December 2018

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now…. And this I pray, that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.” Phil 1:3-4,9-10

As 2018 fades away we would like to take a moment to thank you for your partnership with our family in the Gospel, as that is the core of our relationship with you as part of the body of Christ. No matter where you’re at on the map, you find the same things at the heart of mankind’s problems; selfishness and pride, which lead to all sorts of destruction whether it be extreme poverty, murder, immorality… and today, just as it was since the first man sinned, the solution for mankind is reconciliation with our Creator. No matter how noble a cause may be, if void of the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, it will fail to touch man’s true need. So we praise God that you have endeavored to join us as we seek to spread the truth of God through Northern Uganda, and we pray that our relationship with you would continue encouraging you to do things of eternal consequence in your neck of the woods, as there is no one in the world who does not need further Gospel transformation.

Serving our customers at BAM
The harvisting of one of our tilapia ponds

December was a busy month for our family. Although the pastoral school was on break for the month, our work was certainly not. The holiday rush created an increase of work at our Business As Mission. It is rice harvesting season here, and have been milling up to 2 metric tons of rice most every day for the surrounding community. Our second batch of chickens, numbering 990 hens, have started producing eggs. We harvested one of our tilapia ponds. Planted a crop of green peppers. And we’ve continued producing fine Maize flour and pure sunflower oil throughout the week. Most of Matt’s time throughout the month was taken by overseeing the remodel of our dilapidated medical facility which we hope to complete sometime this month. Despite seemingly mundane work, God is ever at work, and even two of the contractors got saved. Noelle also has had an exciting opportunity to begin discipling a young woman in the community. As a family we had a restful Christmas Day, and even Boxing Day, which is very celebrated here.

It’s hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone considering the fact that the climate here is still the same as when we arrived in April, and we praise God for what He has done in that time:
-Praise God that he brought us here to Northern Uganda safely!
-Praise God that our son Noah was born healthy!
-Praise God that in 2018 our first group of 17 pastors have studied through and tested out of Mark, Psalms, 1 & 2 Timothy/Titus, Ezekiel, Daniel, The 12 Minor Prophets, Matthew, Luke, Acts, Romans, and 1 & 2 Corinthians!
-Praise God that in 2018 our second group of 32 pastors have almost finished the Pentateuch with only Deuteronomy remaining having studied Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers!
-Praise God that our medical clinic saw close to 4000 patients in 2018 including delivering more than 200 babies!
– Praise God that things are going well at the Business As a Mission and that we are on track to have our ministry operations self sustaining as of 2021!

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” 2 Cor 5:18

We look Forward to a fruitful 2019 with you!

In Christ
Matt, Noelle, Emma, Madeline and Noah