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Barbara's Bio
Jeff's Bio
Call to Missions
Call to the Ayizo
Jeff and Barbara Singerman have more details of their lives and calling to missions below after a brief description of their children. Birthdays are Jeff-June 23 and Barbara- March 31. Anniversary is August 4, 1979.
Began Ministry: Tabernacle Baptist Church, Chillicothe, Ohio in January, 1979
Appointed to Missionary Service: December 12, 1989 in Richmond, Virginia
French Language school: Tours, France March 1990-March 1991
Arrived in Benin: March, 1991
Lived for 6 years in Cotonou, BENIN as a youth minister for the entire nation
Presently living in Calavi, BENIN for ministry among the Ayizo people
Ryan (23) and has graduated from Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Kentucky with a Bachelors of Arts in Biology and a minor in Chemistry. His wife, JK, is finishing up her last semester at Campbellsville before doing her student teaching. He is involved in ministry through his church and also is a Christian magician. Check out his website on our links page. He was 7 when we left for the field. Birthday is March 13.
Kevin (19) is currently attending Boyce College in Louisville and has declared a Guitar major. He believes God is calling him to music ministry. He was 4 when we left for the field. Birthday is December 6.
Kari (16) is in 11th grade and will be on the field with us until graduation when she will return for college. She has a heart for missions, American Sign Language, and photography. She was 1 when we left for the field. Birthday is January 8.
You may contact the Singermans at jeffsingerman@usa.net.
Their field mailing address is:
01 BP 877
Recette Principale
Cotonou, Benin
Missions. It all began with my Father. As a young man he had surrendered to the Lord to be a missionary pilot, to fly over savage, jungle lands, bringing needed supplies and medicines to the missionaries ministering to the people far below. He wanted, more than anything, to navigate the skies for Jesus. At age 16 Dad owned his first airplane, an open cockpit bi-wing. He had earned a New York state pilot's license and owned his first airplane, before the government would legally allow him to drive a car! At nights, he and his buddies would don their leather jackets, pull on their caps and goggles, tape flashlights to their airplane wings, and take off into the starry sky. Dad's dream of missionary service ended, when God clearly called him to be a pastor, not a missionary. He gave his airplane mechanic tools to a friend leaving for the field and headed to seminary. Instead of being a missionary pilot in some foreign land, Dad has pastored home mission churches and guided them to becoming self-sustaining, churches with a heart for missions.
Mom, willing to follow Dad to the ends of the earth and beyond, used all the wisdom and joy God daily gave her to support him, help him, and to grow her family in Christ. At age 5 on the creaky wooden back steps of our old two story parsonage, Mom led me to Christ. She was aiming for my older brother, Bill, but got us both, instead! The life Dad preached from the pulpit, my parents lived in our home. They led my brother and me by example into daily quiet times, and a willingness to pray anywhere, anytime with anyone. That was a trait I'd seen over and over in my father. If someone told him of a need while they were shaking hands at the church door, Dad would say, "Let's pray about that right now." And they did. With people milling all around, Dad would lift up his voice in earnest prayer. Dad was never ashamed of His Lord. If he was in a hospital, restaurant, conference center or airport, and someone mentioned a prayer need, Dad would pray. Once he was called over to pray for a woman with a terrible leg problem as he was hastily rushing past to make an appointment. He later learned that God healed her leg, by adding two extra inches of growth in those moments! Dad hadn't been there to see it happen. He'd left. He hadn't needed to be there. It was God's work, the work of prayer. Dad has always been consecrated to God's work!
