A different world

Good afternoon friends and family. It is Wednesday afternoon and we have had some problems getting a connection the last few days. My main thing is to introduce you to a new friend named Pastor Jack but before I do that I will update you on some things that we ask for your prayers. Today while we were at Pastor Jack's home the neighbors were carrying their three year old daughter who had just passed away. We were told by Jack that this woman's name is Benta and she is one of he women who do the cooking at Boaz's church each day for the children. Yesterday Boaz told us in the morning that the electrician whom we had met on the building project got up to come to the jobsite and collapsed and died that morning. Please pray for his wife and five children not only have they lost their father but the one who provides for them. Everyone we meet here is touched by death in ways that are difficult to comprehend. Almost all the reasons are easily corrected with medicine but this is a luxury that they can not afford.

So now about Pastor Jack. I first met him at the building project as he was there just helping the foondies (builders) doing anything they asked him to do. He is not a construction kind of guy but was receiving a few schillings a day (1 dollar) for helping. He walks one and a half hours from his home to Boaz's. To get to his church he walks three hours and has been pastoring there for fifteen years. Of all the pastors I have met he is the most humble,meek soft spoken man I have met up to date. Extremely kind and polite until.....he stands before the pulpit and shares what Christ did on the cross for us. This man had a passion and fire for the Lord that absolutely blew me away. No dog and pony show but a man whose faith and love for his savior was so real that if I was not saved I would have been that day. He lives in a very small home on his fathers property with his wife,three children and twenty orphans. His house has a small living room, small bedroom and a thatch roof that desperately needs to be replaced. When asked about his living situation he says that it can be difficult and tight but they are happy and he knows he is doing what God has called him to do.My commitment as a servant is deeply challenged by the way these men lay down their lives.

I am loving our stay here and each day is an adventure. Tomorrow we leave at 6am to go with Boaz and Joseph to Tanzania to meet with some pastors from that area to go over details for an upcoming medical mission that is happening in June. This weekend they are doing a church plant up in the mountains and will go through the villages evangelizing and inviting people to come on Sunday for the first service. We are talking about approximately one hundred pastors and elders coming to this area and then sleeping in their cars or tents or just on the ground. So the rest of this week will be very busy but I am excited about the things God has planned for us. The house is going great, they finished plastering the interior walls today and were working on the plumbing and a concrete counter-top for the kitchen. I am missing my family but as long as I am busy the days are flying by. In the picture you see Pastor Jack and his daughter, his church building and the rules.

Your brother in Christ, Shane