MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-09-2009

Greetings! Our missions conference in our home church last week was a great success. We had some great preaching from Bro. Robert Meyer (SE Asia Director), and got to re-iterate our call to Uganda before our church. Most important, a momentous decision has been reached: we're going to Uganda the first of the year, 2010! We have enough support coming in now that our Pastor and director are willing to allow us to go to Uganda. We have many preparations to make in order to get gone, and the details are a bit sketchy because it's only been a few days since the decision was made, but I will keep you all in the loop as we move forward. At the moment, it looks like we're going to begin our ministry in Mbarara, which is about 45 minutes north of the Rwandan border in the far Southwestern corner of Uganda. We have heard from Bryan Stensaas, the senior missionary there, and we are needed sooner, not later on the field, just as quick as we can get there. As he puts it, the "sky's the limit" in opportunities to minister the Gospel. They have a radio ministry, several village churches, orphanges, refugee camps they visit, and a Bible translation work already in progress. Mbarara is located at a geographic crossroads, and will put is in reach of not only the good people of Uganda, but also Rwanda and the DR of the Congo (Zaire). We are excited about the prospect of working under this great man of God, and gaining the experience necessary to make us the kind of missionaries we need to be in order to serve the LORD well in Uganda.

Here are some specific prayer requests:

We are in need of some further funds to get ourselves to Africa. These figures are subject to change, but my initial estimate of the expenses we are going to incur are as follows:

Cost for a 20' shipping container: $2000
Cost to ship that container to Mbarara: $8500
Cost of plane tickets (for which we have already received some funds): $900 apiece for a one way flight to Entebbe
Outfit costs (we have to replace all of our American appliances, and buy some specilized equipment, like a water purifier, and a whole house battery backup system for example): $10000
Cost for a vehicle on the field: $12,000

It's a lot to raise, so God is going to have to do it. As such, I'm hoping to mobilize as much prayer as possible towards attaining that goal. Pray hard folks! Pray also that I'll be able to get all the logistics of getting a famly of seven moved from America to Uganda worked out in the next three months. There's a mountain of tasks to get done by then and I want to be sure I get it all worked out in a timely and accurate manner.

Pray also for our meeting on Sunday in Victory Baptist Church in Columbia, MO. I have to go there by myself so Anna can be here for a wedding shower at church that she and some of the other ladies have been planning for some time. The week afterwards, we have a meeting down in Athens, TN, and will be taking the opportunity of proximity to Chattanooga to go ahead and get our Departure Checklist with BIMI worked out. These are exciting times!

Thanks again for all your prayers!