Mom always believed in the power of prayer, and had fun with God in prayer. If we were traveling in the driving rain with our pop-up camper, she'd ask the Lord to clear the skies so we could set it up. As we'd enter the campground the sun would suddenly burst out from behind the clouds, right over our selected camp site, just long enough for us to open it the camper and secure it down. It was because of her prayer example that at ages 8 and 10 my brother and I specifically prayed for 3 feet of snow to fall while we were visiting my great aunt and uncle one Thanksgiving. As my great Uncle Lloyd locked the doors of his little white country church (he was a Baptist preacher, too) after Dad had spoken that Wednesday night, huge flakes of fluff started hurtling down from the darkened skies above, and continued through out the long winter's night. A crisp, blazing, blue morning greeted us. Laughingly, we could only make out our white car lost in the snow by its lonely antenna held coldly aloft! Three feet of wonderful, delightful, unforgettable snow covered the ground. It took several days for New York's monster snow plows to find us on that back, one lane, country road, but once they had, our family continued our journey. Ten miles from Uncle Floyd's house, the snow barely covered the grass that poked its vibrant green blades up through the newly fallen lacey white blanket. What a way to encourage children's prayer life! God has fun with prayer, too. Dad has always taught people to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, not as an emotional experience, but as a daily way of life. The working of the Holy Spirit in our lives should be evidenced by being grounded in the Word, having a disciplined prayer life, and zealously leading others to Christ. In living this truth, any opportunity to share Christ was always fully, lovingly, embraced by both of my parents. Anyone they met with the slightest thirst for Christ, would walk away with a river of Life flowing up from within them!
Then there were the missionaries. They often visited our home. I remember learning an Indian name for elephant, which sounded like "hot tea," when I wasn't more than six. A missionary from India, who'd given me a little sandlewood elephant on a chain, taught it to me. I've never forgotten that word. I heard my father pray for missionaries, their ministries, their warring countries and the lost of the world. Dad was on the mission board of their convention. He was part of enabling missionaries to go and remain on the field, praying through their difficulties and giving so that Christ would be preached. When Dad returned from a mission trip to Nicaragua he had been profoundly touched by the poverty and hunger of the people to know Christ. (And amazed that parrots could speak Spanish!) When video cameras first came out, Mom and Dad went to their mission's conference to be among the first to ever video tape interviews with missionaries to inspire their church members at home. My parents are exceptional people, consecrated to God, mighty in spirit, and warriors in prayer.
Mom and Dad had ministered in several different towns, but settled in Port Huron, Michigan for eleven years. We arrived there when I was eight. After my freshman year of college, I returned home to a new town, in Chillicothe, Ohio. God had called Dad on to another church, Tabernacle Baptist.
Soon after arriving, my whole life was spun around, as I was knocked off my feet, by Jeff Singerman, a University of Tennessee college graduate, who would become by father’s youth pastor. I'd met Jeff, in passing, at a college and career Bible study. Being new in town I was meeting a lot of people. I remember well our first real encounter. I was working as a car hop at a local drive in/restaurant, but without the roller skates! I'd seen Jeff ride up on his bike and take a seat at one of the tables out front. Since I'd not yet clocked in, I decided to stop by his table and just say "hi." He re-introduced himself and shared with me how he had been out riding in the hills (the foothills of the Appalacians), in search of a good place to spend some time alone with God. It was like he was saying, "Hi. My name is Jeff. The most important thing about my life is Jesus." That afternoon, before he sped off on his bike, I knew he was the man I was going to marry. Soon we were spending every available moment together. I returned to school in September. Jeff quit his job at the YMCA, and accepted the position of youth pastor at the church. He always tells people he had to marry the pastor's daughter to get the job--it was part of the contract! The announcement of our engagement that December was spontaneously applauded by the entire church, a romantic confirmation of God's divine leadership. Within a year we married. Little did I know that my mother had chosen Jeff for me out of their new pastorate while I was away at college. She'd met him before I had, and had thought to herself, "Do you know I have a daughter??" She kept this knowledge secretly to herself until after the wedding, of course. (Having just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, I’d say she made a good choice!)
I'd married a youth pastor, a man driven to disciple the youth, and to involve them in teen mission trips. I'd never intended to marry a missionary! God loves to keep our lives full of surprises!
