Greetings! Our time before the next furlough is growing short. We are coming to America in June and will be staying through March of 2020. I am still scheduling, so if you’d like a visit from us, please let me know.

Pastor Theogene at Ngarama is still having problems with his kidneys. Before he fled Congo for Uganda years back, soldiers captured him, detained him, and beat him. The beating damaged his kidneys, which continue to trouble him. He is a faithful pastor at Ngarama Independent Baptist Church. He has been a great help in our ministry. He also has ten kids to support. Please pray for his health and continued well-being.

Our church in Isanja has reached a critical stage. The building is in terrible condition. It’s not a question of if it will fall down in a storm, but when, and who will be hurt or killed. Our people have been working diligently to manufacture the sun dried bricks that will be used for construction. They contribute their labor to the project, without being paid, and on top of the work they already have to do personally. It will require more than they have to complete the job. I sent our contractor out there to work up an estimate. It will be a 25×55 ft structure, with a 4 seat pit latrine, and a baptistry. The total cost will be just shy of $8000, including materials and labor. Our contractor hires as many of our church people as can do the work, and any other locals that are qualified. This provides them with some needed income, and helps them have more ownership of their church building. If you can contribute at all to this project, it would be much appreciated.

We have just passed through the influenza plague that’s been going around. At this point, only Brennah managed to escape (so far). We have all been pretty miserable. Jamie’s fever got up so high last week that he passed out. I had to wrestle him into his shower and put cool water on him to get the fever down. He was the worst, but we have all had a hard way to go. We are recovering, but there’s just nothing like a flu virus to bring down a whole family and delete a week of your life from productivity.

I am pleased with the churches. They are growing. The leadership is doing well. Everything seems to be stable. The congregations are content and joyful in the LORD. They see the need for outreach in the community and are working diligently to spread the gospel among their neighbors. I am very proud of all of them. Pray for the work. I am going to try to get everything on stable footing before I return to America. I am always a little nervous about leaving our ministries, but God has provided some very good people who love the LORD and are very motivated to maintain what He has started here. Our men are working to train our young men for the work. This is precisely what our ministry strives to do, as 2 Timothy 2:2 states.

Thank you for your prayers, encouragement, and financial support.

 

Greetings! 2018 has been the year for visitors. In August we had two young ladies from Faith Baptist Church in Layton, UT come for a month-long mission trip. Elizabeth Stoner and Isabella Brown lived with us and got to see everything about life on the mission field here. They helped us get the remainder of our library books sorted and stamped to go out to various libraries in Nakivale. They also aided us with Marathon VBS during the August school break. We had our usual approximately 500-600 kids show up at the four churches each day. We showed the Jesus Film for Children in Kinyarwanda and Swahili, and gave the gospel clear and true for all three days. Isabella and Elizabeth were both a great help to us.

Following the failure to find water underground, we installed two 10,000 liter cisterns at Sangano to catch rainwater (that’s 5200 gallons). The rain at Nakivale has been very good, with the result that they now have access to clean, clear, refreshing water. No more buying jerry cans of nasty, polluted lake water. This will ease their suffering during the dry seasons, and hopefully reduce, if not eliminate, parasitic infections.

In October, our Pastor Ken Spilger and his wife, Beth came for a visit. As is the custom here, because they are my wife’s parents AND my Pastor, each church planned a special service to greet them and feed them copious amounts of delicious Congolese and Rwandan food. Last Sunday, I baptized 15, including one whom I led to the LORD that day. The rainwater in the baptistry was clean, clear, and COLD. In the past, the folks at Sangano would have had to buy jerry cans of dirty water to fill our baptistry – no longer. Afterwards, my Pastor got to distribute Bibles to the new converts. Once they’ve had a chance to study the Constitution and agree to it, they will be welcomed to join Sangano Independent Baptist Church. All our churches are growing very well. God is good.

We are in need of bookshelves. A standard wood bookshelf will cost $80. We need several to finish our library project once and for all. The books are ready, but we need shelves to hold them. Would you consider sponsoring some bookshelves for the Independent Baptist Public Church Library system in Nakivale? For every $80 I receive, I will get a bookshelf made and hauled out there along with the books. Designate it “Bookshelves”, and that’s how the money will be spent.

We are coming home on furlough in June of 2019 and staying for 6 to 8 months. The primary reason for this furlough is to bring our oldest three boys back for college and to be in the states through their first semester. I realize that there are some of you that have not seen us since we came to Uganda in 2010. If you would like a visit, PLEASE EMAIL TO LET ME KNOW (missionuganda@gmail.com). I will soon begin filling our furlough calendar with meetings, so contact me if you would like to be put on the schedule. As always, I will be preparing a short video, and will send you all the link to show in your churches.

I would also appreciate any leads for new churches who would like to support a three-term missionary to Uganda. We could still use an increase in support. There are several large building projects that we need to undertake, each church could use its own cistern, and we’d like to start churches in at least two other communities in Nakivale.

God is working in the Nakivale Refugee Camp, and we are very privileged to participate in what He is doing. We could not be here, doing this necessary ministry, without your financial support and faithful prayers. Thank you for praying for us!