My first story is the BEST of all. Our social worker who is part of my staff was visiting one of the schools that some of our children go to. It is the furthest school from our compound. As she was coming back she passed a teenage boy who appeared to be drunk walking down the dirt road. She kept driving when she heard the Lord tell her to go back and talk to that young man. Upon talking to him she learned that he was not drunk but practically blind. He had walked fifteen kilometers to the government hospital for treatment only to be told sorry no thing we can do. He was treated last year for hyperthyroid and could not continue the medication because they had no money and he became very ill, very high blood pressure, blindness, eyes bulging out, very skinny. He was at the top of his school class with only two years to completion of a six year high school certificate (that’s what they do to go to university).

I told my social worker that we had to take him for treatment in Uganda. We simply could not leave him this way. On Friday we took him to the best hospital, where we take our kids, who have doctors from UK and India. We got the chief doctor, the head doctor. He looked at this kids’ previous treatment and asked where he got the treatment. The boy said a little village “clinic”. That clinic almost killed this boy because they treated him for hypothyroid which is low thyroid so the medicine gets his levels higher. Because his levels were already so high, giving him medication to make them high caused his blood pressure to skyrocket. He could have had a heart attack if they had had the money to continue treatment! I know it was God who caused them to not be able to buy more medication. It saved his life.

The good news is that he will be on the right treatment for the next six months and his eye sight will return fully and his blood pressure will come all the way down. I also told him that I would pay his last two years in school fees. This kid was blown away that someone would stop for him, especially after he had lost all hope when that government hospital told him they could not treat him. The medication he is taking is one of the cheapest medicines on the market, only $25 for a month’s worth. This is the health care that the poor get here in Africa and this is why so many die every day, needlessly. The mother called and was simply beside herself that her only son would get well and finish school. This is the love of God working in us when we stop for the one. This is what your gifts to our ministry does to help those in need. Thank you Jesus and thank you donors! We pray for more encounters like this one.

After the hospital visit we went to lunch. We were sitting at an outside restaurant and I noticed another teenager sitting at the next table with just a backpack and no food or drink, looking tired. I asked him if he was waiting for someone. He didn’t speak English so my social worker dug deep to remember this language from Eastern Uganda. She learned that he just got off the bus and was waiting for his boss to pick him us. I bought him lunch and we brought him into our family of fellowship for lunch. When we left his boss still had not come. At least he had a full stomach. Another instance of stopping for the one.

Over the last two months I have been on a Jewish journey. I want to know the culture of the time that Jesus lived in and I want to know the true language of the Bible, Hebrew. I have been learning so much about the culture of Jesus. I have found many things in scripture that have been translated incorrectly because of the true meaning of some of the Hebrew words. T has been very interesting and mind expanding. Today I taught the church about the Sabbath and why church moved to Sundays instead of the original Saturday. Three hundred years after Jesus’ time Emperor Constantine changed it to Sunday because he hated the Jews and wanted worship to be free of Judaism. So after teaching the children about the Sabbath we all agreed that we were going to start keeping the Sabbath holy. We will not do any heavy work on Saturdays and will fellowship and discuss the Bible with each other and enjoy a day of rest. Our cooks will not cook because I will go to town and by BBQ chicken and matoke. This really excited the children. I am excited to see the blessing of God on our lives as we remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. And yes, we will still have church on Sunday until the children want it changed.

Lastly, today I spent the afternoon with a few teenagers as they asked me tons of questions about schools in America. When I told them of all the things we have they said, “No wonder when missionaries come here they are somewhat fat and soft for work”. I laughed because it was said in such innocence and here when one is fat it is a good thing. To them, when I return from a trip to America, I am fat. They told me that American kids would never survive in their schools because they receive at least up to 50 lashes a week with a small branch from a tree if they don’t do well enough on tests. They carry water from boreholes. They have to board in schools with bedbugs and they take up to eighteen subjects a year. They also have no textbooks so every single thing they do all day long is to take notes verbatim from the book that the teacher dictates from. No teaching, just dictating all day and each class is almost two hours with no break. The list goes on but you get the point. Many of the things that the teachers teach are wrong. Our children get very frustrated because we teach them the right things yet they cannot answer the test the right way but the way the teacher taught or they will get it wrong, even though the information was taught wrong.

For instance, they say that ALL missionaries, ALL British people and ALL explorers are European. They are telling the kids that America is considered European. This is just one example. It is really so scary. I really wish I had enough money to send our kids to international schools. At least they would receive an education that is worth all the money we spend. Home school is not recognized here so we have no choice but to send them to schools that teach these wrong things. I want so much more for our children. So, we do the best that we can with what we have and try to teach the things that we know and that won’t get them beat with a stick because they question the teacher’s answers.

All in all, it was a very wonderful week with more to come this week. I bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus and I pray that you will enjoy His rest at all times this week as you work from that place of rest. I pray that all who are sick will be healed by the Lord of the Sabbath who healed eight different people on the Sabbath. Until we meet again, we love you all here at Iris South Sudan/Uganda!