Updated November 2004
Jeff had an incredible childhood. For fifteen years of his life he spent every summer at a YMCA camp, not just any camp, but his father's camp. Jeff's dad was Camp Kern's director. A man possessing a servant's heart, he taught Jeff how to love in action. Between the experiences of hiking, boating, horseback riding, swimming and shooting targets on the rifle range, Jeff worked in the kitchen, cleaned toilets, helped dig a new pool and life guarded. He grew in servantship, and to love youth. For many years, and even through college, he served as a counselor at Camp Kern while he trained to work in the YMCA.
After being accepted at the University of Tennessee, and having loved basketball since his youth, Jeff ran the Stokely Athletic Arena steps in earnest, building up his endurance. Although the regular players on the UT basketball team towered over him, his ability to stay on the court through the entire tryouts, won him a place on the junior varsity team. After the first year, Jeff was offered the job as team manager, a position he served for 4 more years. He practiced with the basketball team, traveled with them and rubbed shoulders with future pro players. Although in a prestigious position on campus, although he knew and was trusted by the coach, Ray Mears, and the personnel of the athletic department, there was a search going on in his life. That search ended the night he attended a "What's Up Josh?" meeting on campus. Josh McDowell was traveling the country speaking at major universities, and calling the students to take seriously the claims of Christ. During the meeting Jeff attended, Josh spoke about the end times. For the first time, what Jeff heard about Jesus made complete sense. During the invitation, Jeff acknowledged his personal need of Jesus Christ, and quietly prayed for Jesus to forgive his sins and to take control of his life.
In those moments before Jesus, Jeff's life was completely transformed!
Never having even heard about witnessing, he immediately returned to his dorm and shared with everyone he met what Christ had just done in his life. Without hesitation he began to attend First Baptist Church, not only for the Sunday morning service, but for Sunday school, Sunday evening and Wednesday nights. Christ had gripped his life--filled it with meaning--and Jeff couldn't get enough of Him!
During his summer break, Jeff was baptized and joined Far Hills Baptist Church of Kettering, Ohio. Upon graduation from UT, with a degree in Education and Recreation, he accepted a job in Chillicothe, Ohio, as a physical education director at the local YMCA. His second job, after settling in, was to find a church. After visiting around he sensed the Lord directing him to place his membership in Tabernacle Baptist Church. The membership was in the process of looking for a new pastor. A year later the membership met, heard and then called Rev. William R. Burns, formally of Port Huron, Michigan. He and his wife, Lucille came to Chillicothe several months before their children. Bill and Barbara were still at college. God had many surprises in store for Jeff over that summer. Not only did God redirected his life into the ministry, he met me! Because of both experiences, his life has never been the same!
Updated November 2004
As a rare privilege, Jeff ministered with my father, a man of dynamic faith and love, who became Jeff’s mentor and friend. Jeff worked with the youth, took senior citizens on field trips, became the chaplain for the local high school athletic program and learned to preach. After five years of serving together, Jeff sensed the Lord's urging to receive a theological education, to be prepared for whatever God would call him to in the future. In obedience, we packed up our lives and our hearts; tore our two year old son, Ryan, out of the arms of his grandparents, left our dear friends and moved 14 hours away for Jeff to attend Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, in Memphis, Tennessee, the heart of the South.
Through the Lord's design, we didn't end up living in Memphis, but 70 miles to the west, in Brinkley, Arkansas. There the Lord gave Jeff the position of Family Life Minister for First Baptist Church. For three and ½ years we struggled with his grueling schedule of classes and ministry. We both developed precious relationships, he at seminary, and me in the fellowship of our dynamic, evangelistic, mission minded church. Kevin, our second son, was born. I grew excited as Jeff neared the end of his seminary days. I was ready for Jeff to be freed from his studies. I wasn't looking for any immediate changes.
Then it happened.
