MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 01-03-2013

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Happy New Year!  "And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him." Isaiah 30:18 God has provided a miracle on our behalf and in answer to the many prayers that have been made about our vehicle situation. As you recall, our vehicle was badly damaged by the pernicious road we travel every week going out to Nakivale. The repair bill was huge, and unattainable for us, so we parked the car and waited for God's provision. Various solutions were offered, primarily involving debt, which I did not want to do. Instead, we opted to wait on God just a little longer to see what would happen. Once the final decision not to go into debt for this was made, we received in rapid-fire succession everything we needed and more within 48 hours. As of now, everything we knew about is fixed on the car, and some things we did not know about until the car was apart and they were discovered. God supplied it all, enough for the whole repair as well as for things we could not prepare for or ask for. Praise the LORD!

It was impossible to get the car fixed in time to get out to the camp the Sunday before Christmas, so we had to delay until the Sunday after, but it made no difference. Everyone was so happy to see us, in particular my family who had not been to church for nearly two months. We gave out some presents we'd been preparing throughout the year. Additionally, we gave a bunch of t-shirts I received from some folks in America who had heard about the camp, found our website, and all on their own gathered shirts sufficient for men, women, and children, and the high dollar cost of shipping and sent them to us here to give to the refugees for Christmas. Every member of the families got to pick shirts of their choosing, and in their size. God supplied all of it. It was a great Christmas celebration, after a long period of dealing with the car. 

Continue to pray as we enter this new year and finalize preparations for furlough. Pray for our annual, mandatory Field Conference in the capitol, that our trip there and back would go smoothly, and nobody will get sick this year (it's a mandatory meeting, so inevitably, sick missionaries bring their most virulent illnesses and share them with the rest of us). Pray our car will be okay, and we will remain safe and well.

God bless and keep you!

 

Christmas at Nakivale 01

Christmas at Nakivale 02

Christmas at Nakivale 03

Christmas at Nakivale 04

Christmas at Nakivale 05

Christmas at Nakivale 06

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 12-17-2012

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Greetings! Last week, Independent Baptist Church in Mbarara had its bi-annual Mobile Institute. This is a week-long, intensive, training time we make available for all the men who are called to preach in this area. They come from all over, and are housed and fed for the week at the orphanage building Bryan Stensaas is building there (it is nearly finished). This time, we had a beginner class (Gospel of John) and an advanced class (Christian Leadership). I had the great privilege of teaching on two of the chapters in John, with the whole book divided amongst the various pastors already trained and the missionaries. It was a tremendous week. We are training men who have the potential to spread out throughout Uganda and start churches. A ministry such as ours is absolutely based on the quality of the Biblical training and education we give our people. This is why Project Libris, our library project, is underway for furlough. I am gathering books to bring back and start a library out in Nakivale, primarily for the benefit of the pastors and ministry students there. Some of our guys from Nakivale were present at the Institute, and sang a beautiful Kinyarwanda hymn in the Wednesday service. It was a joy to see these men in attendance (66 this time), away from their families, preparing for the challenging work of leading New Testament churches.

Continue to pray for us. We are still stuck at home due to our broken vehicle (month-and-a-half now). As I’ve said before, our operations in town are unaffected (we normally walk most places), but our village ministry is utterly crippled. Until this is resolved, our work at Navkivale is at a standstill. The way things are going, we will be unable to get out to the camp for the Christmas service this week, the VBS next month, and our annual, mandatory Field Conference coming up at the end of January. I don’t normally ask for help, but this is a serious need. If folks would be willing to help us with a small financial gift to help pay for this fix, I would be very grateful. No amount is too small. We still need $2800. Whatever God leads you to do, make sure you mark it ‘Vehicle Repair’ and I will add it to the collective ’til we have enough for the fix. I am praying we will be able to get this done in the next week so we can go out to the camp for Christmas. We have gifts we were planning to give our people, and no practical way to get out to them. 

