Man On Fire

The greatest blessings to me in my work is Tumwebaze Michael, in large part because he has such great passion for God, ministry, evangelism and teaching that he is doing the work himself, all I have to do is help with direction and discipleship (which I don't have to do, either, but God has blessed me with the calling to provide that for him).

Michael comes from a difficult home situation in which his father left work to become a full-time alcoholic, leaving care for the family in Michael's hands at a very young (early teens) age. After coming to salvation through the witness of an American NGO worker, he at first joined the Church of Christ in Mbarara before moving into a heavily charismatic, health-wealth-and-prosperity gospel church abounding in false teaching. I first met him when he came to my gate asking for an NIV Bible so he could study at some Bible school. I gave him the Bible, but the school didn't work out (they wanted a baptism certificate; he had a baptism letter). He came by again asking for rent money. I told him I would have to pray before making a decision; he came back the next day to thank me for praying because God had provided (normally people would still come back and ask for money. I knew he had a huge passion for God but needed some discipleship, but then I didn't see him and couldn't find him. Several months later he shows up at Kafunda because he wants to learn from what I'm doing so he can do it too. He eats up Bible teaching like Homer Simpson eats up donuts, and as he's learned things from me he's come to realize all of the false teachings in his church and started attending the baptist church, and without my prodding him to do so. As we have absolutely nothing in common except for Christ, all we ever talk about is God. He translates for me at Kafunda and helps with translation in Ibanda and goes with me on home visits, and is now very happy that God did not provide for him to go to college because of everything he's learned from God through me. I'll never forget how happy he was when I told him the Great Commission was not just for pastors and missionaries, and that you don't have to be seminary-trained to work for God. He said it was the best thing he had ever heard. This week I found out he has started his own Bible storying group, once again without me asking (I wasn't going to push him in that direction until I had a better understanding of what on earth I was doing with this stuff).

All this to say, God is good, and He is working...through us, with us, in spite of us and without us.

Border Boys

At the Ugandan/ Kenyan border there are a variety of people trying to make a living in a variety of ways. Customs and immigration officials, police officers, money changers, guys who will help you through the different stops and pieces of paperwork, and people who sell drinks and snacks. These boys in particular deal in potassium. At least that’s why they told us we should “promote their business” and buy bananas. They were awfully persistent, following us across to the Kenyan side of the border. Unfortunately for them we didn’t feel like we needed any more potassium that morning, and on top of that they wanted more for 2 bananas than it would cost to buy an entire hand in any given market.

Natural Beauty

This is The Rock in Tororo, Uganda, as seen from a gas station where we filled up in the morning before heading to the Kenyan border. The Tororo area is pretty much as flat as can be (rice country), but then there are these huge rock formations and hills that just pop up as if out of nowhere. This particular one is the most distinct and the most well known.

Forming fertile forest highlands and bone-dry grassy lowlands, great mountains (such as Kilimanjaro) and deep lakes, the Great Rift Valley tears across East Africa, giving it a stunning and diverse natural beauty. Beginning in Syria, the Rift Valley extends all the way to Mozambique, dividing into two arms as it cuts across East Africa. The Rift Valley’s western arm runs along Uganda’s western border. The eastern arm, pictured here, runs down through Kenya and Tanzania.

This particular viewing point sits along the road from Tororo to Nairobi. I was just so fortunate that we came upon it at a time when rain was passing through the valley. The altitude difference between where I was standing and the valley floor? Several thousand feet.

Maasai Market

Every Friday the covered parking lot at the Village Market mall in Nairobi plays host to the Maasai Market. A huge variety of African crafts are available at either ridiculously high rip off prices (if you don’t bargain) or at really good low budget prices (if you fight like heck to get the price you want). Carvings, weaponry, blankets, jewelry, candle holders, picture frames, plates, masks, kikoys, purses, drums, and so much more are absolutely everywhere.

I would think it certainly intimidating to the newcomer to East Africa: aggressive vendors everywhere vying eagerly for your attention to look at their multitude of wares; so many goods that you can’t hardly begin to tell what all is there; masses of buyers moving down narrow paths; and you know the sellers are asking too much but you have no idea how much things are actually worth.

