Dear Praying Friends, July – August 2017
Greetings in the lovely Name of Jesus. We want to thank each of you for praying for our family and ministry. The Lord is answering prayers and giving us “fruit that will abound to your account”. We are currently at 42% of our needed support.
Angie and I flew to West Africa on June 28th. In addition to meeting with several national pastors, the Lord allowed us to visit five missionary families. These national pastors and missionaries are faithfully laboring fervently for our Lord in ‘less than desirable’ situations. They really are our heroes! We had the privilege of preaching many times in Ghana. We praise the Lord for the privilege of seeing over twenty of our beloved Ghanaians profess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. God broke my heart as we traveled north through Ghana. There are so many West Africans and so few gospel laborers!!! For example, Tamale is the fourth largest city in Ghana. This city is a Muslim city with 80% of its population adhering to Islam, but it is “open” to the gospel. Sadly, there is NO ONE whom we are aware of, reaching Tamale with the message of Christ alone. We continue to fervently pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into those fields that are “ripe unto harvest”.
After spending a week in Ghana, we traveled to Burkina Faso. God allowed us to teach at least fifteen Burkinabe’ pastors as well as members of their churches over the next week. Additionally, we traveled three hours north into Burkina Faso to the village of Pissila. This village is only ninety minutes south of the area where radical terrorists have taken control. Pissila has four Muslim Mosques, and one Fundamental Baptist Church. In 2004, God saved a man who was training to be a Muslim Imam, and called him to be a Gospel Preacher. Five years ago, he started a church and a Bible Institute in that village. He has a tremendous burden to plant churches in the sixty villages that surround Pissila. Thus far, he has reached into five of those villages with the gospel, and there are three church plants. We are raising funds to help Pastor Salif’ with a church building project. God has supplied $2,100 of the $15,000 needed to complete their main church building. Would you pray and ask the Lord what He would have you give to help an infant church in Satan’s territory ‘take ground’ for the glory of God? On July 14th, we returned to the States and resumed deputation.
On August 6th, we had a double privilege: Angie and I celebrated twenty-three years of marriage while starting a gospel preaching campaign in St. Paul, MN reaching into the immigrant community there. I want to thank the Lord for allowing Angie and I to serve Him together. As a direct result of that meeting, a Ghanaian family has now been saved as well as a man from Thailand. We were also able to assist Pastor John Bruski and his church in passing out nearly 1,000 advertisements and tracts. We have watched more people get saved in July and August than I have seen in two years.
Our deputation schedule is full. We anticipate finishing deputation and planting an international Baptist Church in Sioux Falls in the Spring of 2018. God has also opened a door for us to go to Togo next April and teach a Pastors Seminar there. Plans are underway to bring 50 national pastors from all over Togo to Lome’ for this Conference. We continue to stand in need of your prayers and support as we endeavor to live out the calling of God in our lives.
Your Missionaries to West Africans,
The James Ruckman Family