Jeff Finley
By Jeff Finley
One of the most memorable moments at General Conference 2023 came when newly elected Bishop Edward Kenneth “Kenny” Martin began his July 28 message with a young woman standing next to him.
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“We have to raise up the next generation that will touch nations.” — Bishop Kenny Martin
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“Paul said, ‘Yet we have 10,000 instructors, but not many fathers,’” said Martin, referring to 1 Corinthians 4:15. “We need to raise up spiritual fathers, spiritual mothers, spiritual uncles, spiritual aunts. This is Elisha. She just graduated from Oakdale Christian Academy. She calls me Uncle Kenny … and I asked her to pray for us, pray for the church. She’ll pray in probably three languages — not to show off, but because she has a global call, and we have to raise up the next generation that will touch nations.”
The young woman, Elisha Takpale, followed with a powerful prayer that began, “Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we just want to lift Your name on high this morning. Thank you for Your awesome presence and Your Spirit that You pour on us that we may rise up and shout Your name every morning, so that we may rise up and sing of Your glory all the time, so that we may rise up and testify of what a God You are Lord. Glory be to Your name, Jesus; glory be to Your name on high. Thank You for starting a work in this community. Thank You for the Free Methodist Church. Thank You, Lord, for how You’ve been carrying on this mission all over the world. Thank You, God, for this great work that You’ve been doing.”
She continued the prayer in a couple of other languages — French and Ewe — that might seem unlikely to hear from someone who spent the past few years in Jackson, Kentucky. But Oakdale isn’t a typical school in the Bluegrass State, and Elisha’s story begins a long way from the Free Methodist boarding school’s Appalachian campus.
From Togo to Orlando
Elisha grew up in a Free Methodist pastor’s family in Togo, a small nation in West Africa. Her father, Dosseh Takpale, is now the superintendent of the Togo Provisional Annual Conference, the director of the Wesley Missionary Institute, and a missionary who assists in supervising ministries in four countries: Guinea, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau and Mali.
The family faced financial challenges while she was growing up.
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” …within each obstacle that came, God provided.” — Elisha Takpale
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“What I really enjoy about my family is that no matter how hard it gets, they always trust that God is going to provide for them, and we always had God’s provision because His favor was upon it in our family, so within each obstacle that came, God provided,” Elisha said in an interview with Light + Life. “Just like Abraham told his son, ‘God will provide.’ That’s what God did with our family.”
Amid financial struggles such as rising school fees as Elisha advanced in her education, the family received help from ICCM, the child sponsorship agency of the Free Methodist Church.
“ICCM became part of our lives. I was never sent home from school due to school fees, and I was always taken care of,” said Elisha, who was one of the speakers during the ICCM community dinner at GC23 in Orlando.
Elisha’s longtime ICCM sponsors were Brian Yost, currently the lead pastor of Central Michigan Free Methodist Church, and Laurie Yost, now the Free Methodist World Missions assistant for the Shared Sustainability Initiative in Asia. During General Conference 2023, she was able to meet her sponsors for the first time after spotting Laurie in the hotel lobby.
ICCM team members who were at the GC23 ICCM community dinner where Elisha (right) spoke.
She also connected with Oakdale staff, donors and fellow alumni at GC23. She is now an Oakdale success story although she wasn’t always certain about her academic future — especially during her first three months after arriving at the boarding school in 2019.
“Without speaking any English, it was very hard to communicate with people and understand what they were saying, and it was also very hard to work on my academic stuff, because what takes somebody 30 minutes or so, would take me 20 times that time, because I didn’t have my study language,” she said. “I got homesick a lot.”
A student from Rwanda mentored her. Elisha said that as her first year at Oakdale progressed, she began “developing deeper relationships with my friends,” and she also became close to the school staff.
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“If you want to fast, I’ll fast with you. If you want to pray, I’ll pray with you. If you want to do some worship, I’ll worship with you.” — Rev. Kim Hall of Oakdale Christian Academy
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“One of the team, Mrs. Hall, was one woman of faith that I really admire,” said Elisha, referencing Kim Hall who is also a Free Methodist elder in the New South Conference. “I told her that I missed home — missed all the prayer time that we have at home, all the fasting nights and days, and then she just encouraged me, and she told me, ‘If you want to fast, I’ll fast with you. If you want to pray, I’ll pray with you. If you want to do some worship, I’ll worship with you.’ … She was willing to do all the right things to make my stay comfortable and to make me very happy.”
‘Call Me Uncle Kenny’
Elisha explained to Light + Life why Bishop Martin, an Oakdale board member, is “Uncle Kenny” to her. She said the nickname goes back to her first year as an Oakdale student. She visited the John Wesley Free Methodist Church in Indianapolis where he served as lead pastor at that time.
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“We are now family.” — Bishop Kenny Martin
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“We’re praying, and we’re talking, and then he said, ‘We are now family. You call me Uncle Kenny,’ she recalled. “Since that day, he and I have been in contact and, even at school, I would call him. We would talk, and one thing that we both enjoy doing was to approach the throne of God. Even when we’re far away, it makes us feel closer, so we will call; we will pray. We will talk about what God has done.”
They also would discuss where the Holy Spirit was leading them.
“Seeing him at the General Conference was truly a blessing because he is my uncle, and I hadn’t seen him in a long time,” she said. “The night before he preached, he approached me, and he said, ‘I would like you to pray before I preach. Will that be OK?’”
But he added that the prayer might not happen because it would depend on the Spirit’s leading, according to Elisha.
“We stayed in prayer, and, in the morning, I went to hear him, and I told him, ‘Hi, Uncle Kenny,’ and he’s like, ‘OK, follow me.’ We’re backstage, and he said, ‘I want you to pray in all the languages that you speak,’” she recalled. “At that point, I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what’s going to happen.’”
She didn’t know what topic Martin would be addressing in his message. She prayed privately, “I know I’m freaking out about something I shouldn’t be freaking about, because this is not about me, but this is about You. Just show me Your ways.”
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“The words just flowed out of nowhere.” — Elisha Takpale
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She sensed God telling her, “Don’t think about it. I will do it. It’s not you who’s going to do it, but I will do it.”
“When I went with Uncle Kenny, he told me to pray. The words just flowed out of nowhere,” she said. “It just came like that. It wasn’t prepared or anything like that, but it was the Spirit.”
What’s Next
Elisha is now entering higher education. She will soon begin classes in Fishers, Indiana, through the Heartland School of Leadership and Development, which offers courses in partnership with Indiana Wesleyan University. Her plans include a business management major and a minor in premed.
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“My generation needs people that will just sit, listen to them and not judge them.” — Elisha Takpale
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When asked what Light + Life readers should know about her generation, she replied, “My generation needs people that will just sit, listen to them and not judge them. … They feel like if they speak that they are going to be judged by people, but all they need is someone who just simply listens to them — not judge them but care for them.”
When asked what U.S. readers should understand about the global church, she said the church may look different in the United States than in Togo from a cultural perspective, “but the church was never about us. The church is not about humans, but it’s about God. … The church is for Christ and Christ alone.”
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