Good News from Glenn and
Susan Fluegge in Togo.

"We arrived in the small village of Kong around nine on Easter morning and were greeted by Joseph Baldjoi. Joseph is one of the students in the pastoral program at the Lutheran Center for Theological Education (CLET). He had invited us to attend their Easter church service. I accepted the invitation full-heartedly because my brother and his family were visiting and I wanted to take

them to see the 'real' Africa. (Despite the growth of the cities in Africa, I am still convinced that the heart of Africa lies in villages.) Rev. Lamboni Kolani arrived later to oversee the service. Pastor Lamboni was one of the first pastors to graduate from the CLET and to be ordained in the Lutheran Church of Togo. He has been assigned as a church-planting missionary to the region around Kong.

"What a joyful surprise it was to find out that 14 adults from the nearby village of Mandiari were to be accepted into God's Kingdom through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism! One by one, Pastor Lamboni poured water over their heads and pronounced those words given to us by Jesus himself: 'I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.' In the United States, we take great pains to keep the messiness of life away from us. We baptize over a baptismal font using the smallest amount of water and quickly dabbing the water up with a cloth. That was not the case here. Water ran down hair, faces, clothes, and left puddles on the floor of the church—14 of them—and the angels in heaven sang with joy.”

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