Tom and Melissa Kendall, along with their 6 children, have been gospel partners in Togo, West Africa for the last 8 years. Tom has several different roles as they serve in Togo, including hospital director, staff general surgeon, and church planter. Tom was gracious enough to answer several questions from Pastor Gearhart so that we could hear an update of what God is doing in Togo through Tom and Melissa. Also, several years ago Tom was a guest on the The Missions Podcast where he shared some helpful thoughts on prayer. You can listen to that recording here.
You wear several different hats as you serve in Togo. Could you share a little about each of the areas God has given you to oversee?
Staff General Surgeon—I came to Togo in 2016 initially joining an already-established medical team as one of the general surgeons on staff. ABWE’s philosophy of ministry emphasizes evangelism and discipleship with a goal of seeing new churches planted and growing, so the hospital ministry serves its purpose as a connecting and gathering ministry to help spread the gospel. This medical team over the past seven years has experienced 100% turnover due to the older missionaries retiring, so I was asked in 2019 to assume the role of hospital director as well.
Hospital Director—HBB is a full-service, 24/7 medical ministry with almost 150 national employees. We see around 16,000 patients a year in our outpatient clinic and treat 2,400 inpatients a year. Our surgical team performs around 1,200 surgeries annually. All of our staff professes to be Christian and everyone is expected and encouraged to join the chaplains in sharing the gospel to every single patient. As director, I am responsible for the business side of the ministry and also creating the culture of ministry that maintains our vision of using medical care as a means to accomplish the goal of making disciples of Jesus Christ.
Campus "Pastor"—Our team lives in community on an open residential compound on the hospital campus. There is a natural organization among the team to share duties and responsibilities to help the team as a whole. Though not officially elected or called, by general agreement I have been given the privilege of loosely shepherding the missionary team. This works itself out practically in leading our missionary worship time (Sunday night English service, which is the only time our team is instructed, edified, and challenged in our own language), leading our team’s men’s weekly Bible study, ensuring accountability, and member care/counseling as needed.
Church Planter—At the end of our first term, we decided to focus on helping a relatively new church plant become stable and grow. On our return for our second term, we continued this practice and have been a part of the Beme-Tutu assembly when I am not on call. I teach Sunday School once a month and preach once a month in a rotation with the pastor (he’s not officially the pastor yet but getting close). It is to this church that HP recently gave $8,000 for helping with their construction of a building. We are going verse by verse through Ephesians.
Melissa serves in the following ways:
Teacher—Thankfully, we are blessed with several wonderful schooling options now with internet access allowing some online schooling in addition to some co-op classes with other MKs. Because this doesn’t cover everything, Melissa supplements by teaching some of their subjects.
Guest House Logistics Coordinator—Melissa schedules hotel reservations, GH reservations, airport pickups and drop-offs for visiting short-termers and works with visiting team leaders to ensure all the logistics of a missions trip are covered. Lots and lots of phone calls and texts, and lots and lots of emails, and lots of double and triple checking itineraries.
Campus Housing Coordinator—She plans and tracks the lodging of missionaries on the compound.
Kids’ Club Leader—As a family ministry together with our children, she helps lead a weekly outreach to the Muslim community. They do a half-day club every Wednesday of games, singing, Bible lesson, and Bible memory, followed up by visiting their families in their homes to build relationships.
You all have been in Togo now for almost 7 years. What are one or two significant lessons God has taught you (individually, as a couple, or as a family) during these years?
Far and away, the most important lesson God has taught (and is still teaching me) is this: as hard as missions is, it is no sacrifice. Rather, it is the highest privilege. God does not need us to accomplish His work. If our ministry is a blessing to others, even more is His using us a grace and a blessing to us. Imagine a missionary from the Far East coming to Greenville, SC, to tell people about Jesus. It would take him a while to learn the language; even longer to learn some of the basic culture and local customs. Even after 20 years, he’ll still be "different," so who would ever listen to him in his broken English, crazy mannerisms, and weird diet and dress?! Only through the effectual working of the Holy Spirit would such a misfit have any influence. That’s what we are in our cross-cultural environment as foreign missionaries! But we are serving at the gracious invitation of the LORD of the harvest, who has invited us to join in the labors of harvesting the souls which he has guaranteed will be harvested!
In so doing, we have learned a lot about ourselves (I Cor. 1—we are the weak, foolish, despised, etc.). I say often, and with 100% sincerity, that the greatest beneficiary of my missionary service has been me. What I mean by that is the experience of God’s patience, grace, love, faithfulness and kindness toward me as He lovingly shows me my weakness, my sin, and my inadequacies to do the job He is doing through me. He is showing us more of Himself because He is lovingly showing us who we really are.
What has been your greatest joy (or one of the greatest) in your ministry in Togo?
In general, it has been the discipleship opportunities we have on a daily basis. You can ask Melissa, and she’ll tell you that I am the most pumped up after teaching, counseling, or otherwise ministering to someone or a small group for whatever reason. It might be a regularly scheduled Bible study time, or it might be an unforeseen problem that needed resolving. The opportunity to go to the Word of God for answers, for truth, and show other people how to do it too, is the greatest joy.
Specifically, I would say 2 things. Firstly, as III John 4 states, "I have no greater joy than that my children walk in truth." Spiritual children (disciples) yes, but also our own children. Daily devotional time, Q&A, watching them grow up and wrestle with God’s self-revelation is also the greatest joy. Secondly, a vignette from our ministry: seeing souls saved and finding hope in Christ is why we are here (not to solve the third-world health care problem!). Being a surgeon gives me unique opportunities to have very poignant and private conversations with strangers. I will never forget a patient from a few years ago who came to me with horrible abdominal pain and a growing mass in his abdomen. Here is an excerpt from an old prayer letter:
I received a call early in November from a local friend who happened to be traveling visiting his family down in the capital city of Lomé, 3 hours away. He had a cousin, a 60-year-old man, who for the past 6 months had been suffering from severe abdominal pain. He began to lose weight as a result of a loss of appetite. Medical treatment aimed at diminishing his pain had no effect. He ultimately had a CT scan performed which revealed a huge mass in his pancreas compressing his surrounding organs. His treating physicians in Lomé referred him to specialists out of the country for surgery.