Personally I rather enjoyed the Maasai Market, though. People were much more eager to bargain here and enjoyed it far more than sellers in Uganda. They were also very friendly. In my efforts to get lower prices I got to know some of the vendors quite well. And they appreciate good humor, too: when I was trying to bargain for a Masai club with one of the most stubborn sellers I found, I poked him in the belly with the club and told him that I could tell that he ate very well (here it’s a good thing to be fat, so I wasn't being offensive) so I knew his prices must be way too high. As he and all the other vendors around were laughing he knocked about $4.50 off the price.

Picture This

I want you to stop and take a moment to picture Kenya in your mind. When you think of Kenya, what do you see? What image defines Kenya to you? Then take a look at the pictures that follow…is that what you pictured? Most people, when they think of Kenya, see wild animals strewn across a flat, dry, grassy plain. And while that side of Kenya certainly exists, that is NOT where I was. I was in tea country (pictured right: tea leaves).

Kenya is actually home to very diverse ecosystems. Brackenhurst, the IMB conference center where I went for training, sits up 7800 feet in the Gikuyu Highlands surrounded by hills covered with green, lush tea plantations. Kenya is actually one of the largest tea producers in the world. It grows excellent coffee as well; in fact, if you like good coffee or good tea, East Africa is not a bad place to be. One thing that world travel, though, will always confirm: whatever your expectations, they are wrong.

Brackenhurst

Brackenhurst was an old British hotel outside of Limuru, Kenya, that the IMB purchased in the 1960s around the time of Kenyan independence for next to nothing. The beautifully-landscaped grounds have played host to meetings and conferences for the IMB, corporate retreats for Nairobi businesses, summer camps, a Kiswahili language school, and the Kenya Baptist Theological College, amongst other things. And it is cold there! I was there in the hottest time of the year and still we had to wear jackets most mornings.

Where I stayed. At first I had a double room to myself. The guy who was supposed to room with me came in late because of his flight. When he went to the reception the lady there told him that he was rooming with his friend Spencer. He said that actually he didn't know me. She told him that he should not room with someone he does not know and gave him another room.

The building in which we met for classes.

The Kenya Baptist Theological College.

Everywhere you turn at Brackenhurst there are flowers and trees. It's like being at an arboretum.

Inside the main building is the dining room, a coffeeshop, some couches and chairs in an area with wireless internet, and a gift shop. This is from the coffeeshop looking into the wireless internet area with the gift shop behind.

Some interesting trees, and not exactly small ones.

Friends New & Old

During our training we had many times where we went out into the surrounding community (Tigoni) and practiced the things we had been learning in our classroom sessions. When we went out, we were accompanied by national helpers who took us around and, if needed, translated for us. My helper was a 20-year old Gikuyu (tribe from the highlands around Nairobi) named Steven. Some of the best times were when we were walking from Brackenhurst to town and back, as I was able to use those times for mini-discipleship, teaching about the things we had been learning and whatever else happened to be relevant. One of the more exciting things was seeing Steven learn and gain a desire to go and do the very things we were learning to do. One of the hardest things about leaving was that I had become good friends with Steven and he was so eager to learn and be discipled that I wanted to either take him with me or stay and work with him.

One pleasant surprise at the training was getting to see Carl Garvin (pictured here with Steven) and his wife Kay. The Garvins and I went through orientation together back in 2005. We were neighbors in our quad and were in the same house church group. They are serving in Moshi, Tanzania. The view out the back of their house? Mt. Kilimanjaro. They had come for the first week, and when we did our practical assignments Carl and I went together. Always nice to see old friends again.

Funny sidenote. At first Steven was having trouble with our names. He decided he was going to give us "good Gikuyu names." When he says this I was expecting him to come out with some sort of Kikuyu (the language of the Gikuyu) names. Our names? John (me) and Peter (Carl). Good Gikuyu names indeed :).

This Stuff Actually Works

Our first week of training was about how to teach and work with oral-dependent and oral-preference learners. The second week was about "Main Things." My mzungu partner the second week was a missionary from Nairobi named Jerry. Our second practical assignment was to go and pray for lost people in front of lost people. Basically go to someone, talk to him, get to know him some, and then pray for him. Pray for their salvation along with whatever else yes, but don't share the gospel. So we headed out to do just that. Steven took us to a nearby farm because some of the people in Tigoni were getting tired of talking to missionaries over and over again.

We met a woman there named Sarah. At first she did not want to talk to us. Then Steven told her that we just wanted to get to know her. Now she was interested. We sat down and talked to her, learned about her job situation and her daughter, learned that she regularly attended an Anglican church but was not saved and knew it. After a while we asked if we could pray for her, she said yes, so we prayed. When we were leaving she was so happy that we had come and just taken some time to talk to her that she begged us to come back.

