We're Having a BOY!!!

For those of you who have been asking us or wondering... we got an ultrasound yesterday & found out that WE ARE HAVING A BABY BOY!!! We are SO excited! It is so fun to know what we're having and to be able to call our baby "him" or "he" instead of "it!" Below is a picture from our ultrasound~ I still can't believe we can get 4D ultrasounds in Uganda... amazing!

And watching this little baby grow inside of me continues to me amaze me & remind me of how awesome God is! I am only 20 weeks (4 1/2 months) along, and our baby already looks like a full term baby! God is so awesome! He is a healthy baby boy from as far as we can tell from this ultrasound, so we are so thankful to God! And I still haven't ever felt sick or tired at all~ what a blessing!

Our Last Training & One More Party

This weekend was our final training in Nebbi... :-(We truly will miss our pastors a great deal. We really have grown to love them and care for them, and they will always hold a special place in our hearts.

It's hard to believe that it was our last day in Nebbi with these pastors we have grown so fond of. And I will even miss all of the same little children (pictured below with Joanna) who come and fill the windows & doorway at every pastor training, just to stare at the "mzungu's" (the white people)! They are so precious!

And we have to give props to baby Elsie Jayne Coppedge! She was such a trooper! As you can imagine, it's very hard for a 12 month old to miss her nap & be surrounded by new people in a new place ALL DAY, but she did great and eventually fell asleep in her mama's arms. I came outside of the church & saw Joanna holding Elsie Jayne as she was fast asleep with all the kids crowded around & it was precious to me, so I thought you'd like this picture! Thank you, Joanna & Elsie Jayne, for being such troopers & coming to our last day of training!

And we owe a huge "Thank You" to Billy & Joanna for the going away party they threw for us yesterday at their home! They invited all of our friends in Arua to their home & we all had a chance to say goodbye to each other. It was really sweet & special to have everyone together and just look around at their faces & think of the real friendships we have formed over these past two years, in a foreign land, where I thought it would be so hard to make real "friends..."

It still seems so surreal to us that we are leaving this country and this phase of our life. And if anyone knows us well (especially me~ Erica), you know that I LOVE America & I LOVE our family & friends there... But I can honestly say that I have also grown to love our friends & our home here. And although there are days that are difficult here, there is a big part of both of us that will miss Arua & our friends here!

PS~ Another BIG THANK YOU to Billy & Joanna for letting us use their computer these past couple weeks, since our hard dive crashed!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Billy & Jo! WE LOVE YOU!

God is a Way Maker

Everything about Sudan is hard. It is hard to get there because the roads are so bad & flying every time is not in the budget. To drive 200 miles will take you a literal week. As you can imagine, the roads are made of mud & enormous pot holes and having Billy's 4X4 Land Rover Defender (pictured above) is an absolute blessing when traveling in such conditions. Thank God we only had to drive for about 5 hours north from Arua to a little town called Yei where we were attending a networking conference & hosting a pastor training. (Just in case you were wondering, the Darfur region you hear about in the news is still a 2 week drive from where we were in Sudan!)

Last week was also a little hard personally for several reasons ... our dog died, our computer died, we received some discouraging news in an e-mail & all of this while I was in Southern Sudan apart from Erica. Although this has all the makings of a #1 country music hit, it also had the potential for making us easily forget all that God has done & hindering us from finishing well here in Uganda & Sudan.,, While thinking about my own problems I was also at the networking conference (pictured above)being confronted with all the major issues Sudan is facing: land mines all over their country preventing farming & road development, post war trauma, poor education, corruption of the government, poor distribution of billions of dollars a year in domestic & foriegn aid, not to mention drought & flooding & the razor thin peace agreement between the North & Southern part of the country.

The conference actually went very well & proved to be an excellent time of networking for our WGM team of 6 (pictured right: Reuben, Joy, Karen, Terry, Billy & John) representing various aspects of ministry & development. There were more 130 people from across the globe representing 60 organizations, churches & institutions. It was really a vision of what the Kingdom of God is to look like. There were many good ideas exchanged, several good sermons & great times of relationship building. It looks like WGM has a promising future ahead of them in Sudan, so that is exciting!

As I reflected about these issues & our uncertain future I will be honest & say that I was a little frustrated, sad & a bit overwhelmed as each day last week seemed to bring difficult news that was hard to hear. Now, none of these issues by themselves were really that horrible, but the combination of them was challenging to trust Jesus with.

As I was thinking about all of this Jesus reminded me ... I AM the Way Maker. God has a history of making a way where there seems to be no way. Even more than God simply making a way and telling us to get out of His way, He says, "I want to teach you My ways & guide you so you can know Me & we can fellowship together." Psalm 25:4 & 5 says, "Show me Your ways O Lord; teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth & teach me, for You are God my Savior, & my hope is in You all day long." Other verses began to flood my mind & I soon realized there is a place for problems, whether a computer crashing, an uncertain future or a nation that needs healing ... God says, "I AM the Way Maker."

