to catch you up.

Internet was off for a week while the Lewis family was gone, and then our power went out (this time it's not the solar panels but the breaker) and was finally fixed today.

This is a catch-up blog...

First, our friend, Renee, from Uganda came and brought us fresh fruits and veggies.  YUM.  She hung with us in villages and did stuff like this...

Then, I turned 24.  It was weird having a birthday in South Sudan.  Mindy was actually the only person who was physically here to celebrate my birthday.  And she went over the top!!!  While I was still in my pjs, she came to my tukel door and blew a noisemaker very loudly.  She kept this with her the whole day, whipping out at the most unexpected of moments.  The Lewis fam left some gifts with her, and she showcased them quite nicely!  She even made me peanut butter brownies.  (We ate the whole pan by ourselves for the next three days, or was it two?)  We did not teach school with the boys gone, so we told stories in the morning and had time in the afternoon to watch a movie on our outdoor porch.

The newest addition to Lo Compound is a baby ostrich.  Yes folks!  There is now an ostrich living at 100 Toposa Lane.  And it is the weirdest, funniest looking thing I have ever set eyes on.  See for yourself!

And we wish it ate rats.  February was officially the Month of the Rat.  But with a combination of Davis' arrow shooting skills, the bottom of a shoe, real rat poison from Uganda, crumpled biscuits mixed with powdered milk and the contents of 100 smooth muscle relaxer tablets, puppies, hawks, traps, and a homemade concoction of flour and salt and sugar (because rats can't burp the gas from the flour and therefore explode internally!) there are 30 dead rats on the record.  Here's a giant fat nasty one that Mindy found dead the other day:

As for exciting news, we now have a new translator!!!  I wrote in my newsletter, but just have to mention the faithfulness of God again.  He brought two possibles to the compound about twenty minutes apart from each other.  Only God.  We went with the one who arrived first, and he helped translate today!  It went so well!!!

And finally, an update on the AIDS storying.  Short version?  We went to a village in Cumakori, and the people loved the stories and listened well.  The old man who listened said he wanted to be the leader of getting people together to hear these stories about AIDS and those from God's Word.  The second time we went back?  He had told tow separate groups of people the story we told the previous time!  So cool! We got to share the gospel today, and they listened!!!  And they want us to come back and teach them more about Jesus!  Please pray for guidance on what stories to teach them.

And other pictures:

Some friends, all three are married or almost so.

 One of the fence people up a tree right behind our kitchen

And I leave you with the sunrise this morning.

the third rat.

My favorite journeyman partner, Mindy, has now had three rats in her tukel on her bed smack dab in the middle of the night.  One more of those "nails" (see post below) that we don't like but are learning to welcome them as they cause us to turn and rely on God.

Last night she heard one on her roof again.  This afternoon, it was WAR.

I stuffed washcloths and steel wool in many holes in her roof (since I am nyekoyen or tall!).  We were discussing more things we could to do to deter the rats in their determination to come into Mindy's room in the night for no reason when, suddenly, I spotted a rat on a beam right above my head.  No, not kidding.  I got an arrow, and Carrie and I stabbed and poked and pulled it to no avail.  It entered a hole, which we plugged with steel wool later, and escaped somehow.

Shannon came and with a ladder scoped out more possible entering and exiting sites in the roof.  More filling in of holes.

Then, it was onto the bathroom/shower area.  Yesterday, Shannon destroyed some nests with his leaf blower.  He attacked again and got three running all around the beams and ledges.  Carrie with a broom, me with a big stick, Shannon with the leaf blower, Mindy with her quick eyes.

One we cornered...but it escaped into the fence.

The second one we got it to come down and after several miss hits...dead rat.

And the third one?  We kept chasing it back and forth from one side of the shower area to the other side. Twice Shannon poked it with a stick, with the rest of us all ready and alert around him for any possible escape route for rat #3, but then it made a narrow escape up a nearby tree!  Shannon whacked the tree with the stick, but the rat reached heights too high for us.

But not too high for an incoming bird!!!  As the rat climbed still higher, a bird swooped in and dove in for the kill!  We all cheered for the bird as rat #3 tumbled from the limb to the fence below.  Shannon and Davis, who had joined the fight with a weapon of his own, hit the fence multiple times.  Not sure if it died, but it sure was injured and terrified.  Hope that scares it off the compound!!!

This adventure with rats preceded a wonderful women's gathering on the compound.  Carrie told the story of Jacob and his family, and Mindy shared about Jacob wrestling with God.  The women loved the stories and helped to retell the previous stories we've told.  They asked about why Jacob married two wives who were sisters and were relatives of his.  Not allowed in Toposa culture.  We said it doesn't fit with ours either, but at the time it was culturally acceptable.  And we reminded them that there were less people around then.

