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.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-15-2012

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Greetings! Much has happened in the past two months. Remember the EPIC HUCKABEE MOVE 2012 I mentioned in August? It ate two months. Two months of brutally hard work, excruciating stress, frustrations, and sheer exhaustion. August and September I spent pushing wet noodles up hill. In other words, I had to get the various men I hired to work at a pace an American would consider to be fast. As I’ve said before, time is viewed very differently here. Everyone moves at their own pace, which is invariably slow. No one is in a hurry, even when they should be.

The number and magnitude of projects required to bring our selected house and compound up to snuff was overwhelming. Each job (plumbing, electrical, masonry, carpentry) required bringing Ugandan labor into the mix, with varied consequences, sometimes negative, to the process. My job of painting the place could not begin until ALL of their jobs were finished. Our house is divided into two portions separated by a smaller compound-within-a-compound connected by steel security gates. They finally got the big house done, and I started painting. It took two-and-a-half weeks for myself and one of my Ugandan friends to patch, tape, and paint every room, and seemingly endless liters of paint, but now we have a beautiful, well-painted structure to live in. As annoying as all the required inspections and what not for houses in America might be at times, I can definitely see their importance. 

Last week we began the move. Each day, Anna and the kids would pack things into our legion of Rubbermaid containers, and I would haul them over to the new house and put them in their place. I spent the time necessary to go through the place and remove all useful fixtures and hardware which I had previously purchased and installed. Bit by bit, room by room, we whittled it down until on Friday, only the big things remained. We hired a truck, one of the smaller Japanese cargo trucks they use for hauling sand and such, and began taking things over. It took six hours, and just like that, we were moved in. Of all the stressful things that come into our lives, after death and divorce, there is moving. Moving on the mission field is several magnitudes worse. This past weekend we just crashed, even though we had a lot of unpacking to do and got a lot done on Friday and Saturday.

Now we’re gradually flowing into the new place. The kids are loving the place. It’s paved with cement, so the kids can ride their bikes and play even when it’s been raining. We are trying to get the grass to grow on the dirt areas. I have planted numerous rose bushes and other flowering bushes in the flower beds. We transplanted several banana trees from the old place and strawberries. So, in about six months, it will look like a park. 

Thank you for praying for us during this long, grueling, expensive, stressful move. Now that this distraction is finished, it’s back to work lining up meetings for our furlough in America, as soon as we get unpacked enough in the office so I can walk in there. 🙂

Pray for the work in Ngarama. Somebody may have been poisoning the wife of Theogene, the man we are training to be pastor there. If there’s anything Ugandans cannot stand, it is a successful Ugandan. Theogene works very hard and serves the Lord, and so his garden does very well. Some folks were jealous of this, and tried to poison his family (this is a common occurrence here). I am taking him some activated charcoal tomorrow to give to her to see if it will help. Pray the evildoers will be exposed and brought to justice, and that Theogene’s wife will recover. Pray for the preaching, for souls to be saved, and for the men we are training for leadership. Pray for the future churches we will be starting.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 08-14-2012

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Howdy! I have finally reached the part of Ephesians that specifically deals with families (wife-husband, husband-wife, children-parents). I began preaching through Ephesians with that specific passage in mind, and have been heading steadily in that direction for the past year. So, the day finally arrives, I’ve prepared the first sermon in the series, dealing with wives (they happen to be first in the passage), and I get to church at Ngarama, ready to go ANNNNDDDDD…. no women. At all. Turns out, there was a problem with the well in town, and all the ladies were off drawing water from a more remote source (’cause getting water is women’s work). NO WOMEN, and I’m all set to preach a sermon specifically for women. So, so Africa. Instead, I had to shoot from the hip and preach a sneak preview sermon to the men. The next week, I’m at Juru, ready to preach to the husbands, and there’s 1 man in church. One. You know, it’s starting to feel positively X-Files. I imagine by the time I get to the children, all the kids will have vanished following strange lights in the night sky. 

This is all part of our effort to teach the concept of Biblical families. As those of you ministering in America know, sin wrecks families. Every culture has its weird, extra-Biblical practices. There is a wide variance among people in upbringing, so you always have to teach on this, not to mention learn it yourself. Here, we have to teach the men not to beat their wives, and how and when to spank their children, as opposed to also beating them. I have preached against drunkenness, because the men tend to drink up the food money while their children go hungry. There is also a strong cultural hesitancy for men to express love to their wives, or help them in the home in any way. I’m trying to teach them how to treat women, with Jesus of course being the best example. It’s generational, because they learned it from their fathers, and if it’s not stopped, they’ll pass it to their sons. I’m trying to teach the ladies how to respect their husbands also, instead of the underhanded, manipulative methods they typically use to get their way. If the men love, they’ll get respect. If the wives respect, they’ll get love. In trying to take what they want, instead of giving what the Bible commands, people lose the thing they’re trying to obtain from their relationships.  Pray they can get this. We are going to follow up with a Family Conference for married couples, and I’m hoping it will reinforce and build upon what I’ve been preaching.

Meanwhile, EPIC HUCKABEE MOVE 2012 continues. God supplied higher than normal funds this month, and I was able to right the ship, so to speak. There were still two major expensive projects this month, which covers my part of the renovations. Praise the Lord, though, while it is still tight, it’s not as bad as last month. Pray the work can be finished soon. The engineer who is doing the renovations for our new landlady is being typically African in regards to time, meaning he is going at his own pace, in this case, slow. It’s eating up the month, and I had planned on being moved in August. This isn’t going to happen. Now, I’m just praying he’ll be done by the end of the month so we can move in early September. You see, I need to paint. The Africans favor painting their homes in one color on the inside. After awhile all that white makes you start feeling starved for color, so we are going to re-paint the rooms in different colors of our choosing. None of this can happen until the engineer finishes and gets his men and materials out of my way. So, I’m sitting here spinning my wheels, with this big painting project hanging over my head. He does good work, just not always very quickly.