 God bless you all, and Merry Christmas!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 12-10-2012

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Greetings! The year is nearly finished. I hope in this last few weeks before the End that God blesses you and you find joy with your family and friends while you still can. 😀 You know, if the world ends, it won’t be due to the failure of the Mayans’ to buy more inserts for their Day Planners. It will be due to the great wickedness of man and the eternal plan of Almighty God. As for me and mine, we have work to do while it is yet day. However bad things may get in the short term due to stupid Electorates and even more stupid opposition Parties, our mission is unchanged – preach the Gospel to every creature. And that we shall.

I have been riding with Jeff Bassett and crew out to the refugee camp every week and leaving the family home (we are legion, and there aren’t enough seats). Djuna gives me a lift to my two preaching points on his motorbike, then out to Sangano for Jeff’s service, and I ride back with him. The car is still parked, following the Road’s successful assassination attempt. Some money has come in for the repair (Thank you, and praise the LORD!!), but not enough to do the whole repair. Please keep praying. As it currently stands, there will be no Christmas party for the children, nor for the churches like we usually do around Christmas – we lack the transport to get everything out there. If this transport drought continues, there won’t be a VBS in January either, which is when the children are off school. Our ministry is extremely handicapped right now.

Pray for our impending furlough. Our plane tickets are bought, which makes it real. I have sent many emails to churches, requesting meetings. Many have responded, many have not. Pray Pastors will find time to respond so I can finalize our furlough schedule for next year. Pray that new churches will be willing and able to grant us meetings so we can raise new support, which we need very much. Pray for all the traveling that is coming. Pray for our works, for our fellow laborers, for our employees, for our dogs, for our property, and for our fellow missionaries, who all have to get by in our absence. Pray there will be no excitement here while we are on loan from the Field visiting you.

We are looking forward greatly to seeing you all again, and to all the mighty things God has planned for the months ahead!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 11-10-2012

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Greetings, one and all! Thank you for praying. The works are producing fruit, and that is always a good thing. I have had four saved at Juru in the past few weeks, and this in spite of my best efforts to talk them out of it (you have to be careful with salvation decisions, so I press folks that want to be saved to make sure they fully understand what they are doing, and are truly responding in faith, not just reciting a prayer and joining our club like other outfits do). I reckon we’ll have to have a baptism service soon. Meanwhile, at Ngarama, we are trying something new. Attendance has dwindled there of late (these things go in cycles I have noticed), so I am bringing some small prizes with me on Sunday to reward those who bring visitors. I don’t plan on doing this ALL the time, but I thought it might be fun, just to see what they do. Everybody likes to be rewarded for their efforts, and bars of laundry soap aren’t terribly expensive. 

Pray for the roads. I know I ask for this quite often, but at the moment, it is one of the biggest obstacles in our ministry. The Chinese construction guys are working on it, but our prayer is that they would begin the paving soon. If the roads were paved, it would save us thousands of dollars a year in maintenance and fuel. Let me give you a recent example.

This past Wednesday, it was my turn to drive out for the Bible Institute class Jeff and I teach at Sangano for all the prospective preachers. We carpool to save fuel and wear-and-tear on the cars. He teaches for two hours, then I teach for two hours – it’s a good system. The rains have been very hard on the roads of late (this is awesome for the plants/crops, bad for driving). On the way back, I drove over what looked like an average depth crevasse in the road. I was going slow (have to on this particular section), but it turned out to be much deeper than either of us could see. I felt the back end of the car just drop and we both cringed. Within moments, I knew there was a problem. On inspection, we found a variety of issues. One of the back shocks was broke. We got it loose and begin to move on slowly to limp back to town. There was still knocking. The parking brake was locked up, so I disconnected the cable to release tension on the pad. Still it was knocking. I called our mechanic in Kampala. He suspected some of the bushings were damaged, and advised we drive very slowly (chameleon-speed as one guy put it). We drove a bit more, but it was getting worse and worse. I called him again, and we held the phone out the window for him to listen. He told us to pull over right away and call a wrecker. 