So, the next day we came back. And how fitting: the practical assignment for the next day was to share our testimonies and to share the gospel using Creation 2 Christ, which is basically like theRedemptive History Christmas Story but continuing on to the resurrection of Christ. When we got there she was just getting ready to go home so I offered to walk with her. After all, no sense in making her stay around when we could just as easily talk walking as sitting. Eventually we got around to talking about how you never know where God is going to take you. I told her that I was a good example: I never went to church growing up, and now I'm a missionary. Transition into testimony...CHECK! I went on to share my testimony and asked her if anything like that had happened to her. There was a part of the story she identified with, but she said no, that she was not saved.

I asked her why (as we were approaching her home), and essentially it was because she was afraid to be authentic. She had a ten year old daughter, and when her daughter was one year old the father left her. He had another family that Sarah did not know about and he decided to go back to them (unfortunately anything but uncommon here). She became depressed and lonely and sought her refuge in alcohol, and she has continued as a lonely alcoholic ever since. This kept her from coming to Christ because she had seen many people who claimed to be saved but continued to just bask in sin and she did not want to be one of those people; she wanted to be authentic, and she knew that she couldn't stop drinking.

God then worked through us to show her that she needed to trust that when she came to saving faith Christ would work in her to overcome her sin, that she would not have to leave alcoholism on her own power. Somehow the Creation 2 Christ came up as a very helpful and viable to explain and out it went (CHECK!) I had used it before but it hadn't ever come out so well, and the whole time God was working on her so hard that she was almost crying. She wanted to come to salvation so badly and yet she was so afraid that she would persist in her sin. She kept coming so close to saying "Yes I want to be saved" and yet always right before she would say it she'd hesitate. One time she actually even said she wanted to get saved and then after I explained what that meant she stepped back again.

After about and hour and a half to two hours of Jerry and Steven and I talking with her and (when not the one talking) praying for her she finally decided to trust that Christ would overcome her sin if she got saved! God had been working on her heart through circumstance and witness and her daughter (who was saved and prayed for her mother every day) and our words and finally he broke down the last barrier and another sheep came home. So what if we were seriously late getting back (one of the great things about being in a part of the world where time is just a guideline: everyone understands if you're late because you were doing something important). Neither of us had ever shared with someone who wanted salvation so badly but wouldn't give in, and finally, by God's grace, she came to profess saving faith. What an incredible day it was.

A Redemptive History Christmas

Usually when we think about how great the birth of Christ was, we do so by looking back at Christmas: we think about what Jesus has done in our own lives and think Christmas a great day because of it. To truly grasp how amazing a day the first Christmas was, however, we have to not look back at Christmas, but forward. Whereas most people think of the Christmas story as starting around 3 BC, this story starts…

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). And everything he created was good. On the sixth day God created man and woman, and thereafter looked over what he created and saw not just that it was good, but that “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). In those days man and woman, Adam and Eve, lived in the Garden of Eden, a paradise without sin or suffering in which they walked and talked with God.

In this time God gave them but one commandment: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). Yet Adam and Eve fail to keep this simple one commandment. The sinful nature is born as man falls. Adam and Eve are thrown out of the garden, cast from the presence of God. Mankind is now separate from God and will never walk with Him in this life as he once did in Eden.

The fall did not end there, though; it was the beginning of a descent into greater and greater wickedness. “For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God nor give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator…

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:21-31).

Man did not even attempt to turn back to God, but rather turned further and further away, delving ever deeper into the chasm of sin and wickedness. And what hope was there? God had offered no manner of redemption. There was no way in sight for God to satisfy His justice against mankind’s sin while extending forgiveness and mercy. Man had departed from the presence of God with no hope of reconciliation. There were no promises of redemption or forgiveness, no covenants or prophesies. In fact, man’s destiny seemed only to be destruction, for “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them” (Genesis 6:5-7).

And blot them out He did. God sent a flood so great that it covered the highest mountain tops and wiped out every living creature on earth except Noah, his family, and the animals with him in the ark. So great is the sin of mankind that such destruction was wholly just. Yet with such a great demonstration both of God’s wrath and God’s love, still mankind did not turn back to God. The only reason such great wrath has not been poured out on earth again is because of God’s own promise that He would not do so again, a covenant for which He made the rainbow a sign. After all, that’s why we see rainbows: why would God need to show us that He will not again destroy all living creatures for the wickedness of mankind if we were not so sinful as to deserve such wrath?

