Darwin Jackson’s Update

"Prayer girds human weakness with divine strength, turns human folly into heavenly wisdom, and gives to troubled mortals the peace of God. We know not what prayer can do.”

Charles H. Spurgeon

Things are getting pretty tight around here in Nogales (both sides of the boarder). I talked to a brother after I shared at the chapel service at the Crossroads Mission on Thursday and he said that he's going back to Mexico to look for work, he was working at the Salvation Army thrift store, but they closed up and so he's been out of work for a couple of months (see Fox video).

I now have two learning the guitar with me to be able to lead the services in Buenos Aires, Fernando is the latest. He has been studying with Pastor Antonio, and Edgar. Pray that these two young men will be equipped to serve in Gospel ministry as well.

One one those we won to the Lord some time ago has been away in Sinaloa with her mother (93) who needed a hernia operation. The doctors didn't believe she would survive such an operation, but Claudia assured them that God answers prayer, and she believed God would see her through. They did the operation, and it was so successful, that she didn't even need blood. Claudia said the doctor literally jumped for joy. Claudia shared the testimony in Church and everyone gave a round of applause to the Lord. Praise God!

One the home front, MaryAnn continues to serve at the Crossroads rescue mission (and loves it!). Laura has started ninth grade at the High school and we have enrolled Gracie, Cesar and Sykari in a new Christian school at a local Baptist Church. They start classes on the 25th.

Thank you all for praying in the midst of weakness, folly and trouble that we might enjoy the Lord's divine strength, heavenly wisdom and peace.   

Darwin, Mary Ann and Gracie Jackson

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Update on Nata Camargo

Pastor Nata Camargo, Brazil Seminary Dean, had surgery again last night.  He had infection in his lungs and they reopened his stitches and cleaned the out the infection.  His surgery went well.

There is now concern about him getting further infection or other complications that would complicate his health.  The hospitals in that area have many patients with swine flu.  The next 30 days will be critical, if he does well during that time, he will be over the hill.

Nata Camargo now in Critical Condition

Please pray for Pastor Nata Camargo who had a motorcycle accident  a week ago.  He has taken a turn for the worse and now has pneumonia.  He is now in critical condition.   Nata was transported from Campo Mourao to the hospital in Maringa. 

Pastor Nata is the dean of our seminary and Bible school in Brazil.  His is also the pastor at Central Lutheran Church in Campo Mourao.  Pastor Nata’s daughter Sabrine has attended AFLBS the last two years.  She graduated this spring.  Thank you for praying.

Kid’s Club by Rachel Schierkolk

It was Thursday night Kid’s Club, and I had just read my students the age-old story that we’ve all heard a million times about Jesus dying on the cross.

For the review, I read through some questions, trying to coax answers out of them as quickly as possible so they could get to the coloring, but the last one grabbed my attention. “How can we get into heaven?” Marisol wasted no time piping up confidently, “By doing good things.”

“But what about all the bad things we do?” I pressed. “Can we really do enough good things to make up for them?” Their faces were angelically blank. It was time for an illustration.

“If I only do one bad thing every day, that’s not really too bad is it?” They shook their heads obediently. “And I suppose, if there are seven days in a week and I do seven bad things, then it still isn’t too terrible. But if I do one bad thing every day for a whole year, how many bad things is that?” I noticed two little boys exchange nervous glances. “That makes 365 bad things. And do you guys know how many years I have been alive?”

They were hanging on my words by now. “I have been alive seventeen years. So if I have done 365 bad things every year for the last seventeen years of my life, that means 6,205 bad things,” I announced. They stared at me open-mouthed. “How can God possibly let me into heaven if I have done so many bad things?” I prompted. But all they could process at the moment was that poor Maestra was going to hell! “That is exactly why God sent His Son for us,” I explained.

In that moment, I realized how often we think just as Marisol. We tend to think of Jesus’ death as being a precautionary measure “just in case” we mess up. But even the “best” of us can never deserve what He did. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

As I hugged my students goodbye that night, I was painfully aware of all the times I had wronged my Savior, but at the same time immensely grateful for the reminder He had given me.

Update on Pastor Nata

Jonathan Abel sends this update on Pastor Nata Camargo.

On Friday night at 5:30 pm Pastor Nata was going to the SETELL (our seminary).  At a speed bump he slid on some dust and hit the bump causing him to fall.  He hit his stomach very hard on it, busting his spleen. Though he didn't have many scrapes and bruises, he was bleeding internally a lot.

He was rushed to the hospital, but they were unable to only able to operate on him until five hours later, since there were so many emergencies that night. The operation took four hours.  They removed his spleen and they were able to close up all the blood vessels. 

He's recovering quite well. On Monday he already walked and now he is home. He still needs more blood. He had to be supplied with 12 pints of blood. He was sent home early because two cases of swine flu came into the hospital today.

Pastor Nata is the dean of our seminary and Bible school in Brazil.  His is also the pastor at Central Lutheran Church in Campo Mourao.  Pastor Nata’s daughter Sabrine has attended AFLBS the last two years.  She graduated this spring.  Thank you for praying.

Pray for Kirsten Paccha

Kirsten (Olson) Paccha who was hospitalized with a painful cyst and had an ovary removed.  Please pray for a good, quick recovery. Darwin and Kirsten (Olson) Paccha recently moved to Ecuador.  Darwin graduated from AFLTS this spring, and he and Kirsten are seeking to serve the Lord at work in Ecuador. 

Glenda Kvale’s Father Passes

Thank you for all the prayers and encouragement in Glenda's Father's last days after the prayer letter went out.  Her father went to be with the Lord, Sunday August 2^nd.  Your continued prayers will uphold us with God’s strength and comfort. 

