MISSION: Uganda Blog Post 03-11-2024

Good morning everybody!

It has been a true joy to be back out at Nakivale, laboring in the field.

A few weeks ago, we had a kidnapping. Human traffickers went into a church member’s home in broad daylight and took off with their 3 and 4 year old children, who were sleeping in a back room. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. The church put up posters. We went to the local police station, and also informed the checkpoint police who guard the entrance to the camp and are supposed to be on the lookout for smuggling. Most important, we got people praying. God answered, and the children were returned unharmed within 24 hours.

Human trafficking is a huge problem in Africa. The same week the children were kidnapped, an article appeared in the national paper about children being stolen to sell overseas via crooked “adoption” agencies. Another threat — the one we feared the most — is when they use children for ritual sacrifice. Which is to say, murdering them and using their body parts to make charms for witchcraft, or burying them to appease local deities in preparation for building a house or a road. Yes really. The refugees are targets because they are people without a country and are perceived as easy victims. Please pray for our children.

Now for the good news. God has provided enough money so that we can begin building a new church building at Kabazana. I brought my contractor to the Kabazana church on Sunday so he could survey the property and begin preparations for rebuilding and upgrading. Thank you to all of you who have given sacrificially to make this project possible. The church is rejoicing at the good news!

We will be keeping our original structure to become a classroom, and building a new 8 m (26.25 ft) by 18 m (59 ft) structure, along with a baptistry, a water reclamation tank, a new toilet, a gate to better control access to the property, more benches and a new pulpit, and we will be using the dirt generated for landscaping. It’s going to be beautiful when it is done in about 3 months.

I have enough to do all of the new construction, but we will need a bit more to refurbish the old building and make it suitable for use as a classroom. Mostly, it needs cement repairs and a fresh coat of paint if anyone felt led to give toward this.

Stay tuned to this website for frequent updates on the progress of this exciting project. I am grateful to God for His gracious provision!

I’ve updated the projects page on our website to reflect God’s provision. You can watch there for updates and see the other projects that still need funding.

Thank you all for praying and for helping us!

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Pizza Night!

Going Back to Uganda

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-10-2024

Greetings everybody. In case you were still wondering, we made it back to Uganda!

Thank you all for praying. I think this was quite possibly the smoothest return trip to Uganda we’ve ever had.

Anna got us packed up in record time. This time around, I put Apple AirTags in each piece of luggage so I could track our bags in realtime. It was kind of cool. The minute they’d unload the bags from the hold of the plane, I could see the bags moving around on my phone. Before any of our bags rolled out in Entebbe, I knew we had all of them. What a relief!

The folks in customs barely gave us a second look. So no hassles this time. Our mechanic met us with our car. We made it to the hotel without trouble. We spent a couple of days resting, in which our mechanic fixed a few extra things. Then we traveled the 4 hours home.

There were no rats waiting for us this time. I hired a lady to clean while we were away, check for rats, and put out poison if needed. That did the trick. No rodents and their attendant mess awaited us, and we were able to go straight to bed without having to spend 6 to 7 hours cleaning first. It was a blessing to be able to come back into our home with ease.

We are at home, still getting over jet lag, and working our way through the list of things that you always have to do when you first get back.

Several people gave gifts adding up to a substantial amount of money for the work out at the camp. I almost have enough now to rebuild our Isanja church building. Keep praying. This is a good start, but we still have several humanitarian relief projects desperately needed out at the camp. It would also be a blessing for our support to increase a little more.

Pray for the coming year. We have lots to do. I want to see God accomplish much in 2024.

We are praying for you. Politics in America affects us here too. I am praying that evil will be defeated and that righteousness will triumph.

God bless and keep you.

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MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 01-05-2024

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope you had a great holiday, and were able to spend it with family. Most of our children spent Christmas with us in St. Louis, and we were able to be with our whole extended family. Wonderful!

Yesterday, my son Ethan and daughter-in-law Juliet informed me that Anna and I are now grandparents. In September, we will have a new Huckabee in our family. SO COOL! Pray for the new young’un, and for Juliet. We are praying for a smooth pregnancy, healthy growth, and a complication-free delivery.

As of this letter, six churches in total have voted to begin monthly financial support! This is an answer to prayer! Please continue to pray that of the 19 churches we visited, that God will bring in sufficient missions giving to their budget, and they will be motivated to support us. We need it.

We are flying back to Uganda on January 29. Pray for our trip. International travel is exhausting, highly stressful, and carries an element of risk.

  • Pray we will make all our connecting flights.
  • Pray that all our luggage will arrive with us and not be lost or stolen.
  • Pray that the customs agents in Entebbe will not harass us over our personal belongings.
  • Pray for our health, that we will remain healthy before, during, and after the trip.
  • Pray for safety on the road back to Mbarara.
  • Pray for smooth transition back into the work.

We are very much looking forward to going home and getting back to work. We have a number waiting to be baptized and several marriages planned in our churches.

This year, our goals are to 1) continue training men and women 2) train more leaders 3) finish needed projects at the camp, such as clean water storage tanks, rebuilding several of the church buildings, and repairing our national pastor’s home. You can find more details here: OUTSTANDING PROJECTS

Please pray people will continue to be saved and added to the churches. Pray for the refugees. They are being denied rations, because the government of Uganda likely wants them to repatriate whether it is safe for them to do so or not, and the United Nations is a corrupt and godless organization.

God bless and keep you in this New Year!

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