SOKODE, Togo (BP)–While many of their missionary peers are hanging up their hats and heading for retirement, Ray and Patsy Eitelman rejoice to see God continuing to grow their outreach to two people groups in West Africa.
For 28 years, they’ve served as International Mission Board missionaries to West Africa. And they’ve experienced opportunities and joys they believe they never would have found in the United States.
“Serving as a missionary has given me a way to expand without limits,” said Ray, 64. “As I get older, I pray that I will not limit myself.”
Ray works with the Kabiye people of Togo, West Africa. For the last 20 years, the Kabiye have shown great responsiveness to the gospel.
“It’s the Kabiye’s time,” Ray said. More than 100 Kabiye churches are growing under his shepherding.
Six days a week, Ray mounts his motorcycle and rides to the villages surrounding his hometown of Sokode. Each month, he conducts 18 training seminars, teaching 150 pastors. These unpaid leaders sometimes walk 15 miles for training classes.
“It puts me to shame,” Ray said. “I don’t know that I would do that.”
In the early days of his ministry, Ray concentrated on evangelizing the Kabiye people. These days, he’s leaving that work to the Kabiye believers.
“In order for the work to make the transition it needs to make, we need to be absent. It’s slower,” he acknowledged, “but it’s theirs.”
Hemou Abalo was a child when Ray brought the good news of Jesus Christ to his village. Now he walks 13 miles up to three times a week to lead the believers in a church he started.
“That church has become a powerhouse for evangelism,” Ray noted.
Patsy’s focus is the Kotokoli people, one of two Muslim tribes in Togo.
Most Kotokoli are slow to embrace Christ because converting to Christianity is contrary to culture and families, Patsy explained. “They depend on families for everything. Parents will stop feeding them and sometimes chase them out of their homes if they choose to follow Christ.”
Because few Kotokoli can read and write and only two books of the Bible have been translated into the Kotokoli language, Patsy is seeking to reach the Kotokoli through Chronological Bible Storying.
Most Kotokoli have access to radio. Patsy has partnered with Toubaye and Assibi, two Kotokoli believers, to tell Bible stories — from creation to Christ — over the radio. They pray that Muslims who hear the stories on the radio will also have personal contact with believers.
In Sokode, there is a new church of Muslim-background believers. In this church, the worship style is quiet — more like the Muslims of Africa and traditional Southern Baptists of the United States than the exuberant worship of many African believers.
“Many Muslims and Muslim-background believers don’t think God and dancing go together,” Patsy said.
The Eitelmans pray for strong, unified leadership within Togo’s churches. They also pray that church members will support their leaders financially.
“They’re suffering to serve the Lord in ways we can’t even imagine,” Ray said.
The Eitelmans were church leaders themselves when God called them to fulltime missions service. Ray was pastor of First Baptist Church in Granite City, Ill., while Patsy led the church’s Woman’s Missionary Union. As they prayed about and led their church’s missions involvement, God began calling them to fulltime missions service.
“The mission field is a place where you can expand to the possibilities God has placed within you,” Ray said. “Here you’re free. You don’t have the politics and limits that often go along with service in a church.”
The Eitelmans acknowledge that missionary life is not without difficulty. Language, climate and culture challenge virtually every missionary.
“You see so many younger ones come out and not stay very long,” Patsy said.
“‘T’ain’t easy, brother,” Ray agreed.
The Eitelmans have faced deep heartache too. When they were serving in Burkina Faso, their 15-year-old daughter, Laura, died from a virulent form of hepatitis.
Still, they do not doubt God’s leading.
“An ever-expanding faith and a faithful, caring God have seen us through it all — to the extent that it has not been hard, but surprisingly, easy. We would do it all again,” Ray said.
“It’s a for-sure that your life will make a difference.”
–30–
(BP) photos posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo titles: CHANGING HIS PHILOSOPHY and UTILIZING THE RADIO.
