Tonight, as we have done in the past, when we return from Liberia, we give you a brief report as to what went on in and on the mission trip. On this mission trip, we were there the last week of October, the first week of November. I say we. Paul C. Conrad came from the United States, was there two days before I arrived. He came and arrived on Monday. Joanne Greer also arrived, but she came from Kenya. She's in Kenya filling in for our sister Kathy Walker, who's in the States doing deputation. And so she was in Kenya already and flew from Kenya to Liberia. David Kanyo also joined us. David Kanyo was in the States. He was actually ordained. This is the first official duty he had after his ordination. And David actually flew back to Kenya and then he flew from Kenya to Liberia. He arrived on Wednesday. Joanne arrived on Monday. He arrived on Wednesday. And then I arrived on Wednesday evening as well. And so it took a while for all four of us to get there and we were not able to arrive at the same time. But there are things that Paulson needed to do for making preparations for our time together. And so we're thankful that he was able to go early. Now, we met with four churches that now bear the name of the Free Presbyterian Mission Churches in Liberia. The fourth one was added on our last trip in Riversess. That's about a five-hour trip from where we actually meet in each of our other times there. We have met in the Painesville area, the Garnersville area, as well as Ballack Creek. Those are all suburbs of the capital of Monrovia. Riversess is about five hours to the east. of Monrovia. We also had two churches join us for one of those churches for the first time. It is a mission church of the church in Garnersville. It is on the way to River Cess, about halfway to River Cess, so it's about two and a half hours from where we meet, and this is just starting up. We saw pictures of that work just outside of Buchanan, and there were somewhere between 80 and 100 people that were meeting there as the gospel was being preached. One of our men went across to preach, Henry Munger, and because of the dialect of the tribe that is in that area, he actually had to preach to an interpreter. That was the same thing that Kanyo had to do on the last trip when he was in Rivercess. But that church now wants to be a free Presbyterian, and there are men going across and ministering in that church week by week, and the man who is actually doing most of the ministering from that area was in the workshop for the first time. And then from Lofa County, which is a 12-hour journey to the north, it's up where Guinea is, just right at the border. We had Moses Borbor come down for the meetings. And this time he brought people from his church. He's actually ordained a Korean Presbyterian, even though he's not Korean. He is very much a Liberian. He is the one that was good friends with the vice president and had us go in and meet with the vice president a year ago. So Moses came down. And one of the things he asked that I would do later on this next year is if I would perform the wedding for he and his new bride. We'll see if that is able to happen. I don't know that I'm able to make a 12-hour journey all the way up to where they are. We're hoping that Decanio will be able to go up there in the next few weeks, that he'll be able to take a helicopter up. And if that works out, then it might be that something we could do in the future is perform the wedding for this man and his new bride. His future bride, I should say. So those are the ones that were coming to the workshops, besides others who have been in the past and came to the workshops. We held the workshops this time at Henry Munger's church. That is where the Christian school is, where they have 350 young people coming to the Christian school. And we met there on Thursday. I arrived on Wednesday. First thing we did was have a workshop Thursday morning. So we had a workshop on homiletics, reviewing what we had gone over in the past. Later, David Dicanio would do a workshop on Monday afternoon on that same theme. All the rest of the workshops that I did were on the theme of Romanism. And on Thursday afternoon, we went over the four views of Romanism. Friday morning, we went over Romanism's view of authority. We went over the Bible, Apocrypha, Tradition, and Interpretation of Scripture. And then we started refuting that in the afternoon. We continued refuting it Saturday morning. And then on Saturday afternoon, we had the meeting that took place with the ministers. And the ministers all gathered at the place where we were staying, and we went over the Lord's Day services, what we were going to do the next day. We planned a baptism service, and then made plans for Reverend Decanio to stay another two and a half months and lecture to them, and actually go into the area of Moses Borbor, if it's possible to lecture up there. So that was a full beginning. And then when the start of the new week came, we were in churches. We were in three churches. Decanio was in the church in Painesville. I was in the church in Gardnersville, and then in the church in Ballack Creek. In Gardnersville, we had an adult Sunday school, and then