Happy New Year everyone! We enjoyed a fun new year’s eve party with our teammates and then a fun celebration of the new year with the Sendome church. May the Lord pour out His blessings upon all of you in the coming year as you seek to serve Him! I also want to thank Anthony for doing the Tabligbo Times for the entire year of 2005! He did a great job and I really appreciate his hard work!
We have a few specific prayer needs this week. First, thank you for interceding for Denni and his recent trial (Denni is pictured above the left). The Lord has brought him through everything and he is strong in his faith! During the ordeal he didn’t see how God could triumph, but today he kept saying over and over “God is so powerful! God is so powerful!”

Second, please pray for Tonn (also pictured above with his wife). He and his wife are new Christians and they are struggling in their marriage and in their faith. Tonn is an alcoholic and even though he has put on Christ in baptism, he hasn’t been able to let go of his drinking. This afternoon, Denni and I visited with both of them and made an accountability structure with Tonn and laid some some strick guidelines about his drinking. Denni is going to visit him everyday to pray with him and keep him accountable. I encouraged him to make it his goal each day to make it through the day without drinking. Daily victories will lead to weekly victories which will lead to monthly victories, etc. Pray that the Lord will give him strength and help him find freedom. He and his wife both said that if Tonn could stop his drinking their marriage would improve. Pray for me too, that the Lord would give me wisdom and insight to help Tonn win this battle. I would love any suggestions that any of you who have helped alcoholics before may have!

Also, please continue to pray for Kossi, a church leader in Didokpo. Last week I told you how his wife got drunk and passed out on Christmas day. When new year’s day came around, she did the same thing. The other leaders and their wives had planned to confront her on Saturday about the previous episode, but when they arrived at their home she had already left. Kossi had confronted her about something else that she had done. In response, she “blew her top”, hurled insults at him and left. Kossi is very discouraged. Pray that the Lord of all Creation, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, will use His mighty power to resurrection Kossi’s marriage. Pray that the Lord will give Kossi strength to love her unconditionally. Pray also that the Lord would give me wisdom to share with Kossi to help him save his marriage!

Here’s a picture of Stephen and Matthew today visiting Adzovi in the hospital. She is doing better than yesterday, breathing is easier, but the doctors still don’t know what is wrong with her yet.