Entries by James

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-06-2007

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Hello folks! Our trip home from Florida went well. We had a conference in Tri-County Baptist Church in Washington, MO with Pastor Daryl Tharp on March 25. The meeting went great. I had the Sunday School hour, and showed our slides and talked about the field of Uganda and the call of God on our life. Pastor Mike Andrews from Victory Baptist Church over in St. Louis preached the morning service, and I preached the evening service. After I finished up preaching that night, I got to lead a young lady to the LORD. Her name is Mandy, so pray for her growth. Our boys and his boys are about the same age, so our guys had a great time playing with them. We had a great time of fellowship with the Tharps. He's got a great church going here, and well situated as people move out from the city to settle in country. It's a growing area in other words. Pray that they will be able to effectively minister to the area. Pray that God will increase their membership. Pray that the folks in their church will continue to grow and serve the LORD, and that God will continue to prepare men for leadership in the church. Pray for Bro. Tharp. St. Louis is a hard area to reach.

We've been very busy while home. Anna and I were able to get some projects done that were hanging over our heads. I retooled the website (https://missionuganda.com). Most of the changes that you will see are cosmetic, but under the hood, it has a bunch of new code, and should be much easier to work with. We were able to get some needed rest. It was good to break out the lawnmower and what not, and start doing yard work again, as Spring has finally come. It was good to get to be here for our church's Easter cantata, and to be here on Sunday for Easter services. However, after Easter: back to work! On Tuesday, we'll be heading up to LePlata, MD for a conference in Bethel Baptist Church with Pastor Steve Corbett. Pastor Pat Creed, Caribbean Director for BIMI will be the main speaker. It's going to be a great conference, and we're really looking forward to it. This begins a series of meetings that will keep us away from home 'til mid-May. Pray for us as we travel.

God bless you all!

James Huckabee
Missionary to Uganda

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-21-2007

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Hello folks from sunny Florida! We've just wrapped up our conference in Gospel Baptist Church in Bonita Springs, FL. What a week! Bro. Hal Hightower preached the conference. He used to be the pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lebanon, MO for fifteen years (Don Ball is pastor there now. We were in their missions conference last year), before God called him to be a full-time evangelist. The services were tremendous. We are ever more fired up about reaching souls with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God has just showered us with blessings here as well. Each night, the folks brought gifts for the different groups of missionaries. Monday was Tool Night for the guys. We were loaded, and I mean LOADED up with tools to take with us to the field. God moved some of the folks to get me a chainsaw. It's a 45.4 cc , 3.0 bhp Stihl chainsaw. I had been praying about a Stihl, about this size, and God supplied the exact one I was wanting. I'll be using it to clear trees and brush over in Uganda when we have building projects to do, which will be often. Tuesday night was for the ladies, and Anna got all manner of lotions, bath stuff, and what not. The biggest thing, though, was the 25 or so full bolts of cloth that were brought in, not counting the laundry hamper full of "fat quarters" of varied colors and patterns. She and the other missionary wife who sew divvied it up, and we are well set on cloth and such to take with us to Africa to make clothes and things. Wednesday night, tonight, was for the kids, and I tell you, it was Christmas in March. We have truly been heaped with blessings, pressed down, shaken together and running over (literally in this case!). We got a sizable love offering, which is going to help pay a few bills, as well as swell our savings account to help pay for passage when the time comes to go to Uganda. Frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed. We have just been welcomed and loved here, and made to feel like family. I'm so glad God supplied the opportunity to come. Hugh Fisher up in Narragansett Bay Baptist Church (one of our supporting churches, and very dear friends and family really) recommended this church way back when, and it went so well. We have been in conference after conference lately where God has just blessed, knit our hearts together with these churches, and where they have been moved to support us. It really feels like we're reaching an end, after going so long with what felt like little progress. God is doing it. He plainly intends to wrap things up by this summer, or shortly thereafter, so we can go to language school in the Fall. Keep praying!

