MISSIONS: Uganda Blog Update 03-05-2008

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Howdy folks! Much has transpired since the last epistle. James was the first plague victim, and disease soon conquered the rest of our household. At first, I was the only healthy one in the house, and had to go to most of our next conference alone. Anna was too sick to get out of bed, so I handled domestic affairs during the day, and went to church at night. The conference at 1st Baptist of Haltom City (Pastor Mosley) went very well. God met with us and gave the church a tremendous bunch of services. Each of the missionaries, myself included, preached, and God blessed. I managed to stay well the whole time until Saturday night, when I first began running a fever. We drugged ourselves and then drug into church Sunday morning so the folks there could at least meet all of us, and then we went home to crash. Then came my time in the crucible. I can't remember the last time I was so sick. The virus lays you low with high fever, weakness, aches, and robs you of sleep by filling your head with snot so you can't breathe. Anna and I both developed sinus infections as a lovely parting gift of the flu, and today is the first day either of us has felt really well since we got sick. Today was the first day I have not had a fever in over a week! What a mess. The past three weeks are a blur to me. It's good to be healthy again, however.

We're finishing up our conference at Eagle Drive Baptist Church in Decatur, TX tonight (Pastor David Isbell). Then, tomorrow, I fly up to Spokane, WA for a conference in Foundation Baptist Church in C'ouer d'Alene, ID (Pastor Bobby Stanchfield), and a Sunday night meeting at Faith Baptist Church in Spokane, WA (Pastor Greg Boyle).

Also, we've finished our class in Culture Learning (getting that done while stricken with the flu was no fun at all, I can tell you). Now we're doing New Testament Greek, which is review for us, since we've both studied it in the past.

Pray for us as we continue to heal from our sickness. Pray for our busy schedule in the weeks ahead, and for our travels.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-18-2008

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Greetings, everyone! It's been a busy week since we got back to Texas. We have both managed to get all our classwork caught up, and are now busily preparing culture data to turn in at the completion of the class in a few weeks. It's a tremendous course. The basic gist of it is this: as you are learning the language, you must also learn the culture of a people. Your goal is to stop being a foreign outsider, and become a native insider. This requires spending much time with the people, observing how they live, and asking lots of questions. The key is to learn to differentiate between God's culture, which you want them to learn, and American culture, which they don't really need. The difficulty is that American missionaries all too often wind up imposing American culture on a native population, giving it the same weight and confusing it with the Bible, and create ministries that are alien to the people and won't endure well after the missionary is gone. The truth is, 95% of what foreign cultures do in no way conflicts with the Bible, but are just different from "how we do it". Different isn't necessarily bad, you see, although our Baptist culture conditions us to think this to some degree I'm afraid. The Gospel not only must be communicated in the language of the people, but in cultural terms that make sense to them. In doing so, we are imitating the very method used by God to communicate with humanity down through the ages.

Our two meetings yesterday in Central Baptist Church in Center, TX (Pastor Danny Dodson) and Lighthouse Baptist Church in Wiley, TX (Pastor James Rasbeary) respectively, went very well. We drove to Center, TX, about four hours away, on Saturday which was an adventure in itself. A nasty storm system developed, and followed us the whole drive down there. Not only was it quite dark, but it created blinding torrential rain that slowed our travel considerably and increased our four hour drive to six. It began, after a bit, to feel more like steering a boat than driving because of the hydroplaning. As if this didn't create enough stress, every so often, you'd hit this deep pool of water, which sent waves of liquid cascading over your windshield, blinding you totally for about 5 seconds or so. At one point, flash flooding had covered the road we needed to follow. I noticed that the water was getting deep fast, and that it appeared to be swift moving from what I could barely see in my headlights. So, I backed us up very carefully, turned around, and went another way. I've been in some nasty storms before, but you normally drive out of them. I have never been in a situation as severe or as long-lasting as this (two hours of hard rain). Needless to say, we were very grateful to finally reach the hotel in Center, TX. And we wanted adventure…

We had great services the next day (the weather was pristine, of course). God worked and it was a great blessing.

