All our adventures as missionaries, past and present.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 05-28-2015

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Greetings from Uganda! PRAISE THE LORD OUR CONTAINER HAS ARRIVED! It took a bit longer to get here than we would have liked due to bad rain in the mountains in Kenya, and crooked customs agents at the border, but our clearing agent overcame all obstacles and got it here at last.

Library

Massive pile o’ books for the new church library.

Thank you to everyone who aided us in making this library possible: the people who donated books and money to buy and then ship the container, our Pastor and the folks in our church who got the thing loaded, organized, and on its way, the good people at Missionary Expediters who got it to Africa, then Goldfield Logistics in Kenya, who had to negotiate to get our container through to us with minimal delay and costs, and BIMU here in Uganda who had to help with some of the paperwork. Lots of people were involved getting the container here, and we are very, very grateful.

Meanwhile out at Nakivale, God has been blessing at all four churches. In Ngarama, the town has received 400 new families from the unrest in Burundi. We are seeing some growth there as new people seek us out.

In Juru, the church is bursting at the seams. We are going to have to expand that building to accommodate. God has raised up a man and given him the vision to start a primary school. He already has three schools going, maxed out with students. The need for a school here is grave, as the one public school they have has class sizes of 200, and minimal discipline or actual learning going on. Pray for us as we assist the growth of this endeavor. The new books are going to be a huge help. Thank you to those of you who sent school supplies!

Kabazano and Sangano are also both growing. We will be conducting another baptism service soon.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses are making inroads at the camp, so I am tailoring some specific teaching to counter their many heretical, unBiblical beliefs. Pray for the truth to keep overcoming the lies. Our churches have gained a reputation for emphasizing the truth. When I was preaching about tongues and the deceptions of the modern Signs and Wonders movement, I heard that one of the local Pentecostal pastors at Sangano became frustrated with one of our folks who was debating the point with him. This Pastor declared “These Baptist only care for the truth!” Indeed. The Pentecostals here believe in extra-Biblical revelation – our folks insist on Bible, Bible, Bible.

Mud

Stuck in the mud at Sangano.

Last month, we got badly stuck in the mud at Sangano. Somebody cut the road we normally use to make an irrigation ditch for their field, and this was the result. We finally had to get a team of 20 guys to pick the truck up and set it back on the road. The folks from Sangano pitched in and helped. It was a community affair. Our car was damaged. I got the really serious stuff fixed, so we can keep driving out there, but the 4WD is toast. I will have to save money for several months to repair that. It will have to be done before the rains come again, because as you can see, the road inside the camp is impossible to negotiate in the rains without 4-wheel.

Pray for us. I am still working on getting our paperwork together to submit to the NGO board in Kampala. There is one local official here who is delaying us badly. I just need a letter of recommendation from him – he is delaying to give it. Pray that this will be quickly resolved so we can get our NGO created soon.

Keep praying! The LORD is at work at Nakivale, and we are privileged to participate in what He is doing.

MISSON: Uganda Blog Update 03-09-2015

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Greetings! OUR CONTAINER HAS SHIPPED!!!

Container

The intrepid truck and crane guys, hard at work.

After a year of waiting, the money finally became available to ship our container full of books to Uganda. Thank you to everyone who gave books to our library. Thank you to everyone who gave money for the container and the shipping. And the biggest thanks goes to our church family, who worked so tirelessly to get this thing prepped and shipped. There is only so much I can do remotely from Uganda, so without their hands working on our behalf, we could not have brought our dream of a public library in Nakivale refugee camp to fruition.

According to the shipping company, our container should reach South Africa by the 30th, then Mombasa by April 9th. From there, it begins making its way overland to our home in Mbarara, Uganda. Exciting!

The people at Sangano are looking forward to this library with great anticipation. Currently, there are no libraries of any type out in Nakivale. They are working hard putting the finishing touches on the building that will house the books. We have to get some benches and tables made. Once the container comes, we have to sort and organize the books, load them into metal trunks for storage, and begin hauling them out there (we can’t put them on shelves because the termites will devour them). We have people ready to man the library and manage the books. It’s all coming together.

