1:23 pm - I was just thinking about the sovereignty of God in regards to my teaching. When I forget to say something or don’t even think of it to begin with, but He wants it taught, one of the students will ask the question to bring it up. God is so sovereign! Today I was talking about Jacob and Esau and how Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of food. One of the students asked if that was the work of Esau or the work of God. Great question! I was able to teach more about the sovereignty of God and the volition or free moral agency of man. Anyhow, the very thing I was teaching was being used as the agent to bring about my teaching it! There are more and more students every day. Today another one came named Samson from Loa (near Pageri). He looks so young! He’s probably close to thirty years knowing the way they remain youthful in these parts, but he looks like he’s 16! After teaching I found Michael in his office and sat on his couch with him and talked for a while. It was nice. Somehow we began talking about death of family members, and he told of January this year when his wife was very sick and admitted to the hospital when she was still pregnant with Edward. Then only a few days later one of her “sisters” (cousins) was also admitted with a similar sickness. They thought it was malaria and so gave the quinine drip, but then after a few days the cousin died. FRM then flew Michael and his wife, Beatrice, on a MAF plane to Kampala to the hospital there and they found that it was meningitis and they gave her the medicine and God spared her and the child (people die from meningitis here all the time, not to mention the children in their wombs if pregnant). I remembered praying for them while serving at the office in the US and now realized that it was the wife of Michael I had been praying for. And now I got to hear the whole story from him. It was good to know that this man who has become my friend was the one I was already praying for before, not because of friendship, but because we are brothers in the Lord and serving together in the same ministry. I just checked my email on my phone and found out that Dave Clapper - the missionary pilot friend of the Bogles’ in Indonesia - is in fact dead. His plane went down in the jungle and the search and rescue team finally located it, and him. The church service yesterday was also a memorial service for him and on Tuesday they will have the actual burial. His wife and three younger children are there but the two older children are in the States. One of them named Judah is camping and still doesn’t know about his father.
Lord please bless the Clapper family with Your overwhelming love and comfort. Bring the right people to them as support, especially the two kids in the States who are separated from the rest of the family right now. Please comfort them. Please. I don’t know what else to say. Amen.
8:22 pm - I miss Carrie and the kids very much. It will be soooooo awesome when I get back and can hold Carrie and talk to her and see her smile, and also to see each of the kids and their faces and hugs and kisses, and not to forget the baby in Carrie’s tummy! For now I'll try not to think of it too much. Today was better. God helps me each day to grow and to fight past my fleshiness. I think He had a plan for having me here without the family though, that way I wouldn't take it out on them like I tend to. Just a thought. We had chips with dinner tonight and I ended up eating only chips and no rice and beans. I even had a warm Sprite hidden away in my closet that I'm drinking now as a sort of "dessert". Sounds funny but so true here. The lightning I’ve been watching since dark is getting very close now and the VERY LOUD thunder just began. The wind is picking up also. This doesn’t guarantee rain. It depends on if it blows this way. Sometimes there is lighting upon lightning and thunder upon thunder. Oooooo. I just felt a strong breeze and it’s very cool and refreshing. I hope it rains if for no other reason than to bring the cold wind and the soothing sound of rain on a tin roof while I sleep. WOW!!! It’s definitely getting closer. I counted only 2 seconds from lightning to thunder and IT WAS LOUD! Oh... oh... oh... I think I hear raindrops. Yes... yes... yes it’s definitely raining now. Nice. Unfortunately the weather has killed my already very weak cell signal by which I connect to the Internet (intermittently) for email etc. Bummer. I got my rain and cool wind and dazzling light show with thundering... well... thunder (duh), but I had to sacrifice the Internet for it. Well worth it. Well worth it. So the thought just crossed my mind... what does the lightning actually strike? A tree? A cow? A tukul? The ground? Out here in the bush what does it hit? Is there an epidemic of cow death by lighting? Toasted goat? Seriously, it has to hit something doesn’t it? I want to see the tree or whatever that it hits. Like the dirt in that movie “Sweet Home Alabama” that gets hit by lighting and turned to glass. I wanna see that. Wow it’s raining pretty hard now. Not “Africa” hard, but like a good hard rain in Southern California. Okay, it’s been a few minutes and now it’s raining “Africa” hard! Nice. Holy moly it’s raining. This is like the rain in Kigoma gets only cooler and fresher feeling that the humidity of Kigoma. The air is so cold and nice right now. Me like it! Okay, now I’m just rambling about the rain. Time to sign off. Oh wait more big lighting and thunder now. Is there a second storm rolling in on top of the first one? We’ll see.
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