Updates...

:: We are praising the Lord that my dad made it through surgery and is now resting back at home.  His surgery went very well and although recovery is hard, it's going very well.  Still so thankful that God has taken care of him.

::We had one rabbit die last week of natural causes, so the kids skinned and dissected it...a great homeschooling project! ;)  I think the pelt dried too quickly in the hot sun because it ended up being stiff and hard, but it was still a fun project.

:: Another rabbit gave birth this week...a first for our rabbits.  It has been lots of fun and yet another good learning time.

:: The Webers are settling in well.  Their container showed up today and we spent the day unloading.  It will be a blessing for them to feel more settled.

::Next week we start school again.  So excited to start!  The kids are done with vacation and ready to get back to the books and I'm ready to have a normal schedule back...esp after the craziness of this last month.

Busy Days

After being gone for a week to America, I came back home to many small children eager for mommy time.  I had picked up a set of water colors in America, so we spent an afternoon painting and playing.  So much fun! 

After being home for less than 24 hours and squeezing as much time in with the kids as possible, I had to turn around and travel back to Entebbe to pick up the Webers...our new team mates.  It was busy, but we are so thrilled that the Webers are here that we didn't mind a bit!  And the kids were pretty okay with it since we were picking up four new friends for them.

The next morning I woke up to emails from my family informing me that my Dad was hospitalized due to chest pains.  After testing, they were told that his arteries are 95% blocked and he is now scheduled for quintuple (5) bypass surgery on Tuesday.  We are so thankful that God protected him from actually having a heart attack.  God certainly cares for his children.  I would really appreciate much prayer for him and for my mom as she cares for him.

Short Trip

I'm on my way back to Uganda now.  It was a short trip, but a blessed one.  

Some highlights:

>On the flight over the Atlantic I was the gracious recipient of an unexpected and unasked for upgrade to business class.  It was a precious reminded that God was taking care of me and giving me the rest that I needed.

>I had a lovely visit with my brothers.  One advantage of not having my own children with me was that I was able to visit with my nephews and nieces.  My middle brother has children with the sweetest southern accents.  I could have sat for many hours answering their many questions about the Nile, hippos and power outages.  My oldest brother has 3 very energetic children who have been trained quite well to not wake up their parents in the morning...even when I told them they could tell their daddy that Auntie Dianna sent them to jump on him.  Like great stoics they refused to betray the souls from which they were borne.

My oldest brother's children...go Cranes... :)

> My uncle's funeral was a blessing.  He was a joy-filled person despite his mental illness and will be missed by so many in the community who had reached out to him.  Prayers would be appreciated for my parents as they have an enormous task of cleaning out his house and getting things settled.

> Chic-fil-A gave me a lovely welcome home treat by giving me my meal for free and 8 cows to take to the kids.

>On my way to Georgia, I had the random thought of "I bet there is a 5k race I could do while I'm in town."  Sure enough, the football team had organized one on Saturday. (Not for a noble cause such as cancer or blindness, I might add...but rather all proceeds went to the great and amazing cause to... ahem..."feed the football team before games"...gotta love small southern towns)  None-the-less, I ran it and beat my best personal time and got second place for my age group.  (There may or may not have only been 3 people in my age group, but someone's gotta get second, right?? )

>Eric and kids and Christi and visitor Amy had an interesting few days without power or water.  The power poll outside of our compound fell and dropped live wires in our yard.  We praise the Lord that no one was hurt even though many of the kids and our yard worker were standing right near the area that it fell in.  The water also ran out that day leaving them with no power, no water and no momma.  But now, power is back, water is back and soon I'll be back too!

Thanks for praying for us! :)

The Gospel Demands Radical Giving

During my layover in NYC, I spent my time listening to this video.  I highly encourage you to as well.  I appreciate Platts approach...he does not draw on economic theory or personal experience working with the poor, but rather the solid Word of God.

Heathrow Terminal 5

Soooo....plans for the weekend? Spontaneous trip to America. My uncle passed away and my visa was expiring this week (requiring me to leave the country). So my parents generously offered to fly me home for 5 days. It will be great to see my whole "clan." again!  Thank you for praying for me and for Eric and the kids (and Christi our MA and our sweet visitor, Amy) back home.

