Divine Appointment?

~ Make sure you check out our latest video of driving in Uganda located in menu to the right.

This week has been full of ministry meetings and Swahili. We are making good progress in Swahili, although our brains feel as if they are at their limit. We have been exhausted at times, just thinking that in one week, we are supposed to be able to speak Swahili conversationally! Jesus is definitely helping us though, and in one week we will be finished with our formal training and pushed out of the nest into the real Swahili speaking world!

Our ministry highlight of the week was meeting with Stephen, a man from Congo that we may potentially train to be a pastor! We met Stephen a couple of weeks ago at church, and he mentioned he was very interested in planting a church where he is from in Congo! This immediately got my attention since this has been what we have been praying for... potential pastors to train and to eventually reach Congo and Sudan! He called us relentlessly over the past 2 weeks, trying to set up a time to meet with us! He is so excited about this opportunity and that the Lord has brought our paths together!

This past Wednesday I interviewed him and further explained our pastor training program and church planting ministry. We covered all the theological basics to make sure we were on the same page, and we were! It was very encouraging to meet someone else who has a heart for reaching out to people who have never heard about Jesus. Stephen told me he has been praying for almost 10 years that God would send him someone to train him to be a pastor and plant a church in his home town in Congo. It seems almost to good to be true! I will meet with him a few more times before heading to Arua, and if things still look good, Stephen will begin meeting with a local Africa Gospel Church Pastor to be discipled until he returns to Congo. We are praying that Stephen's heart and call are truly as genuine and sincere as they appear to be and that this is one of God's divine appointments!

God is Making a Way!

God has Provided a House for us!

Thank you so much for your prayers! God has provided for us above and beyond what we ever imagined! We loved the pink house when we went to see it in Arua this past weekend, and on Tuesday, we signed the contract with our new landlord! We will be moving the weekend of March 17th! This is such an answer to prayer, and we are so grateful to God for providing the perfect house for mission teams and us!

Also, when we arrived in Arua, Joanna Coppedge picked us up from the airport with some great news: A missionary family needed us to “store” some of their furniture and even their two German Shepherds while they went home to Canada from May of this year until November of 2008 (which is almost exactly the time we will be in Arua!!!) They have some beds and desks and bookcases, which were much needed, as we have mission teams staying with us in May, June, July, Sept, Oct… and more! This is definitely Jesus’ perfect timing and provision! I (Erica) have especially been wanting a dog, so I am so excited about “Scout” and “Joque!” This weekend, Jesus gave us not only a house, but beds and desks to furnish it and dogs to guard it! Praise the Lord! He is so good!

Flying in Uganda…

Just thought you may enjoy some pictures of an “airport” in Uganda and the plane that we flew on to make our trip to Arua! We were the last 2 people to get on the plane (along with a precious Italian nun in her 80’s), and the only seats open were the 3 in the front row!!! So, as you can see from the picture, we were literally sitting right behind the pilot and got to watch him drive the plane! It was pretty amazing! There was no flight attendant… only the co-pilot who told us to fasten our seatbelts and not to smoke and then crawled over our legs into his seat! The airport you see is in Moyo, Uganda, which is a very small town right outside of Arua where we stopped on our way. A dirt runway, a field to “taxi” on, one small building, and several huts made up the “Moyo Airport!”



Meet Josh…

(We have uploaded a video of Josh to the right for those of you who would like to “meet” him!)

Josh is still asking questions about Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible, but he has not yet come to a decision to accept Christ as his Lord and Savior. Please continue to pray for his salvation. He truly is thinking so hard and pondering what he is learning, and for that, we are grateful. He has been reading in John, and he prays with us when we have meals together. It is so precious to watch him realize that he can just talk to God just like he talks to anyone else!

House Hunting in Arua

Hey!!! Make sure you click on the new video link to the right! This is a video of our first trip to Arua!

Photo: This is our field director and his family (The Mayos) with Billy and Joanna Coppedge from our last trip to Arua to help Billy and Joanna move in.

This Saturday we are off to Arua again to hopefully pick out a house to live in for the next two years!!! We have been back and forth between a few houses and are now down to two. Both are very nice, but the first house is a little small. especially when we have mission teams come and stay with us. The second house is bigger and great for teams, but one draw back is the fact that the outside is pink! I'm affectionately calling this house the flamingo house. Please pray we have discernment on which house would be best for the ministry in Arua. Either house would be a blessing and much better living conditions (i.e. running water and toilet that flushes!) than we expected to have here.

Meet Sharon...
Another exciting thing happened this week! Josh, our Swahili teacher, brought his 8 year old daughter, Sharon, to our home so we could meet her. She was the most polite, precious girl! She does not speak very much English, so we got to practice a lot of Swahili with her! She was also very shy... she had actually never been around a "muzungu" before! (That is what they call white people here) So she was very quiet around us. Josh compared her being in our home to what we would feel like if we got to be in a celebrity's home! We both found that pretty amusing! She stayed the whole day with us while we had class (for 8 hours!), and she never complained of getting bored or anything. The children here are just so incredibly well-behaved. She was actually very entertained by the "Build-a-Bear" Giraffe that my brother, Ryan, gave to me for our going-away present! (you can see it in this picture). When you push the giraffe's foot, it plays Ryan's voice saying how much he loves and misses us! I probably heard his voice at least 20 times that day! It was precious!

One thing you could please pray for is that Josh would be brave enough to share what he has heard about Jesus with his daughter. He has not told her what he has been learning yet. Please pray for Josh and Sharon to come to a decision to know Christ and have a personal relationship wtih Him.