It’d started out like any other seminary day. I rose long before dawn, fixed Jeff’s breakfast, packed his lunch, and dove back into bed to the engine revving of our old car, in an effort to get another hour’s sleep before Ryan and the baby Kevin woke up. Every other day Jeff would zip back in after his 140 mile commute, drop off his books, grab a few chocolate chip cookies and head to the church. But that’s where the similarity ended. I was completely unprepared for the question. During chapel on this particular day, missions was once again preached. Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary’s heartbeat is evangelism, but its heart is missions. Jeff, sincere in his walk before the Lord, had decided from the moment he gave his life to Christ, that he was God’s. Lordship was a settled issue. God could ask anything of him, and he would do it. He never felt compelled to respond to missions' invitations, knowing that if God prompted him that direction, he would go. But this day, the words of guest speaker, Dr. John Floyd, appealed to Jeff’s practical nature. "Maybe you’re sitting there in that pew, ready and willing to serve the Lord in any capacity. How will you know He doesn’t want you to be a missionary unless you knock on mission’s door? If it opens, walk through it. Get in touch with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board." That made sense to Jeff. How do you know if a door will open, unless you knock on it?
There can’t be many words more shocking to an unsuspecting wife than the question posed in Jeff’s homecoming, "Want to be a missionary?"
At the brink of seminary graduation with endless hours of commuting, midnight hour studies, 5:00 am breakfasts and all night paper typing falling behind us, I thought we could ease up, concentrate solely on ministry demands, and rest. Then Jeff popped the question. Uniquely, it ended up being one that would greatly parallel the intensity of our wedding vows.
The actual question Jeff asked was, "Do you want to get in touch with the Foreign Mission Board?" But it meant the same thing. I said, "You can get in touch with the Foreign Mission Board, but we’re not going to be missionaries." That meant, "No."
I had my life all planned. Jeff was to become a famous youth pastor with such an incredibly thriving ministry he would fly the country on engagements. We would build a beautiful little home with an extremely large front porch, on which we would relax on cool summer evenings, or snuggle together for quiet moments as the rain fell. As we raised our children, I’d have a flourishing women’s speaking ministry...Pride runs strongly in my family. So strong is it, that it’d convinced me that these were God given goals. My pride and I didn’t have any problem with them, but God did.
Being a missionary just didn’t fit. I’d never even spent a moment of my life considering it.
Early in my life I surrendered to the Lord as fully as I knew how; lived seriously for Him, but never wanted to be a missionary. I knew missionaries. We entertained them frequently in our home while I was growing up. Those frumpy looking missionary ladies, with their tight fuzzy perms and moo moo dresses, had included in the initiation to their order a multitude of shots. I despised doctor’s offices. I hated shots. Being a missionary? That was out of the question.
Jeff’s contact with the FMB turned into an avalanche of paperwork, which resulted in our receiving an invitation to a foreign missions conference week at Ridgecrest (SBC camp in North Carolina) as potential missionary candidates. An aura of holiness was upon that mountain setting. The sharply angled pathways, immense dining hall, and conference center, were dotted with missionaries sporting name tags and long, bright red ribbons denoting their otherworldliness. In an awed whisper, soon after arrival, I turned to Jeff and said, "We don’t belong here." I felt like an unholy person walking on Holy ground.
As the week progressed our senses were bombarded over and over again with the tremendous needs of a world that hasn’t encountered Christ, coupled with compelling stories of missionary after missionary. The soul shaking words of William Carey were heralded at every turn, " I needs must go down alone. But you must hold the ropes in prayer...." Gradually my sentiments turned from one of not belonging, to a curious longing, tinged with a heaping of fear. I confided in Jeff late one romantic rainy evening, as we walked toward our fur tree caressed dorm room, to the rhythm of gentle drips cascading singly from the fragrant needles, "I feel like we’re dating missions, and if we don’t get out of here, we’re going to get married."
That Thursday night, alone on a pine scented balcony, I fell on my knees before the Lord. I sensed that a great wall existed between me and a call to missions, a thick, impenetrable wall that consisted of all the plans and goals pride and I had made. There, weeping, I died to the ministry ambitions I’d fashioned for us. I surrendered my dreams of building a house with a large front porch. I laid at the feet of Jesus, well drenched with my tears, private desires and future hopes that didn’t seem to fit a missionary call. The wall crumbled into dust that blew away on the breeze.
