February 20, 2007

Yesterday was Blake’s 10th birthday. We did most of our celebrating over the weekend, and he had a good time. We also had an earthquake yesterday, and I just began to wonder if there is some significance to it occurring on his birthday. It came around 5:30 am and woke both Pamela and I up. I haven’t heard how strong it was, but it shook the house and made a loud noise.

Relationships are very important to Blake, and he has made some new friends that came and spent time with us this weekend. He is spending most of his time with our neighbor, Musa, who goes to his school. Finding birthday gifts is not very practical here, though we did get Blake some animals carved from ebony wood that included a lion, a giraffe, and a crocodile. Ebony wood is beautiful. Even without stain it is such a dark brown that it looks black. It is also a very dense wood and quite sturdy. We have found several things such as bowls and serving utensils made from ebony that we are collecting. The craftwork is amazing and quite reasonable, so we have picked up some cool items that are hand carved or handmade. Because Addison and Blake have birthdays in consecutive months, we decided to give the boys a “fort” for their birthday. It was finished yesterday and turned out really nice. It is African-style with a thatch roof and tree trunks for the woodwork. (Yeah, I know that a picture on the blog site would be nice). We have a zip line coming on our container that will be incorporated into the future design. This is one of those things that should make living in Africa more fun than being in America. We really desire that they want to be here. Addison and Collin are happy, but Blake and Christian still talk about going home almost every day, though I think that they are happier than they are willing to admit.

Communication challenges! I know that this probably sounds like a continuous whine, but email communication is horrible. It appears that only about half of the emails that we send make it to the intended recipient. It is very important that you have our email address in your address book, or it will most likely not get to you. I am getting emails from people that state that they have not heard from me in a long time, even though I have recently emailed them. I am mostly concerned about the many “thank you” notes that we have sent that probably never got there. Sorry, if you have sent us a care package and not heard from us. I will go somewhere and resend emails today from my laptop.

If you send us an email, then we will probably get it. If we send a reply, then it is about 70% likely to get to you. If we send new emails, then sometimes they make it and sometimes they don’t. Please don’t let this stop you from emailing us. We do read them, and respond to them. You just might not ever get the response.

Our internet service is so slow and unreliable (off half the time) that posting pictures on the blog isn’t an option right now. We are considering getting a better internet provider. We currently pay $55/month for this lousy service. A more reliable service would be around $120/month. Isn’t that disgusting? The “good stuff” is still dial-up and slow, but at least it would stay on almost all of the time and be slightly faster.

Our laptop is still acting up a bit, though it works most of the time. It appears to have been partially healed, but we really need a complete healing. Please pray that God will make it whole without us having to send it off for repairs in the US.

Tony Gibson was here for about 36 hours last week on his way back to Florida. He has been in Africa for almost four weeks visiting Uganda, Zambia, and Kenya. We sent back a DVD of over 100 pictures for him to share. I didn’t get to review it before sending it, so I hope that it works right. It is supposed to be pictures with word captions that explain the picture. It shows our house, safari pictures, our dog, the boys at school, and some pictures from Christmas with the orphans. If you check in with Heart of the Bride, then they should be able to burn you a copy for those who are interested.

Student ministry continues to progress. Pamela taught a bible study for the second week yesterday, and started with a discipleship group yesterday, as well. I meet with my discipleship group tonight, which has 10 guys representing four countries. I have started meeting with Pastor Kennedy on a weekly basis for accountability, mentorship, and planning. I will continue to preach on a weekly basis as well.

We have been challenged lately with people constantly asking for money. It is really difficult to know whom to help, and who is just a professional beggar. We had four requests last week. On another note, we have met a young man named Artibul, who has been so giving. He is one of the guys who helped build the boys’ fort, and our boys really like him. Artibul is 18 years old, and only about 5’2” or so, and Addison plays with and hangs on him constantly. I think Addison thinks Artibul is younger because of his small stature. Anyway, Artibul brought Blake a birthday card yesterday, which took a lot of effort and probably cost based on his limited income. I stopped by their workshop one day last week, and he came and asked if he could buy his friend Addison a rabbit. We really enjoy being around these guys, who speak pretty limited English. There are around 8 of them who build furniture, and I am praying about whether to try and start some regular ministry with them. They seem interested in learning about the bible, but I would need a translator because of their limited English. They all seem to enjoy spending time with our family, and we enjoy them. It will be interesting to see what comes of this relationship.

