The airline tickets have been purchased. I am leaving May 17th and returning August 12th. In those three months I have contracted the teacher Latabu Beatrice to be my Acholi Luo tutor. Every missionary I have interviewed has said that if they had it to do over again they would have spent three months doing nothing but learning the local language, so that is what I am doing. I have learned that if you want to learn the easy way, then you learn from the lessons of those who have gone before you. I aim to do just that with Beatrice.
Christians everywhere celebrate Palm Sunday as the commemoration of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem just one week before his resurrection. There is something special about anticipation and this day is just one of those days of looking ahead to something big.
Speaking of looking ahead to something big, we were finally given permission to share a secret we have been keeping for over a month -- that is we will be grandparents in October! Richard and his wife Becca have been holding us to our promise to keep their secret until today when they announced the good tidings to their church family and gave us permission to celebrate publicly.
Cindy will be Grammy and I will be Grampa and we are excited beyond belief.
Do you know why we pray for God’s will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven? Because God’s will is not Earth’s normal state now that Satan has been flung here and man has corrupted creation with his own selfish will times seven billion at a time. War is proof of this. Orphaned children, hunger, injustice, and disease all point to this world’s need for God’s good and perfect will. Another proof is my recent MRI result.
The doctor said that the cause of my seven-month shoulder pain is not simply one tear that can be easily repaired with surgery, but several low-grade tears of virtually every essential tissue in the shoulder. These injuries, apparently sustained during our recent move, have combined with the widening of my AC joint from a previous injury and a fairly severe case of arthritis to take me out of action. The bottom line is that he cannot do surgery to repair my shoulder but referred me for six weeks of physical therapy. The worse news is I am confined to this continent for the duration of that therapy.
Please pray for my patience, so I can bear the delay in getting back to Uganda. Pray for my healing, the therapy and administering therapist, my precious bride who has to put up with me while I endure six more weeks of feeling useless, and for God’s glory to be revealed somehow through this ordeal.
James 1 makes it clear that trials do not come from God, the Father of Lights, from Whom all good things come. He does, however, use our circumstances to refine our faith and shape us into His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10, see the NLT for “masterpiece”). God is the healer and Satan is the thief and destroyer. Let’s keep that straight always! And let’s pray for the things in this natural world to be realigned with our Heavenly Father’s will for our abundant life.
“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;” James 1:13 NIV
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17 NIV
“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:4 NIV
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10 NIV
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 NIV
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." 2 Corinthians 4:8-12 NIV
