Bible School Approaching

This weekend about 15 pastors from Tonj and the surrounding region are coming to stay at the compound for 8 weeks.  This semester they will be surveying the New Testament, and Sebit has asked me to teach through Mark and Luke before I leave.  That means teaching an overview of one gospel a week, because I leave on August 13.  So...I've got my work cut out for me.  Please pray for my times of study to be anointed with worship and thanksgiving to the Lord as He speaks to me through His Word.  I'm on the home stretch!

Also, I am preaching this Sunday at the compound.  You can pray for that as well.

A Few of the B-Stud Guys

Here's a pic of me with a few of the guys I'm discipling for my last three weeks in Sudan.  The boy in the chair is Donato.  He's the boy who was struck with a machete 1-2 years ago, who was brought to the clinic in Tonj and had his life saved.  He says he's truly thankful for the change of events in his life, otherwise he would have never known Jesus.  Now he's 13 years old.  He can be pretty shy at times, but he's definitely a keeper.

The first man to the right of me is Mobuir.  Today, Mobuir is very hungry to know God.  But his life as a child is a completely different story.  As a kid he burned down multiple homes in his village, including his own (twice).  It was deliberate.  He almost killed his sister with a spear as she slept, until his brother saw him and stopped him.  He later ran away from home to the town and similarly became a terror on the streets.  But eventually he made his way to Tonj and met Sebit and Suzy.  Soon after he also met Jesus.  Since then his life has been forever changed.

Frog Race!

The rains have brought a ton of frogs to town.  Every night I almost step on one on my way to the bathroom.  They also have an affinity for my room sometimes, hopping up the steps at night and crawling under the door.

Well, last weekend I caught 6 frogs in preparation for a frog race.  My new big sis Stephanie and I thought it'd be a wonderful idea, and it was.  We had two rounds of races, with the second one being exclusive for the kids.  The chaos was incredible.  Frogs were traumatized in the process, but not hurt.  (Little Jedidiah preferred to shoo his frog along with his foot rather than clapping the ground behind the frog with his hands.  The poor little frog almost got booted the whole way to the finish line.)

For a very humorous read of Sudan's very first frog race, see Stephanie's blog.

Pastor's Workshop: Day Three

The pastors just left for home.  What a blessing it has been to be with them the past three days!  I have thoroughly enjoyed and been stretched in faith while teaching them.  But God has blessed beyond expectation, and many pastors expressed their very thankful and encouraged hearts.  Hearing their encouragement to me, and hearing of the ways God has blessed them this week, has turned my heart full of affection to God.  It is a powerful blessing to realize the reasons why He told me 16 months ago to come to Sudan.

And I am learning so much about following the Lord, being fully obedient and dependent on Him, and seeing Him come through in every situation.  Never fear!  Our God is an awesome God.

The picture is of me with a couple of the pastors last Sunday after church.

Pastor's Workshop: Day One

Today Sebit invited the local pastors to come to the compound to have a three-day workshop where they can be encouraged in light of Pastor Peter’s sin three weekends past.  There were about 19 of them.  Paul led the morning session and I taught after lunch.  I preached on the subject of fear, and the reasons we have as Christians to fear nothing.  I don’t really think about how much time I’m taking when I preach; I just say what God shows me.  And if it’s short, it’s short. And if long, long.  But today I actually took the whole 90-120 minutes to preach (with Sebit translating).

The pastors were mightily encouraged, and I am so excited and thankful to see the Lord establish their hearts.  One church elder of the ECS Church, Deborah, shared that until today she feared the tragic events of three weeks ago, and even considered stepping down and returning to her village.  But today the Lord filled her heart with joy and praise.  All the pastors sang a song to the words of Psalm 95.  God is great!

They will return Tuesday and Wednesday as we encourage them more.  Not sure what to say tomorrow, but I’ll ask the Lord and He’ll answer.