On Wednesday, we begin a missions conference in Haltom City, TX    at 1st Baptist Church of Haltom City, Pastor M Mosley. Pray for us, as James has contracted one of the flu bugs we've been exposed to lately. It doesn't affect the stomach (Thank God!), but it does create weakness, cough, aches, and high-fever that can last a few days. Pray the rest of us will remain healthy, and that he will get well in time for us to go to the conference.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-12-2008

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Greetings! We are back in St. Louis, MO, but not for much longer. The conference at Northwest Bible Baptist Church went great! It was an outstanding meeting. God met with us indeed. On Tuesday, Bro. Anglea preached a message that really began the process of healing for the church. It will be a long road, because such things always are, but their attitude was truly God glorifying. It was an honor to be a visiting missionary in their conference, considering that they would have been well within their rights to call off the whole thing. Yet, despite their overwhelming grief, they chose to have a missions conference, and keep missions the center of their ministry. Continue to pray for NBBC, and for Pastor Keith Gomez as they continue grieving for their lost loved ones.

On Wednesday night, a winter storm moved into the area and dumped 8 inches of snow and general winter nastiness on the region. Did we drive home anyway? You bet! Our plane to San Francisco was leaving at 0930 the next day, so we had to get home to St. Louis, leave the kids with their grandparents, and make our way to our next meeting quickly. We pulled into town early in the morning, and Anna and I got to bed around 0430 that morning. We were up in two hours, and had to reconfigure our packing for air travel, and made our flight in time. We went from 19 degree weather in St. Louis, to 65 degree weather in San Francisco, CA.

Thursday, we did a bit of sight seeing in the city. We have always wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge, which we did, and snapped some great photos. We got to drive down Lombard Street (think Steve McQueen). We swung by Ghiradelli Square, mecca of women everywhere. We wandered around the Wharf and got souvenirs for the kids, and finally got dinner at a local seafood joint (mmmm… fresh seafood…). 

The conference in Lighthouse Baptist Church in Pleasanton, CA (Pastor Bill Bryson, about an hour East of San Francisco) went great. Dr. John Halsey preached, and gave clear Biblical teaching on Grace Giving. They are a small church, by worldly standards, and were the product of the joining of two other churches in the area. As such, their missions giving had suffered in recent years. This was the first missions conference they had had in a while, and God just worked. The short of it is they nearly doubled the amount of missions giving required to support the missionaries they already had! What a blessing! They're a great bunch of people, serving the LORD in an area of the country that is resistant to the Gospel, but they just keep at it, and have such a spiritual attitude about the whole thing. It was a privilege to get to minister there this weekend. Pray for them as they hold forth the Gospel in California, that will continue to grow and see souls saved and added to the church in the greater Bay Area of California.

Today, as soon as we get our stuff pulled together, we will be driving back to Bowie, Texas for the many meetings yet scheduled down that way, and to finish up the stellar BBTI language school already in progress. They have been taping the classes for us, and we have been listening to them while we were away. Pray that we'll be able to get back into the swing of things smoothly, and that we'll be able to stay caught up with our coursework.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-03-2008

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Greetings once again, in the name of the LORD! We are in chilly Elgin, IL at a missions conference in Northwest Bible Baptist Church (Pastor Keith Gomez). We had a great meeting with Pastor Karl Ogdie and Lakeland Street Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX a few Wednesdays back. Pray for them as they have their missions conference in a few weeks.

We went out to the annual Fort Worth Rodeo and Stockshow on Saturday. We had a great time! They opened in prayer, PRAYER, and not some mamby-pamby, not-gonna-offend-anybody everyprayer, but a real live, born again, in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God prayer! Wow! There's something you don't run into every day. The show was tremendous. All our little cowboys had a ball, as did we. I have pictures up in the Gallery at the website if you'd like to see.