The Call came.
For me it’d started with a question that turned into a vow as solemn and serious as our marriage vows. We are committed to the Call, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Here on the mission field we've already tried to accomplish the "until death do us part" section several times! In our marriage we’ve never breathed the word divorce, not even in jest. Neither will we allow the thought to play on our minds. The word "resign" is treated with the same vital significance. We don’t think it, joke about it, or speak of it. We’re in this for the duration.
Jeff and I’ve come upon many people during our furloughs who brazenly say, "Even if God called me to missions, I wouldn’t go. I could never live without McDonalds." "I couldn’t give up my TV programs or my house." "Did you say ‘snakes?’ Then count me out!" "I can’t stand the heat!" "But my children might get sick!" "There aren’t any missionary job possibilities that fit my skills, so God couldn’t want me to be a missionary." Their words hit our hearts like sabers. We grieve for them. These people are saying they’d rather condemn a person to hell, than step out with Christ, suffer discomfort, and change, to earn the privilege of sharing Life with people dying to hear. Anything you’ve identified in your life that would keep you from going on the mission field, is standing between you and a deeper relationship to Jesus. At whatever juncture you say "I can’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t be a missionary," that is the breaking point between you and Christ. You will never grow beyond it until you die to it. Whether God would call you or not, whatever would keep you from surrendering to the possibility of the call, you love more than Christ. Give it up. What riches in Christ Jesus are waiting for you beyond surrender! Only in surrender does God begin to move us beyond our fears.
So, we immediately packed up all we owned and flew to Benin. That’s how you’d think this paragraph would begin. But that’s not what happened.
In the months following "the question" I would discover Jeff in his easy chair, lap piled high with books, researching "What is a call to missions?" The responses were as varied as the people who wrote them. Some say there is no specific call, but that everyone is a missionary. It is our responsibility and duty to go, based on Matt. 28:19. The fault lies in not going. Others say that the Call to Missions is a special endowment from the Lord given to those He appointed to cross cultural ministries. Another says, "If you’re willing, than go." Jeff was willing, but was that enough? Was he really "called" to go? I couldn’t answer that question for him. All I knew was how deeply I felt about ministry to the lost of the world.
One wise man, Glendon Grober, who’d been a SBC missionary to Brazil, advised us, "If you can do anything else, other than being a missionary, than do it." We understood his meaning. Only if being a missionary compels you with such a force, that you can be nothing less, then pursue it.
During this time of searching we’d been placed "on hold" in the missionary application process due to 6 month old Kevin’s allergy problems. That was discouraging and puzzling. At the same time, although we didn’t desire to move, or change ministries, a church in the Nashville, Tennessee, suburbs, Mt. Juliet FBC, began seeking after Jeff to fill their youth ministry position. This large church was situated in the middle of a housing explosion with easy access to two greatly populated high schools. The church was kicking off a family life center building program which included a gymnasium. Having his university training in physical education, his life growing up on a YMCA camp, longings to be a sports chaplain, to work on high school campuses, and to disciple youth in the Word, it was the ministry of Jeff’s dreams.
We were so torn. We spent weeks talking, praying, searching. The closed door on missions broke our hearts. We reasoned, maybe God had only meant to give us a heart for missions, that we could instill in the youth by taking them on mission trips. We pleaded, "God, if you are going to keep us here in the states, allow us the privilege of inspiring hundreds to surrender and go." We’d kept our journey into the realm of missions a secret, yet I was asked at this time to speak to a women’s missions group. I wept before them as I shared, "If you’ve surrendered to missions and weren’t terribly disappointed when God shut the door, you were never really surrendered at all." We didn’t pack our bags and head to the ends of the earth. We moved to Mt. Juliet. We bought a beautiful home in a lovely housing development. Jeff vigorously trained youth, took missions trips, and preached. I taught Ryan kindergarten, played piano for the youth choir, led a senior high ensemble and found myself pregnant with Kari. God had given back to me a portion of what I’d laid at His feet. I was happy with the state of our lives.
