MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 06-14-2008

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Hello again! Our trip to Hammond, IN went well. We went to both services at 1st Baptist of Hammond on Sunday, and presented our burden for Uganda in the evening service. We got to hear some great preaching from Jack Schaap, and had a great day fellowshipping with the folks at FBH. It was a good meeting, and was worth the trip. On Monday, before we went back to St. Louis, we visited the Chicago Field Museum, because I've always wanted to go see the Maneaters of Tsavo, which are on display there. These are the actual lions that in 1898 terrorized the British-sponsored rail building crew that was constructing a railroad across Kenya and Uganda. All told, they killed and consumed 140 men before Colonel John Patterson killed them both. They were a unique pair of male, maneless lions in perfect health that happened to have a taste for human flesh to the exclusion of all other food.Our meeting last week in Louisiana had to be rescheduled, so we've been enjoying a needed respite from travelling. We're home until the first week of August, when we'll begin our Fall journeys. I'll be filling the pulpit here in our home church in July while my Pastor and his family go on vacation, among other things. It's been very good to be home for a bit.

Today, Anna and I ran our first official 5K race down at the riverfront in St. Louis. We've been preparing for months, running up and down the hilly, gravel roads in Bowie, TX, and today we attained our goal. This is one of the things we do to stay in shape so we'll be in prime physical condition when we go to Africa. We both finished the, as we later figured it, 5.5K run at 34'07", which is pretty good for our first time. We're going to try to do another run sometime this summer, and will be working hard on decreasing our run times.

That's all for now.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 05-31-2008

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The trip home went well. We made the whole drive in one day, and got home early enough that a crew from our church was able to come over and help us unload the truck double quick. Our first week was disgustingly busy, as Anna helped her sister Naomi get ready for her wedding to Gavin Walsh on the very next Saturday. We were all in the wedding, so we were all involved. Then, on Sunday, we had a homeschool high-school graduation for 4 of my former Sunday School students, including my brother-in-law, Paul. Needless to say, we barely had time to breathe.

We've been busy unpacking and cleaning this week, and are enjoying being home in St. Louis. Today, we're heading to Hammond, IN for a meeting with Pastor Jack Schaap and First Baptist Church of Hammond. Pray for our drive today, and our meeting tomorrow. Pray for God's blessing and leadership in the services, and that we will be able to communicate our burden for Uganda well.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 05-15-2008

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Today's the day. This is the last day of class at Baptist Bible Translators Institute. We graduate on Saturday, and drive back to St. Louis on Sunday. We're just about packed, and once I get the moving truck tomorrow, I'll be able to clear the big pile of containers out of our living room. This afternoon, we'll be picking my Father-in-Law/Pastor and his wife up from the airport. Everybody's excited, especially the kids. They've missed their grandparents and assorted aunts and uncles on both sides very badly.

Our final meetings went well. We had a missions conference at Bible Baptist Church of Rendon in Fort Worth, TX with Pastor Clayton Suggs May 2-4. It was a tremendous meeting, but getting there was a challenge. We had put our van in the shop for a suspected oil leak (turned out to be the main seal), and they couldn't get it done in time. So, here it comes Friday and we have no way to get to our meeting. Thankfully, East Side Baptist saved the day and let us use the church van. On Saturday, I was on my way back from soulwinning, and a tire blew out. We were never late for a meeting, but the harassment from the enemy was ever present. The reason why was this: on Saturday, I got the great privilege of witnessing to and winning to the LORD two boys we met on outreach. Alex and Chandler, 11 and 12, both got saved! Pray for their growth. Sunday night, Bro. Suggs cut us loose so we could have a meeting in 1st Baptist Church of Cottondale with Pastor Charles Pugh. It was a great weekend, and we were so pleased to be used of God.

Pray for us as we get things wrapped up here, with packing and cleaning and what not, and for our travelling on Sunday. We're getting up early and driving all day to get home. Pray for both vehicles. We're coming home!!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-28-2008

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Hello again! We've just finished another round of meetings. Thankfully, we don't have any major trips from now on, which will make finishing school easier. I had wanted to be done with deputation when I came to BBTI, but it just didn't work out that way. It's all for the good, though, because we've had some excellent meetings since we came to BBTI, and it was a lot easier getting to them with the epicenter of deputation being located in West Texas for the past ten months.

