To grow deeper in my relationship with God and in Christlike character... I have been reminded lately that my first priority and the key to ministry is to continually be in relationship with Jesus. If I remain in Him, He will produce fruit in me; fruit that will last! He will use me in the lives of those whom I am discipling. So I am asking God for His grace to help me to be more disciplined in sitting with Him, praying, studying Scripture, and other exercises I do with the Lord. As I abide in Him, He leads me when I listen and talk to others, teach, preach, work, etc! I praise Him for reminding me of these truths and ask for Him to bless me and empower me by His Spirit to walk with Him in my life and ministry!

To be fluent in Kinyarwanda... I have much joy when I think about how the Lord has led me, empowered me, and given me so much grace in order to be able to speak well with others in Kinyarwanda. I still have much to learn and many areas in which to improve,  and that will continue as long as I live in Rwanda. Even still, I believe it is time to lessen the amount of study I am doing in order to do other ministry. Being able to talk to people in their own language here has to be one of the most fulfilling experiences in my life. When I was in Burundi with my family, I preached in a worship service in Kinyarwanda (which is very close to Kirundi). It was an amazing experience to preach and watch my family members listening to an interpreter because they didn’t understand me! It is amazing how far I have come in this language, but if I stop and think about all of the words I don’t know yet, or all of the grammatical mistakes I make, it is discouraging! So, in the next months I am going to spend two mornings a week studying Kinyarwanda grammar and increasing my vocabulary. My goal is to be very fluent in Kinyarwanda! Please keep praying with me about this.

The Lord has given me more direction about what He has for me to be doing in the following months and years. I believe my calling at this point is To have a helpful role in the overall growth of the Rwandan Friends Church; to help bring depth and life transformation in Christ by the Holy Spirit to our churches... In order to accomplish this goal I will be focusing on several areas. I hope to disciple and mentor people into a discipleship movement, which includes evangelizing and discipling lost people. So I am spending time with a few guys and praying about a couple of others whom the Lord has for me to invest in. I also will be learning and implementing a new model for small groups that is both evangelistic and helpful in empowering the local community in the area of life transforming development (all of life—physical and spiritual). Another major task is to study and learn about the Rwandan traditional religion. I believe that this study will help me learn about the worldview of Rwandans, and also see more clearly places in which Christ has not been allowed to be Lord. There are parts of the Christian faith in Rwanda, and all over the world, that have been shaped by the sinful culture of the people there, not by Christ and His Word!
 I have been reminded lately that my first priority and the key to ministry is to continually be in relationship with Jesus. If I remain in Him, He will produce fruit in me; fruit that will last! He will use me in the lives of those whom I am discipling. So I am asking God for His grace to help me to be more disciplined in sitting with Him, praying, studying Scripture, and other exercises I do with the Lord. As I abide in Him, He leads me when I listen and talk to others, teach, preach, work, etc! I praise Him for reminding me of these truths and ask for Him to bless me and empower me by His Spirit to walk with Him in my life and ministry!

Highlights...

• We had a great time while our family and the Saltshaker team was here with us!
• There is new and exciting direction from the Lord for my ministry at this time!It was a refreshing and encouraging time at Kumbya Missionary Conference!

In the next days...

• Please pray for our Missions Conference that will include Friends leaders from Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Uganda, and Kenya. Bob from Nepal will be our main speaker! Pray for God to give vision and excitement to our African church leaders about sending missionaries to other countries. The conference will be Sept. 6-8.
• Michelle and I are helping some of our friends adopt a Rwanda orphan. Please pray with us about that in the next month.