Dear family and friends,

Can you believe it? Last week we celebrated our 1 year anniversary in Africa! It has been a year full of lessons in faith, humility, endurance, unconditional love, and team unity. I am convinced that this past year was mostly about God working IN His missionaries so that He could someday work THROUGH His missionaries. Now here's my greatest act of faith - to look back on all my pride, selfishness, unbelief, failure, weakness, whining, and apparent lack of "progress" in the work over the past year, and truly believe that God is smiling. He is. I have a perfect High Priest who intercedes for me, and the Father does not look past His Son to frown at me. Isn't that great? Excuse me while I jump up and down and shout for joy! And if the Father is pleased with this pathetic missionary, guess how He feels about you?

By grace, I can testify to evidence of Christ's work in us. We just returned from another trip to the bush - a guy's trip to put the finishing touches on a functional water system for our land. The trip was full of unpleasant surprises, difficult challenges, and disappointment. When compared with one year ago, however, I can see in us an increased experience of peace, joy, and trust. We have pleaded with God that we not just grow numb to the difficulties of life in Africa, but instead, that we would endure with genuine joy. I believe that He will continue doing that supernatural work in us.

In the past month, we have seen some historic achievements in our construction work. In imitation of the Patriarchs, who dug wells in the land that God had promised them, we have pressed on to bring water from the river to our camp structure. God has sent some remarkable and perfectly timed help for the last two steps.

"...even when we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - ..." Eph. 2:5

Dear family and friends,

Greetings again from Zambia. As I update you on what's happening with the Lozi work, can I also demonstrate the practicality of theology in missions? In the past few weeks, I have witnessed some of the clearest pictures of depravity and the need for regeneration. No, I'm not talking about "horrible" sins of sexual perversion or witchcraft. It's much more shocking than that. I'm talking about people in an extremely religious culture who are very familiar with the Bible, yet they are completely blind to the glory of Jesus Christ and their need for Him.

A few weeks ago, I gave the youngest son of our village headman a lift into town. I asked if he attended a church, and he predictably replied, "Yes, I'm New Apostolic." I then asked him, "What is the gospel of the New Apostolic?" People in Zambia love to use the word "gospel" - "Oh, you're a missionary. You're here to preach the gospel in our country. That's good." There's so much use of the word "gospel," you would think that they know what it means. But my question was met with a blank stare. So I helped him out, "How would the New Apostolic tell me that I can be saved? How can I have my sin forgiven, be right with God, and go to be with Him?" "Oh yes," he smiled, "just do good things and keep the commands." I knew he was going to say that. At least he could accurately summarize New Apostolic teaching. So I asked how that is good news when all of us are sinners and no one can keep God's commands. He stammered something about God judging us by how hard we try and I proceeded to share with him the true Gospel.

"Surely against me He turns His hand again and again the whole day long.
...He has besieged me and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
...He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; He has made my chains heavy;
though I call and cry for help, He shuts out my prayer;
He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; He has made my paths crooked.
...He has made my teeth grind on gravel...my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, ‘My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.'
...But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in Him.'
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."
LAMENTATIONS 3:3-26

Dear family and friends,

After my last update, we returned to the bush full of hope and excitement. The man was coming soon to thatch our roof - finally we would be finished with the frame and roof and could move on to water, septic, and interior walls.  Our first week back we completed the pole frame for the roof, even as the thatch began going up on the other end of the building.  But there was no celebration.  It quickly became obvious that our Lozi friends had grossly underestimated the amount of grass that we needed.  We had 600 bundles of grass; it looks like we will need 2400, four times as much! 

But "grass season" is July to October, and we are now in the middle of the rainy season. Our first challenge was finding grass that wasn't rotten from moisture.  We finally found a village with enough grass - 2 ½ hours away.  Then we needed a trailer to haul grass (it will take at least 8 trips).  After a week, we finally had access to a trailer, but by then we were out of money to buy grass and out of fuel to go get it.  In defeat, we sent our thatcher home until we can collect enough grass.

In the midst of all this, our chief wanted to push to finalize the land issue with the Royal Council.  We made 3 trips in 3 weeks (a miserable 8 hour round trip).  On our first trip, we learned that the Council had lost our paperwork from our May visit, and had forgotten all about us.  They acted as if they'd never seen us before.  In addition, the king had to give his formal approval, and he was out of town.  Could we please come back next week?  So we returned the next week.  "Oh, sorry, the king was supposed to be back yesterday, but he ran out of fuel traveling back from the capital. Can you come back tomorrow?"  No, we couldn't stay overnight and leave our families camping alone in the bush.  So a week later we returned for the third time.  "Oh, sorry, the king had a very long meeting this morning, and now it's raining, so he's canceled all visits for the afternoon.  Please come back tomorrow."  (We still don't know what the rain had to do with anything, but I guess any excuse will do.)  Well, by that time we were also out of money and fuel for any more trips to the Council.

"I will put enmity between...your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Genesis 3:15

Dear family and friends,

After several weeks of silence, it is high time for an update, and there is exciting news to share.  But first I must explain my strange choice for an introductory verse.  Last Saturday we were driving back to camp from the build site.  Our families had spent the day on the lodge grounds with the J's.  We got a text message that they were watching a large snake in a tree, so we hurried to take a look.  Sure enough, high in a tree near one of the tents (where we'll be sleeping for the next month looking after the lodge for the Johnsons while they vacation in South Africa) was a big snake.  A few well-placed shots from Gavin J. with a high-powered pellet rifle paralyzed the snake and it fell to the ground.  Two more shots finished it off.  It was a 2.5 meter long (8 feet) black mamba, the most deadly snake in Africa.  Also that day, the staff killed a stilleto snake in the lounge and my daughter, Alicia, saw what may have been a spitting cobra near the lounge where all our kids were playing.  3 venemous snakes in one day.  Granted, that is extremely rare, and I don't tell this to be dramatic.  But in case you haven't prayed for our safety lately, this would be a good reminder.  We grow more and more comfortable here, but there are occasional reminders that we live in constant potential danger from crocs, hippos (our friend Vincent's brother was recently attacked by a hippo and nearly lost his arm), hyenas (their tracks are on the lodge road), leopards, and snakes (recently some men clearing brush from our land were chased out of a rock formation by a spitting cobra).

Our greatest challenge many days is just driving from our camp to the build site and back.  As we reach the mid-point of the rainy season, Shannon and I are earning our 4x4 badge (thanks for the lessons Sidney!).  We've only had to use the winches twice.  Our appreciation for the vehicles God gave us grows as the mud holes deepen.