1. Get in the car to drive to chapel so you can go to Kampala directly after, and learn the battery is dead.
2. Wonder why you failed to get jumper cables after the last time you had to jump-start a car (not my own).
3. Freak out about getting to Kampala.
4. Go to chapel, then talk to colleagues who are level-headed enough to suggest getting a university driver to jump the battery so you can go to your mechanic for a new battery.
5. Whilst in the jam on the way to the mechanic, note that one of the guys hawking wares whilst walking the road is hawking jumper cables. Do not buy them.
6. Go to the mechanic, get a new battery installed. Rejoice.
7. Since where you have to go is in the opposite side of a divided highway from where the mechanic is, go down, circle the roundabout, then go. back up where you first saw the hawking guys. But not the guy with the cables. Become slightly distressed.
8. See the guy with the cables, and buy them.
9. Get to your next destination, which includes seeing your godson.
Sudan Tut Bithow is a 22 year old Nuer student. He is married to Nyaduoth James Gadet and has one son whose name is Tesloach Sudan Tut, both of whom live in Pinyadu, about three hours drive from Gambela town.
Sudan was born in Panyang in South Sudan, but came as a refugee to Ethiopia in 2005. He was raised in the church and his mother is a member of the Mother’s Union. In 1998, after hearing a song in a Sunday school class, Sudan gave his life to Jesus and has served Him ever since.
His dream is to be a pastor of a church…but for now, he wants to study.
I am writing from Peru where I have been for the last three weeks. This has been the year for Peru. This is my fourth trip and there will be one more – in November.
When I return to Vermont on August 8 I shall have nearly four weeks left as part- time interim in Cambridge, NY. In September I shall retire again to the back of the church where I shall enjoy the ministry of others.
This year I have visited Lima in January, March and June. Last month we had an amazing Bible School at San Mateo school. We simply inserted it into the daily curriculum from 10:00am – 1:00 pm. I led the opening and closing sessions in some very iffy Spanish. The teachers taught their own classes a bible lesson for which we had prepared them the month before. The team from Grace Anglican Church, Fleming Island, FL, led the activities and supplied all the resources. The results have been amazing as “God showed up!”
This month I am exploring the possibilities for rebuilding two of our largest schools. One in Lima and the other in Arequipa. I am accompanied by an energetic young architect – Kyle Murphy. He has established a small NGO to design and help build new community structures that serve the poor in countries such as Peru.
What has been happening in Peru?
A year ago Peru consecrated three more bishops. Bishop Godfrey announced his retirement and departed in April for England where he is happily in charge of a historic church in Yorkshire. Bishop Jorge Aguilar was elected and seated as Diocesan Bishop in April. The country is now divided into missionary areas – with assistant bishops and “vicarios” in charge. Each of these is different and looking to grow by planting churches.
My recent role has been to improve and develop the North American partnerships. These relationships have been most effective in developing shared ministry and creating church structures that have been beyond the resources of the Peruvians. The partner churches and Dioceses do not really know the new leadership and so new trust and confidence need to be developed.
In November I shall return to Peru, with Polly, to take the essentially British services for Remembrance Day. There is no English speaking priest at the Cathedral, so I am filling in. This service is probably the most important in the year in the mind of the British and International community.
Next year, I will join the non-profit “Amigos del Peru” in seeking to hold a US conference in May 2017 where the Peruvian leadership can meet their historic Episcopal/Anglican partners in ministry. Such a meeting will require a great deal of organization—think visas, finances, and venue. Please pray for this to happen and that the right people will be able to come. When I return to the USA, I shall begin in earnest to work to put this together coordinating with ex-missionaries, partner parishes and Dioceses.
Please pray on with me as these are exciting times. God is at work – bless you for sharing in this ministry through prayer and financial support. Together we make a strong team. Ian
We’re finally here! Exactly seven months after we got married we stepped off the plane in the beautiful country of Belize ready to start our new ministry together. It’s a little strange sitting here on the couch in our home (something I’ve been excited about for months now!), watching the rain (it’s pouring as a potential hurricane gets closer and closer), and I think about everything that happened to get us to this point.