Please pray for us to remain victorious in the little things the enemy uses to try and bring us down.  And that, no matter what discouraging happenings come, we will press on in His strength and His victory sharing His Story for His glory.

heat lightning.

I am reading through Jerry Rankin’s Spiritual Warfare, and this quote grabbed my attention this week.  Someone in the book was talking to someone else who was complaining about a great trial:  “You know, Jesus didn’t like nails.”

Many times in the New Testament God encourages us to rejoice in sufferings.  Kind of sounds crazy, right?  Who wants to say…“Hip hip hooray!!! Three thorns poked me in the foot today!  Hooray!  Another translator has gone!  Hooray! It is so hot!”  Crazy, right?

Well, maybe not. 

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus cried out to His Father from the depths of his soul.  He asked for God to take away what lay before Him, to please pour out the cup of His wrath on someone else.  He knew the pain that lay ahead on the cross.  He knew that His Father was going to turn His back.  He knew that darkness was coming.  He knew that death was going to grab Him.

But He knew why He had to suffer.  He knew that the pain was necessary, as was His Father’s turned back, the darkness, and the end of His own life.  He knew that His blood had to be split, poured out, and emptied to pay the payment for all sin and that He had become The Sacrifice so that His creation could come back into His Presence.  He knew He had to die to bring life.

But He also knew what was coming after that.  He knew that the pain was temporary.  He knew that His Father would turn back and face Him, and that His place would forever be at His right hand.  He knew that three days of darkness would end with the most brilliant light.  And He knew that death could not hold Him nor defeat Him.  He knew that He would be most glorified in and through this suffering.

This week three thorns did poke my feet. 

Mindy and I did lose another translator.

And it does continue to be really hot.

But, thanks be to God, it’s like the lightning I saw in the sky last night.  It was extremely hot as I lay in bed watching the flashes of light across the sky.  “Heat lightning,” I told myself, almost frustrated.  And then…RAIN.  What?  In the middle of dry season?  It was light and short-lived, but it brought with it a cool breeze. 

It was like Jesus was reminding me that He didn’t like the pain and suffering of the cross.  But He loved why He went.  And He loves those who turn to Him at all times, because He is glorified again through His death and in their lives, over and over again.

I made a deal with myself as the rain tinkled on my tin roof.  No more complaining.  No more frustration.  I am turning my sufferings, which—by the way—are still so tiny compared to what He went through for me and for you, over to Him. 

That He can take the heat lightning of my nights and bring rain.  And that when I see the lightning, feel the thorns, say goodbye to a translator, and sweat up a storm…I can remember that it’s okay that I don’t nails either. 

But they are worth it. 

If they lead me closer to Him, and He is glorified, then I can and I will forever rejoice!

“Hip Hip Hooray!!!”

“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”  Romans 5:2-3

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”  Hebrews 12:1-3

one word...

HOT.

into the village.

At the sound of our vehicle in Nyaronyit yesterday, kids thronged immediately to the tree outside several villages where I have told two stories with HIV/AIDS information in the past two weeks.  No adults made an appearance, and John suggested we go inside the village.  In we went!  About fifteen women and two men, as well as the forty or so kids, gathered under two trees in the village and seemed excited to hear from God's Word.  Most of them stopped working to listen, while others carried over their goat skin skirts and beads to continue finishing decorating their special, traditional celebration skirts.  Still others brought beads and string and made bracelets and headbands as they listened.

This was the largest amount of people that had ever gathered in this area to hear God's Word (at least since I've been here), and I think it was because we went inside the village.  They told John that they did not come out before because they were working; this did not make sense to me as most of them still stopped working to listen when we came into their village.  But, I think they were more willing to stop because we came into their place and we were not making them go outside to a place we chose.

God gave me words as I explained that we came to their village the past two weeks to share about HIV/AIDS, because we care about their bodies and we want what is good for them, like God does.  I told how sin and sickness and suffering came into the world when Adam and Eve listened to Satan and ate the forbidden fruit.  I shared how Satan lies to them about HIV, saying it does not exist or that being careful will not prevent the disease, and also how he lies to them about sin, the sickness of the spirit, telling all that singing songs and listening to God's Word and giving an offering at Christmas will bring them back to God.  

I told them how God loves the people He created and how He desires a relationship with each one.  He gave His people laws to follow, but they did not listen.  He gave them a chance to make sacrifices for sin, but still they walked in their own ways.   Finally, I shared how He sent Jesus to be The Way for all people to come back to God Himself.  Because it was only through His perfect blood that God would pardon all sin forever.

As I began, the Lord reminded me of an illustration that Shannon uses in explaining this separation from God and how Jesus, and Jesus only, can close the gap between sinners and Most Holy God.  Toposa men carry tall sticks with them wherever they go, so it is an easy visual aid to find in any setting.  I borrowed one from a man that was intently listening, and put it horizontally between myself (a sinner) and Mindy (as God).  We try to reach for God (picture my hands reaching for hers!), but we continue to reach out away from Him to sin as well.  And nothing we do can ever get us all the way to God.  But then, Jesus (or John in the illustration) came and, if we believe, takes our hands (mine) and joins it with God's (Mindy's).

