Life is a vapor. Don't spend yours on the sidelines.

 

Located on the West African coast, the nation of Togo is home to 6.7 million people. According to UNICEF, the estimated per capita income is $440 per year, and 39 percent of the population survives on less that $1.25 per day.
 
The city of Togoville, where Vapor’s third center was established, is home to approximately 10,000 residents. Central to the life of many of Togoville’s residents is the traditional practice of Voodoo and animism. Scattered throughout the city are statues (fetishes) and altars where sacrifices and homage are exchanged for the hope of security and provision by the idols. Nearby, Voodoo priests are trained and commissioned in the “Black Forest,” an area considered sacred by Voodoo practitioners.

Sports Utilization: Togo’s national soccer team placed among the top five teams on the African continent and qualified for the 2010 World Cup. The region’s passion for soccer is intense, allowing Vapor to utilize that local sport of choice to introduce people to the gospel and to make disciples. Vapor’s center in Togoville enrolled 1,306 young people into its life-on-life discipleship leagues during the first two weeks of operation.

Sustainable Operations: Last February, leadership of Vapor’s Togoville center was assumed by longtime local pastor and teacher John Amessinou. He now leads an indigenous staff of 23 employees and nine volunteers. Among the center’s microbusiness projects are a poultry farm with one thousand chickens (soon to double in quantity) and a four-acre commercial gardening operation that produces quality crops to sell at market and demonstrates sustainable farming practices.

By Celine Nkulikiye
One day as I was walking home after the women’s Vapor discipleship class, I ran into a man and his wife. The man was carrying their three-year-old daughter on his back. When I looked at their faces, there was despair like they had lost hope and did not know what to do. I asked the man what seemed to be the problem and he said that their daughter was sick. The child had a high fever. They had taken the child to the hospital, but they had been told they needed to pay some money in order to get the medication she needed. They did not have the amount that was being requested. They tried to plead with the doctors, but it was no use. Now they were going back to the house to wait for their daughter to die.
 
I asked them how much they needed and they told me 2,800 CFA (equal to $6). I asked them to follow me to the house, and I gave them the money. (Money is allotted each month through Vapor to reach out with humanitarian aid in the community.) Immediately, the couple took their child to the hospital and she was given medication. Since she had malaria, the child recovered almost immediately. The following Sunday, I saw the whole family in church and they all gave their lives to Christ. The husband said that in his life, no one has ever shown him love and concern for his family, and he came to find out that it’s only Christ who can make someone to be caring like that. That’s why he and his family have decided to follow Christ.
 
After managing Vapor’s center in Kawangware, Kenya, Celine and Christian Nkulikiye served as Vapor representatives in Togoville from 2009 to 2011. They continue to sacrificially serve the cause in Haiti as they work to establish Vapor’s fourth center in Dilaire.

 

Thanks for your prayers and support. They are truly making a difference. 40 centers, in 40 third-world environments, by 2017.