The first four months of our marriage consisted of a mix between David spearheading the deputation process to get us back here in Belize and me finishing my final semester at CSUF. We actually got into a pretty good rhythm even with the unexpected mishaps (our car’s AC going out as we drove through the desert and then us breaking down right before sunset…just to name one). Then the week after I graduated we were off to the Midwest to spend time with his parents and connect with more churches. While travelling so much has been tiring (I don’t tend to sleep much in new places), it was a lot of fun to get to know David’s family better. Plus, my mother-in-law and I got to make some pretty good desserts (Cake Balls!!) and watch Hogan’s Heroes….all in all our time in the Midwest was good!
One of the highlights of our summer for me was getting to fly home and participate in the beautiful wedding of my brother and his new wife Miriam. So much love and joy in one day! I can’t wait to see how there new adventure together plays out.
After returning to the Midwest for another week we headed to Toronto for some cross-culture training. I think this is where it started to hit me about the life David and I were stepping into together. I had just spent the past two weeks packing up my life, saying goodbye to both sides of our family and friends, crying way more than I had expected (I’m telling you there was some serious bawling going on), and then heading the opposite direction of Belize to Canada. The amount of stress was rather high, to put it lightly… I feel like I should ask here, did you know traveling just through the airport itself could be incredibly stressful?? The night before we flew to Toronto we spent at least two hours moving around just a couple pounds between our five suitcases and carry-ons just to make sure we weren’t overweight. We got to the airport and held our breath as they weighed our bags. Success! Now we were carrying around probably a hundred pounds between us in our carry-ons we waddled though the airport (well…I waddled…), but we made it on the plane. You should have seen the size of my backpack!
Our time in Toronto was very good. While the classes were helpful (there were a few that were outstanding!), the main thing that was nice about the trip was getting to connect with so many other missionaries that were also preparing to pack-up life and home and move to other countries around the world sharing God’s love and mercy. The connections made there are ones that I’ll take with me everywhere we go. Not only did we get to know people in our classes, but we were able to go with friends heading to Honduras and Canada’s First Nations to a part of the city where we had dinner in China town, walked through an area that seemed Jamaican, walked into a Jewish Synagogue at the beginning of Sabbath, went through what seemed to be the Hispanic quarter with some really good looking restaurants, and then eat some Italian gelato. So much diversity! The next day we went with friends that will be serving in Benin to Niagara Falls and spent one of our final days there. By the end of that final weekend in Toronto David and I were refreshed and ready to head back to Belize that Monday…but that was not going to happen…
Do you ever have those moments when you just know Satan is doing everything he can to stop you? That’s what happened when we got up Monday morning. As a whole, everything that could go wrong did go wrong that day. We got up at 2:30 in the morning to head to the airport for our 6:15 flight when I looked at my phone and saw that our plane had been delayed five hours. Now on one hand that might not seem so bad because you would think that maybe you could go back to sleep for a few hours before the flight, but no. We had to check in for our original flight (and we were surrounded by a bunch of grumpy people who were also missing flights). Our hope had been to get on another flight that morning so we could make our connection to Belize (since there is only one flight from Atlanta to Belize a day), but that would not be the case. The best they could do was get us on the same flight from Atlanta the next day and give us a hotel for the night. While we were extremely frustrated with the delay there were little things that showed us that God was still in control (like us being the first people in line that needed our flight rescheduled and the lady being extremely nice and helpful while everything else seemed to be falling a part). There were still so many little things that kept going wrong all day. Do you ever get to the point where so much goes wrong that it almost becomes comical? Don’t get me wrong, we were tired, frustrated, and really wanted to just go home, but it was still funny to see these things go wrong and know that either way we were going to end up in Belize and if God really wanted us there this couldn’t stop us. And it didn’t. We made it to Atlanta, had even more mishaps, and fell asleep in another hotel early that night.
When I got up Tuesday morning I was a little weary about the day, wondering if it would be as bad as the day before, but with God’s help (and David and I getting pretty good and maneuvering through airports), we made it on the plane with all bags checked (again) and headed for Belize.
I’m going to take a quick moment here to brag on my husband. While I’ve mentioned only a few of the stressors of our travels (and believe me, there were WAY more), David stayed so calm and controlled and got us through everything smoothly. I don’t know if I could have handled it without him… I’ve got myself a keeper!
