During December, please
Your support through prayer, encouragement, and funds has let us serve at Mulungwishi for over 30 years! We are grateful for the privilege.
Greetings from Denver. We closed things up at Mulungwishi, said goodbye to Zorro, the cat, and Isaiah, the parrot. We went through Zambia on our way to the States. While there, we are taught for two weeks at the Kafakumba Pastors’ Training Center. It is much like the conference course of study. These are lay pastors who are serving churches and come in for 4-6 weeks a year for training. After 8 years they are ordained as Elders. Lori taught a class to the women on Wesley. David classes were on Contextualization, the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God.
As we left, our graduating class were receiving their designations from the Annual Conferences and were leaving to begin their ministry. Please be in prayer for them as they travel. Many will spend several weeks getting to their appointments. Pray also for their congregations. Several are going to areas that have been devastated by the conflicts in the region. Pray that the Lord will use these graduates to bring God’s good news of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation.
We arrived back in the States on September 19th. Seeing our first grandchild, Elliot, was such a thrill. A few days later, David left to begin itineration in Kentucky. Lori joined him two weeks later. Grandma time is very special.
October and the first half of November found us in our churches in Kentucky and Tennessee. The old Toyota cruised on for another 7,800 miles before we got home. We shared some 44 times in 29 churches or venues. These numbers don’t mean much compared with the personal contact that we had with a great number of you who shared your love for us and the Lord’s work. Truly we are all spoiled being chosen by God to receive his love and share it with the world we live in.
We want to share about Sanki. He is a young man that God brought into our lives when he was in high school at Mulungwishi. We helped to support his studies in high school and at university. While at the University, he was part of the Disciple Bible Study. After graduating, he taught at the English Speaking School of Lubumbashi, a United Methodist institution.
From there he went to Africa University where he has just completed his masters in Governance and Conflict resolution. His master’s thesis focused on the plight of women in the northeastern part of the Congo which has seen horrible abuse of women and use of rape as a weapon of war. He spent several weeks in that part of the Congo studying the situation. He found that there are many aid groups there doing a tremendous job ministering to the women who have been abused. Unfortunately, very little is being done to address the cause of this suffering. The international community as well as the government and bordering countries have to make a conscious decision that this is unacceptable and do something about it. Unfortunately, the greed for the mineral wealth and its use in our technology is fueling these conflicts.
Be in prayer for the Congo that the Lord’s peace and justice will come. Be in prayer also for Sanki as he has now returned to Congo and is seeking what the Lord has for him.
