Lyle
here....
These
last few weeks have simply been packed full! Sometimes I feel like this Farside
comic. It seems like we are being fed from a fire-hose. It has all been so
wonderful and we have learned so much, but it is still so much information! We
have been doing New and Old Testament Survey; we have been doing hermeneutics
and exegesis; we have been looking at how the entire Bible points to Jesus; we
have been going through the timeline of the Bible; and we have prepared and
preached a short sermon to the rest of the class. We are now in the process of
taking an Old Testament narrative and turning it into a children's lesson that
will be Christ centered, pointing to Jesus. We also have just completed a two
day field trip visiting four different children's homes. I think what we have
appreciated the most is that none of this has simply been an academic exercise.
It is all about knowing our Lord and Savior more and more; it is about growing
in maturity; and it is about glorifying Christ in our lives - in what we say,
what we do, how we live, etc. So not only have we felt like we have been
feeding from a fire-hose, but there have been times we have felt emotionally
drained and spiritually challenged. God is so good as He continues to teach us
new things and deepen our understanding in so many different ways, even through
the difficult times that may not seem to make sense at the moment.
There has
not been much down time, but we did make a trip to Kampala for pleasure and
then there was an unexpected trip for Ingrid for medical reasons, which will be
addressed fully once we are back in the States in May. Here is a crazy picture of how chickens get transported. I am guessing there were about 30 of them or so just tied together on the top of this taxi. We felt bad for the chickens, but it is not a new sight. One of the things we have seen in the past was a pig tied to the back of a boda (small motorcycle). The pig as were theses chickens was still alive and was just bouncing along. We have also seen bicycles used to transport just about anything; coffins, sugar cane, people, etc. Below is a picture of a bicycle with a sofa tied to it's back. It is amazing what can be balanced on the back of a bicycle or boda. We so admire the courage, strength and ingenuity of the Ugandan people!! We have also been able to take a few short walks around the New Hope property. Below is a shot of some short elephant grass we came across on our walk. We have seen it much higher!
Also on our walk we met a young boy on his bicycle who was just waiting for us to take his picture.
In addition to these things we have continued to spend time with our family group here at New Hope Uganda and are continuing to spend time with our African friends. Below is a photo of some of the family group at a going away party for a missionary from Great Britain. She has been at new hope for fifteen years and is now returning to England.
Below is a photo of the family mother. Please keep her in your prayers as she has a terminal illness. Even with this we see her, often times in pain, ministering to the children in the family.
Both New and Old Testament survey have been really good. We went through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, and Joshua in detail, while going through the rest of the Old Testament as an overview. It was really good going into all the covenants and seeing God’s faithfulness to His chosen people even through their rebellion. We looked at how we see the entire Old Testament pointing to Jesus. Going through it verse-by-verse and passage-by-passage made it so much clearer why Jesus condemned the Jewish leaders for not recognizing who he was. It is amazing how much we say we believe, because it is what we have been taught, but going through scripture and now knowing why we believe something makes it personal. For our hermeneutics and exegesis we have been using a course called “Veritas”. It really stresses the importance of context as well as an understanding of the different types of writing styles in the Bible, i.e. narrative, poetry, etc. It also takes into consideration the audience the writer was writing to, while seeking to understand the intent in the cultural context of the time and then applying it to our time. We went through Matthew like this, and in light of the audience, Jewish believers, we looked at how they would have understood what was being said. This detailed study not only has taught us new things. Going through the entire Bible timeline, including historical extra biblical records of the inter-testament period has really helped my understanding.
One of
the most exciting things of all of this is that it has not just been an
academic exercise. All of what we have been doing has been pointing to Jesus;
all the way from Genesis to Revelation. It is all about Him! It is about His
work in our lives and His plan from even before time began.
Well our
time here is almost done. We are only three weeks away from finishing and we
would really appreciate your prayers. We are at that point where we are looking
to our return to the States and spending time with family and friends, but we
still have homework and projects here, as well as more learning to do. All this
to say, the temptation to focus on the future rather then the present is
certainly there. We don’t want to miss a thing God has for us here, so please
pray we remain focused the rest of our time here.
Finally, here is a picture of James. If you remember, we met him in 2011 and at that time he seemed like a young boy, but now he is almost as tall as Ingrid. He is part of a different family group, but it has been such a joy reconnecting with him. In this photo he was over at our home for his birthday.
By the time we write again we will probably be in Kampala preparing for our return to the states. We will hopefully see many of you while we are in the States.
We usually have a nature photo of some kind on the blog. This post is a special treat. Here we found two extremely rare, but beautiful, Ugandan tree birds. They look amazingly like Aunt Immaculate from the Institute and Ingrid. We will truly miss our Ugandan friends when we leave!
Love,
Lyle and Ingrid
