MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-27-2007

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

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.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 02-05-2007

Greetings, once again! I'm up in Great Falls, MT at the moment. I flew up here last Wednesday for some meetings I had scheduled up this way. Anna and the kids stayed at home and got some much needed rest. Driving up here would have been time, and cost, prohibitive, so flying up for the meetings alone was definitely the way to go. It turned out to be a good decision, because they got sick (not stomach flu) after I left, and it's always easier to recover from sickness in your own home.

My first meeting was in Fairview Baptist Church with Pastor Richard Dion. Dr. Pat Creed, the Caribbean Director for BIMI, was the main speaker. It was a tremendous conference. The messages were encouraging to me, and were beneficial to everyone. Their goal for missions giving this year was $40,000, which they exceeded with $53,000 and some change. This was in spite of losing several giving families in the prior year. Praise the LORD! I know they're excited about what God is going to do in the coming year.

I've been staying with George and Mary Prehn, one of the families in the church. They have a great heart for missions and for missionaries, and have taken great care of me here. I will be staying with them 'til Saturday, which secures my lodging between this conference, and the next in Heritage Baptist Church with Dr. Sheldon Schearer on Saturday. George is one of those guys who has been everywhere and done everything. Among his many achievements, he spent a year at the American base in Antarctica. Pretty cool! Saturday, we went ice fishing over at a church member's frozen pond. Neither of us had ever been ice fishing before. It's pretty basic. You auger a hole in the 8-inch thick ice. Then you bait your jig with some meat (perch are carnivorous). Then, you let your line drop 18 feet or so to the bottom, whereupon you reel it in about six to eight inches and wait. Within a minute, the perch would strike, you give a jerk to set the hook, reel them in, remove the hook, toss them on the ice, and repeat. The whole process takes a couple minutes. It was the easiest fishing I've ever done. We caught about 50 in two hours (private property, no limits). We'll be having ourselves a fish fry this week, needless to say.

Sunday morning, I got the privilege of speaking in Junior Church. We had a big crowd of mostly bus kids. I gave the clearest presentation of the Gospel I could. I could tell folks were praying, because the Holy Spirit really moved. No one responded during the invitation to be saved, but that's alright, because the seed was planted. Pray that, as the faithful workers water it, that God will give the increase and that these kids, and ultimately their families, will be saved.

I have a Wednesday night meeting with Wayne Voss in Calvary Baptist Indian Church. He's a BIMI missionary to the various Native American tribes that live up here in the Great Falls area. Pray for the meeting, that God will bless. Pray for Anna and the gang. Anna's home alone with 5 little kids, and is feeling awfully isolated at the moment. Don't get me wrong. She wanted the break from traveling and needed the break from traveling, but she's still fighting sickness, which has sapped her energy levels, and is hindering her in accomplishing the tasks she wanted to complete while at home. Pray that she, and the others, will get well soon, and that she'll still be able to get her house in order before we hit the road again. Pray for me. I've picked up a cold myself, and would very much like to be well by Wednesday so I can be in good condition to preach and share our burden for Uganda in Bro. Voss' church.

Thank you for praying!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 01-28-2007

Greetings from the East! We've completed a brief tour of the East Coast, and will be heading back to St. Louis on Monday. Last Sunday, we were in Faith Baptist Church in Berlin, MD (Pastor John Abent), and 1st Baptist Church of Seaford, DE (Pastor Michael Hopkins), respectively. The Abents spoiled us with this fabulous room in the big resort Holiday Inn right on the beach in Ocean View, MD. We had an oceanfront room on the eighth floor, with a glorious view of the ocean. Since we had to be up for church bright and early on Sunday anyway, we got to open our curtains and watch the sun rise over the ocean. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Cold, and windy, but beautiful. That morning was a technical morass of unexpected problems. We got ready to get the DVD for Pastor Abent so he could get it to his a/v man and couldn't' find it. So, I went out to the car to burn another one. As I began to do so, the DVD-RW tray almost falls out in my hands. My drive is toast. I can't burn anything to any disc. So, thinking quick, I ran the laptop inside, and we got it hooked up to their system so we could show the video presentation off the laptop. Then, that night, the DVD player they had in Seaford didn't like our disc, and proceeded to insert bad static into the audio. You could still mostly understand, though, and the church was very understanding. The meetings went very well, and God blessed.

On Wednesday, we were in a conference in Pineville, NC, in South Charlotte Baptist Church with Pastor Charlie Scott. It was a great conference. Dr. Clayton Shumpert preached, and the services went well. I got to speak in their Spanish church, and this morning I presented the Gospel to 69 kids, of which most were bus kids. It was a tremendous series of meetings, and it went very well.