Pray for our vehicles, and the repair of the road we drive out to Nakivale. Pray for our move, that all will progress smoothly. Pray for the VBS we’ll be doing soon, and the Family Conference. Pray for the families, that they can be strong and Biblical. Pray for the training and maturing of leaders.

 

God bless you, and thank you for praying!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 07-21-2012

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Hello again! The work at Juru is finally finished. Here are some pictures of the finished church building there. Thank you to everyone who contributed to help get this thing built. 

Juru 01

Pray for the ministry out at Nakivale. The UN has cut rations to the camp (again). We are having difficulty getting out there because of the road conditions. We are planning a Family Conference to give some needed instruction to married couples, and another VBS in August. Pray this will go well. Our training of the men is progressing well. So, not surprisingly, we are experiencing some opposition. 

Juru 2

 

Pray for us. This month was a "Perfect Storm" of bills that landed on us all at the same time. First, our car needed significant repairs. The road to the refugee camp is very bad once we pass Kabingo. It's the worst Jeff or I have ever seen it, and when the rains come, it will only get worse. Pray that whoever is "eating the money" and not grading the road will be brought to justice, and we can get our road fixed. The cost of driving out there is very high because of the violence it does to our vehicles. Jeff had the same exact thing happen, at the same time (I had to replace a radiator, engine/transmission mounts, and an air compressor, he had his whole engine apart replacing some tie rods and a blown head gasket).

Then, within days, I had to pay five months rent in order to seal the deal on the new home we are moving into soon (another massive chunk of money). As I've mentioned before, I've been having problems with our landlady. Well, she took us to court to try to force us to pay her back rent, even though we have paid up through October of next year by way of all the improvements we have done to her property (this is required by the contract). She is also attempting to triple our rent, even though, again, the contract forbids it. So, I have hired a lawyer, and he is currently mounting a defense, as is required around here by law so we don't automatically default in favor of our nutty landlady. We have also filed a countersuit to get the money we are owed, and court costs, which is also a required part of the defense. Naturally, I had to pay legal fees. We do get these back when we win our case, but until then, I had to pay the money up front. Pray he wins the case (he should), and the court settles this matter soon so we can get the money we are owed. Pray we receive justice in this matter.

I had been negotiating with the owners of the house we were considering renting (the other house fell through. The land was too small and the muzeyi wouldn't sell his parcel of land nearby to make it bigger.) I was trying to get them to agree to certain things, like price, and renovations prior to moving in. Then, I find out that one of the local brokers is showing the house to somebody else, and, even though the owners had already agreed to rent to us, the broker was attempting to snake the house out from under us with a much higher offer. This necessitated some quick action on my part, which ultimately required figuring out how to cover the rent we weren't expecting to have to come up with 'til October, and getting a written contract pulled together by our lawyer to get the deal finalized and in writing. I managed to procure the house, but I had to make a counter-offer, which raised the rent some.

The landlady/landlord are being very cool about it. They are constructing a wall around the compound, and are doing several other things besides to improve and repair the place. They conceded to most of our requirements. The land is bigger than what we have, and the house is also bigger and much nicer. We will have more available rooms for the kids to be spread out a bit more, and also have a dedicated schoolroom, a library/office, and a sewing room for Anna, which will also be the laundry room. Plus, the place has a storage room, so we won't need to build a shed, and it has a guest room for when people come here to visit (this is a must here). We get a huge porch, which I will enclose with a rail to keep out the dogs, and it has French doors, so we can open the front of the house all the way up for maximum ventilation. AND, it is not bordered by any roads, so we won't have people passing by disturbing the dogs, or ignorant children throwing rocks at us or cussing my children or begging for food through the fence, or drunks across the street laughing and playing loud music late at night. It is also much more secure. The ten foot wall will keep out burglars, and the prying eyes of folks who apparently believe that God called us to Uganda to serve as a live-action reality TV program for their ongoing entertainment.

I had to get a carpenter and a plumber in to make some changes and additions (this was my part of the renovations), which ate still more money. These were necessary things, like screens to keep out mosquitoes, and hot water in the the kid's bathrooms. I had to get these going so we can start moving in next month after I'm through painting (fortunately, we had not finished painting this house when the landlady commenced her shenanigans, so we just kept the paint we'd bought, and will be using it at the new place). Plus, both the electrician and the plumber had to do their breaking (all buildings are made of cement here, so any changes like pipes or new electrical wiring require breaking and patching) so the landlady's engineer could get everything patched and like new all at once. She is paying for all the electrical work, by the way, and is providing the cement and sand for all this, which is a huge help.  

All of these things happened in the past two weeks. The financial strain has been excruciating. The one bright spot, however, is that our tenant in our house in the States seems to be for real, and has paid her deposit and first month's rent. The timing was most providential, because I could not have absorbed all of these bills this month, and covered the cost of that house at the same time. Pray I can get everything paid for and our finances stabilized before we go back to America next March. Winning our court case sooner rather than later would really help with this.

At this time, we are making a gradual, orderly transition to the new place. All legal entanglements are well in hand and we are in a strong position to get everything we are owed. We will have time to get settled into the new house and make things secure before we have to leave for furlough. It's all for the best, but it did make things rather stressful and uncertain for a few weeks. Pray all work at the new house progresses well and with minimal expense. Pray for our impending move, that all would go smoothly. Pray for our looming furlough, that I'd be able to get the needed meetings scheduled, as well as get the money saved we will need in lieu of this. 

Thank you for all your prayers.