Barely a year into our ministry in Mt. Juliet, Kari was born early in January, right after the December month of missions' appeals. My mind had been singly directed toward the impending birth. I’d turned a deaf ear. But Jeff hadn’t. Soon after Kari’s arrival, night after night, Jeff would return home from the church heavily burdened. "Is this an adequate use of my life? The youth here have a right to have someone love them and teach them, but how much more so those who are desiring to hear but have no one to tell them. Many men are capable of doing a good job in this position. Many men wanted this position. But who else will go?" The searching had ended. Jeff knew the Call. The question I thought settled, towered before me. I could nearly hold the goals I’d died to in my hands. Now God was demanding them back again. Without emotion, but with my will, I opened my hands, and released all that lay there to the Lord. With the songwriter's words flowing over me on the radio waves, "I know you’ll give me wisdom and courage, to equal the task, Lord, whatever you ask," I simply said, "I’m willing."
From those moments on, every scripture we read shouted missions to our hearts. Every song that was sung, missions was the theme. Sermons, Bible studies all bore down upon us the necessity to "Go!" I even heard the call to missions while reading the Christmas story, "And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to ALL the people.’" Luke 2:10 Emotions no longer were at the root of the call, God’s word was. My surrender was not based on feeling, but my will. Suddenly the door that had closed, was open. Kevin's allergy problems had totally ceased. When we re-contacted the FMB God rushed us along through the rest of the application process in a flowing current of irresistible power that brought with it a great sense of urgency. We needed to go, and go now.
We spoke to the Lord concerning our children that they would be ready for the future changes. We believed that God didn’t just call parents to missions, but He called families. One Sunday evening, shortly praying in this way, Ryan, just seven at the time, seriously confronted me. "Mom," he soulfully said, "During that last song I felt Jesus tugging at my heart. My heart is on fire and no water can put it out. God wants me to be a missionary." With tears filling my eyes, I hugged him with all my might, and told him God may give him that opportunity, soon!
What a delight it has been to watch Ryan on the field. He’s led friends to the Lord, participated in compound to compound witnessing; slept in the village to help Jeff with evangelism; worked on construction and aided in testimony translating for volunteer teams; and given his time to serve in tiring, demanding medical clinics. God burdened Ryan's heart to begin to preach. Few of our Christians are more than 3 years old. With church starts springing up all over, we are in search of men who can help preach God's Word. God called years ago. Ryan answered. God is continuing to call and Ryan is continuing to answer!
Kevin (19) and Kari (16) are followed in their older brother's footsteps. If volunteers come to prayer walk or hold medical clinics, even if they are exhausted, they will not stay home and rest, but insist on helping divide medicines into bags, or to explain how to take them to the patients, or greet people and pray as we walk through villages. God called our family.
I discovered these words in my journal, "The call! How powerfully it comes and cannot be denied nor set aside. It has ceased to be a word, but lives and breathes and beats inside me. It consumes my thoughts and my energy is directed to answer it." We were compelled.
Less than a year after re-contacting the FMB, we were on a plane bound for language school in France. From there we would head here, to Benin.
Updated November 2004
As we were cramming the minutest spaces still available in our crate and suitcases with every imaginable and unimaginable item, in an attempt to take all the wonders of America home to mall-less Benin at the end of our first furlough, we called, one last time, back Benin, just to see how things were going. "Oh, Jeff," said Bob Couts, one of our SBC missionaries, from a distant end of the crackling line, "We're so glad that you called. We've just been talking about you. Can you take over the business manager's job?" Understanding the desperate need, with a servant's heart, Jeff said, "Sure."
