Time flies and Carol and I realized it has been over a month since our last update. We are very grateful for your prayers and generous support. From my first trip in 2007 to the Uganda/South Sudan border to our permanent move in 2013 and up until now we have seen, over and over, God’s grace being poured out to us, our Ugandan and Sudanese co-workers, and Reaching Africa’s Unreached ministry! Receiving God’s grace in the past and also His present grace fills us with confidence for His future grace! Over the almost 9 years of living here in Moyo-Fodia village has challenged and humbled us in so many ways. Carol and I know that it has been your prayers which have buoyed us in times of loneliness, missing family/friends, and evangelism/discipleship/cultural challenges.
“To be alive is to be thrown in a blender, the scars of the blade are the inevitable reality.”
Tyler Braun
Please keep praying for us that our hope always remains strong in the Lord, no matter the outward circumstances. “Slowly by slowly,” as our friends say here, we are growing in our cultural awareness so that we do not make as many missteps. At the same time, we want to challenge our friends here to see Scripture as king over culture so that Jesus reigns as King over all. May that be true for you in America or wherever you currently are as well.
I am happy to report to you that Christian Book International’s container arrived in Uganda and RAU has received the remaining ESV TruTone Global Study Bibles that didn’t fit in our Bible container which came last January. That brings the total number of ESV TruTone Global Study Bibles received in 2022 to 20,864, and the total number of ESV Global Study Bibles that have come our way since 2013 close to 30,000! In addition, we have purchased or have been given numerous local language Bibles/NT’s and Arabic Study Bibles over the years. These have primarily gone to church leaders in our West Nile, Uganda as well as to both Sudan’s and even some to Chad.
Praise God! Included in the Christian Book International’scontainer for RAU were 172 Crossway Pastoral book sets. Included were also several books we purchased from Christian Book International:1,008 of Plummer’s 2nd Ed. 40 Questions on Interpreting the Bible, Clason’s Richest Man in Babylon with Dave Ramsey, Gene Getz’s The Measure of a Man and three other titles. Additionally, there were 60,000 of the 600,000 dual language tracts printed by LMI. All these resources were offloaded into one of our containers. We have just finished putting a roof over the two new containers. Here is a quick YouTube Video I did on the fly of the offloading of the books/Bibles/tracts:
The roof over the two new containers as well as outside work is nearing completion.
The rest of the dual language tracts as well as 1,008 Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus books will come in Christian Book International’s next container to Uganda. It has been close to a two year process for these books/tracts, just like the 20K+ ESV TruTone Global Study Bibles, to arrive at Reaching Africa’s Unreached. We are praising God and are grateful for God’s grace and the love of his people…you!
We are in the midst of mango harvest. The trees have done very well and have much fruit on them. There are 11 varieties among the 640 trees on the RAU 20 acre demo farm which will keep maturing up until August. As you know from past newsletters, we have, as one of our goals, economic empowerment for the church and community via agriculture with grafted mangoes and our 18 box gardens for vegetable demonstration. In the last two months we have had 868 farmers from Refugee settlements and host communities to our demo farm for learning, in addition to the pastors/leaders who have received hands-on training during modular theological retreats.
Recently, we have had ministry in both Obongi and Yumbe Districts. In Obongi, we were with Pastor Godfrey and Obongi Town Church. On Monday, the 25th, we were a part of the Youth Conference at Pilgrim Church Yumbe. Our good friend, Onduga Charles, leads the Youth and mission outreach there. The growth and zeal for Jesus is a great encouragement to me. They soaked up the teaching. Co-worker Zorah taught from 1 Thessalonians 4. My teaching sessions were taken from the Seven “I AM’s” of Jesus in the Gospel of John…”A Beautiful Necklace“. In my beginning session I also taught about how to use the study Bible to its maximum potential and went over the dual language (Aringa-English) gospel tracts and how to use them in their communities and in small group studies. We also gave out ABWE’s Good Soil “Message of Hope” translated into Aringa which was printed in Kampala.