Following our meeting in Baton Rouge, we drove back to Bowie to try to catch some more of Bible Translation class with Charles Turner. It's been a great class, with a lot of practical instruction on how to get the Bible from its original languages into another language using the best formal equivalents between the two. It brought up a lot of considerations. What do you do when the Bible uses idiom that has no equivalent in the native dialect? How do you describe things that are unknown to a people group, like lambs, snow, grapes, or wheat? What do you do if the Bible uses a possessive, but possessives aren't allowed in the language you're working with? It was fascinating studying the Greek and observing how the King James translators had to make these sorts of decisions when translating our own English Bible. Bible translation is a monumental task, and not for the faint of heart. It absolutely requires full partnership between the translator and the Holy Spirit, working in and through the human translator to help birth the best possible translation of God's Holy Word into the language of the people He loves and wants to reach with His Gospel.

We drove back to Alexandria, LA on Wednesday for a meeting with Pastor Jonathan Pyle and Air Base Road Baptist Church. Bro. Pyle is the son of Pastor Jerry Pyle, of Bible Baptist Church in Nevada, MO, one of our earliest meetings which we had on deputation. We had a great meeting, with some great preaching, and drove back to Bowie on Thursday. Once there, we repacked our stuff and got ready to make a trip out to Arizona for some more meetings. After class on Friday, we made our way out to Tucson, AZ for a meeting with Pastor Greg Dawson and Shining Light Baptist Church. Pastor Dawson and met a few years back at Pastor Steven Morris' church, Sun and Shield Baptist in Marana, AZ, for his missions conference. He's got a growing church full of good people, and we had some great services on their Missions Emphasis Sunday.

We spent Monday and Tuesday in Tucson, and took the opportunity to take our cowboys down to Tombstone to see the site of the infamous gun battle between Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, and the Clanton gang at the O.K. Corral. It was a bit of a letdown, because the whole town was a tourist trap, and you couldn't get into to any of the historic sites without paying a fortune. Oh well, we enjoyed ourselves any way, and got to see Boot Hill Cemetery on the way out of town. Now we can say we've been there.

Our next stop was a missions conference in Phoenix, AZ with Pastor Brent Loveless and North Valley Baptist Church. It was a great conference, and the people seemed to really respond to the LORD. Pastor Larry Obero of Bible Baptist Church in National City, CA was the main speaker, and did a tremendous job. The Pastor and his wife took us to see Sedona on Saturday. It was nice to get to see the Red Rocks of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon again. The ladies got to do some shopping in downtown Sedona, and we had ourselves a good time.

At the moment, we're making our way back to Bowie, TX. We have three weeks of school to finish up. We got our finals for Bible Translation class emailed in on Friday, and managed to get our reading done while on the road. Now we will be joining the Literacy class already in progress when we get back, with courses in Teaching English as a Second Language and Field Medicine to follow. Pray for us as we finish up school, and get our stuff packed and ready to head back to St. Louis after graduation on May 17. We have a few meetings as well coming up in May locally before graduation, so be in prayer for them also.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-14-2008

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Greetings! Boy, you blink, and next thing you know, four weeks have flown by. We've had a few meetings, and managed to have a Spring Break from school as well. We went to Pastor Garry Way's church in Gainesville, TX (Fair Ave.Baptist Church) on March 30, Pastor David Grice's church in Grand Prairie, TX (Lighthouse Baptist Church) on April 6, and we just had a meeting in Central Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, LA with Pastor Bob Buchanan last night. I'm writing this in haste at the hotel because we need to get going, and I want to send this thing while I still have access to hotel broadband (as opposed to the dismal fixed wireless we have in Bowie, TX which makes things take ten times as long to accomplish). Our meetings have gone very well. God has blessed us. He keeps sending us to great churches, and I am confident that He will raise our support dramatically in the months ahead.

School is nearly done. It seems like we just got here at Baptist Bible Translators Institute, but in a few weeks, we will be graduating. Then, we sprint for the finish line at the end of the year. Be in prayer that we will finish well, with the school, and with deputation, and be prepared to head to Africa in early 2009. Pray for the heavy travelling we will be doing in order to wrap things up this year. It's a blessing to think about being done, and being on the field sooner than it was when we began.