4-1 VICTORY OVER YABUS GABA

THEY MAY LOOK DIFFERENT BUT THEY ARE ALL FROM THE SAME TEAM JUST GIVING THANKS TO GOD FOR HIS PROVISION OF THE UNIFORMS.


It was another day of sport, me and my young boys gave thanks to the Lord for his love and grace to us. He provided us with some two sets of jerseys, and 7 footballs, this has been our prayers for a long time now. So we organised a thanks you football match, this match was an intramural tournament that has to so with just the boys, we are 50 in number and so we broke into three teams, and that was how we all gave thanks to the Lord for his provisions.THE MATCH.

After that intramural tournament we then decide to try our skills with other outside teams, so we travelled to a town called, Yabus Gaba, it is around 10-15 KLM away from the place we stay, still we all have to walk this far distance, and play a 1:30 football. One of the things that really gave us joy is that the boys we play with are older and bigger than us, in fact, even stronger, but at the end of this match we were able to win with a goal of 4-1 this was an impressive result being our first away match, that really make us proud, we sang all the way to Yabus, dancing and clapping our hands, it was a big day for us, and believe me the boys played their best, with good passes and good score, thanks to the Lord.
THE START OF THE 4-1 VICTORY MATCH OVER YABUS GABA.
LITTLE PRAISE WAS ALSO PART OF THE TEAM.

FAMILY TIME,AND TEACHING

these are the families during the teaching sectionFor a long time now we have been wondering and praying for a chance to share, the joy of a good marriage with our other families in the Church, though we once have done this to our student as a form of a seminar, but in the Church there was a lot of gap, that need to be closed. so the Lord brought to us the chance to share about this topic.ONE OF THE TROUBLED FAMILYWe took time during one of the Sundays to introduce this hot topic, to our amazement; it was welcomed with an open arm. We taught that Sunday about marriage, bringing all the families together, each one with his wife sitting close to him, this was not something that the Sudanese are use to but we insisted that it must have to be that way, and the good Lord, helped us to convince them. just then we kicked off the teaching, in just a few time they started nodding their head, but from the beginning they were all shay to sit with their wives, i then asked a quick question, “ how long have some of you sat with your wives like this” some say since we got married others say 8years, ago, the lowest was, 4years back, on hearing this a chill ran down my spine, to make things short we then had both the men and women, making new promises to their wives. The promise was to have a change in their marriage.FAMILIES MAKING NEW PROMISES.
One other thing that we have learned is that there are a lot of problems in most of the marriages or say families that were in attendance, after, asking if there is anything we want to be praying about, a lot of hands shut up. Given the chance to say their request, it turns out to be a problem, ranging from fighting, separation, alcoholism, and maltreatment. We then had appointment with the troubled families, just to have like a counselling section with hem, that really paid off, we were able to start few we have made a breakthrough but some we are still trusting the Lord to have his way, and bring a resolve in the issues keep praying for them.
THE SPEAKER IN ACTION.KEEP PRAYING FOR THESE FAMILIES, AS WE ALSO HELP AND PRAY THAT THE GOOD LORD WILL MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR US TO BRING A CHANGE.

TESTIMONY.

James giving to me few to pray and to take home for food.

our joy and dance
our team in the farm house
our team taking a tour of the farm
this is the farm of the church leader
It is always a joyful thing to see that all that a man have been saying to his friends are been put into practice, he reason for saying this is, God has blessed some of my friends this year.
God gave to me the opportunity to always share in the Mabaan Church, and one thing I do is to always listen to that good quite voice that always lead me on.
One day I was given the chance o speak to the church, and so I took me reading from the book of Ephesians, 5: 15-16. I talked to the church on the importance of wisely using our time. It use to be that all the people just wit down and wait for NGO’s to provide for them claiming that this is our land and we have to benefit from it, I told them that the land belongs to them but the money is not theirs, and so instead of waiting fro a man to come and say take this 10 EB, why not you say take to him.
We also talked about, the fact that he who always buys is the foolish man, but he that sells is the wise man, advising them to learn how to sell not just to buy. And if you have no money it is better to start a small farm that will help feed the family instead of buying always and you are not even working to earn the money to use for buying.
It was really a challenge to them to hear this type of talk from the pulpit, and that was long ago, before the rainy season of 2009, we all left the church quite and cold from the sermon.
But, as the Bible says
“My word shall not go Back empty, they shall accomplish the purpose they are sent for” I HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN, happily enough for me this past December, I have been visiting the farms of other people from the Uduk church, (there I did not preach) and I found that they have also done something to help their families, little did I know that the Mabaan church members also picked up the challenge to go back to farm. I was invited to one of the farms, and to my surprise it was more that I ever thought of, and I received the testimony from the owner saying, “I have never bought anything fro the market anymore, I have seen the great change in my income and my family never have to stay hungry again even for a day” I was full with joy and I danced, to the glory of God, thank God they’ve heard the good news and are responding to it positively. I visited the others also to see what they have done for last year and it was awesome, thank God for them, and for a fruitful sermon.

CHURCH LEADERS DINNER

THE CHURCH LEADERS AND THEIR ELDERS AND DEACONS.
End of the year is such a good time, as many people here hosted friends, to a big dinner, we were also invited to most of these dinners.
So we thought of what to do and the Lord says to us “invite the church leaders and their elders and host them, tell them about their good work, and also try to advice them on the neglected areas, and that is evangelism”
So we obeyed the voice of the Lord and invited the leaders of the two churches, this I mean, the Uduk,and the Mabaan churches, plus their elders and deacons.
But trust the Lord for his goodness all the missionaries also came and our neighbours also joint, it was a great time as I shared the word of the Lord and also gave my own advice, as the Lord directed me.
At the end of all things the two church leaders gave thanks to God for all he has done and for his love to them, the also appreciated all that took place and called it an eye opener. The missionaries also said their own thanks and encouraged that this will continue all year ends.

