Update from Ben Jore and Jesse Long

I recently realized how long it has been since I sent my last update. I am so sorry for the weeks of silence and I thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers despite this lack of communication.

Before I get distracted with more of what has been going on, I want to let you know that, as promised, our blog is officially up and running. You can view it at: www.benandjesse.blogspot.com. We are excited about this means of making more information and photos available to you all. Check it out and let us know if you have any questions or comments. We will do our best to keep it updated but anticipate limited access to the internet (and any other means of communication) once we get to Waama in a couple weeks.

As far as general update, we now have only 2 weeks left here at language school. It is amazing how fast the time has gone! We are grateful for the progress that we have made and, in answer to your prayers, we will be moving into the second book in this course later this week.

This past weekend Ben and I decided to take a quick trip to see the sights in Dar es Salaam. It was good to get out and as we took the three hour bus ride, we realized that this was the first time we had so much as left the campus of the language school since we arrived here almost a month ago. It was certainly an adventure and God’s care was overwhelming.

It all started on Friday morning when a student here recommended a guest house in Dar that he had stayed at. I called right away and made reservations for that night and the next (Friday and Saturday). Ben and I got packed up on our extended lunch break and were walking out to the bus stop within 20 minutes of our last session Friday afternoon. The main problem at that point was that we had never been to the local town by ourselves and had no idea even where we could catch a bus to Dar. Well, God just happened to have one of our teachers walking by at that time who, after asking where we were going, said he was going that way, too, and could help us catch a van at least as far as the bus stop.

We went out with our newly found guardian angel to the place where these vans pass in front of the school and had not even been there for 5 minutes when the next miracle happened: a pick-up truck came pulling out of the school with a lady in it who was heading home for the weekend…in Dar es Salaam. The driver had us jump in the back of the truck and took us, along with our new travel companion, right to the bus stop.

After the 3-hour ride, we arrived in the bustling city of Dar (where it was now late and dark) not having so much as the address of our anticipated accommodations. That was no problem for God, however, who had already arranged for us to be met at the bus stop by the husband of the lady we were traveling with. We insisted that it would be no problem to get a Taxi but he insisted on taking us past his house for some quick refreshment and then taking us to our guest house. We were overwhelmed and very grateful as we were soon delivered right to the front gate of the Cefa Guest House. A beautiful room with air conditioning, a private bathroom, and a hot shower only increased our gratefulness. I could go on and on with all the ways God blessed us the rest of the weekend. Basically, we were able to see a lot of the coast, take a boat ride over to a small island where we relaxed, saw some dolphins swim by, and did some snorkeling. We were also able to visit the Tanzanian National Museum downtown and be back to the language school in time for dinner on Sunday afternoon.

Sorry to spend such a high percentage of this email on just last couple days but it was very exciting to get this 48 hour excursion after our schedule we have had the last month. We also appreciated so much the opportunity to get to know more about this country, relax a little, and experience some genuine “immersion” language training, which never hurts either, right?:)

We are now back to reality, plowing through the final lessons of this first half of the course. Thank you all so much for your prayers in these regards. We are definitely making progress and grateful for all God has taught us during this time. We have been able to continue developing relationships with kids from the high school here on campus. They are eager to help ‘enrich’ our Swahili skills. It has been good…I think. Due to the fact that it is a boarding school, we have actually met several students who are from the area where we will begin working in a few weeks. We look forward to keeping in touch with them and getting to know their families as well.

God has also been watching over our health. We are quite certain Ben had Malaria a couple weeks ago. There has been some climate change taking place which resulted in increased incidences in this area. In fact, within a week and a half, about 5 international students were tested positive with and treated for Malaria. Ben had all the same symptoms but his test came back negative. We later found out that the test can fail to be accurate if the patient is taking Malaria prevention medication, which we both are. As it was, God seemed to have in His perfect plan to heal Ben in His own way. Within 30 hours of his first headache and fever, he was virtually back to normal…and has been ever since. Praise God!

Please continue to pray for the weeks we have remaining here and for the following items in particular:

• Quick processing of our residence/work permits (needed for teaching at Waama)
• That we would find the perfect vehicle to purchase for our ministry
• That God would give us extra grace and wisdom as we study these 2 remaining weeks
• Continued protection from Malaria and other sicknesses
• Sensitivity to God’s leading in every way as we make final preparations and move to our official ministry location in Mbulu.

Thank you all so much! I have included a few pictures from our trip this past weekend for your enjoyment. More will soon be available on our blog. Thanks for your continued interest, thoughts, prayers, and support.

God bless you all!!

In Him,

Jesse

Mission Director Travels to Uganda

AFLC World Missions Director, Rev. Del Palmer leaves September 27 for Uganda. While there he will prepare the way for the Jores' deployment. The Jores will be leaving for Uganda on November 1, 2006. Please be in prayer for Pastor Palmer's travel.

Betsy and Diana

“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and . . . it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.” (James 5:17,18)

Dear praying friends,

Betsy and her sister Diana are both Jehovah’s Witnesses. I tutored their older brother in English for a while and their mom and dad came to the adult English class we had a couple years ago. Their mom and brother both go out knocking on doors for the JW’s and their dad is in charge of the market downtown. Betsy and Diana have come off and on to our grade school English over these last years.

