What could be better when trying to forget that finals are around the corner than to throw a party. Not just any party will do- we had to throw a cheesy sweater christmas party. The cheesier the better...good food, unbelievable styles, classic Christmas videos, and good friends.  It was the perfect way to get into the Christmas Spirit. 

This Thanksgiving break had a sad beginning, but a magnificent ending. Monday morning Annie and I found out that my Grandmother Bowie passed away. Although it was difficult to hear that someone you love has passed away it is amazing to see how God blessed our family. Grandmother has been living with Alzheimer's and over the past three years has not known even her own children. Because of her Alzheimer's she has had no pain in the last years of her life, and the family has been able to take her large real estate business and as of Friday, before she died, the business paid off every outstanding debt.
Also because she passed away over Thanksgiving our entire family was able to be together for the week, so we spent the time sharing stories of her magnificent life.


Thanksgiving dayThanksgiving day was our first time Annie and I jumped back and forth between families, and we loved it. We began with breakfast at my parents, luch with her parents, and Thanksgiving dinner back with my parents. Great food, lots of jumping on the trampoline with kids, and even more games of hide and go seek. What great fun.

Hiking, Hot tubbing, and hanging out with the Family Saturday, was a day of fun. After an e

motional week it was great to head up to the lodge to spend time hanging out with family. In the cold air all around the kids had fun getting into the hot tub while everyone else hiked up the mountain to the Appalachian trial.

Well after tonight it has become clear that there is nothing like Duke Basketball!!! Tonight Annie and I (along with my grandfather and 2 other cousins) made our way into the tightly packed Cameron stadium. As we watched people with devil tridents and painted chests scream at the top of their lungs, we soon found ourselves overcome with excitement to join the crowd and cheer for our BLUE DEVILS.

HALLOWEEN ON FRANKLIN STREET


This Halloween 75,000 people flooded the main street running through UNC's campus dressed in their best costumes, so of course Annie and I had to go. Our favorite costumes were the Tetrus pieces, Mr Peanut, and a man dressed as a woman giving birth. Annie went as the Broadway "Annie," and I went as the dancing man from the new ipod commercial.











RALEIGH HALF MARATHON
There is nothing like a 13.1 mile jog to get you going in the morning. Annie and I hopped out of bed Sunday morning and headed out into the cold dark so that we could go run in Raleigh's first marathon. Joining about 5 thousand other friends at the starting line, Annie and I had fun seeing Raleigh by foot for the first time.


THE WAY OF THE DUKIES
Taking classes at Duke has been a faith building challenge. Every week I feel that God is pulling and shaping my understandings of Him and how to read the Bible. Although I am being taught to wrestle with the tensions, academics, controversies, and historicity issues- it has become more clear to me than ever that our God is a God who has a wild love for us. He is willing to abandon all so that we may come close to Him in a intimate love relationship. This love is not only worthy of our enormous joy and praise, but also worthy of abandoning all to following our King.

God is a God who likes to keep life exciting. It was three weeks before our wheels touched down in Africa that we found out we would be moving accross the world. Annie and I had been praying that if God wanted us in Africa He needed to open the doors. How would we know it was God leading? Annie wanted to be a kindergarten teacher and we only had from mid January to June. Sure enough as December came to a close a call came and WGM let us know that they needed a kindergarten teacher from Jan 11-June 2nd.
When we arived home Annie and i had plans to attend Gordon Conwell in Boston. We were excited...Boston- its like NYC and Charleston coliding. Then God began to shaking life up all over again. Two weeks before leaving we learned that Gordon Conwell was not accredited with the Methodist church. Within an hour we learned that Duke was interested in us joining their program, partially because we had been missionaries in Africa. We had a tough decision ahead of us and Annie and I laughed as we told people that we were moving on August 26th, but we did not know where. After looking at both schools again we decided that life at Duke is where God wants us.
GO BLUE DEVILS!!!

Wow!!! It is always exciting to take off and follow where God has been leading, but it feels so good to come home. Last night Annie and I arrived back in Tennessee with an airport full of excited family. We can't wait to tell everyone about our experience in person. Now we can take time to thank you all for your prayers, calls, emails, comments, and support. We have learned and grown so much. It is wild to think that six months ago Annie and I were stepping into active ministry in a third world country, and now living for Christ continues back in America.

Just to fill you in on a few snap shots of the Europe travels...
Greece- Greek Isle of Mykonos


Rome- Inside the Roman Colosseum

Italy- Venice
France- Eiffel Tower

Our entire lives we have read stories from the Bible, but this week we have been able to see where those stories actually took place. What an amazing place to be learning, growing, and watching the Bible come to life before our eyes.

Sea of Galilee- Jesus walked on water and fed the five thousand near by.

