MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-03-2007

Hello again! Things are progressing well here at school. We're learning how to make a variety of sounds that are quite, QUITE, foreign to the English speaking mouth. Take double stops for example. This is where you make two "stops" (where the flow of air is halted, like t, p, and k, or d, b, and g) at the same time, so they're one sound. Sound complicated? It is. Yet, there are languages where they make these sounds, and if you don't know how to identify and replicate them, you'll sound funny to the native listener.

We visited one of our supporting churches last week, Trinity Baptist Church in Arlington, TX with Pastor Bob Smith. They had our prayer letter up on the wall with all their other missionaries. The people recognized us immediately from our pictures, which is always an encouragement. This means that the church actually reads the prayer letters they receive, and prays for the missionary.

Our home church in St. Louis, MO, Grace Baptist Church, just finished up their missions conference. It sounds like they had a tremendous conference. Our faith promise giving saw a dramatic increase again this year, which is a huge blessing. Even more important, one of our young men, Harrison Beckman, surrendered to the LORD for full-time Christian service. This is one of the "boys" I used to teach in Sunday School way back when. He's turned into such a fine young man, and it fills me with such incredible pride to see how God is working in his life. Pray for Harrison as he continues to follow the LORD. Pray for our church as they form next year's budget and decide how to allocate the money that was promised.

We have a meeting Sunday morning at Fellowship Baptist Church in Pineville, LA with Pastor Kenneth Wilkinson. I will be presenting our burden for Uganda in Sunday School, and preaching in the morning service. Pray for us as we minister in this church, and for our travelling.

Just in the past few days, another church from one of the churches we visited in Montana has added us as one of their missionaries! Pray that God will continue to enable churches where we've been to support us, and that all the churches we visit in the months ahead will do likewise so we can be ready to go to the field after next year. Pray that I will continue to get meetings lined out for 2008 so we will be able to have a full schedule and finish our deputation quickly.

Thanks so much for all your prayers!