Our family is scheduled to fly out on Monday, May 17, to spend two months in the States for a short furlough. We ask you to pray that all of our COVID tests will be negative. Our desire is be a blessing to everyone we meet as we travel. Please pray for God to give us many divine appointments for sharing the Gospel. After being in Virginia with my family for several weeks, we will travel to Minnesota to be with my wife’s family. After that, we will be in Indiana for a week, Virginia for a week, and then fly back to Ghana on July 23. Maybe we will get to see you!
Church Finance, Part 2
Each month, I have the opportunity to teach and preach in our Bible college. In April, I taught our students a second class on church finance. The students were very appreciative for the lessons and testified of how it would help them personally and in the ministry. A pastor from Techiman, Pastor Isaac Obeng, enrolled in our college for the first time specifically to take this finance class. He did very well in the class! I preached in chapel from I Timothy 4:12 on being an example to the believers.
Desks
Our college was founded 13 years ago. At that time, 100 desks were purchased, and the years of usage are taking their toll. The number of usable desks is falling quickly; currently, we have about 60. We need to buy new desks for our college classrooms. We would like to buy 60 additional desks. We cannot find the number and the quality we need here in Ghana, so we plan to have them shipped from the States. The estimated cost for these desks is $5,500 which is over and above our budget. If you would like to help with this expense, please contact me at mike.sarver@fbmi.org. Please pray that God meets this need as He has met so many other needs for us.
Praise
In previous prayer letters, I requested prayer for the funeral of Nana Kwame Oppong. He died at the age of 102. His funeral was on April 24, 2021. There were approximately 100 people at the funeral when I preached. The crowd was so receptive and attentive. When the invitation was given, about 20 raised their hands, indicating that they were wrong about what they were trusting to get to Heaven but were trusting Christ alone for salvation. The next day, over 50 family and friends of the deceased attended our church, giving thanks to God for a successful funeral; this is somewhat unusual to us, but it is part of the Ghanaian culture.
Your servants and His!
Mike, Maria, John, Joy, Faith, & Ben