Preaching at ECS Church

Today is a blessed day.  Sebit took me to the ECS Church this morning to preach (see my old blog about Pastor Peter’s sin).  It was the first church service in two weeks.  When I first woke up this morning, I quickly bulleted the words God put on my heart to speak the night prior.  But then I spent my last half hour in prayer and worship, blessing the Lord and asking Him to fill me with His Spirit.  While I prayed He showed me an upside-down cone that I saw to be a megaphone.  I realized that the Lord was promising me an authoritative voice, one like Jesus’, a megaphone to the heart.  He encouraged me and gave me love and boldness.

The service started very late, and I spent a lot of time waiting but enjoying every moment of the Lord.  The church elders then took me to a room to change (we all wore priestly robes, Sudan-style).  But next to the clothes in the room, the only other item present was a megaphone, turned upside down in the corner.  Of all the things to find in a poverty-stricken country, the Lord spoke to my heart this morning and confirmed again the megaphone He showed me while in worship.

Jesus is truly teaching me to fear no thing and no man, but to love Him fully.

I entered the church single-file with the elders, Episcopalian-style, and was seated at the front.  The people sang many songs in Dinka, beautiful and loud.  I worshiped in my heart.  There was reading of the scriptures I prepared to teach, and announcements, and then it was my turn to preach.

I preached with a translator, my new friend Michael.  God filled me with love, truth mingled with grace, and encouragement.  I then prayed for the church, along with Juda the new pastor.  More songs were sung, and I exited with the priestly procession to the back door, and there greeted each person as they left.

We then took off our priestly garb and walked to a nearby home to comfort a family who had lost a son in a recent cattle raid (apparently, when I visited the cattle camp earlier this week and danced with the people, that night some of the men retaliated against another camp due to past grievances and this boy was killed).  I was asked to encourage them and pray, and so prayed for the God of Comfort, the Holy Helper, to heal their hearts, replacing fear with love, and anger with peace.  I hope to return to them again.

Thank you for prayers.  They help me very much.

Next Phase of my Trip: the Pastor/Teacher

So far I have been very occupied as "the doctor" around the clinic—or at least so far as wound care and immunization is concerned.  But for the next three weeks I will be much more busy as a teacher and pastor.  Yesterday I started a discipleship group with many of the Sudanese nationals working on the compound.  It came about very quickly this week, so that I did not have much time to prepare.  But it seemed very good to me to focus on what it means to “love God with your heart, soul, mind.”  On Friday I asked all of them the purpose of life and answered with the Great Commandment.  Then I asked them, “what would your life look like if you did love God with your all?”  It is one thing to know and say “love God with my all.”  But that is knowing it in your mind.  What about your heart, and your soul?  What does it actually look like to love God entirely?

I didn’t answer that question for them, but I shared testimonies of men who have loved the Lord so that we could observe their lives and break the religious mindset of “being a Christian means going to church and doing good things.”  The Sudanese respond the most to story.  They weren’t raised with 12 years of education like Americans, and they have difficulty sitting still and learning from a teacher.  But tell a story, and everyone wakes up.  I shared three:
     1)  John Riak, a Sudanese man who acquired blindness and terminal heart disease at the age of 12, who was miraculously healed by God (but was still blind), was miraculously dictated the whole New Testament of the Bible by God (he saw the verses in Dinka before his blind eyes as if a finger read them to him), memorized all of it, and lived the rest of his days preaching the gospel, raising up pastors, and even healing the sick.  Sebit knew this man personally.
     2) Brother Yun, who is the subject of the book “The Heavenly Man,” who was miraculously saved in China a couple decades ago.  His life is one of unbelievable miracles, suffering, and persecution for the sake of the gospel.
     3) The calling of Jesus’ first disciples in Luke 5.

I then encouraged them that our Bible study will have this focus of loving God entirely and learning how to follow Him.  Please pray for us all.  We will meet every Tuesday and Friday.  Pray for me as I follow Jesus in leading these men.  Pray for a love to consume me for them.

I am also preaching tomorrow (briefly) at the ECS Church, and early this week Sebit is gathering all the town pastors together to encourage them and edify them in light of Peter’s sin two weeks ago.  Then, when the pastors arrive August 1, I will be teaching 1-2 times a day M-F in the Bible School.