​Vakpo Todzi Evangelical Presbyterian Church is a small rural church in the Volta Region of Ghana.  Most of the residents who live in Todzi are farmers and their main crop in pineapple.  During harvest season, everyone in the village is needed to pick the pineapple.  It is not uncommon for mothers with their child wrapped securely on their backs to go to the fields to work.  To relive this burden for both the mother and the child the church is building a daycare center so the mothers can leave their children in a safe and healthy environment.  Upon their return from Ghana, Pastor Pat and Tom Lloyd presented the construction of the daycare center as a project St. Luke’s could support.  The challenge was accepted and to day we have sent over $3000 toward this project.

Walking around in the dark can be precarious at best, especially in our house, barefooted. Jasper has chew toys that have the texture of barbed wire. Stepping on one, with bare feet, makes me say things that my mother would not be proud of. I was in Ghana when the power went out one evening which happens frequently. I decide to do something I tell the groups never to do, never go out after dark alone or without a flashlight. But the choir singing at the Dela Cathedral was too tempting and so I ventured off, by myself, in the dark, without a flashlight. I did not get 10 feet from the Kekeli Hotel until I fell into a drainage ditch.
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In Psalm 119:105 the writer reminds us that the Word of God is a lamp for my feet, and a light on my path. The Psalmist not talking about a dog’s chew toy or a drainage ditch. The Psalmist is talking about all the thing in life that can cause us to stumble and fall as we try to walk a righteous path. Things like, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath As I look at the list, and I think about my life, I am deeply grateful for a loving God, who sent his only Son into the world. Personally, it is never a good idea to walk barefooted amidst the “chew toys” of temptation. It is never a good idea to assume you know where all the “drainage ditches” of sin are along life’s highway. It is always, always better to take the one who has defined himself as “The Light of the World” to show us the way!!
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Blessings,
Pastor Pat