I have been burdened with the need for a public church library for some time. Our church will be doing something very practical and of direct benefit to their community through this library, and it will allow us to reach refugees from all over Africa with the Gospel, including Muslims.

Pray for the transition through customs, that we don’t get harassed by the customs agents and our container just comes straight to our house without issue.

I have finally reached 1 Corinthians 14 in my preaching. This means I can, at last, lay the axe to the root of the many Pentecostal/Charismatic cults operating in Uganda. Pentecostalism is appealing here, because it bears such similarity to traditional tribal religions. You have people getting possessed by spirits to receive secret knowledge. You have wild, emotional, frenzied “worship”. You have pagan rituals designed to coax favors from the spirits. All disease is caused by demons, so those have to be cast out, with more pagan rituals and lots of shouting. Slap a coat of pseudo-Christian paint on that, and you have the majority of the Penticosmatic groups at work in Nakivale.

The modern Signs and Wonders movement mines the third world for money and resources, and Uganda is no exception. I am quite weary of these thieves and charlatans, deceiving and exploiting the desperate and the poor. They deal in lies, but to paraphrase the great Steve McQueen from The Magnificent Seven “We deal in truth.” And the truth makes us free.

Pray for us as we continue educating our people and sowing the truth of God’s eternal word among them.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 01-17-2015

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Happy New Year, and welcome to 2015! I trust everybody had some great holidays – we sure did. We bought turkeys out at the refugee camp for Thanksgiving. I try to buy everything I can out at the camp, from church members if possible. It’s a way for people to earn money without my having to harm them with charity. Christmas went great. We took gifts out to our church folks like we always do, and had a big meal at Sangano for everybody.

In December we had another Lord’s Supper for the churches. I am preparing to organize some more churches, and the Lord’s Supper is a good opportunity to review the ordinances, and the importance and necessity of an organized church membership.

The kids are off school for Christmas, so we did our first Marathon VBS of the year like we do every school break. This time, we had over 500 children between the four preaching points on the last day. We got to give the gospel to a lot of children who don’t attend our church, and also hand out lots of cookies, Kool Aid, and candy bars for the guys who could say their memory verses. It was a lot of fun, and only moderately exhausting.

Marathon VBS

Anna leading songs with the kiddos.

In February, I’m having another Baptism/Wedding service. Please be in prayer for that. I find that, like the Apostle Paul, I am having to lay a foundation for people with marriage. What we would recognize as Common Law marriage (living together or cohabitation) is very common here. I am having to teach people why God created marriage, and why it remains necessary today. I am attempting to restore a proper respect for marriage in a world that has done its best to defile and demean God’s sacred institution.

Another thing I have started doing is going out to each of the points and just answering questions from the Bible in an informal Bible Study. The people love it, and I really like it because it gets everybody involved, not just the men. Truth always overcomes deception. Plugging people in to the Bible alleviates a lot of the nonsense that can crop up in a church, always due to deception or failure to understand the plain teaching of Scripture.

All the money needed to ship our container of books to Uganda has come. Our church is busy getting everything organized to ship. We should have that thing on its way to Uganda by the end of the month. Praise the LORD! I am attempting to get all inspections and customs done in America so I don’t have to deal with customs in Uganda. Pray that the shipping process will go smoothly.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-21-2014

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Greetings! God is blessing greatly out at Nakivale. October 12 we conducted a joint service at Sangano of the four churches to whom we minister. I baptized 23 people and married two couples. Many of the baptized were children from our Sunday Schools and VBS. It is tremendous to see the gospel do its work in their hearts. You have to wonder sometimes if you’re getting through, and then you watch them growing and progressing in their faith and it’s awesome.Baptism