Would you please pray with us that God would rescue their family from the deceptive teaching of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and that the girls would be able to start coming to Kid’s Club?

Thanks so much,

Todd Schierkolk

AFLC Youth Missions Blogs

Did you know that the AFLC Youth Department has missions blogs? You can see what some of our own youth have been doing in the area of missions.

They can be found by going to the AFLC Youth Page and click on the Mazatlan Blog or the Jerez Blog.

How Many People Does It Take to Send a Missionary?

How many Christians does it take to send one missionary? In the United States, Christians send one missionary for every 2,000 believers. In Mongolia, every 220 believers send one missionary. Nigeria has sent over 5,200 missionaries into 56 countries. In 1987 in Latin America, there were 1,600 missionaries sent out. Today, that area has sent more than 8,000 missionaries to more than 150 nations.

More than 100,000 Christians are "born" every day throughout the world, and 4,500 new congregations begin every week. More missionaries are being send by non-Western churches, and there are now over 4,000 thirdworld mission agencies. There are no longer any exclusive "sending" or "receiving" nations; virtually every country sends and receives.

Excerpt from The Church Around the World, September 2006

Winding Down (Part 2)- Jore's

Frequently Asked Questions

What will your function be in Uganda?
As outlined in our working agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Uganda (ELCU):
“According to the AFLC World Missions’ purpose to make disciples through teaching and evangelism, and according to the ELCU’s request for a missionary to come and help them to train their pastors, the missionary’s primary function should be to disciple church leaders and to train them in the Word of God. The training should always have as its goal to equip Ugandan nationals to fulfill the role of trainer, evangelist, pastor, church planter, and lay leader. The missionary’s primary responsibility is to preach the Gospel and make followers of Jesus Christ who will then go out and make more followers of Jesus Christ. The missionary’s activities will reflect the goal of making disciples and will lead him to developing relationships with the nationals, teaching the Bible, and modeling the Christian life.”

What will you be doing your 1st year in Uganda?
Our 1st year in Uganda will be spent studying the language and culture and building relationships. We will be observing how things operate, what the greatest needs are, and we will be assessing how to best meet those needs. Also during this phase, we will be prayerfully seeking reliable and faithful men (II Timothy 2:2) with whom to partner in the ministry. We look forward to this time of learning, and we realize how necessary it is that we have a good grasp of the Ugandan culture before we attempt to set up a pastoral training center. We are going in with an American worldview and perspective, but we desire to learn how to see things with an African perspective. We know that it will take time and won’t be easy, but we pray that we are up for the challenge!

What will your housing be like?
As of yet, we don’t know… nor do we know for sure which city we will be living in! Del Palmer, AFLC World Missions Director, will be traveling to Uganda sometime in September to meet with the ELCU church leaders to discuss our working agreement with them. He will also work on deciding where we should live and securing housing for us. We are thankful that he is going before us and making our transition much smoother!

What will Rhoda’s role be?
I do not have a specific assignment, but I see my responsibilities as being primarily in the home, supporting Nate in any way I can and caring for our boys. I have a degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) so I hope to eventually use it in some capacity. I also have dreams of starting an orphanage. For now, we are just praying and waiting to see what doors the Lord will open.

Monthly Support
Goal ………….……………$5000
Pledged ………$3620 (72.4%)
Needed …….…$1380 (27.6%)
Prayer Warriors …..……..551

Winding Down (Part 1)- Jore's

Just 2 months to go! We continue to travel each weekend and occasionally midweek to visit churches and share about Uganda (our total is 45 programs in 11 states!). Elijah and Judah have
really gotten used to life on the road and have done great, which we attribute much of to your prayers. A few days ago as we were traveling home from sharing in Kenyon, MN, Elijah said, “Where’s me going?” He’s never quite sure how long he’ll be sitting in his car seat each time we strap him in! He was quite pleased to know we were going back home to Grandpa and Grandma Monseth’s house.

In our “downtime” we continue to plug away at planning what to bring and making purchases (we’re hoping to start packing soon!), as well as keeping up with correspondence and paperwork. Every once in awhile we take a break! We enjoyed a night at a cabin on Lake Michigamme in Michigan last weekend following our time in Ishpeming. The cabin was cozy, the
sunrise was beautiful, the water was warm and we all drove away refreshed and ready to get back to work.

We will visit churches until October 1st (every weekend and a few Wednesdays), primarily here in MN, and then our final month will be spent packing and saying good bye’s. We will be commissioned by our home congregation, Grace Free Lutheran, in Maple Grove, MN on October 29th (Sunday - 10:30am). Anyone and everyone is welcome to come! It will also be our final Sunday at Grace as our plane takes off the following Wednesday (November 1st).

Update from Chmiels

We are writing to you to invite you to praise God together with us. We have reached 50% in our fundraising this week and we really see God’s hand behind this because in June we still only had 14%. It is really encouraging to see that God is standing behind us even during these deputation months and it is He who will make it possible for us to move to Ukraine when it is His timing.

We are so very thankful for all of you who are lifting us up in your prayers (we definitely feel it!) and supporting us financially. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

If you would like to learn more about our preparations for Ukraine, please don’t hesitate to email us or visit our website at http://www.chmiels.com .