They had us in their prophet's chamber, which was very comfortable, and very convenient for us. However, on the first night we were there, we had an interesting experience. They have an ADT alarm system, which Pastor Scott showed me how to arm, including bypass codes for the parts of the building where we were, so the doors would still be armed, but we could still walk around. I got confused, because the button I was supposed to hit to arm it was marked 'Away', and the one next to it was marked 'Stay'. I assumed (big mistake), that since I was supposed to hit 'Away' when we left, then we must be supposed to hit 'Stay' when we were in for the night. Apparently, that feature was disabled, and in fact, placed the whole system into a sort of 'Hot Mode', where so much as a fly sneezing would set off the whole thing without warning. Anna walks into the large area where the Spanish church meets, and instantly alarms start shrieking, lights start flashing, and I race over to the keypad to try to get the thing shut off. I'm frantically punching the key code to turn it off (no help), and trying to dial ADT at the same time so the cops don't come and, being a false alarm, cause the church to be fined. I got them to cancel any dispatch, and, klaxxons still howling, called the Assistant Pastor to find out what to do. Turns out, I needed to go through the church, find the panel for the fire alarm system, punch in its code to silence that, and then disarm the ADT system on its keypad. Now, had that been the only instance, it would have been crazy enough, but the confounded thing went off TWO MORE times before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Anna eventually holed up in our room and wouldn't come out any more that night, because it only seemed to go off when she made a move. We finally got it all straightened out, got everyone settled down, and went to bed, and we didn't have any more trouble after that, but boy, what an interesting first night.

Sunday evening, we had a meeting in Sunset, SC in Antioch Baptist Church (Pastor Barry Pace). We left in good time, and arrived at our destination by 5:30 PM, but, as it turned out, my information was wrong. I had the right address, but it was the Pastor's house, not the church, and the only number I had for him was his home number. We drove all over Six Mile, SC looking for the church for the next hour and fifteen minutes, asking people for directions (nobody had heard of the church), even driving back to their house to see if their neighbors might know, but to no avail. We located practically every Baptist Church in a thirty mile radius, but none of them named Antioch. Finally, in desperation, we called another Baptist Church in Easley, SC, and the Assistant Pastor turned out to be Deputy Sheriff for the town, so he had us call his dispatcher, who got us the right address (we couldn't find a thing anywhere on the internet), and we punched it into our GPS and finally arrived just as everyone was heading home. Not good. I went in, expecting to get a tongue lashing, but Pastor Pace was very gracious and kind. He took us out to eat, had us a hotel booked in town, and is going to recommend us to his deacons to support us anyway. Can you imagine? It seems that in our absence, they decided to have a testimony and worship time, and the Holy Spirit moved, and folks were down at the altar in droves, and it was a great time of blessing for them and glory to God. We had prayed as we were heading over to the right address finally, that God would somehow get the glory out of this after all, and it turns out He did. We're making arrangements to come back later this year, now that we know for sure where to go, so it all worked out for the best.

Good times, folks. Life in the ministry is never boring, I can promise you that. Tomorrow we head home, and on Wednesday, I will be flying up to Great Falls, MT for a pair of conferences up there. Pray for ours, and my, travels, and for the months ahead as we continue to travel, minister, seek support, and continue on the road that ends in Uganda.

 

Imagine…..

Let’s say you are aged 5 years and younger and are staying in yet another place away from home without your toys, books and things to do and are bored. What would you do? For my kids it was easy. They played restaurant! We’ve been on the road for the last little bit and have stayed in 5 different places in the last 5 days so it has been stressful. James and I were busily getting ready to go to our next meeting and they were busily looking for things to do. I noticed that suddenly things seemed very organized. The table in the room was covered with Ethan’s special blanket for a tablecloth. James had a piece of paper and was taking orders. “What would you like to drink?” he asked. They went around the table where everyone else was sitting. Soda was the general consensus, though one of them wanted apple juice. (This is kind of funny since they don’t get soda very often – only a few times in the year!). He carefully “wrote” this down and then went and got each person’s water bottle and set it in front of them. Then he wanted to know how old they were – a common question we get when we go to restaurants since some of them are the right age to still eat for free! Ethan declared himself to be the ripe old age of 7. John said that Elizabeth was his girlfriend and they were both 10. Guess its time to have a talk with them about dating! Finally, he wanted their orders. Ethan wanted pizza and tacos and other things. They all wanted brownies and ice cream. Elizabeth wanted chocolate cake and ice cream and John wanted tacos and brownies. Actually, the majority of their orders were dessert foods!

Then they switched. James was still taking orders but this time Ethan was “cooking”. Again, drink orders were taken. Then food orders. This time, when he asked their ages, John and Elizabeth discussed it. He thought they should be 17. She thought she should be 12 and he should be 17. Then they ordered again – tacos and chocolate cake and ice cream!

Isn’t it funny to sometimes see life through the eyes of a child? I would never have guess that they were paying such close attention to the happenings around them but apparently they are! It’s so nice to know that they enjoy life and the things we are all living right now. We get to do things that I never even thought about doing as a child but they all take it in stride and enjoy every minute of it.