Dear Friends,
Greetings in the precious name of our sweet Lord Jesus Christ. What a privilege it is to be able to serve Him in “fields that are white unto harvest”. These past months have been very productive. Since chartering the Mt. Calvary Fundamental Baptist Church, we have seen several souls turn from their sin and self-righteousness to Christ alone. What a blessing to see souls saved and baptized, lives changed, and a church growing physically and spiritually. I would ask for your prayers for two specific services coming soon. We will have a naming ceremony for a baby born to a lady in our church. We will also be preaching our first funeral for a precious lady who came to our church but tragically died lost. In both services, we will have a multitude of lost family members present. Would you pray for God to give me great wisdom as I minister in two very different settings to lost folks?
Angie and I traveled back to the States for the month of December. She had another six-month post-cancer checkup which came back clear. To God be the glory! We also got to spend a week in Tennessee with our whole family, thanks in part to the generosity of our home church. What a blessing it was to meet and hold our granddaughter for the first time. I cannot begin to describe how good God has been to our family. At the beginning of January, we helped our youngest son move from South Dakota to South Carolina as he enrolled at Tabernacle Baptist College in Greenville. We are so thankful that he is preparing for the ministry at TBC. We arrived back in Ghana on January 12th.
Construction is complete for the church plants at Apremdo and Agona Nkwanta. The church building in Agona was finished in just four months. They will be moving out of the gospel tent and into their own building. We thank the Lord for your giving to make it possible for both of these churches to have their own land and building. Both churches are consistently seeing souls saved and added to their number. By God’s grace, we will begin constructing another church building for a church plant in the village of Kojokrom in February.
Last week, we looked at a large portion of land that is for sale between the city of Takoradi and the village of Agona Nkwanta. Currently, the landowner is asking the equivalent of $5,000 per acre. We are going to try to negotiate a lower price per acre. We are praying for the Lord to provide between 25 to 40 acres of land. We believe the Lord wants us to purchase land as a base of operations for the Hope of Africa Baptist Ministry. Lord willing, in time, we will house a full-time Bible Institute/trade school; dorms for students; an orphanage; and a warehouse to store containers of Bibles, gospel literature, church-planting resources, and humanitarian supplies. Currently, we have supporters who want to invest in this land and ministry. We are praying that God will provide according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. If we can settle on this land, we will begin building a compound wall immediately to safely store building materials that will be used for construction. We appreciate your prayers.
Your Missionaries,
James & Angie Ruckman
P.S. A special thank you to every individual and church who sent our family/ministry a Christmas gift. May the Lord bless your generosity.