So mankind persists in wickedness with still no promise of redemption from God. Yet then He calls this man in Ur named Abram. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3). And then later God gives Abram, now renamed Abraham, this promise: “I will establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”

Thousands of years after the fall this great promise comes: finally there will be a people of God. Finally God will bring people back to Himself. Finally God will offer redemption to men. Though mankind has persisted in sin and in no way deserves to be brought back to God, God has promised to reconcile the descendants of Abraham to Himself. And while this promise is only to Abraham’s offspring, in some way these people of God will be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth.

Yet still this promise is only to Abraham’s descendants, and not to all of his descendants at that. Isaac is the son of the promise: Ishmael, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah were excluded from the promise. And even of Isaac’s children, Jacob received the promise while Esau did not. And within a couple hundred years the people of God, the Israelites, are slaves to the pagan Egyptians. There is a promise to Abraham’s descendants that God will be their God, and yet it seems not to have come true. And there is a promise that all nations will be blessed through the seed of Abraham, but there is not even a hint of how or when that will happen.

Hundreds of years after God’s promise to Abraham, He sends a man named Moses to lead His people out of Egypt. On a mountain in the middle of nowhere between Egypt and Canaan God gives His people another promise: “Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6). A treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation! Thousands of years after the fall and hundreds of years after the Abrahamic covenant God is promising to make a people His own and to make them holy! After thousands of years of wickedness and sin some members of mankind will finally be brought back to God!

All they have to do is follow a law, to keep a few commandments. But they don’t. Within forty days of the giving of the promise and of the law the people of Israel violate the very first commandment, “you shall have no other Gods before me” (Exodus 20:3), by building and worshipping a golden calf. Throughout its history Israel will struggle with this and other commandments, failing over and over to keep God’s commands.

In fact, they not only do not keep God’s law, but they could not keep God’s law. It was impossible. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8). Also the author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 7:11 that “if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?” God presented a covenant which man could not keep. This covenant, the great hope of mankind after thousands of years that finally people would be reconciled to God, fails to fulfill any hope of coming back to God. The Israelites cannot keep it and the rest of the world is excluded from it.

Yet there is still hope from God’s promise to Abraham. There will still be a people who belong to God and a blessing to all the peoples of the world. Yet that hope seems still to be far off. Who knows when it may come? Though there will be people who follow God and are close to God, even they know that they must rely on God’s forgiveness and mercy, and in sight of God’s justice would wonder how ever God could remain just and yet forgive their sins.

Moving forward again several hundred years we come to the kingship of a man named David. A young shepherd of the tribe of Judah, David is anointed king of Israel by the prophet Samuel as God takes the kingship away from the line of Saul and the tribe of Benjamin. Though he also would fail greatly, he was considered by God to be a man after God’s own heart. When he defeats the Philistines and brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, God makes David this promise: “your house and your kingdom shall be made sure before me. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). God promises David that a king will reign from his line on his throne forever, a king to lead God’s people. Another message of great hope, that the people of God would exist forever and would forever have a godly king over them. The great hopes of reconciliation to God, of forgiveness of sins and redemption, are far off, and the promises of God seem still to dwell with just this one nation of people, yet this promise to David provides hope that God will in fact preserve a people for Himself.

Of the kings who follow, some will also seek God and most will not. It is not long either before Israel is split into two kingdoms. And then the prophets will come proclaiming the downfall of both kingdoms, and their prophecies will come true. The Northern Kingdom (Israel) is taken into exile in Assyria and the Southern Kingdom (Judah) is taken into exile in Babylonia. The throne of David is overthrown and a king no longer reigns from his house.

Yet in this great hopelessness there is still hope. As the prophets speak of the impending doom to befall Israel and Judah they speak also of a bright future for God’s people. They speak of a new covenant, a better covenant, a perfect covenant to come.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will right it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor saying ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statuettes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:24-28).

“Then a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness” (Isaiah 16:5).

God will cleanse His people and forgive their sins! He will take out their sinful heart of stone and replace it with a heart that loves Him! He will put His Spirit in them so that they will actually obey His commands! And on top of all that the throne of David will be reestablished! Thousands of years after the fall of man, thousands of years after the Abrahamic covenant, hundreds of years since the Exodus, and in the midst of the fall of the Davidic kingship, God is promising that finally people will be reconciled to Him!

