joel mar16

MONDAY
The entire team arrived with the exception of Rick's luggage. Mind you, Rick didn't get to the hotel until around 4:00AM. So much for the romance of travel. His luggage should have arrived this evening by bus here in Nebbi.

The trip to Nebbi involved 10 hours of road travel from Entebbe. We crossed the Nile, saw a lot of monkeys and baboons, passed a Rhino reserve (that was 7 kilometers up the road, tempted to take a look) but we pressed on to get into Nebbi.

The first day started on time. After some introductions and singing, prayer was lifted up to the Lord and we began teaching. As the bishop said, "This is hard stuff." The difficulty was worth it. God began moving. We taught the foundations of why the Bible is worthy of study (it is God's Word), how we are to come in prayer, repentance and faith before God in order to understand His Word.

The team has been very clear, focused, and challenging for the pastors. Martin and Rick have been a great blessing to the churches already. Questions flew at the end of the day.

TUESDAY
Monday's foundation prepared us for today's shift to practical ways of studying. Once again, the team was engaging.

Rick went deeper with a very convicting explanation of how we express our dependence upon the Spirit through faith and repentance. They visually responded. Along with the Ugandans, I too was moved to seek God in His Word.

Then Martin spoke with passion about the area of a Biblical understanding of man as image bearer who communicates because our Creator communicated first. When I stood up to teach a very long session on the History of Redemption from Genesis to Revelation, I must confess, Martin was a hard act to follow. They respond so well to his teaching and I am so honored to have him on this team.

I covered 10,000 years in 1.5 hrs and they took notes the entire time. Please understand, this is necessary because these pastors only have Bibles. They have no commentaries, no other resources are available to them by which they can learn the history of what God has done.

After Martin then taught on how to discover the situation, purpose, and theme of a book of the Bible, analyzing each paragraph, we then immediately applied it.

We broke into many groups of 8 each, they studied Philemon and then a leader reported what they discovered. They were full of joy over God's Word. They praised Him. Very accurately described the book and all were amazed, "by the Help of the Holy Spirit, we understand Philemon." These individual group reports went on for 1.5 hrs.

The atmosphere was electric.

I was handed a piece of paper with the following written message (spelled exactly as it was written):

"Our Wonderful Facilitators. What a wonderful conference. I have enjoyed it so much. I pray that more of such be organized for us in Nebbi Disctrict."

Your prayers are truly having an impact. Please keep it up.

Pray for:Continued work of the Holy Spirit through God's WordStrength in 95 - 100 degree temps.Boldness and clarity in instructionWisdom as they ask many questions during the day.

Joel