was started during my last mission trip in Aug-Sep 2005. Ps Foil and I continued the 24-hour non-stop journey to Kumasi, Ghana. We had less than 1 hour to rest before Ps Foil preached about God’s Call with my translation when it was 4 a.m. Bangkok time! There were almost 40 people with quite a few new faces in the special service that night. The African way of worship was terrific as usual. The church has grown, and they’ve moved from Kate’s house to a new venue at a school with a banner of Hope of God, Kumasi’s name this time!
In Kumasi, Ps Foil spent most time with the students group while I did with the leadership team to follow up work from the last trip. The students were on fire and wanted to grow from 15 to 60 by end of this year. The leadership team decided to set the goal to reach 100 by end of 2006. We’re now planning to move again to another new place that will be larger than the present venue and more in the city.
We spent only 3 nights in Kumasi as we wanted to avail more time for Accra, the capital of Ghana. We hoped to start a group here. My team in IF gave me phone numbers of his 2 friends, who are not from Hope, in Accra. We called and met one of them. This brother used to visit IF only twice years ago. After a few talk, he asked me whether I knew Paul who used to be in Hope Bangkok for years. It was the Paul who volunteered to work at Hope Place and liked to play soccer with the people there! I had been looking for him over the past few years, hoping that he would help us start a group in Ghana, but no one had his contact information. I called him, and we were very excited to be in touch again! He told me he lived in another city but was coming to Accra at exactly the same time we would be Accra. We haven’t met as I’m typing this report because there was something else that we did. I guarantee it is very exciting. Please read on…
Initially, we only planned to visit Ghana, Nigeria and Ethiopia in this trip. But I have been thinking and talking of starting churches in Togo and Benin, the two small countries between Ghana and Nigeria, with the team. Ps Foil and I also talked about this when we were flying from Addis Ababa to Accra. During the flight, one man sitting behind us greeted us in Cantonese. I replied in Cantonese but quickly switched to English before things got worse. He told us he was a Togolese, working in Hong Kong. We told him we were thinking of visiting Lome, the capital of Togo. He gave us his phone number. We adjusted our plan to visit Lome while we were waiting for Paul to come to Accra. Last Friday, we traveled for 3 hours to the Ghana-Togo border only to find out that we had only single-entry visas, meaning that we might have problem to re-enter Ghana. However, we decided to take a step of faith (again) since Togo was already right in front. We crossed the border only to become so lost as people speak French in this country. We could hardly talk to anyone here. We met the Togolese man whom we met on the plane. This man drove a Mercedes-Benz to pick us up. This reminded me of the same thing that happened in Kumasi in the last and this trips. He treated us with a nice Italian dinner, booked a hotel for us and brought us for sightseeing around the city, which helped us survey the land.
In Lome, Ps Foil and I prayed that God would open doors. Ps Foil specified 3 things. One: I would be able to preach in a church; Two: One pastor to join Hope; Three: We would be able to re-enter Ghana. We both believed God could do all these. Friends, God is really awesome. He answered one after another.
Ps Foil was sick on the second night so he decided to pray while I went to the internet café. And again, like in my last Africa trip, miracles happened at the internet café. (I wonder whether this can be included into our V&P – Just joking.) While I was struggling to use the internet as everything was in French on the screen, I impolitely glanced at the pc next to me, and I saw one English word ‘Church’ on it. I quickly asked the man next to me whether he could speak English. He said, ‘Yes’, and told me he was a pastor. I greeted him and introduce myself as a pastor from Thailand while I dressed like a gangster that night because of the hot weather. After a little hesitation, he decided to invite me to his church venue and his house, which was a really long walk away through so many small roads without light. I could only see because it was a full-moon night. He introduced his wife to me, and we had a candle-light talk as there was no electricity there. Immediately, I started to share Hope vision and why I was here and asked for his advice. He invited me to preach in his church, and now the first pray was answered! On the following day, I preached in his church. The worship and preaching were great. People were really moved. After the service, the pastor’s wife cooked a nice Togolese lunch for us. These people like to make us eat with our fingers. We wanted them to know how we felt so we cooked Mama, instant noodle from Thailand for them. This time we enjoyed looking at them trying to put noodles to their mouths. He he … We gave them souvenirs from Hope and Thailand. They liked the postcards very much.
However, we spent time with the pastor and his wife in the evening, showing lots of VCDs giving information about Hope. Before we finished the last one, they asked how they could join Hope. I wanted to know why they made this decision. They told me that after I had left the night before, they prayed from 2- 5 a.m., and God revealed a few things to them: The pastor dreamed that he was traveling to do God’s work with me on a Harley-Davidson to all over Africa (Gimme a break. I don’t know how to ride a motor-bike L); his wife prayed and saw another white man with me when she hadn’t known Ps Foil yet; One member told them after the service that she had a dream of two white men talking to them in their house – This dream came to this member even before I met the pastor at the internet café, and she was very surprised to see two white men in church on Sunday; there are not many white men or Asians in this country. The pastor told us that they made this decision by their own freewill because they were convicted of God’s call. They would explain to their pastor and handover their church to the headquarter in Abijan, Ivory Coast. Only the pastor and the wife will join us. So, the second pray was answered!
