“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

James 1:17

Carol, I, and the RAU team praise God from whom all blessings flow! To be here serving the Lord and His people is such a privileged and honor. I also know we could not be here without your prayers,support, and  Lifegate which has sent us out. We are grateful for you and by God’s grace will be here a long time serving Christ Jesus. Lord willing we will be able to  partner with you for many years in spreading the fame of King Jesus across Africa!

Before going to some updates let me open with a couple of questions which you may have thought about from time to time, What do missionaries do? and What is the fundamental purpose of “Missions”? These are important questions and ones I have pondered many times ever since  my discussions on the topic with Leonard Ravenhill back in 1977. I have noticed a trend over the years and that being the answers to these two questions have been broadened greatly. I appreciate and am grateful for everything good which has done for the glory of Christ in the name of missions but I don’t think that the broadening of definitions of “missionary” and “missions” has been particularly helpful to the churches call to “make disciples of all nations (people groups)”. To keep this newsletter from becoming to long may I point you to  an article  which Kevin DeYoung wrote. I re-posted it at the RAU blog. The article is entitled “The Goal of Missions and the Work of Missionaries”. The article is well written and bibilcally answers the before mentioned questions the the way I think they should be answered.There may be those who disagree with DeYoung’s conclusions. I do agree with DeYoung. I think it is helpful for you our partners to understand my heart as well as RAU’s primary mission and calling. I hope that you will take the time to read the article.

Since Reaching Africa’s Unreached founding in 2010 we have been working  towards hosting groups for discipleship.  Our goal has always been to bring to RAU groups of pastors, evangelists,church leaders, and church planters for times of refreshing and teaching in the fundamentals of the faith, especially the gospel. The primary work which we have been doing the past years  along with Carol’s and my first days here has been for this purpose. Since Carol’s and my arrival at RAU  six days a week from sunrise into the evenings we and  others have been laboring  to get the facilities ready for what we have called Phase I. Sunday mornings and early afternoons are reserved for worship/preaching in local churches and Sunday evenings for outdoor evangelism in the mode of George Whitefield and John Wesley.

Along with helping out on the physical work I have also been working on teaching lessons. Currently I am making up questions and a study guide for Paul Washer’s book The Gospel’s Power and Message in his Recovering the Gospel Series. I am hoping to make it one my my main text books. Getting solid literature to pastors continues to  be one of our longstanding goals.I have a post  at the RAU blog about our partnering with “Study To be Approved” in placing Kindles loaded with godly literature into pastor’s hands. Please take a few minutes to read it at some point.

As the Lord provides resources and called/equipped personal  we will also seek to show Christ’s love through medical work, education, and care for orphans. However, RAU’s primary calling is to discipleship and helping to spread the gospel through church planting in unengaged villages  and people groups of the area.

We are purposing to host our first retreats for groups of pastors, evangelists,church leaders, and church planters sometime in September. Our goal is to bring small groups of them in for one on one Bible study  from Tuesdays through Fridays. We will put them up, feed them, and help in some of their transport cost. As near as we can now figure  it will cost around $500  to do this per group. However, we still have a number of upfront costs for things like beds,mattress,mosquito nets etc.  as well as the other things I have mentioned in past newsletters. From the last week of October to the first week of December we will be hosting three American teams and one from Kampala. They are coming to share their God given gifts. We look forward to hosting them and many in the future as well.

Please continue to pray for the RAU container on its way to us. It is probably somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean. Please also pray for Gabby Bukenya, Patrick’s and Vickie’s 4 yr. old daughter, who is having heart surgery in California. Carol escorted her there and currently is enjoying family in Stephenville Texas. Carol will fly out of Dallas on Monday. Please pray for her safe journey back to RAU. The most difficult part of the journey is from Gulu to here. We had a truckload of building supplies which left Kampala for us three days ago and it is still not here because of a combination of the roads north of Gulu and a break down while trying to go up the steep hills from the Nile River to Moyo.

Please pray for the ongoing work to be ready for groups in September and give if you can to help make it happen. Currently our account is quite low. I hope that in your reading of these needs you do not feel undue pressure to give. Please  give only as you are led of the Lord to do. God has been marvelously providing for us and we  know He will continue to do so. Also it is our desire that any gifts given to R.A.U. would not compromise what you are  ALREADY giving to your local church or to foreign missions . To get the gospel to the unreached will take sacrificial giving on the part of all God’s people. May we all walk faithfully in the spirit of 2 Corinthians 8 & 9 so that our Lord God is worshiped by men and women from every tongue , tribe, people, and nation! Most importantly we ask that you stand with us in prayer!

Here are some of our continuing needs that lay before us for you to pray for and consider helping us complete:

2. The building of 4-5 more tukalu’s to house pastors/evangelists/church planters for discipleship. Each tukalu can take care of 4-5 people and they are inexpensive to build. To build one tukalu is around $500.
3. $1000 to dig a  new double stall pit latrine for the tukalu quarters with an outdoor bathing facility. The existing pit latrine is about to cave in and there is no place to bath. (See our previous newsletters on the reason we are building these tukalu quarters ).