Tomorrow, we'll be driving up to Chattanooga, TN to stay at BIMI, and finishing up the drive back to St. Louis on Friday. This weekend we have a meeting with Pastor Daryl Tharp in Washington, MO in Tri-County Baptist Church. Pray that the services will go well, and for me as I preach in both services on Sunday. Pray that I will be able to minister to this church and pastor, and be an encouragement to them.

God bless you folks!

James Huckabee
Missionary to Uganda

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-17-2007

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Greetings once again! Our meeting in Valley Bible Baptist Church (Pastor Shawn Foster) went great. We made the trip to Middleburgh, NY without a hitch. This was the same county where they got three feet of snow and were declared a disaster area a few weeks back. We went from 70 degree weather in Tulsa, OK, to 6 below in NY. Brrrrrr… We stayed with the Fosters, Shawn and Debbie and had a great time of fellowship with them. Our kids had a ball playing with their kids, which was a welcome treat for them. They don' t typically get a passel of kids to play with like that. The meetings went very well. Bro. John Halsey preached, and God met with us. Between our family, and the other missionary families, I think we tripled the size of the Patch the Pirate club there. It was a great week, albeit cold. We drove back to St. Louis in a day, not the kind of thing we normally do, but we wanted the extra day home in between conferences. 

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-06-2007

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Hello, again! This past week we were in Tulsa, OK with Tulsa Baptist Temple in their 51st (yes, 51st) annual missions conference. The church has been there for 62 years, and is on only their 5th pastor, Pastor Rocky Harrill. It was a tremendous conference. God visited us in the services, and in the preaching (we all got to preach). The LORD really knit our hearts together, and it felt like leaving family when we finally did have to leave on Monday to head back to St. Louis. The good news is this: this church will be voting to support us next week! Their missions committee unanimously voted in favor of making us one of their missionaries, and the Pastor will be presenting us to the church. What a blessing! God is bringing in the support, and we are finally beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, with our goal of getting to the field in Uganda in sight!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-27-2007

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Greetings! It's been a busy week and a half. The day after I got back from Montana, we had an installer in to put in our new, secure, steel doors. The install went great, the doors look very good, and our house is much more secure. On a related note, it turns out that our front door was probably "bumped" (we had a break-in about a month back), meaning that someone used a modified key blank, tapped it into the lock bumping up all the tumblers, and allowing access to our house. It's a fairly simple procedure that is making the rounds on the internet of late. That's right, most pin-and-tumbler locks are now useless. Worried How do you like that? I'm having a locksmith in on Thursday to install some Primus deadbolts, which should prevent similar break-ins in the future. Now, we can finally leave our home, and know we've taken reasonable precautions to secure the premises against punk kids with internet access.

Our meeting in Chattanooga went well. One Accord took good care of us, and was very hospitable to us. We showed our video and gave testimonies, and were able to minister to the folks and hold forth the need for missionaries.

The following week we spent re-painting and fixing up the kids' rooms. It was a long overdue project which gives them a much nicer, better organized space in which to sleep and play. The boys' room is blue, and we put glow-in-the-dark stars up on the ceiling, which was a big hit. Elizabeth gets her own room again now that Gaelin is old enough to sleep in the same room with his brothers. We did hers in pink, with hearts and butterflies as a border around the top, which she loves.

Today, James and John turned six, and are having a great birthday. We got them their first bikes this year. We worked on mounting the bike and just standing there without falling down at first, then moved up to getting on and taking off, and then actual riding. They picked it up fast, and although getting on the bike is still a challenge (they're a scoche tall for them), they are riding very well for their first day. All they need now is practice.

Tomorrow we head off to Tulsa, OK for a missions conference in Tulsa Baptist Temple with Pastor Rocky Harrill. After that, we drive to Fairfax Station, VA for a meeting in Fairfax Baptist Temple (Pastor Troy Calvert), and from there to Middleburg, NY for a conference in Valley Bible Baptist Church (Pastor Shawn Foster). Pray for us! The weather is improving, but we're liable to get lots of rain in the near future, because it's nearly March. Pray for our health. God has kept us flu-free this February, and we're very grateful (last year, we had various strains of stomach flu for five weeks running in February).

God bless,

James Huckabee
Missionary to Uganda