MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-21-2007

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Hello folks from sunny Florida! We've just wrapped up our conference in Gospel Baptist Church in Bonita Springs, FL. What a week! Bro. Hal Hightower preached the conference. He used to be the pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lebanon, MO for fifteen years (Don Ball is pastor there now. We were in their missions conference last year), before God called him to be a full-time evangelist. The services were tremendous. We are ever more fired up about reaching souls with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God has just showered us with blessings here as well. Each night, the folks brought gifts for the different groups of missionaries. Monday was Tool Night for the guys. We were loaded, and I mean LOADED up with tools to take with us to the field. God moved some of the folks to get me a chainsaw. It's a 45.4 cc , 3.0 bhp Stihl chainsaw. I had been praying about a Stihl, about this size, and God supplied the exact one I was wanting. I'll be using it to clear trees and brush over in Uganda when we have building projects to do, which will be often. Tuesday night was for the ladies, and Anna got all manner of lotions, bath stuff, and what not. The biggest thing, though, was the 25 or so full bolts of cloth that were brought in, not counting the laundry hamper full of "fat quarters" of varied colors and patterns. She and the other missionary wife who sew divvied it up, and we are well set on cloth and such to take with us to Africa to make clothes and things. Wednesday night, tonight, was for the kids, and I tell you, it was Christmas in March. We have truly been heaped with blessings, pressed down, shaken together and running over (literally in this case!). We got a sizable love offering, which is going to help pay a few bills, as well as swell our savings account to help pay for passage when the time comes to go to Uganda. Frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed. We have just been welcomed and loved here, and made to feel like family. I'm so glad God supplied the opportunity to come. Hugh Fisher up in Narragansett Bay Baptist Church (one of our supporting churches, and very dear friends and family really) recommended this church way back when, and it went so well. We have been in conference after conference lately where God has just blessed, knit our hearts together with these churches, and where they have been moved to support us. It really feels like we're reaching an end, after going so long with what felt like little progress. God is doing it. He plainly intends to wrap things up by this summer, or shortly thereafter, so we can go to language school in the Fall. Keep praying!

Tomorrow, we'll be driving up to Chattanooga, TN to stay at BIMI, and finishing up the drive back to St. Louis on Friday. This weekend we have a meeting with Pastor Daryl Tharp in Washington, MO in Tri-County Baptist Church. Pray that the services will go well, and for me as I preach in both services on Sunday. Pray that I will be able to minister to this church and pastor, and be an encouragement to them.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-17-2007

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Greetings once again! Our meeting in Valley Bible Baptist Church (Pastor Shawn Foster) went great. We made the trip to Middleburgh, NY without a hitch. This was the same county where they got three feet of snow and were declared a disaster area a few weeks back. We went from 70 degree weather in Tulsa, OK, to 6 below in NY. Brrrrrr… We stayed with the Fosters, Shawn and Debbie and had a great time of fellowship with them. Our kids had a ball playing with their kids, which was a welcome treat for them. They don' t typically get a passel of kids to play with like that. The meetings went very well. Bro. John Halsey preached, and God met with us. Between our family, and the other missionary families, I think we tripled the size of the Patch the Pirate club there. It was a great week, albeit cold. We drove back to St. Louis in a day, not the kind of thing we normally do, but we wanted the extra day home in between conferences. 

Now, get this. We were just in bitter cold NY, and now, three days later, here we are in sunny Florida, where it's supposed to be 80 degrees and sunny all week. How do you like that? We're in a missions conference here starting tomorrow in Gospel Baptist Church in Bonita Springs, FL with Pastor Bill Lytell. Thanks, by the way to our good friends up in Narragansett Bay Baptist Church in Rhode Island for recommending this church to us. It has finally resulted in a meeting after all this time. Thanks guys! What a blessing!

Once we pulled into town, since Bonita Springs is right on the Gulf Coast, we swung by the beach before we headed to the hotel room. We had four ecstatic kids, ripping and tearing in the surf in their bare feet, and one ecstatic grown woman as well (Gaelin hated it, so I held him and took pictures). The kids were fully dressed, so they had to be careful, but that didn't stop Elizabeth from falling in, at which point caution seemed rather moot. Ahh, who needs swimming suits anyway, right? And, just in case we get to missing the beach, they brought enough with us in our van to make us feel like we're in Florida all the way home. GBC has us in a hotel five minutes from the beach, and we're loving it. So, while the folks back in St. Louis are enjoying March in St. Louis (thunderstorms and cold weather), we're down here enjoying the sand, sun, and surf. Pretty cool, eh?  God sure takes good care of us. Anyway, that's all for now. I just wanted to bring you guys up to speed before I got too much more behind on our emails. Pray for us!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-06-2007

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Hello, again! This past week we were in Tulsa, OK with Tulsa Baptist Temple in their 51st (yes, 51st) annual missions conference. The church has been there for 62 years, and is on only their 5th pastor, Pastor Rocky Harrill. It was a tremendous conference. God visited us in the services, and in the preaching (we all got to preach). The LORD really knit our hearts together, and it felt like leaving family when we finally did have to leave on Monday to head back to St. Louis. The good news is this: this church will be voting to support us next week! Their missions committee unanimously voted in favor of making us one of their missionaries, and the Pastor will be presenting us to the church. What a blessing! God is bringing in the support, and we are finally beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, with our goal of getting to the field in Uganda in sight!