One of the men I won to the LORD came to be baptized and also be married. I have been preaching very firm against fornication, and at the same time, making the Biblical case for marriage. Marriage is holy before the LORD. He created it in the Garden for Adam and Eve, so they could live with each other and enjoy each other without sin. It’s purpose is to protect us against fornication, to deliver us from loneliness, and to give comfort and pleasure. God defines marriage as between one man and one woman. If any relationship diverges from this pattern, then it’s not marriage, no matter what human judges may say – the Divine Judge has already spoken and His decision is final. WeddingThese folks had simply cohabited, but they wanted to be married before God and the churches. I have to say, I was a bit nervous, as this was my first wedding, but it went off without a hitch (well, actually there were two hitches, but you know what I mean) and the church was greatly edified (another purpose of marriage). It rejoices my heart greatly to see the Bible change hearts and alter lives like this.

We remain and continue our work, training our leaders and our people, preaching, serving, and spreading the simple Gospel message of Jesus Christ to Nakivale, and through our people, beyond to Congo, Rwanda, and around the world. Things are going to become much busier for us in the next several months. Pray for us as we continue holding forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout East Africa.

God bless you all!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 08-21-2014

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Greetings in the name of the LORD! I’ll bet you’re all looking forward to Fall by now and some relief from the dog days of summer, right? Believe it or not, it actually gets HOTTER in August in Saint Louis than it does here in Uganda at the Equator.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Pastor Claudian at Independent Baptist here in Mbarara. A lady from our church at Kabazano had come to the regional hospital in Mbarara with a sick infant, and the baby had died. They needed transport back to the camp with the body. I drove the mother, the corpse of the baby, and her sister back to the camp. Kabazano is the end of the line. It is the furthest away, and the roads are pretty harsh. We drove in silence. I don’t know enough Kinyarwanda to converse, and they didn’t know any English. Ugandans don’t show much emotion in public (except at political rallies or soccer matches), but when we drew near to home, she began weeping, clutching the body of her dead child. There was nothing I could say. Nothing I could do that I wasn’t already doing. I sat with them in their sitting room. The mother covered her head with her garment and wept, and the rest of us sat there in awkward silence. They fetched a schoolgirl who knew English (they have good schools out at the camp), and she interpreted. The mother, weeping, exclaimed “I don’t even have a case!” I considered this for a moment, and then realized, she means she has no coffin. I asked how much coffins cost, and it was not more than 10 dollars. I guess you don’t need much wood when you’re making a coffin for a baby. I gave them the money to take care of it.

So many babies die here. This is the second time in as many months I have had to do a funeral for an infant. Next morning was Sunday, so I went out there for church. I discovered that this was the daughter of a church member there, but she had married an unsaved man and left the church (ladies always take the religion of the man they marry here, regardless). Simply driving them back, and buying them a coffin had ministered to the people greatly. It doesn’t seem like much to most of you, but transport and a coffin is a lot of money for a refugee. I tried to explain to the church folks that, although she had abandoned the church, we mustn’t pass the opportunity to minister to the family. This act of kindness, and their kindness in in attending the burial and comforting the family, could be the means of salvation for her whole family. Pray for these people. They need the LORD, and comfort as they grieve.

This past week, we had another of our Marathon VBS’s. I call it Marathon VBS because we have four preaching points, and we have 4 separate VBS’s for each, each day, for three days. We spend an hour at the first, drive to the next, spend an hour there, and so on. It keeps us gone for most of the day from early in the morning, until around 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon. It’s grueling, especially on the toddler, but we make do. We so enjoy ministering to the children. Most of the kids who come, the majority in fact, are not associated with the church. There are Muslims, Pentecostals, Church of Uganda, and Catholic. They all come, likely to get the Kool-Aid and cookies we provide, or the toys we give as prizes for sitting quietly or memorizing verses, but they all hear the Gospel. On the first day, the total number was 257. On the last, we had 606. We don’t advertise because we don’t have to. They come. If we kept on going past three days, I think their numbers could reach even higher. This is normal. Amazing, right? Pray for these children, that these seeds we are planting will bear fruit unto salvation.

God bless you all!

Teaching

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jumping for Verses