Greetings! We are back from Tennessee. We went to Chattanooga to BIMI HQ and got our Departure Interview done. That means we ran through a list of things with the various department heads and made sure everything was in order financially and legally so we can move to the field. I'm glad that's done.

We have bought our plane tickets! Dan Dwire got me a fantastic deal, and we have bought tickets to fly to Uganda on March 22, 2010. I had to go with that date and not earlier in the year because of multiple missions conferences I had already scheduled in New Mexico before the plans were made to leave early next year. Some of those Pastors had moved church schedules around to accommodate us, and I didn't feel right messing up their plans by cancelling the meetings. Also, we need the support. 😀

I heard from Happy Acres Transit, the outfit that will be helping us navigate the ocean of red tape needed to get a 20' metal box full of stuff from St. Louis, MO to Mbarara, Uganda, AFRICA. It is going to cost $9500 to ship, not including customs. Please pray we'll be able to get that raised so we can ship to the field. We need to sell our house between now and then, so pray we'll be able to get that done, in spite of the current fiscal meltdown that our friendly, neighborhood Democrats have created.

We had a great conference in Fairview Baptist Church in Athens, TN (Pastor Jack Scallions). It's a great church. I got to preach Sunday morning, on the radio. Cool! I've never preached on the radio before, and it was a great honor for a man of God like Pastor Scallions to allow me in his pulpit on a Sunday morning like that. I got to speak in their Christian school chapel, which is always a blessing. We stayed out at this lovely little cabin at their Christian camp, way out in the country. It was beautiful, and peaceful, and most restful. We had a great time, and the kids had lots of room to run and play without disturbing anybody.

Now we're home, and I'm working on getting caught up from a week of no internet (the only downside of where we were staying in Athens). Pray that things will continue to come together smoothly as we prepare to go to Africa!

Greetings! Our missions conference in our home church last week was a great success. We had some great preaching from Bro. Robert Meyer (SE Asia Director), and got to re-iterate our call to Uganda before our church. Most important, a momentous decision has been reached: we're going to Uganda the first of the year, 2010! We have enough support coming in now that our Pastor and director are willing to allow us to go to Uganda. We have many preparations to make in order to get gone, and the details are a bit sketchy because it's only been a few days since the decision was made, but I will keep you all in the loop as we move forward. At the moment, it looks like we're going to begin our ministry in Mbarara, which is about 45 minutes north of the Rwandan border in the far Southwestern corner of Uganda. We have heard from Bryan Stensaas, the senior missionary there, and we are needed sooner, not later on the field, just as quick as we can get there. As he puts it, the "sky's the limit" in opportunities to minister the Gospel. They have a radio ministry, several village churches, orphanges, refugee camps they visit, and a Bible translation work already in progress. Mbarara is located at a geographic crossroads, and will put is in reach of not only the good people of Uganda, but also Rwanda and the DR of the Congo (Zaire). We are excited about the prospect of working under this great man of God, and gaining the experience necessary to make us the kind of missionaries we need to be in order to serve the LORD well in Uganda.

Here are some specific prayer requests:

We are in need of some further funds to get ourselves to Africa. These figures are subject to change, but my initial estimate of the expenses we are going to incur are as follows:

Cost for a 20' shipping container: $2000
Cost to ship that container to Mbarara: $8500
Cost of plane tickets (for which we have already received some funds): $900 apiece for a one way flight to Entebbe
Outfit costs (we have to replace all of our American appliances, and buy some specilized equipment, like a water purifier, and a whole house battery backup system for example): $10000
Cost for a vehicle on the field: $12,000

It's a lot to raise, so God is going to have to do it. As such, I'm hoping to mobilize as much prayer as possible towards attaining that goal. Pray hard folks! Pray also that I'll be able to get all the logistics of getting a famly of seven moved from America to Uganda worked out in the next three months. There's a mountain of tasks to get done by then and I want to be sure I get it all worked out in a timely and accurate manner.

Pray also for our meeting on Sunday in Victory Baptist Church in Columbia, MO. I have to go there by myself so Anna can be here for a wedding shower at church that she and some of the other ladies have been planning for some time. The week afterwards, we have a meeting down in Athens, TN, and will be taking the opportunity of proximity to Chattanooga to go ahead and get our Departure Checklist with BIMI worked out. These are exciting times!

Thanks again for all your prayers!