YAOVI'S STORY
My story begins in the country of Togo, my birthplace and home. I was born into a pagan non-Christian home with three sisters and four brothers. When I was six years of age, I started going to the Catholic Church, but my dad put an end to that after two years. In 1992, I went for the first time to Bible Baptist Church of Sevagan (my native village). I continued going to the Baptist Church because of my love for candy. Almost every Sunday they gave us candies, and when anyone gave an excellent answer to a question, he/she received more candy. I remember making a profession of faith many times thinking that our teacher would give candy to those who made it.
In August 1996, Mrs. Ayoko, my Sunday school teacher, taught my class about hell. She told us hell is as real as our homes, school and marketplace. The difference, she explained, between hell and those other places is that hell is a place of suffering; it is a lake of fire. She asked if we had ever burned our finger in the fire? Of course, we all said yes. She continued by asking us how it felt to get burnt by a fire – if it felt good? We all replied, “No, it hurts a lot!” She then asked, if burning your finger hurts a lot, how much more do you think you will be hurting when your whole body will be put into the fire of hell forever? When I heard that, I was shocked and terrified. “Do you know what?”, she added, “at that time you will be seeking to die but you cannot because death will also be in hell, so it cannot kill any more.” When she said that, I was shocked a second time. She ended by asking who wanted to go to the hell and we all were quiet; no one responded. She spoke of how the only way of escaping hell is to trust Christ as our personal Savior. She explained the way of salvation through John 3:16 and Romans 10:9-10. She asked us to pray and confess our sins to Christ and trust Him as our Savior.
After Sunday School, I went home to work on the farm. For the rest of the day, I kept thinking about what our teacher had said. My mind could not shake the thought that my whole body would be covered by fire forever and I would be seeking to die but wouldn’t be able to. I became miserable and was horrified at the thought of ending up in hell. In my mind, I was seeing myself in hell. A sadness overwhelmed me. Finally, at night before going to bed, I trusted Christ as my personal Savior and Lord. The Lord graciously saved me that night. It was the greatest night I have ever had! I had an unspeakable peace in my heart that had never been there before.
Not long after I was saved, I felt God’s call to the ministry while memorizing Isaiah 6:8 which says, “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I; send me”. It was as if God was speaking to me personally. I did not know anything about God’s call, nor did I understand God was calling me to full-time vocational ministry. I did the only thing I knew to do and gave myself to everything that needed to be done at church.
Later on, I publicly dedicated my life to Christ and yielded myself to serve the Lord. One Thursday night in 2002, my pastor, Pastor Sossah, preached about Samson from Judges 13:5. The title of the message was, “This child shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines”. That night, I could not resist God’s call, and I responded to my pastor’s invitation to those who believed God was calling them to serve Him. I openly surrendered my life to serve the Lord. In addition to that sermon, the fruits of my ministry in people’s lives, the witness of my pastor and my brethren, and the burden in my spirit for the ministry have all persuaded me that God had in fact called me to full-time Christian service.
It was clear to me I was called for the ministry; however, seeing the financial condition of my pastor, it was my desire to work hard to have money to not only help him, but also support my future ministry. I waited many years after publicly surrendering to full-time ministry. I was pursuing a plan I thought would help support God’s plan for my life.
In 2009, my father was battling with sickness and could no longer speak. On October 29th, I went in to check on my father. While I was in his room he began crying out saying repeatedly, “I don’t want to go to hell! I don’t want to go to hell! I thought I will go to heaven! I don’t want to go to hell!” I fell to my knees in tears and began to call out to him and beg him to pray to ask God to forgive him of his sins and trust Jesus to go heaven. Unfortunately, he did not say anything else that night and remained speechless until the day he died, November the 2nd. Those heart-wrenching words are the last I heard from my dad. However dark that experience was, God used it to convince me of the suffering that my relatives and many others will face in hell. After that, I gave up my plans, and God guided me to the United States in 2011 to train for full-time ministry.
From 2011-2018, the Lord led me to the United States to be trained for full-time ministry. After receiving my Masters of Divinity degree at the Crown College of the Bible in Powell, TN, I moved to Hillsdale Baptist Church in Tampa, FL, for my internship under the leadership of Pastor Travis Smith. I was ordained and sent out as a missionary by this church.
I returned to Togo in June of 2018 to begin the church planting ministry. I have been in Togo since this time and thank for the continued leading in every step of the way.