Calling for a wrecker is an adventure in itself here. We only had to sit for an hour-and-a-half waiting for them to come from Mbarara. We chatted with the school children who milled about on the way home from school. There was a stream running nearby. It was almost pleasant. They came, and we had to work to make them understand that it was the back end with the problem, so the car would have to be towed backwards. They got us hooked up, and we’re both praying the car stays attached the whole way back to town. We made it, just before dark, which is always the goal. Ssuemko came yesterday and confirmed what I already suspected – the whole rear end will have to be replaced. So, in addition to the shocks that have to be replaced, the clutch assembly which we were already needing to repair, and this new problem of a whole back end having to be replaced, we’re looking at around $3200 in repairs. Road: 1, Missionary: 0. Please pray about this need.

Pray about furlough. I am busily scheduling meetings. We will need more churches to support us, to make up for what we did not have when we came, and which never materialized, and to make up for the vast increase in the cost of living that has come about since 2010. Please pray I will be able to get meetings in NEW churches, and these churches will support us. If you would like a visit from us, please contact me so I can work you into the schedule (it is filling up fast). Pray for America. You know why.

God bless you! Thanks for praying! God is good, and we are confident He will supply what we need for His work.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-19-2012

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Since the move kept me so busy that two months went by, I thought an addendum might be in order to keep from deluging you with everything in one letter.

I have finished preaching through the section in Ephesians about the family. All in all the teaching went well. We plan to review it again in the near future with a marriage conference but have yet to set a date for that. Home and family life seems to be a struggle for the folks here in many ways and the only way to fix that is with Biblical teaching about it. I taught to the children in the church service when we talked about Eph. 6:1 and then Anna did teaching specifically for the children during Sunday School. Remember how on the week I was to teach about the woman’s role in marriage that none of the women came? Well, when Anna taught the children about obedience, at one of the churches not one child was there when we arrived (4 or 5 eventually trickled in, way down from the usual 15-20) and only about half came at the other church. Figures. 🙂

Now I’m teaching on Spiritual Warfare from Eph. 6. This is so important because there is a lot of wrong teaching about angels, demons, and Satan from the Catholics, Pentecostals, and even Muslims.

Back in September we had a baptism and marriage service. Several folks were baptized and 2 couples were properly married. It was a big day with a meal following the events and I think the last time we will do a service like that since it seems as though we’ve outgrown the auditorium. There were around 200 there and there almost wasn’t space. The afternoon finished with a huge rainstorm when we tried to crowd all the children into the building as well. With the rain on the tin roof and the nearly 300 people talking you couldn’t hear yourself think!

We had planned to do a VBS in August and then again in September however, due to the extreme expenses of moving and multiple major car repairs for both ourselves and the Bassetts, we were unable to afford the fuel to go out there and other related costs. Now that we are through our move this month, we are making plans to do a VBS in the next weeks. We’ll be teaching the children about the Armor of the Lord in conjunction with what we’re teaching in church. We will also be able to use the opportunity to teach them how to present the gospel using the Wordless Book and Wordless Book bracelets that have been sent to us. Thanks to all who have provided these!

I have finished teaching through the book of Genesis in our Wednesday class and will begin teaching about Church History. It will be exciting to give these men a bigger picture of where their spiritual history comes from since the Bible was completed.

The church in Juru has been struggling in the last couple of months. Some of the men whom we’d thought were leaders in the church have been found to be struggling with sin (drunkenness). Despite hard preaching on this specifically, they continued in this sinful habit. This was damaging the reputation of the church. Recently, it seems like these men are beginning to walk in real victory and that maybe the preaching is finally sinking in. Please be praying for these men to not cave to the pressure of their culture to drink and that they will stand strong and have a good testimony in their community.

In the next few months, the two churches in which we’re working now will be organized under a constitution. One of the men has translated the constitution into the needed languages and we’ll begin teaching through it in the weeks ahead, in preparation for that event. Consequently, we’re praying about which of the trading villages along the way to start another church. There are a number of places without a church of any kind or with a church of some sort started that doesn’t preach the Word of God by people who aren’t qualified to be ministers of the gospel.