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October 2013-June 2014 Report Post 3 of 3

Vogan Christian Academy 2013-2014

This school year has been another successful year!  I (Bruno) was able to spend a lot of time equipping Mr. Tamegno (4th & 5th grade teacher) and Mr. Toglo (Kindergarten teacher), both leaders who have great potential and can run the school in our absence.  Our long term goal is to be able to have the school function without us there all the time.  This will free us to help spread the Kingdom work to other areas of Togo.  So, Mr. Tamegno is training to become the principal of the Primary School while Mr. Toglo is overseeing the churches in Nyitaveglo and Tchadome. 
Thanks to a donation, we were able to distribute Bibles to this 6th grade class and to other older students who can read for understanding.
  This year we added the 6th grade of secondary school (6th-9th). We will start 7th grade this “fall” and add an additional grade each year.  I taught Math, English, and Bible for our new class.  Emmanuel, in addition to being our school nurse, taught Biology and Physics.    Koko was our French, History, and Geography teacher.   Maceline (now in 6th grade) scored 16.53 GPA making her the top student in her class for the whole district. 
  In our primary school, all our 5th grade students passed to go into secondary school.  We videoed their excitement when they found out.  Hopefully, we will post that on facebook.  For those of you who do not know or are not impressed, schools here are very difficult and passing is a prayer from most parents for their child of any age!!  So, when they do well we reward them with deserved recognition and new school materials!
 
   The students are not the only ones working hard but so are the other teachers!  Djodjina not only taught our 1st grade class this year, but has also been training under my wife to help with registrations and updates on the children for our VisionTrust sponsor program.  She has also been doing Bible studies with some of our older girls and translating for my wife in her Women’s Bible study.  Feli and Ngai are 2 of our other teachers whom I have done Bible studies with and baptized last year.  We gave all our teachers a day of fun at lake Togoville! 

  Not only do we want our children to know God, His love for them, and His Word through devotions and memory work, and to be academically challenged, we also would like them to enjoy playtime and athletics.  So this year we were able to get a trampoline and  also add a basketball/volleyball court !  These in addition to the playgroud and 9 square game adds joy to our children’s faces!!



  Another fun thing for all of us was our 2 day field trip to Kpalime, which is located 200km from Vogan.  About 100 of us loaded up 3 buses and our vehicle really tight and headed northwest. Once there we were able to hike down to a beautiful waterfall, see the highest mountain in the country, an old castle built in the 1800’s, a weather forecasting station, and a water bottling plant.    The children and teachers had a wonderful time! 













After our return we did a closing program where the parents got to see how their children did this year.  We had a great meal prepared by our school cook, Akouvi, and some of our church family helped serve.  Our older students also put on a small skit about consequences of sin which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.
Overall, this school year was inexpressible!! 

 




The Chicken Farm

There has been a lot of mission work done in Africa for over 400 years.  Missionaries come and go and still there is no abatement in the need of financial support from the US and from the European Union. 
  A chicken farm project is something God has laid on our hearts, for which we have been praying for some time now.  Having this chicken farm not only will help us to start being self-supportive as missionaries and not having to depend upon 100% on support coming from the US, but more importantly, it will help in a very significant way, our feeding program. 
There is a growing market for eggs in the entire country.  We will sell the eggs and the chickens.  We will feed the poor and neglected children who are in our school, eggs and chicken.  We will eventually make money that can be used toward other community development projects such as, a well, water purification, agricultural work, etc…
From the beginning we knew Koko would be a good guy for the job and we started support raising for the farm in faith that we would have him or someone like him to help us with it.  So, in the summer of 2012, I asked Koko if he would be willing to go for training on how to raise chickens.  Koko embraced the idea and went for 6 months of training and got a certificate of completion.  During the school year, with some special funding, we were able to purchase land and build the things needed to get started.  We also planted corn and beans so the presently, undeveloped land will be useful.  This past June we received over 500 chicks and Koko is really working hard.  He has been keeping them fed, watered, and vaccinated.  We kept them in a small heated room for about 5 weeks and just recently moved them to the bigger chicken house.  They should start laying eggs around December!  Yea!! 
In addition to the layers, we also recently purchased chickens specifically for eating.  We keep these in much smaller chicken coops.  Pray for this project to continue to go well.
 







Needy & orphaned children’s outreach program in the villages


We go each week to the villages of Nyitaveglo and Tchadome to see the needy and orphaned children.  Initially there were 50, but now we have more than 150 that come to eat, play, do crafts, sing, and learn about Jesus and the Bible.  This coming September we would like to give to each of these children notebooks, pens, pencils, and sandals to start their new school year.  If you or your church want to assist us in this endeavor please let us know.
 

Lome Outreach

For 5 years we have not ceased to pray and ask the Lord to open doors for us to start a ministry in Lome, the capital city of Togo, where over 4 million people live.  As we plan and pray, I believe the Lord is beginning to open a door. 

Bruno with Sassou’s family.
Sassou is the leader of the church in Avadjime, a village 10 min. from Vogan. He is a husband and father of 7 daughters.  Originally from Vogan, where Shining In Togo Ministry is currently based, Sassou had to move to Lome to work as a moto taxi driver in order to support his large family.  He and his wife, Theresa, together with their 7 daughters (3 of whom are now in high school) lived in a single room in Lome for the past 7 years.   The difficult financial situation forced Sassou’s family to live in this extremely cramped living condition.  To make matters worse, they were asked to leave because the owner is returning and will be using the building where their room is located. We want to praise God for Pinedale Christian Church who have supplied funding for Sassou and his family  to rent a larger 4 bedroom home in Djabley (10 minutes outside Lome) .  Sassou plans on starting a house church.  He is also quite a handyman and often helps with our sound systems and instruments.  Sassou also has been trained to teach PE and will most likely be helping out at our school a day or two in the week this upcoming school year. Pray for him and his family who have just moved to adjust to their new home and the neighborhood.  Also, pray for me, as I will be doing a lot of traveling back and forth from Vogan to Djabley for visitations and Bible studies.  We pray for many souls to be won for Christ through this outreach!