Have you ever experienced something so real, so tangible that you knew it must be from The Lord? Would you believe that those things could be felt, experienced in the baking sun and dusty roads of African villages? Sometimes our relationship with our creator is nurtured in the most unlikely of places. Read the story of April Phillips, a recent FTO medical outreach volunteer and how God used her time in Ghana to remind her she has been called out of darkness and called to share His light to a needy world.
“There are just so many things on my mind as I consider the time our team had in Ghana with FTO. It’s difficult to put it into words. Overall I walk away more aware of the power and beauty and freedom that is in Jesus! Such a different thing it is to be a part of His Kingdom. It is so unlike this world. It is more blessed to give than to receive. There is joy in sacrifice and service. His strength is perfected in our weakness. What we do for the “least of these”, we do for Him. These are just a few spiritual realities that are at the forefront of my thinking since our return from Ghana.
I realize that I have been deeply affected by the examples of sacrificial love I saw demonstrated in the lives of specifically a few of my Ghanaian brothers and sisters as well as a couple members of our team. As I see the love of Jesus in them, I am freshly motivated to seek the Father, submit to His loving Lordship in my life, grow in knowledge of Him through the Word, and ask for greater sensitivity to His Spirit’s leading in my life.
1 Peter 2:9-10 says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for HIS own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
My prayer is that our time in Ghana highlighted the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. We are a people that have received mercy. Along with our Ghanaian family, we sought to serve a couple Ghanaian communities with medical care but ultimately to point them to our God of mercy who cares for their even greater need in Christ. May reaching a small part of their felt need, touch their souls to receive the One who came to bring them light and life.”
Here at FTO, we give care, we give attention and aid, we meet physical needs. All of those things are important but they are not the core of our organization. Jesus is the core. He and the eternal hope He offers is at the core of every outreach, every school opened, every church planted, every belly filled. Partner with us as we bring the light and life of Jesus to the furthest corners of Ghana.