Hundreds of Muslims filled the court yard to pray just 100 yards from the location Jesus was born.

Armed soldiers standing just outside where Jesus was arrested, the Garden of Gethsemani.

Dome of the Rock from inside a church on the top of Mt. of Olives.

Bobbing like corks in the Dead Sea.

We are out of Uganda and making our way back to America...with just a few stops on the way! Annie and I are excited to have the opportunity to visit a few of the places we have always dreamed of visiting. Here are a few snap shots of Egypt. Wow!

Luxor, Luxor Temple- In front of Ramses II

Luxor, Luxor Temple- Hieroglyphic Door

Our final week in Uganda has been a busy one, but a great one.




Graduation



It began last Friday when my class graduated from Kindergarten. We had a full ceremony to commemorate the occassion with caps, gowns, diplomas, and awards. The class performed a song they had learned with lyrics saying, "I am a promise. I am a possibility. I am a promise with a capital 'P'. I am a great, big, fun-to-love potentiality. I am learning to hear God's voice, and I am trying to make the right choices. I promise to be anything God wants me to be." They were so precious! It was a great way to celebrate the end of the year and all their accomplishments.

ZOO
The 1st grade teacher, Miss Heather, and I made (what I now realize was) a really good decision to take a field trip to the zoo on the last week of school. We set off Tuesday morning with 10 Kindergarteners, 12 grade 1 students, Miss Heather and myself, and a few other chaperones including Mr. Brad! It rained the entire 45 minute drive to the Uganda Educational Wildlife Center, but luckily, the rain came to a slow stop shortly after we arrived. We then began our trek around the center escorted by a trained guide. We saw red-tailed monkeys, fish eagles, a lion, African buffalo, antelope, shoebill storks, a crocidile, otters, the crested crane (Uganda's national bird) and many others. We even got to feed the chimps and ostriches! Our day ended with some play time on the playground, and a thrilling donkey ride. Imagine that, an African zoo with donkeys! We all made it back just in time to catch the bus to go home, and we had a great time!





Finishing up
Well, school is out. The final bell rang yesterday afternoon as I was cleaning my classroom. I closed the door, locked it, and said good-bye to my first classroom. It still hasn't really hit me yet that we are leaving and won't be coming back to school. When we first got to Uganda, we thought 5 months was a long time. Now it just seems like a blink. We ran into some friends at lunch today, and it felt so bizarre telling them we are leaving tomorrow. Tomorrow. I've decided that one of the hardest things to do is to say good-bye to someone you will never see again. I've been putting some of those good-byes off, but inevitably, today and tomorrow will be filled with too many to count. "When are you coming back?" many people ask. And all we can really respond with is, "whenever God calls us to come back." I do know that we are both more than willing to if He does call us in that direction anytime in the future.

Surrounded by a thousand stampeding Ugandans I put both arms around Annie’s torso, pulled her close, placed both feet firmly on the ground in front of me, and proceeded to be pushed thirty feet through an iron gate encompassing the stadium. With room to breath, Annie and our friend Catherine ran to safety as Catherine’s husband Ben and I turned our attention back to the crowd. Just behind us a women lost her footing, causing people to fall to the ground like dominos. Those Ugandan’s outside the gate continued forcing their way in past the trembling armed guards- not stopping to help those they were trampling. Ben and I ran to pull fallen Ugandan’s back up to their feet, only to find them pinned to the ground by the pressure of the crowd. As the guards stepped in, we began waving our arms and yelling for the crowd to stop. Soon we were able to pull people off the ground. Many women were injured, children had blood covered faces, and one child was at best unconscious. Our intentions for coming to this Benny Hinn Crusade in Kampala was to see the authenticity, or lack of, but we found ourselves blessed to escape from a dangerous situation. God was taking care of us, and the night had just begun.

Dangerous Faith

Just inside the 20ft gates holding back the mobs we were presented with a new dilemma- “No camera’s allowed”. The police gave us two options: Take the camera back through the screaming crowd to your car, or give the camera to us- never to be returned. God presented the third option, and his name is Curt. Curt is the Event Coordinator for Benny Hinn’s ministry all over the world. While I was discussing with the officers our options, Ben walked over to this mountain size Texan, and asked him for help. Immediately, Curt escorted us backstage, and then into VIP seating. The Stadium seated 53,000 people, and we were seated on the third row-15 seats from Ugandan’s First Lady, President Museveni’s wife. The show began with worship lead by a 5,000 member choir. We found ourselves divided. The music was solid, but we were soon in shock by the statements Benny Hinn would mislead the audience with.

“Sickness is illegal in the Church and in your body.”
“No Believer should die sick.”
“Cancer and disease do not belong in the Church.”
Give money, but not to me- to Jesus. If you give money to Jesus tonight he will repay you. Don’t worry I know how to spend God’s money. (paraphrase)
“Believe in the Cross and Sickness will leave your body. Touch the place where you are sick- IT IS HEALED!”