We keep getting emails from people telling us that they are keeping up with the blogs. Thanks so much! It really helps to know that people are praying for you and thinking of you. With our communication challenges, we can start to feel quite isolated at times. Getting notes and care packages from the states is incredibly encouraging for all of us.

We are still working on getting a parrot. Hopefully I can provide an update with some progress soon. It could be another one of those things that makes living in Africa better than being in the US for our boys. Right now, the fort and having a dog would probably be the two highest “best things about living in Africa”.

Ministry Update

Much of this is repeat of previous information, but should help some answer some frequently asked questions.

Our ministry plan is taking shape very nicely. We are working primarily with United Faith Chapel, a fellowship at Kampala International University (KIU). They meet on Saturday night (about 300 students) and Sunday morning (from 500-600 students). I have preached at their Saturday night service for the first 3 weeks of this term and the last 4 weeks of last term. It looks like I will be preaching 2 Saturday nights per month, and then either 1 or 2 Sunday mornings per month. I am grateful for these opportunities and greatly appreciate Pastor Kennedy sharing the pulpit with me. He is a humble servant and knowledgeable and under the authority of God’s Word.

Pamela will be teaching at the women’s group on Monday nights, and her first time of teaching was last night. It is a group of around 25 students and they are anxious to have her, though she doesn’t feel comfortable in the role of teacher. Actually, that can be a good thing because it keeps us more dependent on God. I am sure that she will do great and that the women will quickly love her.

I will be taking group of 10 guys for discipleship starting this week. We have been trying to get this started but many of the students were delayed in returning to school. This is what I really long for because I see that the impacts of small groups have much more lasting impact than preaching in large groups. Pastor Kennedy is forming the group to represent several East African countries. I will tell you more as this progresses.

As I have written several times before, it looks like our primary ministry will be a Christian student center. We are so excited as this takes shape and I was greatly encouraged by the contribution of items that is coming on our container that was shipped last week. We have most of the things that we need, but we still have not located a place to host it. It would be ideal to be very near the university, but we also do not want to pay high rent. My desire and goal is for the center to be self-sustaining financially, and if we have high rent then that will be difficult to achieve. We may need to subsidize it at first to get it up and running. Please pray that God will provide the perfect place. We will use this to host bible studies and discipleship groups, as well as all of the other activities. Once we get this initiated, it would be a great opportunity for short-term teams to help with, in discipleship/teaching/training as well as construction and improvements.

Our prayer requests in all of this:

• For the Holy Spirit to lead as we study and teach
• For the Holy Spirit to change lives and teach truth
• For a solid foundation to be laid with the students and for relationships to develop appropriately
• For a location for the student center
• For Pastor Kennedy to remain humble as God blesses this ministry

February 11, 2007

Some type of intestinal virus has been going through our household and I am now victim number three. Blake and Addison preceded me, and I hope that I will be the last. It is quite frightening to be very sick here, because you are never quite sure what you might have. This particular illness had chills, fever, and vomiting and acted similar to malaria. We took Blake to the hospital twice because he stayed sick for 4 days and we did not want to take any chances with malaria. A missionary girl that we met at Thanksgiving died of cerebral malaria last month. She was only 16 years old. If you catch malaria early it is easy to treat, but we hate to run to the hospital every time someone is ill. We need wisdom and protection in regards to sickness.

We have had many opportunities for hospitality in recent weeks. We are now on houseguest number four. Two of our guests have been singles that we met during our missionary training at MTI (Scott Ickes and Stacy H.) and it has been interesting to see how three weeks of training brought so many people into relationship. We have also met several missionaries here who attended MTI, and it immediately gives you some common ground. We are so thankful for the training that we received and we use it daily.

We had an opportunity this week to adopt two Jack Russell terrier puppies but decided against it. A missionary here is leaving on a 6-month furlough, and she needed someone to care for her dog who has two 1-week old puppies. The deal is that if we took care of her mommy dog for six months, then we could keep the puppies. We took a poll and it was 5 votes to one to keep the dogs. However, if mama ain’t happy then no one is happy. Actually, I was fearful for how our dog would interact with the adult terrier, who is much smaller than the monkey that Paska killed.

