By Keith McWhorter,

Project Coordinator

This mission project was conducted from September 12-23, 2013. Twenty-two Americans from California, Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky participated.

There were seven first time participants. Thirty-two national missionaries from Ghana, Benin, Nigeria and other regions of the Ivory Coast joined. These are missionaries we have mentored in evangelism during previous projects within their countries. Twenty-two Baptist churches participated.

There were 4,519 who indicated they prayed to accept Christ as their Savior. Other decisions included 211 rededications, two baptisms, and 12 who came forward expressing a special calling on their life. We were able to share the Gospel in a number of venues to include a school, a federal prison, shops, market places, churches and scheduled visits in homes.

We were able to distribute 620 New Testaments, 84 Bibles, 1,200 booklets of the Gospel of John and the book of Romans. Two hundred-ten discipleship lesson booklets were given to churches for follow-up.

Stu Tully trained 120 nationals in evangelizing with the EvangeCube and 202 Cubes were given to these trained nationals.

This was possibly the most anticipated of my 39 overseas missions. This project was scheduled for 2011 but was deferred due to serious political unrest at that time.

The Ivorian churches had been praying for this project for over three years! The churches were prepared and ready with the exception of one or two. Most had utilized Operation Andrew and had many visits scheduled in advance of our coming. We were able to “hit the ground running.”

Many obstacles had to be overcome for the mission to succeed. Political unrest that deferred the project for two years, severe illness that resulted in one participant having to cancel, all participants experienced weather delays including 14 who arrived one day later. Transportation was a continuing problem throughout the project. The language barrier was pronounced, few spoke English and no one in the hotel could speak our language.

D.D. Agyare, AST for West Central Africa, did a good job preparing the churches for evangelism. All churches had multiple teams going out each day into their church field sharing the gospel. One church has as many as 20 teams going out each day. Mark Stovall, AST, Area Vice President for Africa participated and made a great contribution to the success of this mission.

Because of the storm impacting travel and causing 14 participants to arrive late Saturday evening, we did not have the usual cultural orientation which is so important. As a result of the Kenyan crisis occurring while we were in the Ivory Coast and because emergency situations can and do arise without warning, the IC office should notify the US Embassy in each country prior to our arriving that a certain number of Americans will be in the country at a particular area or location. This is absolutely essential should the need for the Embassy to do an extraction during an emergency. The Embassy needs to know who we are and where we are at.

Stu Tully advised of a very useful website available for a simplified explanation of the EvangeCube and should be made available to participants by the Project Coordinator prior to departure. https://myspace.com/philippians2/video/simply-share-jesus/6748877#!

The national project coordinating committee had scheduled our participants to be in night services and was very insistent that Americans be a part of that. We reluctantly acquiesced but in retrospect I would not have agreed to that.

Some of our folks felt they were in dangerous situations after dark and I was very uncomfortable with it as well. Praise the Lord, all went out and came back safely. For future reference, I would not recommend being out after dark in Africa, India and other Southeast Asian countries.

Ted D. of Texas shared with the family of a 90 year old man. During evening services the man came forward and received Christ. After a lifetime of hardship, this man will now enjoy the joy of heaven when he departs this life. “Awesome!”

Chad S. of Texas reported, “The last visit we made was to a group of four older women. We asked if we could preach the Word of God to them and share the story of Jesus. They said they had prayed earlier in the day that someone would come and tell them how to be saved and to go to heaven. We shared the gospel and through tears, they all prayed to receive Christ. It’s a blessing to be an answer to someone’s prayer.” Coincidence? I think not!

Mickey McFall. of Albany, Kentucky was one of the missionaries on the trip.

“Our team met with a group at a home that included a couple of women along with a few children,” McFall said. “After praying for one of the women who was very ill, the pastor shared with me the next day she had made a full recovery and was ministering to others.”

God honors our willingness to be obedient and allows us to see signs, wonders and miracles!

Julius R. of Georgia reported a grandmother had been praying for eight months for her eight grandchildren. She gathered them in the living room and he shared his testimony and the EvangeCube. All eight listened very attentively and each prayed confessing Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. There was great joy in the house afterward just as there was a celebration in Heaven!

Ted Burchett of Albany, Kentucky had the opportunity to visit a federal prison just as he did four years earlier in Nigeria.

Ted had been praying for God to give him this opportunity. By God’s design, the prison chaplain was a member of Ted’s assigned church and got him an invitation to preach there.

About an hour after Ted had left the prison and returned to his church the prison chaplain received a call that 3,000 prisoners were being released from a facility that housed over 5,000 inmates.

He even brought Ted a document advising of this “mercy” release. Coincidence? Hardly! A miracle from God!!

God worked through weather delays, sickness and other stumbling blocks to produce a great harvest. To Him be all the Glory!

Please pray about joining us in La Paz, Bolivia next October 16-27, 2014.