Thank you so much for your prayers for our family and the ministry here. We have seen the Lord at work in different ways this week and wanted to share some of it with you.
A drunkard of 30+ years has been sober for one month now! This man is a good friend of ours and has been involved in the church work for many years. The sobriety is an outward sign of what is going on in his heart. He shared with me his testimony of how his father had asked him to stop drinking. The old man was on his death bed and told his son, "I am soon going to be with your mother in heaven and I also want to see you there. My son, there is no bottle in heaven." Those were the last words that he heard from his father. Now, a year since his father died, he has given up the bottle! Instead of drinking in the evenings now, the man is borrowing books from me. This past week he read The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun and For the Love of my Brothers by Brother Andrew. The man is being transformed and his new-found joy is contagious! His transformation will be a huge blessing to our ministry here! Praise the Lord!
When someone has HIV/AIDS in this country it is usually kept as a secret because they are ashamed. Even close friends and family members may not know if someone is suffering from the disease. I have a friend here who has confided in me that he has HIV. We have been working together to find the right treatment for him to try to prolong his life. I cannot share a lot of details about the individual as his testimony is not yet public. He had contracted HIV from his immoral life-style before he became a believer. He had tested positive for HIV four different times over the past two years. Last week we went together to a clinic that tests and treats people for free. They took his blood and the following day he went for his results. They were negative! Confused, they tested again and it was negative again. They called the other clinic where he had been tested previously and they confirmed he had been positive. He is going to go back in a month to test again, but it seems that an AMAZING miracle has taken place! He told me recently that some of the pain and fatigue that he usually feels he had not felt for three days. He is a fervent believer and had been praying that the Lord would heal him and extend his years so that he could serve Him. Praise God!
The work with the pastors is going well. Yesterday (Aug 17th) Wilberforce had the opportunity to preach to some inmates at a prison near his place. I was with Sospeter and Chris at our congregation in Bukoma for a baptism service. On Friday Martin met with the group of pastors from his area for Bible study. Ludigo was visiting a Pentecostal church in his area on Sunday. His main message was that we are all informed (how we should be living) but we need to be transformed. He recently testified after preparing the course "Bible Study on Romans / Galatians" that he has never been transformed so much by any book as he has been by the book of Romans. Chris told me yesterday that in his area the pastors he is working with are catching the vision for home Bible study groups. The Bibles that we have been able to distribute have been the catalyst for many such groups forming. He told me that new groups are starting every week and that some groups are meeting every day! He also said that people are getting saved through the Bible study groups. Thank you for praying for the work! This coming weekend we will be together on Friday and Saturday at our place to plan for the training program. Please pray for wisdom and unity.
Thank you for standing with us! God's presence has been felt both in these encouraging times and the discouraging ones.
Nate & the family
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord... But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him." -Jeremiah 17:5,7