Easter Sunday with Pastor Godfrey in Obongi–with Obongi Town Church
Here are my teacher’s notes on Seven “I AM’s” of Jesus in the Gospel of John:
Yumbe Youth Conference
Late on Monday afternoon, we went to a market (primarily Muslim ..guessing 97%) and the youth lead in vibrant worship and praise. Gospel tracts were also given out by us with the hope of an engaging conversation. People enjoy the Aringa-English side by side and some even came to ask for them. Carol had a great conversation with one of the Muslim leaders in the crowd. Charles and I went up to the Land Cruiser rack and began preaching..it was going well and then rain came. At first I was saying to myself, “Why Lord? So many are listening.” Well, we were forced off the rack and the rain became heavy. The Youth moved the sound equipment quickly to a veranda and Charles and I went to a section of veranda where the iron sheets jutted out and made a covering. There we picked up right where we left off…Charles, who was translating, and I have been doing this together since 2014 so we are now like a couple well-tuned pistons together. As I looked about I saw the crowd, now under the verandas, not wanting to move because of rain…maybe the preaching too? I saw, then, we had a “captive audience” which gave me great encouragement. Our Lord has His ways. In these open air preaching events where we go to different markets, I usually preach from Mark 2:1-12 or John 10:1-18.
From our newsletters, you are likely aware that we have been praying since our arrival in 2013 for long term missionary partners. Our friend, Paul George, has joined us and now two families ,the Pryce’s and Langworthy’s, are looking to move to the RAU campus in 2023. They are coming through our mission partner ABWE. After much review and consultation with each other we both consider ABWE and RAU a great link up. ABWE has been around for nearly 100 years and has around 1,000 missionaries. They are able to fill the gaps we cannot in recruitment and vetting and we have on-the-ground work ready for long term missionaries. Carol and I are greatly enjoying getting to know Pryce’s and Langworthy’s. The Pryce’s are bringing with them six of their children and the Langworthy’s are bringing three. Please be praying for them as they are currently raising funds for their move to RAU. Ron Washer, Ken Lorow and Caleb Mitchel, all of whom we have met, are amazing, experienced and gifted leaders: Ron and Ken lead ABWE’s work in all of Africa and Caleb is the East African leader.
With these two new families joining, my construction mode is in the “on” position for housing for them as well as for Zorah/family, Paul George, and us. Fortunately, over the years, much has been done so that it involves doing just some renovations and add on’s to current structures. Currently, we are working on expanding the small house–“Lydia’s House” (it was a bunkhouse used during pastor training)–into the container right next to it. It was the container which came in December of 2013. This is where Carol and I would move. It will be much smaller than where we currently are but we are just two. My main concern is making room for our books–LOL. The side of the container has been cut and we are progressing well.
Using one of the containers in our home renovations
This leads me to an appeal I wish to make to you. The major cost involved in all this is the needed upgrades in our solar power system. It is the only source of power except when using our generator for our power tools and welder. I estimate the total cost for all the renovations to be $15,000.00 +/-. Would you please consider helping us financially with this so that we do not have to take it out of the general ministry budget? We are playing the “long game” here so, when we build, we are doing it to make things last for generations and, Lord willing, until Jesus returns. As I have told many of you, I believe the Lord has called us in our latter years to be “road builders” to help pave the way for those coming after us. Please continue to pray with us and consider giving to this special need. Thank you!
On a note of thanks (to the Lord and for donors who gave), Anzoa and her father, Richard, are now on their way to India for Anzoa to have much needed heart surgery. Thank you to each of you whose heart was touched toward this special need! Please, please be praying for successful surgery and recovery and return home. They are from Abeso in the Metu Mountains–where RAU was able to put a borehole.
On their way to India for heart surgery for Anzoa
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Seeking to walk out 2 Timothy 2:2,
Jacob and Carol Lee
Love and Blessings from both of us!
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RAU’s Mission and Vision Statements/Statement of Faith: https://reachingafricasunreached.org/about/
The greatest evil is having the gospel and not doing everything within our power to get it to those who do not have it!
Sowing seeds of love and kindness should not be separated from preaching the gospel of sovereign grace but completely intertwined with it!
When at least 35% of the world; “the unoccupied fields”, have no access to the gospel, we (believers) must all do all we can to reach them. We who are saved owe the gospel to every lost person, most especially the 2.4 billion who will not hear unless someone breaks into their “unoccupied field” with no thought of their own life!
Sowing seeds of love and kindness should not be separated from preaching the gospel of sovereign grace but completely intertwined with it!
I am sure that none of us will say when in heaven that we prayed too much, we sacrificed too much, proclaimed the gospel too much, and were too passionate to get the gospel to those who have little to no access to this gospel of grace. Let us together press on to make it our ambition to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named!
Our goal in our gospel witness is to take our eyes off the “risk” and place them on the cause for the risk. When God compels us like this he often will not tell us the risks…after all there are no risks for the all-knowing, all-powerful God. So let us be AMBITIOUS (Romans 15:20) to see that ALL are reached with the gospel of grace (Romans 1:16) in ALL places…there are no closed doors to the gospel, just some which are more difficult to go through!
Jacob Lee
Reaching Africa's Unreached 