Wednesday, August 5^th, 5:00 - 7:00 pm visitation,  6:30 prayer service, Starbuck funeral home in Starbuck MN. 

Thursday, August 6^th, 1:00 pm visitation, 2:00 funeral service, Minnewaska Free Lutheran Church, Starbuck, MN. 

Steve & Glenda Kvale

Thanks for Praying

We wanted to thank you so much for praying for today’s service and Tomasz’s sermon. Everything went well, people seemed to understand Tomasz’s Ukrainian, we felt God’s blessing on the whole service and even a guy who ALWAYS sleeps in church stayed awake for the whole sermon today

Tomasz preached on letting our lights shine ("Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven”) and after the service a young guy, about 25 years old, came to Tomasz and said that the sermon was about him (that he is hiding his light instead of letting it shine, for example at work). And this guy also wants to start meeting with Tomasz to talk about some of his life struggles and he also wants Tomasz to help him study the Bible. We are praising God for these opportunities and we are praying that God would work in mighty ways in this young man’s life.

Thanks so much for praying! You are such wonderful support to us!!!

Tomasz and Miriam Chmiel

PS: The picture was taken after the service. Hannah was so good during church! That too we count as a blessing since worship services and youth meetings are such a big part of our ministry here in Lviv and it’s great when all three of us can still be there.

Pray for Nata Camargo

Pastor Nata Camargo in Brazil had an accident on his motorcycle on Friday.  He hit a speed bump at the wrong angle and was thrown from the bike.  He injured his hip and had considerable internal bleeding.

Pastor Nata is the dean of our seminary and Bible school in Brazil.  His is also the pastor at Central Lutheran Church in Campo Mourao.  Pastor Nata’s daughter Sabrine has attended AFLBS the last two years.  She graduated this spring.

Pray for Tomasz

Dear friends,

We just wanted to ask for your prayers for tomorrow’s worship service here in Lviv. Pastor Bendus is gone this weekend so he asked Tomasz to preach. This will be the first time Tomasz will preach in Ukrainian without a translator. Please pray that God guides him during the final preparations and gives him the right words to share tomorrow. Pray that God would be glorified through this opportunity. The sermon text is Matthew 5:14-16.

It would be great if people would also pray during the time of the service but we realize that for those of you living in the States, the time would not be very convenient. The church service here in Lviv starts at 11am Ukrainian time which will be:

Sunday  8/2/2009  1:15 am  PDT

Sunday  8/2/2009  2:15 am  MDT

Sunday  8/2/2009  3:15 am  CDT

Sunday  8/2/2009  4:15 am  EDT

So unless you work a night shift or can’t sleep, we don’t think that you will be able to pray at that exact time. But if it just happens that you are up for some reason we wanted to share the times with you so that you’d know.

Thank you so much for standing behind us in prayer! You mean a lot to us!!!

Tomasz, Miriam and Hannah

Jore’s Hitting the Road

Dear friends,

We’ve been back in the U.S. for 2 ½ weeks now & our time has been full but so good. It’s so nice to be near our families again! Elijah and Judah have become instant best friends with their cousins. They are adjusting so well and enjoying the perks of life here. It’s been fun to watch their reactions to so many “firsts” in their lives: visiting a nearby park (no public parks in Uganda), enjoying cones at McDonalds (couldn’t finish them though… they’re not used to so much sugar in one sitting), driving on the freeway (“Daddy, are we going faster than we do in Jinja?” “Yes, son…” by about 50 mph), shopping at Target (a bit over stimulating for them to see so many lights, colors and white people in one place… they didn’t really know how to handle it so they just got really hyper and loud and ran in circles), and many more things.

We’ve dealt with a bit of sickness since coming back, but we are currently healthy. Nate was sick with reoccurring fevers and overall weakness for a week, so we finally put him on malaria medicine that we brought back with us and he got better. We didn’t take a blood test, but we are pretty sure that he came down with malaria again. He’s lost a significant amount of weight, so we’ll be working on filling him out again which shouldn’t be too hard.

We are soon to start visiting churches to share about the work in Uganda. We are looking forward to visiting so many of you in the coming months!

Here is our schedule for the next couple of months.

• Jore Furlough Schedule

August

2^nd: Kasson/Dexter, MN

3^rd-7^th: Nate will attend the Summer Institute of Theology at AFLTS

9^th: Newark, IL

16^th: Bethel Park, PA

19^th: Montgomery, IL

23^rd: Ottawa, IL (am) / DeKalb, IL (pm)

30^th: Ishpeming, MI (am) / Ontonagan, MI (pm)

September

2^nd: Radcliffe, IA

6^th: Sunburg, MN

9^th: Eagan, MN

12^th: Webster, SD (WMF Rally)

13^th: Sioux Falls, SD (Abiding Savior – am, Living Word – pm)

20^th: Mission Festival in Milford, IL

22^nd: Onalaska, WI

23^rd: Wilson, WI

26^th: Spicer, MN (WMF Rally)

30^th: Brooklyn Park, MN

We would appreciate prayers for our family during these busy months.

Please pray for:

- Safety on the roads

- Health and strength for all of us

- Happy and content kids

- Good communication and unity for Nate and I

- Wisdom as we share about the work in Uganda with many different people in many different settings

- Our daily lives to be Spirit-filled and led

We would also appreciate prayer for 3 Ugandan families who our lives are entwined with who have each lost a child in the last few weeks – Tracy & Jacob (Blessed – 2 ½), Martin & Scovia (Sam – 1 ½) and Chris & Sarah (Christine – 1 ½). We don't have a picture of Christine, but these are pictures of Blessed and Sam.

Thank you so much.

Rhoda and family