preached the morning worship service, handed out baptismal certificates to those that were baptized on the last trip, and then we had a communion service. As soon as we finished that, we jumped in the car and we drove across to Balla Creek, where we had a full service there. And then we had another communion service. And then I was asked to go and speak to a lady who can no longer attend the church. Her name is Mrs. Johnson. Her eyesight has gone bad. But the thing that keeps her from coming to the church is the fact that she has problems with her hips. She's 91 years old. They have nicknamed her Young Girl. And so I went to her home. We walked to her home. and uh... had a time of singing for her and reading scripture and praying with her uh... i've done that with someone else from the painsville church mister greek uh... mister greek died just a month before we arrived there at the uh... time for the workshops uh... so they wanted me to go and see her not knowing how many more weeks that she would have and asked that i would go and read scripture and pray with her so sunday was a full day when we got back to the The place where we were staying, the ELWA Guesthouse, we'd been gone since about 9.30 in the morning and now it was 5 o'clock in the evening. When we got there, there was a lady there who actually owns one of the private pieces of property that we rent. We rent a piece of property in Painesville for our church. And she was there to talk to us about that. She had come to Christ, or made profession of Christ, on our second trip. But she had slipped back into Romanism. And so when we were there, we began speaking to her again. And we asked her, what are you trusting in to get to heaven? She says, well, my works. She had adopted the mindset again completely of the Roman Catholic. So we were speaking to her about the gospel, sharing with her that she could never do enough where she'd have any peace of mind or heart, that she was right with God and then taking her again to Christ. She listened very attentively. She was very interested in what we were saying. And near the end of that conversation, we came to her and we said to her, you know, you're going to have to make a choice. Either you're going to choose Romanism in the church or you're going to take Jesus Christ. But you can't have both. You can't put your confidence in both places. About that time, I was called out of the room for about a half an hour. And when I came back, she had decided for Christ again. that she wanted Christ, she did not want the Church of Rome, that she wanted to know the assurance and salvation that Christ gives as it's revealed in Scripture. So she had had a time of prayer with our brother Paul C. I think David D'Caneo was there in that meeting as well. So we thank the Lord for that victory. We'd ask that you remember her in your prayers. Her name is Tiawan. She's in her late 30s, early 40s. And we're trusting that the Lord will indeed save, not just save her, but keep her out of the apostasy and allow her to go on with the Lord. On Monday we actually had a day off from the lectures. In the morning I met with a man by the name of Richard Wesley. He is a minister, a Baptist minister, in the very area where we stayed on our first four trips. We'd never met with this man before, but he had He started a radio station three months ago, a radio station that reaches all of Monrovia. He wants it to be a preaching station where the Word of God will be preached 80% of the time. It's a completely Christian station. It's not secular in any way, shape, or form. Well, he got on Sermon Audio through a contact he had in the United States, and he began contacting our ministers. Well, I was starting to get emails from all of our ministers saying, who is this guy? He wants our sermons. Do you think he's OK? You've been to Liberia. Tell us. I had never heard of the man, never met with him before, and we made contact with him before we went down, and Paul C. met with him the first day he was there, and then I met with him on Monday, and we actually were on the radios with him. He did an interview, so he interviewed myself, Joanne Greer, Reverend Decanio, as well as Paul C. Conje, and the interview lasted about an hour, I think. He took the sermons that we brought with us. We brought a dozen sermons, and he was already playing them on the radio. We brought music for him as well. He was having a hard time getting good music, so we brought down a hundred hymns on CD that he could put on the radio and play. On Thursday night, we had him over for dinner. And what a testimony. Your heart would have been thrilled just to hear how the Lord preserved that man and his wife time and again during the troubles. When he built the church in Syncor, he's just a few blocks from where they went into the Lutheran church and slaughtered over 600 to 1,000 people. And when they slaughtered those people in the church, there were 3,000 slaughtered on the streets around the church. This was the government making an example of a tribe because they wanted that tribe to be in fear of the government. And so that happened just a few blocks from where this man started his church. When he began building