THE TIME TO SHARETIME TO EAT IT WAS LITTLE BUT THE AIM FOR GATHERING WAS ACHIEVED
THE CLOSING PRAYER.
OUR THANKS TO THE LORD FOR HIS LOVE AND WISDOM TO US, AND FOR USING US TO ENCOURAGE THE CHURCH LEADERS, WE PRAY THAT ALL THAT HAS BEEN SAID WILL BE PUT TO USE IN JESUSNAME ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS TO KEEP PRAYING FOR THEM.

KRISTEN'S GIFT

THE OVERALL GIFTThis is yet another time to say thanks to God and to the loved ones that have contributed to our lives, last time i gave thanks to our beloved sister that gave us an IPod and also bought some cloths for our two kids.
This is yet another gift that we received from one family member we call her so because, only the person that love will always be praying for. this sister not only pray, but also sent some things that she thinks will be helpful to our ministry in Sudan, we came to know her just some few months ago, but it seems we‘ve known each other for a long time, her life style and the gift of singing is what really captured our attention to her, she lived a good and exemplary life while here with us, and that made us so proud of her. Since then we pray for each time and each day, for such a good way to live, but to our amazement she went back and sent a lot of good things that left to me is practically not possible to buy now, these things include, CLOTHS FOR PRAISE AND HALLELUJAH, A PAIR OF SANDALS FOR VICTORIA,AND A VIDEO CAMERA FOR ME, this is something that we will never forget about, my wife was full of tears when we received all this gifts, from our sister from the United States, we lack words to say thanks but our prayer for her is that God will grand her the desires of her heart, we know that we did nothing to deserve this all, and that we are not more than the others here, but all we know is that, it is just for the love of the LORD.
One thing that again made us happy is that our kids have to use this cloths for Christmas, since we were not able to buy any for them, this have covered something big for us, and the cloths made this gone Christmas a joyful one for the kids. You might be wondering who this sister’s name is, her name is, KRISTEN SONDERMAN, thank you sister, we beg you as you read this blog to pray for her, as she is currently in school reading medicine, may the Lord keep and bless you all..PRECIOUS ARE THESE TO US.PRAISE AND HIS NEW CLOTHS, ON CHRISTMAS DAYMY NEW VIDEO CAMERA, I LOVE IT SO MUCH
SISTER MY FAMILY AND I ARE VERY HAPPY TO RECIEVE THIS FROM YOU IT IS PRECIOUS TO US BUT NOT AS PRECIOUS AS YOU WE LOVE YOU!!!

CHRISTMAS AGAIN 2009.

PREACHING THE CHRISTMAS SERMON
This year we have again seen how Christmas is done in Sudan, we have noticed a lot of changes to that of last year, people are more organised and there are a lot of new cloths compared to that of last year, during the service people brought thanksgiving offering to the Lord, and for the first time according to the church leader, they collected 956EB, I MEAN ETHIOPIAN BIRR. As offering,
More to that the celebration, for this year, the food the drinks and everything was gathered from within the church and the members, it use to be that they will request help from either SIM or other NGO’S around, and you know it takes a bit of time to get that, which leads to delay in the arrangements. I talked to the leader and the answer he gave me was. we want to teach our people how to do it alone not to relay too much on others and became a burden to them, he also said that that does not mean that if we lack we are not going to ask for help, but first we have to try our best.
Please pray for them to be more and more trusting in the lord that to put all hope in man, it was really a good Christmas we had two church services one in the morning and the other, in the evening, before the whole church went dancing and rejoicing.
We stayed from the morning to the night before coming back home to sleep, but the dancing went on through the night.PRAISE HAVING FUN ON THE XMAS DAYTHE DANCETIME TO EATKISRAHHASIDAHFOOD FOOD FOOD, FOR ALLHALLELUJAH PLAYING HER PART TOO.THIS WAS TRUELY A GOOD CHRISTMAS WE HOPE TO SEE THE SAME NEXT YEAR. WE WISH YOU ALL A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR.

FAMILY EVENGALISM

on the way to kenyejiUnusual, this is the title of my blog today. me and my family have been trying to visit a group of people that hardly come to church, all they do is to stay home and go fishing or, sit round the tress to take MARISAA, I mean the local bear here in Sudan,
So this day we took a step of faith to visit with them and listen to them, but the unusual thing is that this was done on a Sunday morning, we are to go to the church but we said no and went to visit with them.
The village is so close to us, but unfortunately, we have not taking time to take the gospel to them until the day I had a talk with their leader, and a great revelation was told to me that I never expect that a small village like this can have such a great deal of problem, and no one seems to have noticed. The name of the village is KEYENJI and the main residence are the MABAANS, and mostly as they told me they are ROMAN CATHOLICS by faith, but to be honest there is nothing going on there that will suggest that there is or has been a church there.
But we took off that Sunday and met with them spent time with them and shared Christ with them, and invited them to the church the next Sunday,
Good news they came to the church, listened to the second coming sermon and 5 out of the ones that came gave their lives to the Lord. They are now part of the women fellowship, learning memory verses to do in the church on Christmas day, they are growing and becoming more and more faithful, some of them have not been to church for as long as 3years, to God be the glory.



Victoria and Stephen sharing with few at the tree and in the Racuba. those waiting for Marisaa.pray for those that have made a commitment with the Lord, to keepit and be faithful.