As we then began the training of the Sudanese pastors (pictured right) later that same week, I had a renewed sense of God's presence in both the troubles of Sudan & also the personal issues we are facing. God continues to teach me that when difficutlies arise, these are opportunites to either go deeper in my walk with Jesus or I can view them as negative circumstances that will poison my relationship with God & others.

It was sad to have my final pastor training in Sudan & our days here in Africa are rapidly coming to a close. But inspite of all the issues in the world I still trust in the fact that the Lord is a Way Maker!

There's a Reason There's No Pictures :-(

Well, this blog entry isn't so fun, because I just lost all of our pictures on our computer! I was going to write this entry about saying goodbye to friends & John speaking at UCU chapel one last time, and I had pictures of our Ugandan friends & the chapel service to post... But yesterday, I was working on a project on our computer & lost the entire hard drive! It is so sad!

But I was on the phone with Apple for a while last night & they told me that there is hope that they can recover our data when we get home to America... which includes 2,000 pictures!!! So I am hopeful! And I am thankful for Joanna Coppedge who is letting me use her computer, since ours won't even turn on! Please pray that our hard drive can be recovered & please be patient with us as we may be slow on returning emails & updating our blog, as we will be without a computer for the next month!!!

Also, John is in Sudan with Billy & other WGM missionaries right now, so please pray for them. They attended a conference these past few days (Tuesday to Friday) called the Cush Consultation, which has been a great networking time for WGM to get connected with other organizations working in Sudan & strategize how to go forward in our ministry there. Tomorrow, they start pastor training with our pastors in Sudan, and then they will return home on Sunday night! Joanna & I sure are missing them! Please pray that God continues to make their time in Sudan fruitful & that He brings them home safely to us!

Food for Thought~
Yesterday, as I was wanting to just get frustrated & upset with the whole computer situation... I was quickly distracted by the fact that I had no distractions... This week was going to be a week that I got some projects done on our computer in preparation to come home (like making DVD's for our speaking engagements), so I didn't have too much else planned... So in an instant, I went from being stressed out about getting everything done to realizing I had nothing to do! I had no computer, no TV, no Ipod, no company, and no John :-( ... But I realized that in that moment, I could either get upset that I had nothing to do or be thankful that I had no distractions. And I decided to be thankful~ I mean, what a blessing that I could just have some extra time with Jesus these next few days or get some reading done or be more welcoming to our visitors at our door because I'm not pressed to do anything else.

I feel like God is preparing me to come home even in this & reminding me that life easily gets too busy (especially in America!), and we have to guard our days & our time with Him. I know this will be a challenge for us to not get too busy when we come home to America, and I want to make an intentional effort to never be too busy for Jesus. And I challenge you to do the same in your busy life, today, tomorrow, every day this week & forever!

Our First Goodbyes

Rinehimers & Coppedges with our Pastors in Training in Nebbi

As many of you may know, John & I will be leaving Uganda soon! Our commitment here with WGM has been fulfilled as of November, and we will be heading home! We have always felt that God was asking us to come just for these two years. We have been seeking His guidance & direction for our future ever since we got here it seems, and we continue to feel that He is still leading us back home. So we will be returning to the States on November 8!

This past weekend began our goodbyes, as our pastors in Nebbi threw a going away party, Ugandan style, for us! It was so humbling & special! As soon as we told our pastors we were leaving, the first thing they thought of was giving us a party! And a party it was! We left our house with the Coppedges at about 9 am & got home around 5 pm! That is very African~ it isn’t a party unless it lasts 6 hours or more! And I even got a chance to finally wear my traditional Ugandan dress I had made in the market here!

Our 10 pastors in training represent 8 churches in the Nebbi area, and they had representatives from all 8 congregations come to the party! This is huge, because it takes some of them all day just to get there~ so many of them traveled on Thursday to be there on Friday just to honor us… so incredibly humbling! And they gave so extravagantly! We had no idea they’d be giving us even one gift, but each church presented us with a special gift in a special way~ they all lined up & danced their way to us in the front to give us their gift! It was so sweet! Erica is pictured right with Joyce, our only female pastor in training, who gave her a matching hat! And John is pictured right with the Ugandan warrior wood carving~ when the pastors presented this gift to him, they said he gets a hunter, because John is a hunter for Jesus! Precious, isn't it! John preached a sermon as well, challenging them to not miss Jesus in their daily lives, and they had lunch for us and singing too. It is a day that John & I will always remember.

We are so thankful for these pastors & churches that God has placed in ours & the Coppedges’ lives over these past 2 years. And we continue to be amazed at the extravagant love & generosity of our precious friends here in Uganda! We really are so blessed!