MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 01-28-2007
Greetings from the East! We've completed a brief tour of the East Coast, and will be heading back to St. Louis on Monday. Last Sunday, we were in Faith Baptist Church in Berlin, MD (Pastor John Abent), and 1st Baptist Church of Seaford, DE (Pastor Michael Hopkins), respectively. The Abents spoiled us with this fabulous room in the big resort Holiday Inn right on the beach in Ocean View, MD. We had an oceanfront room on the eighth floor, with a glorious view of the ocean. Since we had to be up for church bright and early on Sunday anyway, we got to open our curtains and watch the sun rise over the ocean. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Cold, and windy, but beautiful. That morning was a technical morass of unexpected problems. We got ready to get the DVD for Pastor Abent so he could get it to his a/v man and couldn't' find it. So, I went out to the car to burn another one. As I began to do so, the DVD-RW tray almost falls out in my hands. My drive is toast. I can't burn anything to any disc. So, thinking quick, I ran the laptop inside, and we got it hooked up to their system so we could show the video presentation off the laptop. Then, that night, the DVD player they had in Seaford didn't like our disc, and proceeded to insert bad static into the audio. You could still mostly understand, though, and the church was very understanding. The meetings went very well, and God blessed.
On Wednesday, we were in a conference in Pineville, NC, in South Charlotte Baptist Church with Pastor Charlie Scott. It was a great conference. Dr. Clayton Shumpert preached, and the services went well. I got to speak in their Spanish church, and this morning I presented the Gospel to 69 kids, of which most were bus kids. It was a tremendous series of meetings, and it went very well.
They had us in their prophet's chamber, which was very comfortable, and very convenient for us. However, on the first night we were there, we had an interesting experience. They have an ADT alarm system, which Pastor Scott showed me how to arm, including bypass codes for the parts of the building where we were, so the doors would still be armed, but we could still walk around. I got confused, because the button I was supposed to hit to arm it was marked 'Away', and the one next to it was marked 'Stay'. I assumed (big mistake), that since I was supposed to hit 'Away' when we left, then we must be supposed to hit 'Stay' when we were in for the night. Apparently, that feature was disabled, and in fact, placed the whole system into a sort of 'Hot Mode', where so much as a fly sneezing would set off the whole thing without warning. Anna walks into the large area where the Spanish church meets, and instantly alarms start shrieking, lights start flashing, and I race over to the keypad to try to get the thing shut off. I'm frantically punching the key code to turn it off (no help), and trying to dial ADT at the same time so the cops don't come and, being a false alarm, cause the church to be fined. I got them to cancel any dispatch, and, klaxxons still howling, called the Assistant Pastor to find out what to do. Turns out, I needed to go through the church, find the panel for the fire alarm system, punch in its code to silence that, and then disarm the ADT system on its keypad. Now, had that been the only instance, it would have been crazy enough, but the confounded thing went off TWO MORE times before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Anna eventually holed up in our room and wouldn't come out any more that night, because it only seemed to go off when she made a move. We finally got it all straightened out, got everyone settled down, and went to bed, and we didn't have any more trouble after that, but boy, what an interesting first night.
Sunday evening, we had a meeting in Sunset, SC in Antioch Baptist Church (Pastor Barry Pace). We left in good time, and arrived at our destination by 5:30 PM, but, as it turned out, my information was wrong. I had the right address, but it was the Pastor's house, not the church, and the only number I had for him was his home number. We drove all over Six Mile, SC looking for the church for the next hour and fifteen minutes, asking people for directions (nobody had heard of the church), even driving back to their house to see if their neighbors might know, but to no avail. We located practically every Baptist Church in a thirty mile radius, but none of them named Antioch. Finally, in desperation, we called another Baptist Church in Easley, SC, and the Assistant Pastor turned out to be Deputy Sheriff for the town, so he had us call his dispatcher, who got us the right address (we couldn't find a thing anywhere on the internet), and we punched it into our GPS and finally arrived just as everyone was heading home. Not good. I went in, expecting to get a tongue lashing, but Pastor Pace was very gracious and kind. He took us out to eat, had us a hotel booked in town, and is going to recommend us to his deacons to support us anyway. Can you imagine? It seems that in our absence, they decided to have a testimony and worship time, and the Holy Spirit moved, and folks were down at the altar in droves, and it was a great time of blessing for them and glory to God. We had prayed as we were heading over to the right address finally, that God would somehow get the glory out of this after all, and it turns out He did. We're making arrangements to come back later this year, now that we know for sure where to go, so it all worked out for the best.
Good times, folks. Life in the ministry is never boring, I can promise you that. Tomorrow we head home, and on Wednesday, I will be flying up to Great Falls, MT for a pair of conferences up there. Pray for ours, and my, travels, and for the months ahead as we continue to travel, minister, seek support, and continue on the road that ends in Uganda.