Secondhand Life

If you’ve been checking up on me lately, you’ll notice a big fat nothing by way of updates. Part of the reason is that I’ve been locked alone inside the Tricaricos’ bathroom for several weeks. Ok, not really–the door doesn’t actually lock—but we’ve been renovating their bathroom, addressing some serious sewer issues and generally starting over with new plumbing and septic system. Because of that, I’ve been fairly out of touch on the goings on around the compound and the mission for awhile, and tile is as interesting as, well, something not very interesting.

But I have spies everywhere—the trees and the birds—and there are many encouraging things to report beside the fact that my tile work is fantastic. For one thing, we’ve had a group from the Reformed Presbyterian Church here for a couple of weeks that helped to carry out a VBS program at two of our local schools. Both programs appear to have been very well attended and the Gospel was clearly presented from the story of Noah. A handful of kids even came to prayers to recite their memory verse and sing us a song.

One day last week, Lokwii David came back from one of the village Bible studies with news about a man who wanted to talk to the pastors. Lokwii had been challenging him on the efficacy of the rain ceremony and accompanying sacrifice, and the man wanted to ask some further questions. As they were making plans to go visit him, he came to the Mission to ask his questions. On his mind was whether there is one god or two. This gave Pastor Al an open door to tell him that of course there are two gods, and probably many more, but that the god of the Karimojong is a false god, but that the God of the Bible is the true and living God, and Al was able to tell this man about the God of the Bible and his plan of salvation. He had also noticed the dearth of Karimojong pastors and wanted to know why we only had Americans as pastors. It was explained that our most important goal is that we would be able to train men for the pastorate, and that we hope that some day there will be many Karimojong pastors carrying out the work of preaching and evangelism to their own people. After about thirty minutes, he said he had to leave and abruptly went home. It was an unusual occasion, but, we pray, beneficial.

Lastly, the past few weeks at prayers, we’ve been having some trouble finding seats for all the people who are coming. Of particular encouragement yesterday was the sight of many of our male members, who often come alone, together with their wives and children. It’s still not exactly family worship, but it’s not difficult to see the seeds of it in many ways.

Good news for all of us (I think) is that I am now locked out of the bathroom for a few days, so expect great things, or at least things.