Eleven Days, Twenty-Eight Sermons, and So Much Work Still Ahead

There is a piano player in Takoradi who has ended more sermons early than anyone I have ever seen back home. Twenty-five minutes in, he plays a warning chord. At thirty, he just starts the next hymn, whether you are ready or not. I found out the hard way that he does not care how good your last point was.

That is not really what this trip was about, though. Let me back up and tell you the whole thing.

Why We Went

Laura and I flew to Takoradi, Ghana, for the 2026 Ghana West Africa Pastors and Workers Conference, hosted by missionary James Ruckman and Mount Calvary Fundamental Baptist Church. Pastors and church workers came in from all over the region for a week of preaching, training, and fellowship. The whole point is simple: encourage men who are doing hard work in hard places, and send them home ready to keep doing it. It took over twelve thousand miles of travel to get there, on the largest commercial airplane in the world followed by a prop plane for the last leg, and it was worth every mile (12,400 Miles to Ghana and The Pilot Wanted to Get Home on Time).

Twenty-Eight Sermons and the Piano Player Who Ran Them All

By the end of the eleven days, we had heard twenty-eight sermons total. Not all of that was the conference. The two Sundays we were in Ghana were spent at local churches rather than conference sessions, so that count covers regular Sunday preaching along with everything at the conference itself. I preached five of those twenty-eight myself.

The conference sermons ran through the same piano player every time, and he ran a tighter ship than most churches I know. The first two days, nobody dared test him. Thirty minutes was thirty minutes, chord or no chord, and men who normally preach an hour back home found a way to say everything that needed saying inside the time limit. It is amazing what a man can do when a piano is politely threatening him.

By day three, though, the piano player had a problem. A few of the older pastors, men who had been preaching since before he was born, kept going right past the chord like it was background music. He was not about to interrupt a man twice his age mid-sermon, and honestly, I do not blame him. So I found a solution. I handed Bro. Ruckman a big hand bell and put him in charge of the clock.

Bro. Ruckman took the job seriously in the way only a man who genuinely loves this stuff can. Five minutes left, one clear ring, gentle as a dinner bell. Time up, and he rang it long and loud, no mercy, grinning the whole time like he had waited his whole life for this exact assignment. I am fairly sure he enjoyed that bell more than any of the men enjoyed hearing it. Watching him work a room with nothing but a piece of brass and a completely straight face might have been my favorite part of the whole week.

A Boy I Led to Christ, All Grown Up

The men had our own cookout while the ladies ran their conference: charcoal grill, hot dogs, and more chicken gizzards than I have ever seen in one place. Pastor Dare showed up with live rabbits. Bro. Ruckman brought sausages. And Bro. Sammy walked in with a bag of gizzards big enough to feed half of Takoradi.

I have known Bro. Sammy a long time. Years ago, when I was living in Ghana, I sat down with him when he was a small child and led him to Christ. He was young enough then that I could not have told you what kind of man he would grow into. I did not know if I would ever see him again, honestly. That is often how it goes on the mission field. You plant something, and you go home, and you hope.

He walked up to that cookout a grown man, carrying food to share with the same missionary who once shared the Gospel with him. We stood around that grill laughing and eating gizzards until my sides hurt, and somewhere in the middle of it I had to stop and just take the moment in. That little boy is a man now, walking with the Lord, showing up to serve his own church family. That is the whole reason we do any of this.

Everything Else That Happened

There was plenty more in between. Old friends found again in an airport gate (We Used to Buy Car Parts From These Guys), a Sunday split three ways across three towns (The Taxi Driver Said Yes Please), a power outage that ended a nap and a conversation at the same time (The Day the Power Beat the Nap), and two missing cases of soda that turned into an unexpected gospel conversation (Two Cases Short).

There was a closing service where the altars filled up (Full Altars, Goodbyes, and a Brand New Motorcycle), a ladies’ meeting with over a hundred and twenty women (Gizzards, Live Rabbits, and an Affogato to End the Day), a brand new motorcycle bought so a pastor named Bro. Richard could reach a village that used to be a long walk from the nearest church, and a slave castle in Shama where a man once forgotten by history is finally remembered (Smooth Roads, Slave Castles, and a Very Long Way Home). Every one of those posts is worth reading on its own, and together they are the fuller picture of what these eleven days actually held. Read all the way to the bottom of A Bell, A Hundred Peppers, and the Last Night of Preaching if you want the rest of the bell story.

What Stays With Me

I keep coming back to that cookout. A boy I led to Christ, grown into a man who serves his own people now, laughing with me over a grill full of gizzards like no time had passed at all. That is what faithfulness looks like from twenty years out. It does not happen because a missionary shows up once. It happens because someone stays, or comes back, again and again, until the seed has time to grow into a whole life.

That is exactly why Laura and I are working so hard to finish deputation. Every church that has us, every gift that comes in, every prayer, moves us closer to being back on the field full time instead of visiting it once a year. If your church has never had us come share what God is doing in Ghana, we would love the chance. If you have ever wondered whether God might be calling you toward the mission field yourself, come see what it looks like up close: a hand bell, a grill full of gizzards, and a grown man who was once a little boy who said yes to Jesus. And if neither of those is you right now, pray for us. That one is always open to everybody.

You can catch the full day-by-day story at the links above, and follow along with everything ahead of us at consfords.com/connect.

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References:

• 12,400 Miles to Ghana
• The Pilot Wanted to Get Home on Time
• We Used to Buy Car Parts From These Guys
• The Taxi Driver Said Yes Please
• The Day the Power Beat the Nap
• Two Cases Short
• The Piano Player Strikes a Chord
• A Bell, A Hundred Peppers, and the Last Night of Preaching
• Full Altars, Goodbyes, and a Brand New Motorcycle
• Gizzards, Live Rabbits, and an Affogato to End the Day
• Smooth Roads, Slave Castles, and a Very Long Way Home
• consfords.com/connect

Berean Baptist Church — Pastor Bob Reno’s church in Puyallup, WA

Hope of Africa Baptist Ministry — the church-planting fund behind the conference, run by Bro. Ruckman

The Ruckmans to Africa — Bro. Ruckman and Angie’s main missionary site, if you want a broader link than just the Hope of Africa page