For Monday to be so awful it was quite amazing to see how smoothly Tuesday ended up going. We got to Belize safely, made it through immigration and customs without a hassle, had wonderful friends there to pick us up, went to the diocesan office to take care of some paperwork and finally made it to our home.
It’s a little funny being here this time. I’ve been to Belize three times before now (two of which were exactly this time of year) and every other time I’ve had David there waiting for me, had an automatic countdown start in my head of when I would have to leave, and experienced everything from the outside. But this time David was there from the beginning, we were starting an adventure together, and there was no countdown…we’re living here now. I thought it would feel strange when we got here (and to some degree that’s true), but you know what? The biggest thing I felt when we got here was “finally home”. Since we got married David and I have sort of been in transition, not really having a settled feeling, and we got to a point where we made everywhere we landed “home”. Now that we’re here though that feeling is even stronger. It’s been seven months since we said our “I do’s” and now were home again.
So that was a kind of long summary/reflection of the last seven months. I could add so much more, but I’ll probably hold off for now. Overall, looking back over everything I can see how God carefully guided us to this point. And now I can’t wait to see what plans He has for us here in Belize. “The Adventure Continues!”
Greetings from the Toronto Airport! Mary Beth and I are sort of stranded today: we should have been in Belize today, but unfortunately a delayed flight has pushed back our arrival until tomorrow. In the meantime, we figured this is probably a great time to write you an update as we exit North America and enter into a new life and ministry in Belize (Lord willing) tomorrow.
Where to begin? The last few weeks have flown by! We returned to California for a few days to attend the wedding of Mary Beth’s brother, and in addition to finalizing the bulk of our packing, said some painful goodbyes to family members and close friends. The same could be said for the next week that we spent with my family in Indiana and Ohio. Our hearts are full, to the point of being heavy with the pain of parting and distance, but at the same time we are enjoying the growing anticipation of our being back in Belize and serving the Lord in mission there!
As our ministry launch in Belize has been drawing closer, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the progress in our financial support. Thanks to many, many faithful partners, our monthly support has come to just over 80% of our overall budget. Despite the ongoing deficit, you can how pledges and gifts have grown, and this has meant that (as of today) Mary Beth is now officially a SAMS employee with salary and benefits.
This also means that, of the support that we had to raise when Mary Beth was accepted as a SAMS missionary a year ago, we have 26% left to raise. We are so grateful when we see everything that the Lord has done to get us to this point, and we are trusting him to get our mission all the way to 100% as soon as possible! Please keep our financial support in your prayers, and if you are interested in partnering with us financially, please let us know!
The last two weeks of our journey has taken place in Toronto, as we joined together with missionaries from many denominations and many parts of the world for MissionPREP’s IMPACT training. We loved making connections with so many incredible people involved with missions, and we felt the Lord challenging us at various points of the two weeks together. In many ways, it was the perfect way to transition from life and ministry in North America to life and ministry in Belize.
And so here we are: almost there. It’s a good place to be. As we prepare to return, we would ask that you pray especially for the following requests:
Mary Beth’s visa paperwork. During our first few days in the country we will be applying for Mary Beth’s missionary work permit visa. There are a lot of hoops to jump through, and we ask you to pray that we move through everything quickly and smoothly.
Acclimating to our new life. Belize right now is hot and humid, and a tropical storm is brewing in the Caribbean as I type this. Additionally, we anticipate many things to have changed in our world in San Ignacio, our churches and schools, and though it will certainly take some adjusting for me, it will take even more for Mary Beth. Please pray that we would make all these adjustments well, with a good attitude and flexibility, and we would soon be feeling at home.
Health during the transition. With all the traveling, our health (especially Mary Beth’s) has been up-and-down over the last few weeks. As we undergo the stress of this transition, please pray that our health would improve, and that we would find a new and healthy equilibrium in Belize.
That financial support. As I shared above, we would like our financial support to reach 100% as soon as possible. Please pray that the Lord would raise up passionate partners with our ministry for the coming months and years.
Again, thank you all for your prayers and support! May the Lord richly bless you!