This past Wednesday, we drove down to Snyder, TX for a meeting with Faith Baptist Church with Pastor Nicky Johnson. We had a great meeting and enjoyed fine fellowship with the people. Pray for the town of Snyder. They are in the middle of a flu epidemic which had half the church, including the Pastor, out sick. Pray that they would recover soon, and that we would not catch it. Pray for our health the next few months in particular, as this is the time of year that such things tend to nail us.

We got back from that meeting Wednesday night around midnight, and then hit the ground running on Thursday, finishing up our Language Learning class, getting our final assignments ready to turn in, and also getting packed and ready to leave on Friday to drive to St. Louis. We got everything done, and made our way home on Friday. We got a great night's sleep in our own house and our own beds, and then shoved off on Saturday to make the four hour drive up to Elgin.

It's going to be a tremendous conference. Bro. Terry Anglea from Faith Baptist Church in Bourbonnais, IL is preaching. I will be sharing our burden for Uganda on Wednesday night, so pray for me. Pray for the conference that the LORD will work. Be in prayer for Pastor Keith Gomez. He would have been here for the conference, but his wife, Carla, just died of cancer. They buried her on Friday. He has taken a leave of absence to grieve. Their spirit was great this morning, but I know the church is hurting over the loss of their First Lady as well. Pray for Pastor Gomez, their children and families, and for NBBC during this time of mourning.

On Wednesday, we'll be driving back to St. Louis to leave the kids with their grandparents, and then Anna and I will be flying to San Francisco for a conference in Lighthouse Baptist Church with Pastor Bill Bryson. Pray for the trip, our kids, and for this conference that we'll be a blessing and an encouragement as we serve the LORD.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 01-23-2008

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Greetings, friends! Things are going well here in Bowie, TX. It has finally gotten down to what a Northerner would consider to be cold, so we are shivering through the 20 degree temps nobly at the moment. The past few weeks, we've been busy with school, and with preparations for the commencement of a new year of meetings, which begins tonight with our meeting in Lakeland Street Baptist Church in Fort Worth, with Pastor Karl Ogdie. The free Sundays I've had the past few weeks gave me the opportunity to preach in Eastside Baptist on Pastor Jamie Reed's behalf a few times, while he is recovering from some voice problems he has had of late. Pray for his healing. The services went well, and it was a blessing.

We are doing well in our Language Learning class, which involves a lot of practical study in the process of how to learn a foreign language when there is no formal language school (most of the world's languages). It's pretty basic. You spend a lot of time with the people, and you get them to teach you the phrases "What is this?" or "How do you say…?", "Say it again, please.", "Did I say it correctly?" and "What does it mean in English?". You can then proceed to learn a multitude of object words for everything around you. You then work on Possessives (my mango, your banana, etc.), then simple phrases (I run, I stand, I sit, I sleep, I jump….), and then move on to fancier things like tenses, imperatives, interrogatives, and so on. Finally, you develop dialogues, where you get the language helper to teach you conversations that you might have in their culture, like what they say to each other when they meet, or leave, or when they buy things at the market, or talk about things of interest to them (planting crops, the weather, social issues). All along, you want to know how they would say it, or how would they do in particular situations. The whole point, of course, is not so much learning the language, but building relationships with the people, from which learning their language and culture is a natural outgrowth. We look forward to getting to Uganda and putting this extremely practical and effective process to work on the field, attempting to become a part of the African cultures to which we are called to minister, rather than being American outsiders making occasional forays into their world.

Pray for our meeting tonight with Pastor Ogdie. I will be preaching and presenting our ministry.

On Saturday, we'll be heading down to Fort Worth for the big annual Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. All our little cowboys are looking forward to it, as are we. We'll be going with several members of Eastside Baptist, so it should be a fun day. I'll be taking lots of pictures, and posting them when I can, so stay tuned!