On Friday, March 12,  a packed 40-foot container left Winter Haven, FL and began its journey to Togo, West Africa.  It is packed with a car and lots of other items that will prove immensely helpful as Koku & Akpene Akakpo establish their ministry.

Many people played in important part in this project.  Some spent months helping Koku & Akpene gather things in the Quincy, IL area.  In January, some helped load a Uhaul truck at Calvary Baptist Church in Quincy, IL.  One man graciously sacrificed his time to drive that Uhaul truck from Quincy to Winter Haven. 

Once the truck arrived in Winter Haven, some gathered at Faith Baptist Church on Monday, January 18th, to unload the Uhaul in record time.  Many helped gather donated items in the Winter Haven area.  Then, for several weeks, Chris &  Diane Marine worked tirelessly to organize, inventory, and stage all of the items that would go on the container. 
Then, we waited.  We waited for an empty container to arrive.  After multiple delays, the container finally arrived at Faith Baptist Church on Monday, March 8th.  On Tuesday, March 9th, we picked up a box truck (with a hydraulic lift gate) from a local realtor (The Butler Team) who graciously allowed us to borrow it.  This may be the first time her truck was used to help someone move to Africa!!

Wednesday, March 10th, was loading day.  We started at 8am and began loading things into the box truck.  Then we backed the box truck up to the container so that we could easily move things into it.  By around 1:30pm, we had loaded everything up to where the car was to go, so we stopped for the day.  By all accounts, this loading went much faster than any of us expected.  Thursday morning, a local mechanic (R. Owen Motors) generously brought his tow truck and helped us get the car onto the container in under 30 minutes!  We continued working to pack the container and finished up around 11am. 

It truly is a miracle to look back and consider all that has happened in these last few months to get this container on its way to Togo.  God used so many different individuals from Illinois to Florida to accomplish something so much bigger than anything we could have done on our own.  We praise God for every individual who helped us. Our prayer is that this container will be a unique encouragement to Koku & Akpene as they serve the Lord in Togo.

To God be the Glory for what He has done!