We finished up the first leg of our drive up to Middleburgh, NY today. Tomorrow, and through Sunday, we will be in Valley Bible Baptist Church (Pastor Shawn Foster) for their Missions Conference. Bro. John Halsey will be speaking. We're looking forward to the great week of ministry in which we are to be involved. Pray for the conference, that God will meet with us, and that we will be a blessing, and that God will motivate the folk here to give so this church can support more missionaries, which they would very much like to do. Pray for our travels, and our health.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-27-2007

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Greetings! It's been a busy week and a half. The day after I got back from Montana, we had an installer in to put in our new, secure, steel doors. The install went great, the doors look very good, and our house is much more secure. On a related note, it turns out that our front door was probably "bumped" (we had a break-in about a month back), meaning that someone used a modified key blank, tapped it into the lock bumping up all the tumblers, and allowing access to our house. It's a fairly simple procedure that is making the rounds on the internet of late. That's right, most pin-and-tumbler locks are now useless. How do you like that? I'm having a locksmith in on Thursday to install some Primus deadbolts, which should prevent similar break-ins in the future. Now, we can finally leave our home, and know we've taken reasonable precautions to secure the premises against punk kids with internet access.

Our meeting in Chattanooga went well. One Accord took good care of us, and was very hospitable to us. We showed our video and gave testimonies, and were able to minister to the folks and hold forth the need for missionaries.

The following week we spent re-painting and fixing up the kids' rooms. It was a long overdue project which gives them a much nicer, better organized space in which to sleep and play. The boys' room is blue, and we put glow-in-the-dark stars up on the ceiling, which was a big hit. Elizabeth gets her own room again now that Gaelin is old enough to sleep in the same room with his brothers. We did hers in pink, with hearts and butterflies as a border around the top, which she loves.

Today, James and John turned six, and are having a great birthday. We got them their first bikes this year. We worked on mounting the bike and just standing there without falling down at first, then moved up to getting on and taking off, and then actual riding. They picked it up fast, and although getting on the bike is still a challenge (they're a scoche tall for them), they are riding very well for their first day. All they need now is practice.

Tomorrow we head off to Tulsa, OK for a missions conference in Tulsa Baptist Temple with Pastor Rocky Harrill. After that, we drive to Fairfax Station, VA for a meeting in Fairfax Baptist Temple (Pastor Troy Calvert), and from there to Middleburg, NY for a conference in Valley Bible Baptist Church (Pastor Shawn Foster). Pray for us! The weather is improving, but we're liable to get lots of rain in the near future, because it's nearly March. Pray for our health. God has kept us flu-free this February, and we're very grateful (last year, we had various strains of stomach flu for five weeks running in February).

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-14-2007

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Greetings from St. Louis! I made it back alive to St. Louis from Great Falls, MT. On the day I was supposed to leave (Tuesday), a winter storm moved into the Midwest and began dumping frozen sunshine all over my landing strip. As we're sitting on the tarmac in Salt Lake City, the pilot informs us that there's a 50/50 chance we might have to divert to Kansas City if the visibility doesn't improve en route.  Needless to say, I was on the phone getting some prayer going! God cleared the weather up, however, and I was able to land in St. Louis on time. The only hitch was the backed up line of planes already at the gates, so even though we landed on time, we sat on the runway for another hour waiting for gate access. At any rate, I'm home again, and it's very good to be with my family once more.

My meeting with Wayne Voss in Calvary Baptist Indian Church last Wednesday went well. I had a time locating the church because I drove to the wrong end of 1st Ave. N, but once I finally got there, we were able to have a good service. It was a privilege to get to share our burden for Uganda in this church, led by veteran BIMI missionaries Wayne and Barbara Voss these past 25 years.

The conference at Heritage Baptist Church with Pastor Sheldon Schearer went well also. We had a great conference. It was me and the Fasinro family heading to Nigeria. God greatly blessed in the services, and gave the both of us great power to preach.

It was a good few weeks up in Great Falls, MT, and I'm grateful God worked out the meetings like He did so I could go up there.

We'll be heading down to Chattanooga, TN on Saturday for a Sunday meeting, so pray for us as we travel. Pray for our continued good health. The guys got some colds and what not while I was gone, but so far, none of us have gotten the flu, and I would like to keep it that way.