The last words spoken of this new covenant are found in Malachi 4:5-6: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” And then…

Nothing. The prophets fall silent. The Old Testament canon closes. Days become weeks, weeks become years, years become centuries. Kings come and go and empires rise and fall. And nothing happens. The new covenant does not come. People still persist in wickedness without hope of reconciliation to God. The old covenant still stands. Hope fades. This time will last for over four hundred years.

Then one day a priest enters the temple to burn incense. An angel of the Lord appears to him and says, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:13-17).

It has begun. Thousands of years since mankind was evicted from the Garden of Eden and became separated from God, thousands of years since the flood, thousands of years since God made His promises to Abraham, over a thousand years since God established the Old Covenant on Mount Sinai, hundreds of years since the kingship of David, hundreds of years since the prophets began speaking of the new covenant, and hundreds of years since the prophets fell silent, the new covenant is finally going to come, the words of the prophets are finally going to be fulfilled, people are finally going to be forgiven and brought back to God. It is no wonder that Zechariah struggled to believe.

Then, just a short while later, an angel appears to a virgin named Mary. “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:30-33). An angel speaks also to Mary’s betrothed, Joseph, saying to him, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

After thousands of years of separation from God, of overwhelming wickedness and sin, Christ has come to bring the new covenant. On that first Christmas was born the hope of Abraham, Moses, David and the prophets, the one who would justify not only us but them as well (Romans 3:23-26). Finally, after thousands of years, there is a covenant between man and God that provides forgiveness of man’s sin, reconciliation to God and even the unbelievable promise of God himself dwelling in man! It would be another 33 years before Jesus would die and rise again, initiating the new covenant, but what is 33 years compared to thousands?

The greatness of Christmas stands not just in what Christ did for us in our lives, but in the lives of millions both before and after His birth in light of the history of mankind’s separation from and rebellion against God. I hope this story will help you to better appreciate how great an event the birth of our Savior truly was, even if it shows how poorly I really know Old Testament redemptive history.

Merry Christmas!

Saved! (@ Kafunda)

I would like for you to meet Natumanya Sarah. She is the first person to come to a profession of saving faith from my Bible storying group at Kafunda! She is a bit shy, so afterwards she told Florence, a University Baptist Church Runyankore Service member who lives in Kafunda and comes to our group after helping Barry with his group in Katete, that she wanted to get saved but wanted to have it explained to her again first, and then Florence told John, who then told me. So I shared the gospel with her in detail and then she prayed for herself (which is nice...I always try to get people to pray in their own words but they always want to just follow after me). She has come to all 3 meetings so far. Pray that she is truly saved, that she will have a great passion for God, that she will continue to be faithful to come and that she will share the good news of Christ with her friends and family who are lost.

The Giving of His Word (in Tamil)

The most precious material gift you can give is a Bible in someone's native language. For many this is difficult, and for many it is impossible, to receive such a gift as either there is no Bible in their language or such Bibles are simply not available wherever they happen to be. What you see here is not a Bible in the local language of the Banyankore people (Runyankore). In fact it is not any sort of African language at all. Rather, it is Tamil, a language in Southwest India and part of Sri Lanka.

You may be wondering why on earth I would post anything to do with a language of a people group several thousand miles away. That's because there are a large number of South Asians who live in Uganda (and East Africa in general), including the three Tamil brothers who run City Top Restaurant, the best food in all of Mbarara (slogan: "Feeds Like A Mother"). Myself and Kari have eaten tons of Indian food at this little restaurant and have come to become friends with these three brothers, who are Muslims. The one on the left is the youngest, the one in the middle is the oldest, and the one on the right is, then, the middle brother.

When Kari got to the States she ordered a Tamil Bible online and then sent it to me. On Saturday night I brought the Bible to the brothers and gave it to them as a Christmas gift. As soon as they saw the cover they were excited. They knew right away that it was written in Tamil, and when they saw it was a Bible they were even more joyous. The oldest brother told me that they knew the Bible was a message from God but had never read it. They were so thankful that they invited me to have dinner at their house next Sunday evening, the only meal time when City Top is closed. Please pray that they will read (beginning in Luke, which I bookmarked so that they could read the Christmas story) and that God's Word will be at work in their hearts to lead them to Christ.