Speaking to a third world country, Benny Hinn was telling the people what they wanted to hear. If they put their faith in Jesus they will be given money and healing from sickness. He used passages from the bible, but often took them out of context. 53,000 people that night accepted his words without question. Many accepted Christ for the first time, not because of a love relationship, but because of a big production and they were promised- healing and money. This night we learned first hand about how many of God's people are being misguided- All the more reason for us to keep grounded in truth and share it however we can.

(Copyright Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 10:34 PM )

Earlier last week, my class began a special Mother's Day project. We planted flowers and decorated the tins specially for our mothers. It was really sweet to see them so excited about their mom's and making something just for them! The first picture is about half of my students showing off their flowers. The second is of one of my students from Korea, named Ji Soo, watering her flower. (And since we cannot be there to tell our mom's in person... Happy Mother's Day. We love you and miss you so much!)

Training Ugandans to be pastors has presented not only some incredible conversations, but many cultural challenges as well. Ugandan culture teaches men to have multiple wives and not to show those wives love or affection. Some Ugandan women do not feel loved unless they are physically beaten regularly. This week in the village, I was asked to teach 15 men and two women an overview of the Old Testament. When we talked about Song of Songs we dove into how much love and passion Solomon had for his wife. I had the opportunity to challenge these leader in the church to not be ashamed to love their wives both in public and in private. The men were full of questions, and the first man to ask a question is on the leadership board of the entire African Gospel Church for Uganda. It was clear that God was moving in their lives. (This picture is at the village Church with Pastor Gideon)

Diesel Mob

Bang!!! Parked in a traffic jam at the gas station, I looked over my shoulder just in time to see a motorcycle taxi (boda boda) get hit by a Land Cruiser and the two boda passengers go flying to the ground five feet from my car. The woman on the back of the boda boda stood up holding her head and crying. Immediately every African around swarmed the Land Cruiser and began yelling at the driver- who I quickly noticed was another missionary in my organization. Getting on the phone, I got in touch with our field director and in fifteen minutes we had an insurance man on site. Once we got out of our cars, we were able to talk to the Ugandans around the vehicle and work the situation out. Because the accident was the fault of boda boda, the mob died down. It was tenuous for a moment because of the recent riot acts have gotten everyone worked up. (Good news: President Museveni has backed down from his hope to sell the forest, and the people hopefully will have no more riots.)

God moves through whistles

Joining our friends John, Erica, and Jeannie this weekend in Arua, N. Uganda, Annie and I were able to see how God is opening doors for them to start local ministries. One month ago, John and Erica moved to Arua, N. Uganda to create new ministry opportunities for our organization (WGM). God began opening doors through a sport that John loves, volleyball. Just behind their home, John heard a whistle blow and he went to check it out. He told us his story... "Walking up a trail, I found two hundred African eyes shift focus from the volley ball court to me. Standing in the midst of the Africans, I heard someone say, "You are welcome." Soon I joined in playing volleyball with these Ugandans, and bump...set...spike later they began to accept me as one of their own teammates." This experience has opened doors for John to help coach several of the players, and the head master of the school even wants them to come in and help with the spiritual development of the students.

The Maasai village is surrounded by a wall of thorn bush branches that they use to keep wild animals from attacking their children and livestock. Entering the village, the children that were running and playing beside their mud/dung homes turned quickly to give Dad, Mom, Annie, and me a big, fly-covered smile. The Maasai are known for their warrior skills, but as they opened their homes to us they shared with us more about their culture- which is just like stepping into the Old Testament (OT). Here is a little bit about what we learned...
The Maasai man typically has many wives that he purchases with cows. The first marriage is an arranged marriage, and the marriages there after can be chosen for love. If anything is to go wrong (sickness, baby who cries, etc.) it is believed to be because an ancestor is upset with them. To appease their ancestor they take an arrow, cut a hole in the neck of a cow, let blood drip into a leather container, and then pour it on the ground next to their home. If the ground soaks in the blood, then the spirit has been appeased. The Maasai financial value is determined by how many cows they own, and typically the richest man in the village is the "Traditional medicine doctor", aka witch doctor. If you go to a witch doctor for treatment, he will give you herbs (good for malaria, stomach ache, and even Viagra). Witch doctors often fabricate stories such as telling a new Maasai parent that their child is going to die. For the price of five or so cows he will pray that it does not happen. If the child does not die then he has done his job. However, if the child dies, then the people have not had enough faith.
Many of these beliefs and traditions are some of the same beliefs and traditions that we have heard about our whole lives- straight out of the Bible. It was fascinating to see, hear, and imagine what life might have really been like then.