I really hope that our next pet will be an African grey parrot. They are beautiful birds and also the most vocal of all parrots. Some have a vocabulary of over 1,000 words. I keep getting conflicting information about the legality of having a parrot, though. We know several missionaries that have them, but we are told that it is illegal unless you have a license. However, they are not currently offering licenses, but do occasionally do so retroactively for parrots that have already been purchased. Trying to find out the correct information is not an easy thing to do here. If I get an opportunity to buy one, then I probably will and then try to figure out how to make it legal later. If you don’t have a license, it just means that you could never bring it back to America with you. We are told that you can get a parrot for around $20, and they are over $2,000 in America.

I read a fascinating article about spiritual abuse this week that described many of the things that we have experienced here. The articles are on www.morrischapman.com and are found in a three-part series on his blog site during April of 2006. The article describes 7 characteristics of spiritual abuse, and we have witnessed every one of them. I have also been reading 3 John and the description of Diotrephes in verses 9 and 10 is exactly what is occurring here. It is amazing how anything we encounter is addressed in scripture and that God has a response to every type of sin.

I am composing this blog on my Apple laptop and it has been running for almost 2 hours. Maybe God has healed it. Previously, it would shut down after a few minutes and never lasted more than 20 minutes. If you are praying about our laptop, please continue to do so and know that God is answering your prayers. It really would be a miracle if it started working properly now since the water was spilled on it over two weeks ago.

We keep meeting other Christians and fellow missionaries all the time. It is really exciting to see how it occurs. I was helping pull a motorcycle out of a ditch this week, and another Ugandan man also stopped to assist. It turns out that he is with Campus Crusade and spent 17 years teaching at a seminary in Kenya. God has recently called him back to Uganda to minister here. It will be interesting to see how God uses this relationship. Also, this week, I was trying to get my laptop to send email at the gym (they have wireless there) and a lady came over to see what I was doing. It turns out that she is also a missionary here and her ministry is in media. She primarily produces videos for mission organizations. She came to our house for lunch that same day, and we had a wonderful time of fellowship together. She is leaving in two weeks to go to the states for treatment on a brain tumor that has returned, but she is at total peace. I believe that God will place us in work together in the future since she is feeling called to student ministry. The relationships that we have already made in such a short time has been the most encouraging thing about being here. We have many new friends, both missionaries and Ugandans, and we also keep meeting people in ministry and places of influence. It is clear that God has a purpose in this and we look forward to seeing it unfold.

I dreamed this week that I was on a brief return trip to America and I was in some type of food court with many hamburger places. I was having the hardest time deciding which place to eat and what to order. I settled on a double cheeseburger and chocolate shake. The boys have said many times that the first thing that they want to do whenever we are in America is to go to McDonalds. (Christian just told me that he would rather go to Beef O’Bradys). The food is good here, but there are some things that we miss. We have learned how to make homemade pizza, and the meat is pretty good, though a bit gamey. We have found an excellent Thai restaurant and Indian restaurant that is good as anything that I have had in America. It is not cheap, though, and is about the same as it would be in America. We are also currently dealing with a poor exchange rate. When we arrived we could get 1850 shillings per dollar, but it has dropped to 1730 and was down to 1710. We are trying to put off any expenses for a while until the dollar strengthens, which is supposed to happen in March. Apparently this occurs every year with the influx of dollars at Christmas and the new year.

That is all for now. Please let me know what you are interested in hearing about and I will try to address it.

Blessings,
Kevin for the Ironside Tribe

p.s. the computer ran for about 4 hours uninterrupted today, but did just shut down after about 10 minutes while I was trying to post this blog. Please pray that it will be corrected once and for all.

Long Time, No Blog

First off, I wish to apologize for our lack of communication. We have been without internet access for 2 or 3 weeks now for two reasons. The first reason is that our at-home internet quit working, but has now been corrected…hopefully for good. The second reason is that we could not do email away from home because water was spilled on my Apple laptop almost two weeks ago. It is still not working, and we are very concerned. I took it to a reputable computer shop and they said that it could cost hundreds of dollars to repair. However, they also told me that if the computer is accessed that any applicable warranties will be null and void. Therefore, we are trying to determine the proper way to approach this dilemma by ascertaining as to whether or not we even have a warranty. If not, then we will try to get it repaired here and then resort to shipping back to America if that fails. Please pray that it will be a simple fix.

