Entries by James

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-17-2007

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

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

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

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-14-2007

Greetings from St. Louis! I made it back alive to St. Louis from Great Falls, MT. On the day I was supposed to leave (Tuesday), a winter storm moved into the Midwest and began dumping frozen sunshine all over my landing strip. As we're sitting on the tarmac in Salt Lake City, the pilot informs us that there's a 50/50 chance we might have to divert to Kansas City if the visibility doesn't improve en route.  Needless to say, I was on the phone getting some prayer going! God cleared the weather up, however, and I was able to land in St. Louis on time. The only hitch was the backed up line of planes already at the gates, so even though we landed on time, we sat on the runway for another hour waiting for gate access. At any rate, I'm home again, and it's very good to be with my family once more.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-05-2007

Greetings, once again! I'm up in Great Falls, MT at the moment. I flew up here last Wednesday for some meetings I had scheduled up this way. Anna and the kids stayed at home and got some much needed rest. Driving up here would have been time, and cost, prohibitive, so flying up for the meetings alone was definitely the way to go. It turned out to be a good decision, because they got sick (not stomach flu) after I left, and it's always easier to recover from sickness in your own home.

My first meeting was in Fairview Baptist Church with Pastor Richard Dion. Dr. Pat Creed, the Caribbean Director for BIMI, was the main speaker. It was a tremendous conference. The messages were encouraging to me, and were beneficial to everyone. Their goal for missions giving this year was $40,000, which they exceeded with $53,000 and some change. This was in spite of losing several giving families in the prior year. Praise the LORD! I know they're excited about what God is going to do in the coming year.