Such was the substance of the phone call from my friend, asking me if there was anything we could do for him at our hospital. A big surgery and hospitalization on top of an international trip was an impossibility for them, as they might as well have been referred to the moon. Recognizing their desperation, we admitted his cousin to our hospital and began preparations for surgery.
During my first visit with him in his hospital bed, we had a long talk about his physical condition, his symptoms, his findings on exam and on the CT scan, and what I thought was going on. After all this discussion, I turned the topic to spiritual matters, and asked him if he was a Christian.
"Yes, of course," he said.
"So you expect to go to heaven after you die, hopefully a very long time from now?" I replied. Again, his reply was in the affirmative.
"As a Christian, why it is that you will go to heaven?" I continued, hoping to gain a glimpse into the genuineness of his profession.
"I will go to heaven because I have done good works all of my life," he responded.
Realizing at that moment that he did not have a clear, biblical understanding of the Gospel of salvation by faith in the finished work of Christ, I walked him through the Bible’s teaching. Right there at his bedside, we discussed sin, God’s holiness and justice, our condemnation, God’s provision of a Savior to redeem us–a Savior whose substitutionary atonement is the sole basis for the pardon of our sins, and whose imputed righteousness is the sole ground of our justification, as opposed to our own good works. I could tell this was all new for him, so I thanked him for listening and suggested that the very reason God brought his suffering into his life was so that he would end up in our hospital that very night listening to the message of salvation in Jesus Christ.
The next morning, the first thing I heard when I walked up to his bedside was that he had repented of his sins, renounced his confidence in his own good works, and was now looking to Christ alone as his Savior from sin! It was a time of rejoicing! He underwent his surgery in complete peace and while recovering in the hospital he began to faithfully read his Bible and was discipled by our chaplain staff and a local pastor. As it turned out, his diagnosis was unfortunately malignant, and while the surgery certainly made his last few days here in this earth less painful, he passed away the weekend after Christmas.
We rejoice in God’s kind and merciful plan to use pancreatic cancer as a means to bring this man to life! Please reread that last sentence. Normally we associate cancer with mortality, and rightfully so. But your partnership was the means God used to take his cancer–normally linked to death–and make it the thing that brought him to Christ, our life!
If there is such a thing as an "ordinary day" for you all, could you briefly describe it for us?
It really depends on the day, but in general I am at the hospital by 7 a.m. As administrator, most of my time is filled with meetings, reports, decisions, and correspondence. I also help with surgeries on big cases or when I am on call. At noon, I walk home for lunch and we have lunch together as a family (a wonderful blessing). Work resumes around 2 p.m. (most cultures outside America do this, and it’s wonderful to have a break in the middle of the day!) and continues usually until 6 p.m. At our hospital, the shifts start with devotions, either departmental or hospital-wide (all together—on Wednesdays). Once a week our chaplains and a missionary go out into villages and follow up on warm contacts who were open to the gospel but didn’t respond, or to new converts who need to find a church and continue reading and studying the Bible.
What might strike you the most is actually how "normal" family life is—the kids do school, have chores, play with friends, etc. Melissa helps run the Guest House, keeps our home, cooks our meals, helps in Kid’s Club, and so on. Perhaps one unique difference is that we do a grocery run in the capital city (3 hours away) about every 6 weeks or so.
Can you share a little of how God has worked through the Kid’s Clubs that you all have?
At this point, we have not yet seen any overt decisions for Christ, but Melissa and the children have built many solid relationships and continues to touch hearts by her demonstration of love and the proclamation of Gospel truth. Because this is an entirely Muslim outreach, the process of building relationships and earning trust and respect is key. But these kids (hundreds of them) are hearing about God and His plan of redemption in the Bible and they come back week after week!
How have you seen your prayer life change/grow during your time in Togo?
By God’s grace, we are more occupied with biblical prayers as a rule, rather than "spiritual show-and-tell" prayer requests and prayers. We have grown to love two distinctives of Christian prayer that make it categorically different from pagan prayers: that we pray to our Father and that we pray according to His will. There is so much I can’t unpack there, but we have tried to focus on the prayer requests found in the Bible for God’s people (His children), and to see His purposes and plans in the events and circumstances of life.
What is a missions biography or a book on missions that you have read recently that you would encourage us to read and why?
A Pastor’s Sketches by Ichabod Spencer. Not a missions biography per se, but an autobiographical account of a pastor’s outreach in his community. Very instructive use of the Word of God to speak into hearts about our sin and the way of salvation. I would consider this a must-read for everyone in ministry.
No Shortcut to Success: A Manifesto for Modern Missions by Matt Rhodes and Ministering in Patronage Cultures: Biblical Models and Missional Implications by Jayson Georges are two books on missions philosophy and practice that are very helpful. They are obviously graduate theses turned into books, but they highlight some very important considerations that any missionary (or missions pastor) should know are issues.
How can we pray for you all? How can we pray for the ministry of HBB?
Thank you for asking! Pray for daily faithfulness (both in ministry and in the family as parents/disciple-makers); pray for joy in God; pray for Christ to be magnified above all through what we do and say; pray for our village church (Beme-Tutu, the church you have invested in through us) to grow in grace, truth, and numbers; pray for laborers to join the harvest; pray for the economic situation facing HBB (and worldwide) as we are a ministry dependent on support.