his building in 2003, he said, you could hear the gunfire. They came and told him not to build the building. And yet the Lord spared him and protected him all that time. He talked about time where he had to leave the country, come back into the country, stopped by rebels. He had a terrorist who was his driver on one of those occasions. and when they came to the roadblocks by other rebels, the terrorist was telling him, you leave my passenger alone, and was protecting this pastor, even though this guy was himself part of the troubles and was unsaved. So we had a wonderful time hearing his testimony. His wife joined us on that occasion. They have eight children, and it was just a wonderful time fellowshipping with his brother. We had never met him before, and yet we felt like we had known him all of our lives after meeting with him and talking with him. So there's a man by the name of Richard Wesley, we commend him to your prayers. The church that he has is called Greater Love Bible Baptist Church. I asked him, are you part of the Bible Baptist movement? Which is a rather large movement, especially in this area where you have a seminary up in Scranton. He said, no, I named the church that because I wanted the name Bible in our name of the church. He said, it was only later I found out I took the name of a denomination in the United States. He said, I had no knowledge of that at all. She's a real believer. He loves the Lord. And it was a good time of fellowship with him. That was on Monday that we had that interview in the morning. In the afternoon, I spent time interviewing people who wanted to be baptized. And that took several hours. And then Tuesday, we began our lectures again. So Tuesday morning, it was dealing with the papacy, explaining what they hold. Then in the afternoon, refuting it. Wednesday morning, dealing with the Queen of Heaven. Thursday, Wednesday afternoon, dealing with sacraments, sacramental character and the sacramentals. And then on Thursday morning, refuting what Rome teaches on the sacraments and then dealing with baptism and refuting what Rome teaches on salvation Thursday evening. So it was a full time. Tuesday night, we're supposed to have a meeting with another man. He didn't show up. So we had to make our way to a Chinese restaurant. There are not a lot of restaurants you want to eat in Liberia. And the Chinese have moved into Liberia in full force. They're building their roads. They have a large embassy there in Liberia. And because of that, they've got all kinds of restaurants. Some of those restaurants, you're not sure what they're serving you. So we went to one that was quite good and ate there. I actually had lamb that night. I don't know where they got the lamb. I'm sure it wasn't in Liberia, but they got it from somewhere. It was very good. So every morning, every afternoon, and every evening was packed. Friday morning was the day we were leaving, and that morning we had our baptismal service. We had six men, two of them older men, two of them in their early 20s, and two that were teenagers who wanted to be baptized. Two of those men in their early 20s had been saved a year ago, a year and a half ago, when we went to Liberia. And now they kept on with the Lord. They were growing in grace. They all had gone through baptism classes with the church that they were a part of. They represented three different churches. And so we went out on the beach again. About 30 people preached the gospel. And these young men and older men were able to give their testimony. The oldest man was 60 years old, 60 years old, been saved a year. Another man, his name was Othello. The man who was 40 years old was Augustine, Augustine as he would call himself. And he didn't even know who Augustine was. Had no idea of this great theologian in the past. And he was been saved again for about a year. Hearing his testimony was remarkable, how the Lord saved him and spared him. And then the other four were younger, two in their early 20s, as I said, and two as older teenagers. So it was a tremendous service. By the time we finished the baptismal service, there was only time really to go in and get cleaned up, finish packing, and then off to the airport at four. I just gave you some of a rundown to show you that there's not a minute that we really have to ourselves when we're there. We're dealing with people. We're dealing with their problems. We're trying to win people to Christ and we're trying the whole time to deal in the workshop with Educating these ministers the workshop had anywhere from 50 to 70 every workshop Well, we were in the workshop in the morning. Joanne Greer had some time with the young people that is ages 4 to 12, and she had them all packed into a small room. You saw maybe a few pictures of that last time, and they were packed into a small room, and there she was teaching them hymns, teaching them catechism, teaching them scripture, and giving them a story about the Lord. And so with all of that, she was there every morning for two and a half, three hours, whatever it took us in the workshop, she was stuck with these young people in a small room where they're sitting on each other's laps. And she had 70 young