We'd labored in France and gained our required French. Once arriving in Benin, we'd thrown ourselves into intensive, difficult, Fon learning and achieved our levels. Language acquisition had consumed most of our first term. Jeff's official position was as a youth pastor for an entire nation of youth. Fifty percent of Benin's population was under age 15. Jeff, with a passion for youth and sharing Christ, had started a church service on the university campus, which only lasted until the students went on strike. When the door closed on a campus ministry for the year, he'd started Bible clubs in local high schools. He worked to train youth leaders for the Benin's Baptist churches, hold retreats and organize a week long camp in the time we had remaining before furlough. Now we were ready to get back to Benin and fully into our work. But things didn't end up the way I'd planned.
The business manager's position is the hub of the mission. The business manager pays the missionaries. He keeps up with each individual's visas and residence cards. He deals with obstinate government offices. He makes flight reservations. He oversees the numerous housing difficulties. He runs the guesthouse, buys its supplies, and supervises its cleaning. He coordinates the endless repairs on the vehicles. He solves all the problems. And somewhere on the side he mish-es(short for doing the work of a missionary). It’s a tough job.
In the middle of Jeff's second year in the office, the Lord sent us relief. A career business manager came to Benin. As he prepared to enter into his appointed position, Jeff began to seek out God's heart. He'd realized that the young men he'd trained to carry on the youth work for the nation, were capable of doing just that. That was our ultimate goal, for Jeff to work himself out of a job. Now Benin didn't need him in a full time youth position anymore. Interestingly, if God hadn't limited Jeff's time with the youth, if he hadn't been trapped in the business office, he wouldn't have realized this as quickly! It was time to move on. A blazing fire had been set in our hearts for all the people groups of Benin. Out of 55 language groups, all are unreached. Seven had never, yet, heard about Jesus. It was time that they had! Our search for our first people group began. Jeff felt a moving of the Lord in his heart toward the Ayizo.
I wanted to move to Fon people living in and around Savaloo. This village stands four hours north and several west of Cotonou, at the very end of the pavement. Good friends of ours from another evangelical mission had called the Flintstonian landscape of Savaloo home. There, where the earth uncannily spit up huge boulders as hills to break up the otherwise flat terrain, women sit under squat, one person, rickety, shanties in the sweltering sun and pound huge, unyielding, granite rocks into sharp edged gravel. I can't imagine a more profound, explicit image of hell. Heavy heartedly, circumstances forced our friends to leave, just as village after village in the surrounding area had begun to beg them to come and tell them about Jesus. Instead of responding, they painfully purchased plane tickets back to the states. I wept for the people.
We needed a solidified front before moving forward. Jeff suggested going on an investigative survey trip of the Ayizo villages to see if God was already at work among them. The children and I saw him off, then earnestly prayed together that if God wanted us to serve Him among the Ayizo, that He would issue Jeff a specific invitation.
A young man living in the Ayizo area, Cyriaque, accompanied Jeff. Cyriaque once held a great job as a lab technician in Cotonou, until he heard the words of Jesus that said "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel." Mark 16:15 He literally sold everything he had and traveled into a number of the Ayizo villages to teach them about Jesus. When Jeff teamed up with him, he hadn’t started any churches, but his message of Christ had made a lasting impression on the lives of many.
Together Jeff and Cyriaque visited eight villages. In each village they received a warm, handclasping welcome. Brown, glistening bodies gathered from all the hidden corners of each burnt-orange clay lodging to eagerly to listen to their words. In one village, Dodji Bata, the people gathered under the shade of an enormous tree to escape the torrid heat. Jeff opened to Psalm 1 and exhorted them to walk on God’s path. An ancient, white haired man, physically hunched with age, with a homemade pipe perched between his rotting teeth, pointed directly, unwaveringly at Jeff and asked, "How can we know how to walk on God’s path unless YOU come back and teach us?"
God's invitation had been issued.
We obediently responded and moved our lives to be lived among the Ayizo.
What is God inviting you to do?
Updated November 2004