T4T in Ibanda

On December 4 (my birthday) Barry and I went to Ibanda, a town about an hour north of Mbarara, to train some church leaders there in an obedience-based discipleship method called T4T (Training For Trainers). On the way we picked up a young man named Charles, a former orphan turned evangelist. Without any training from us, Charles has already started 6 Bible study groups that are potential churches. To hear about his passion for the truth in the face of the false teachings of so many churches here was very encouraging and uplifting.

We went on to an area on the other side of Ibanda where we pulled up to a small building made principally of tree branches and banana leaves with tarps for a roof. This is a new church with an interesting beginning. The leaders of the church had been in a Church of Uganda (Anglican) church and were tired of the false teachings there, so they left and started their own church. We conducted the training in their church for these leaders and several other church members (along with the throng of children and youth who show up whenever you do anything here).

I spent two hours teaching them how to teach and explain the first lesson of T4T, which reviews the gospel, assurance of salvation, and perseverance. By God's grace I was able to teach in a way where they came to really understand and where the whole audience was engaged. Now to pray that they will take that lesson and go out and teach others.

(Pictured at left: two of the pastors) The most encouraging thing, though, was not their connection to the teaching but their love for the truth. False teaching is so prevalent here in Uganda with so very, very, very few who are committed to seeking and following the truth of God's Word (yes, false teaching is prevalent in the US as well, but there are far more people committed to the truth). So many will just accept what they are taught as truth without ever caring as to what the Bible actually says. These men, however, are dedicated to knowing and teaching God's truth. This is a rare discovery indeed.

Please pray as I contemplate weekly discipleship visits to further teach, encourage, and provide vision for these leaders, and pray that God will continue to move them to learn, follow, and proclaim His truth alone.

God at Work Despite Me

Last week was a difficult week for me. Physically I was suffering from stomach aches, diarrhea, a cold, headaches, and insomnia. Spiritually I was having a difficult time, hardly spending any time in prayer or God's Word. I would say that it was not only the worst week I've had while I've been here, but the worst week I've had in a long time.

Furthermore, I had given up all hope that anything was going to happen with the group I had been working with for almost a year now at Bishop Stuart University. The students hardly ever showed up, they showed no commitment to put into practice anything they were learning, and it seemed that everything I taught went in one ear and out the other. The last time we had met we were supposed to go to one of the student hostels, Ultimate Hostel, to share the gospel, and not a single student showed up. I felt it was time to end the group but would give them one last chance (with a heavy dose of skepticism that anyone would even show up for the last chance).

On Friday I had met my friend Michael and he said he wasn't sure if people would be able to come on Saturday and that he would call me and let me know. I was certain that he would call and say "sorry, but we can't meet this time." In fact I was very surprised when he called and said that students would be there. Then I go to Bishop Stuart and wait 20 minutes before anyone shows up, figuring that Michael would be the only one. Eventually 5 came.

I told them we were going to go to Ultimate to share the gospel as had been planned before. They had a look of fear in their eyes and were visibly very nervous. I told them I wanted to split into small groups of 2 and go to different rooms and share the gospel. They rebelled and just started gathering students into a meeting area. Basically they were afraid to share, but knew that if they could get everyone to meet together then they could get me to preach and they could just sit back and watch and not have to do anything.

I wasn't too happy about that but, with the opportunity to share the gospel with 15-20 students before me, went ahead and started sharing. A surprising number of students were actually listening intently. After the presentation I broke everyone into small groups, each group with at least one student from my Bible study group. There my students had to field questions and share further.

When all was said and done 4 students had professed coming to saving faith in Christ and many more were interested in us coming back to teach more. My students were amazed at the response and at how easy it was for them to answer questions and share. They also had found a new passion for sharing the gospel and, instead of being afraid, were begging me to change our program to go to hostels every week to share. God worked mightily, and it seems that my entire ministry at Bishop Stuart my have turned on that one day.

This was hugely convicting for me. God worked the greatest when my faith that He would do anything there at all had hit its absolute lowest. It just goes to show that what happens here is His work, not mine, and that He truly does not need me or my prayers or my faith or anything else I may try and offer. It also shows just how little faith I have. We should never give up on God. He may call us to give up on a situation, but until that calling comes loud and clear we should always be expectant that He will do even the miraculous, for no matter how impossible a situation may be, nothing is impossible with God.