people in that room and they were enjoying her. And she was trying her best to give the gospel to the young people. On Sunday morning, the only Sunday that I was there in that particular church, she had the young people get up and sing. And it would have thrilled your heart. Here they were singing the gospel, hymns they never knew, and they were singing it with all of their hearts. Beautiful. Powerful. And we thank the Lord for her willingness to come and work with them. She wants to be a missionary. And in Liberia, she has already told us that. She's been interviewed by the mission board. We have to find a safe place for her to stay. On the Monday afternoon where we did the baptismal interviews, we also went to a piece of property along the ocean that we're trying to purchase. If we're able to do that, then hopefully in the future there'll be a mission house put on that property, and it'll be some kind of a compound whereby missionaries going there can stay, as well as missionaries who are laboring can have that as their place of residence. We're working on that, but there's a lot that has to happen between now and then. And so it was a busy time. It was a full time and a time of certainly sowing the seed. They gave us gifts the last day we were there Thursday afternoon. The garment I am wearing is the gift they gave to me. You'll see a picture on the table in the lobby of the baptismal service where Joanne was actually dealing with the young people and then a picture of all the garments that we were wearing as they gave us each one a gift to take back to America with us. They love us. We certainly love them. We are trying to help them as much as we can. In some of the workshops that I was doing, they had never heard these things before, and they were very interested. There was a man who came to several of the workshops who was Roman Catholic. He didn't mind telling the people he was Roman Catholic. He didn't mind debating with the man who was doing the lecturing. And so we had an opportunity to show the people firsthand, asking them, is this what you believe? Yes, that's what I believe. You believe your child, when it was baptized, had all of its sins removed? Oh, it was removed. You believe your child was born again? Yes, I believe it was born again. You believe your child is now a child of God? Yeah. And he said, the next thing is confirmation at the age of 12. I said, what if your child dies at the age of 11 and never comes to trust Christ as Savior? What will happen to your child? Oh, he'll go to heaven. And I said, you've been deluded. You have been deluded. The Bible makes it abundantly clear. The only people who have their sins forgiven are those who have turned from sin and trusted Christ. Your child has never done that. Your child has never done that. If that child dies at the age of 11, that child will perish. So we're able to sow the seed and they stand back watching this, thanking the Lord that there are answers for what's going on in Liberia. Dave DeCanio will be staying now for another two and a half months, and he'll be dealing with the cults. They need to know how to answer the cults. He'll be dealing with the charismatic movement. He'll be dealing with the occult, which is something they do battle with, the witchcraft of the country. They do battle with that. One of the first times DeCanio was there, he was on his way to an airport. Some guy jumped out on the road and cut a head of a chicken off and dumped the blood all over the vehicle. The driver would not go any further until the vehicle was washed, such is the superstition. This guy had put some kind of a hexerous spell, supposedly, on the vehicle. And the Liberians, that's very real to them. And so, Dicanio has to dispel some of the myths, while at the same time realize that demonism is real, and how do you deal with it? And so, he has now his work cut out for him, Dave Dicanio. We have left, Paul C. and I left on Friday, and he is in Belgium will be coming back to America tomorrow. I came yesterday evening. Joanne Greer went back to Kenya on Saturday, and Decanio will stay there by himself now for two and a half months and leave in the middle of January. Pray for him. He has a full schedule. I've given him a lot to do. And if he's able to travel, he will be traveling to this place in Lofokani, 12 hours away. If he's able, he'll be going to Buchanan, the place that's just starting up, and maybe even to Riversess, besides lecturing every week to the ministers for two and a half weeks. Pray for him. He's capable. And we ask the Lord to protect him, while at the same time use him mightily in the work there in Iberia. Now, I have to shut up. I've talked way too long. I've tried to give you some idea that your prayers were being answered. This is one of the few times that nobody got sick. It's not because everything we ate was palatable, but it was because the Lord spared us illness, and we're thankful for that. And we ask that you would continue to remember our brother Decanio and this lady by the name of Tiawan. Tiawan, that the Lord would establish her heart in the gospel, and that she'll go on with the Lord and publicly confess Him. to those that are in Liberia.