Good News at the Well

Over the past two weeks, two young men have been evangelizing at the well behind Knox Theological College.  They pump water, fill up many yellow jerry cans and tell people the good news of Christ: that though we are sinful people, Christ offers forgiveness and new life.  KTC is located in an area with a high Muslim population.  In fact the Mufti (head Muslim leader for Uganda) owns the Muslim School just across the dirt road from KTC.

The men have written out 4 prayer requests that I share with you now.  Please be in prayer for this time and these people.

They write...

1. Pray for Shakirah-- Muslim lady in her early 20s.  She says she really wants to know the truth.  We've talked to her two times and her response about Christ has changed.  We gave her a Bible and she has been reading it starting with the Gospel of John.  We also asked her to read Galatians after John.

2.  Pray for Shakirah's mom and little sister (Sofia)-- Their response to Christ being the way and the truth was not good.  We laboured to tell them that "Isa" (as the Muslims call Christ) was not only a prophet but God and Son of God.  They said they will give us Shakirah's soul but we will never convert them to Christianity.

3.  Pray for Victor--Victor is protestant but did not know the relationship between Christ and God and the Holy Spirit.  So for two days we have been teaching him and his response was not bad.  He has been asking for prayers for his family especially for him to recover because he lost one of his children a few weeks ago.  We have been praying together with him.  His response is not bad at all.

4.  Pray for Abbi (Abbishak is her full name)-- She did not know anything about Christianity and did not like Islam either.  So she was a pagan.  But she, with her mouth, told us she wanted to receive Christ as her personal Saviour after the previous day when she told us she wanted us to sweat before she gets converted.  She also wanted a Bible which we offered her.  We are trying to locate a good church where we can send her and be sure she will receive sound teaching and good care.  Pray that KTC opens a church soon so that such people can find a place to go that is safe.  Abbi is married and has a child that is 2 years.

Eric has also had some times of evangelism on KTC property recently.

He writes...

Next door to KTC is a muslim primary school. The children came to KTC to use the borehole (water pump). They asked me what KTC was all about. I told them it is a school to train men to preach from the Bible about Jesus. Right away a number of them said "the Bible is bad", and "Jesus is bad." It is so sad that they are being trained to think this way. But I was able to speak to them about hell, and my deserving to be there, and Jesus being my salvation. Some of them seemed to be listening with interest. I also played some fun games with them, while they were on break. Please pray for these children. Education of children is such a powerful spiritual weapon, either for or against Jesus Christ, and here in Uganda Muslims are actively using it to increase their followers (with money from Arab nations, often). If Christians were to set up good-quality free Christian schools, many Muslim parents would send their children. Pray for this to happen in many places!

Also I (Dianna) was able to have a great conversation with an employee of the grocery store that I frequent.  His name is Ali.  The store is owned and operated by Muslims.  Currently the season of Ramadan is finishing.  The store decided to thank Allah for his gifts by giving out food and money to poor Muslims.  As you can imagine...it was busy when I showed up!  I asked Ali if he thought he could earn his Salvation by doing good works.  The conversation quickly turned into asking "On what basis can I ask for forgiveness?"  and "How do I know I'm forgiven?"  I was able to tell him of my sure salvation based on Christ's work on the cross.

So pray for these efforts and these people!  Also pray for the young men...Paul and Stephen...as they go to the well.  Pray that Christ will win the battle and that the night shall end in day!

Sunday School

For a few weeks now, Eric has been teaching Sunday School at our church here in Mbale.  He has been going through the book Understanding the Faith by Stephan Smallman.  Often he pulls our kids out to do a skit to illustrate a point.  Today he had William climb a ladder to talk about faith and trust.  Would William cling to his ladder of sin or jump into the arms of his Daddy?  In the end, he jumped.  ;)

We had about 90 people today at church today!  After Sunday School we had church, celebrated the Lord's supper and then had a fellowship dinner.  It is a great blessing to be a part of this work!

Playing Dress Up

Not quite sure what kind of queen she is, but she was quite pleased to play the part.