It has been so long since I last wrote that I am not sure where to start. We did go on a 4-day safari to Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda and had a wonderful experience. We saw lots of elephants from a very close distance. We also found a family of lions one evening and were able to get within about 12 feet of them. There were two adults and two cubs. We got some great pictures. The park we were in did not have zebras or giraffes, but we saw plenty of everything else including antelope, buffalo, waterbucks, warthogs, and hippos. We also saw a large monitor lizard and two pythons. We stayed in a very nice safari lodge that sat on a bluff overlooking the park. It was a tremendous experience and a nice retreat. The drive was pleasant too, as we were able to view some awesome scenery and the picturesque Rwenzori Mountains along the Congo/Uganda border. This is an incredibly beautiful country once you get outside of the city. The soil is rich, the trees are huge, and the flowers are abundant. I hope that we get additional opportunities to see more of Africa in the future.

The boys are back in school this week and “summer break” is over. We are already seeing the evidence of how much more ministry time this allows. We have had some exciting things develop in recent weeks and we are getting more established in university ministry. Please pray for us as we seek God’s location for a Christian student center, which is our highest priority at this time.

Tony Gibson, President of Heart of the Bride Ministries (our sending agency) spent last week with us. We had some great meetings with potential partners in orphan ministry. We met a young lady named Grace who shared an encouraging and uplifting testimony of how God led her to help rescue street people in Kampala. They are mostly widows and their children, as well as orphans, and she has helped a total of 792 people. These are people who were displaced by war in the northern part of the country and came to the capital city hoping to find work and a better life. Unfortunately, they found out that being homeless and jobless in Kampala is worse than being in the war-torn north. They had been living destitute lives of begging and poverty with no hope of returning to their homes. Grace worked with the Ugandan government and several humanitarian organizations to get them transportation (it’s a 12-hr drive away), land, housing, food, clothing, and blankets. She is now striving to start a school and an orphanage for the nearly 300 children who have no parents. It is truly an amazing testimony of faith and prayer as she had no money or political connections and relied totally on God.

We have received communication that our next container was successfully shipped from Niceville this past weekend. Huge thanks to Karen van de Voorde, Dan Brink and crew for getting it properly sent. I am scared to start listing everyone who helped until I know for sure because I will undoubtedly leave out a name. It is mostly full of gym equipment that we will use in the student center. It also contains some items that we were missing from America, like cereal and chocolate chips. Thank you to the many people who helped contribute to our needs and wants. I haven’t received all of the information on who helped, but I did hear that my former SAIC office in Shalimar and the Koinonia ABF were major providers. I will properly thank all of you very soon now that our communication has been reestablished. Speaking of which…I am very concerned that many of my email messages are not reaching their intended recipients. I have sent numerous emails that I would have expected a reply to. I have called some people and know that they did not receive the email. I need to find a more reliable way to ensure that messages are getting out. This is troubling and aggravating.

Paska has not killed any more monkeys, but we were scared that baboons were coming after us while on safari. While driving along the road, we stopped to get pictures of a large group of baboons (what do you call a group of monkeys?). We had some french fries in the car and the boys were trying to feed them. Well, one of the mommy baboons decided to get a little closer and jumped onto the car and was about to come in the window. Pamela was busy getting the camera ready when she looked up to see a baboon inches from her face. Fortunately the baboon decided that the hood was close enough and afforded us an opportunity to get some up-close photographs. It was quite an experience.

I will write more soon and start providing more regular updates. For now, know that we are doing very well and feeling quite adjusted. We have made many new friends, both Americans and Ugandans. God leads us to new people on a daily basis and in interesting ways. Homesickness has greatly subsided, though we still miss our family and friends very much. The care packages in recent weeks really helped lift our spirits and gave us a taste of home. We received our most recent package from the Finleys in Colorado just as we were leaving for our safari. We have been drinking iced tea and Kool Aid, eating chocolate chip cookies, and were able to make a cake for Addison’s birthday party that was just held this past weekend. Pamela and I were just commenting today on how quickly the time is passing. The first two months were very difficult for many reasons. November and December brought the holidays and a lot of homesickness. However, January was a blur, and we are already a week into February. Our student ministry plan is getting quite firm, and opportunities to help with orphan ministry are coming frequently. It seems that we have turned a corner and are doing much better. I am not sure when it occurred, but probably as soon as Christmas was over and the university students returned. We are excited about what God has before us and appreciate your many prayers for our family. God is working in tremendous ways and it is imperative that we hear from Him and know His will and plan for our path forward.

Blessings to you all!