At the end of the story, we invited all of them to come hear more stories from God's Word in Nataragat, where we meet on Sundays.  Three women and the man (from whom I borrowed the stick!) told us that they would be there.  They may or may not come, but that's all in His hands.

Though the storying did not end in fabulous theological questions or raised hands to accept Jesus, His Story was shared and heard.  The goal is His glory, in the Gospel told and told again and in hearts that turn from sin to Him.  I pray, and ask that you join me in prayer, for those who did hear.

I also want to thank God for reminding me that His plan is the one that stands firm in the heavens.  It is God who is Sovereign.  He is the One who draws hearts to HImself, and He is the One who saves.

He simply calls us to go into the village.  And speak.

amen.

You should probably read the blog below before this one...

But I just had to let you know that our language helper is still here!  He had a meeting with his other job yesterday, and there is no way to communicate those kind of things here.  Anyway, we had a language lesson, and he is excited to continue with us!!!  Praise the Lord!!  And amen!!!

Also, please pray for Mindy and I and John as we head to Nyaronyit tomorrow.  I will be sharing my favorite story, and the only one really worth telling, that is the Story of Jesus.  How He, the Son of God, came as a man to die, be buried, and rise again to restore to all those who are far off to Himself.  Pray that they understand that there is nothing they can do that is good enough to come back to God.  May He open their eyes and hearts to see their need for Him, and that, if they would only turn from their sin and believe He came to die for their sin and rose again because He is Most Powerful God, they will made brought into His presence once again.  Thank you!

winds of change.

Dry season here in South Sudan.  Everyday, weather-wise, is pretty much the same thing.  Carrie told us it would be this way, and it is.  Windy beyond belief (like more windy than El Paso, and constantly blowing more so) during the day, and surprisingly still at night, no breeze when I crawl into bed.  The temperatures are high, but I don't even really notice them.  For example, at dinner last night I commented, "It feels quite nice right now."  And Mindy aptly replied, "Yes.  And it's probably 95 degrees or so."  Ha.  Praise the Lord for bodies that adjust to temperatures wherever they may be.

The wind brings dust with it, and it gets everywhere.  If you try to sweep the porch to rid it of branches and thorns and little green things and dust, it would look just the same as it did before in approximately 5 minutes.  No joke.  And wiping counters?  Practically pointless.  I swept my tukel floor yesterday afternoon.  I could see my footprints all over the floor--a clear sign that I needed to sweep.  This is what my pile looked like.

The moment I swept it outside, it all blew back in.  Oh well.

In another way, dust has blown back into my tukel again with language too.  Our newest language helper has done a great job for the past two weeks!  But today, we could not find him anywhere.  It looks like we may lose his help too.  Whatever happens, I know that God is faithful, and He will provide in the way that He knows best.  Whether that be another amazing translator, or another two-week translator, lots of studying to learn more language on our own (hopefully enough to tell stories from God's Word and the Gospel itself) or the miraculous ability to speak Toposa fluently without help!  God is not limited by language or translators or journeygirls that are not fluent Toposa speakers.  The change that comes our way is not a surprise to Him, and I sit too, surprisingly not surprised, at His feet.  This trust in Him comes not from me, but from His Spirit within me.  Every day He is training my heart to trust.  Complete, unrestrained, wholehearted, constant trust.  Praise Him for His faithfulness and His molding of me to be more like Him, trusting in Him and Him alone despite the people or circumstances around me.

Without a translator today, we proceeded to Lomeyin, where we reviewed the stories from God's Word that we've shared thus far with the ladies and kids there.  They remembered well!  Another answered prayer!  Please pray that God continues to make space in their heads and their hearts for His Story.

And side note:  On the way home, a little boy, Lochek, fell asleep in my arms in the car.  While asleep, he pooped and maybe peed on my pants.  Lovely moment...Sudan-ified.

Other changes?  School!  It has been fun teaching both boys and switching teaching times with Mindy.  Here's a snapshot of Walker with his towering steps of counting...he is a champion and can now recognize patterns with these blocks, count to twenty (only forgetting the number 16), and knows all his letters!

Davis is thriving too as he's discovered his favorite book, Trumpet of the Swan, tackling fractions like the math genius he is, memorizing Scripture and dates of the kings and prophets of Israel/Judah as well as the characteristics of reptiles.  Good changes happening at Lo Compound Primary School!!!  And I keep learning so many things.  Which makes teaching all the more exciting!

Amidst all and any winds of change that are here or headed my way, my God remains constant.  I cannot praise Him enough for that.  He is my Rock.

"The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; 

my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation.  

He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior..."   

2 Samuel 22:2-3