You may be wondering about the third prayer now. We went to one internet café on the first day here. It was right next to the hotel and was under renovation for opening on the following day. We talked to the manager and found out that he was a Christian. We visited his church. After the service, someone walked past us. Seeing that we were white, he greeted us and asked whether there was anything he could help. We asked about the visa to Ghana as we wouldn’t be able to wait for days to get it approved as we’d got things to do in Accra and the rest of the trip. He quickly smiled and told us that he knew almost everyone at the Ghana Embassy in Lome! He wrote a letter for us to show at the embassy, which will shorten all the procedures. He would also call up the chancellor to help us. Aha aha... The third prayer has now been answered! J
While we are typing this report to thrill you, we are heading back to Accra. We can’t stop thanking God for the 2-days & 3-nights in Lome. Miracles after miracles happened. We haven’t typed them all. God’s presence has really been with us. He has been opening doors when we did our part with lots of prayers and hard work by faith. We felt the Acts-like atmosphere when the disciples planted churches with God supporting them. And now, we want to announce to you all that we would have a church in Togo soon. We thank you all who have been praying for us back in Thailand and elsewhere. We give this credit to you too.
These are the things we want you to pray for us:
- God to give this pastor and his wife wisdom of what to do next. Pray for Hope Lome to start soon.
- God to open Benin. We have no time to visit Benin. The pastor in Lome told us he had a friend in Benin. We asked him to bring this friend to meet us in Lagos, Nigeria later this week. Pray that the man would be able to come to Nigeria.
- God to open Nigeria. We’ve got contacts we’ve never met in Nigeria. Pray that God would open doors.
- God to help Tira as she’s serving God in Addis Ababa right now. Pray that she would be able to impart Hope spirit into our team there.
Many thanks to Jesus and God bless you all.
David Chen & Joshua Khoo (Foil)
Lome, Togo
Hope News
Africa Trip Testimonies (2006 February) – Week 2
Dear friends,
Greetings from Africa again!
The last time we wrote you, we were about to leave Lome, Togo to Accra, Ghana. But we had to get the Ghana visa from the Ghana Embassy on Monday morning first. With the help from the man we described in our first report, we got it within just 1 hour, instead of 3 days!
We quickly crossed the border. We hired a taxi to go back to Accra. After a little talk with the cab driver, we’ve found out that he was a God-fearing Christian who had just bought the car. He isn’t a cab driver by career; he’s a student. He only wanted to make some income for himself. He prayed to dedicate that car for God’s work, and he met him. We shared Hope vision and testimonies from our last and this trip to him. He was excited to hear them. Later, he decided to be with us and take us anywhere we wanted to go for the remaining 2 days in Ghana. On the last day before we left Ghana, we met the Paul who used to be in IF and was mentioned in the last report and testimonies. We presented Hope VCDs and other materials to both Paul and the cab driver in the cab driver’s house. Both of them wanted to start a group in Accra, and we would have a church in Accra, Ghana soon!
We left for Nigeria on the Valentine’s Day. Here, I (David) have a friend who’s one of the princes in one of the states. I call him Prince. We stayed in his big house with a black Mercedes-Benz sport car for transport. He accompanied us to meet with one lady in Lagos, introduced by a Nigerian brother in Bangkok. This lady promised us to help us to start Hope Lagos soon.
Prince has a humanitarian project in his state. He planned to meet 2 important persons in Nigeria: A king who is very influential in the Nigerian government; Queen Elizabeth II is his god-mother. The other is the Commissioner of the Ministry of Health and Care of his state. We met the secretary of the king as the king couldn’t meet us on that day, but we left our names there. We met the Commissioner later. After Prince’s little talk with our help, the commissioner decided to give 20 plots of land to Prince. Prince was happy. Prince told us that he would share some plots of land for Hope church in his state in the future!
In between the journey, Prince brought us to meet the Chief of the Anglican Church in one state. We shared Hope vision and testimonies of what God did in my last trip to him. He was very keen to help us start a church in his state.
At the end of the trip with Prince, we went to meet a contact, introduced by Ps PN, in another state. We thought we would just meet him and some staff. But he invited 40 pastors in that state to meet us. Again, we shared Hope vision. After hearing Hope vision, they wanted us to help them start churches in this state too.
We traveled from our last destination to Calabar, a big city from where we flew back to Lagos. Another miracle happened here. I used to meet one pastor of a very big church in Calabar, together with his wife, in Bangkok years ago. But I didn’t have his contact information. I kept on speaking with Ps Foil that I wanted to meet him. At Calabar Airport, I met the wife. The wife was very excited to see me unexpectedly in her own city. She quickly rushed to bring the pastor to see me, only a few minutes before we left. The pastor was very happy to see us and invited me to preach in his church in our next trip. This pastor is the Chief of the Pentecostal Church here. I know God has a good plan in all of this.
We came back to Lagos to get our flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the following day. Prince’s brother, another prince, brought us to his church. It was a small but very dynamic church. The pastor liked us a lot. We’ll keep in touch.
We arrived in Addis Ababa last night. It was around 40 degrees in Lagos and 15 in Addis Ababa. It’s going to be a follow up trip of the group started in this city during my last Africa trip. Please pray that we will have lots of testimonies to tell you in our next and last report this coming week.
One good news before we leave you: We talked to the pastor in Lome, Togo. He told us that his friend in Benin also wanted to join Hope too. We thank God that 3 more countries could possibly be opened in West Africa during the last 2 weeks. There need to be lots of training after this. We thank God that He prepared His people for us in every city we visited. We have experienced by ourselves that what happened in the book of Acts can still happen today. We praise God for all these wonderful things. All glory be to God.
Many thanks to Jesus and God bless you all.
David Chen & Joshua Khoo (Foil)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Hope News
 To find out more about Missions in Africa, please contact Ps David Chen >> mypastor@hotmail.com. To find out how you can be part of church planting in Africa, please speak with Ps Ian Foley (Email: info@hopemelbourne.com), who will be able to advise you on how to prepare yourself and be trained for missions. Let us fulfil the Great Commission together!
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