Wednesday, December 5, 2018

December 5, 2018

       
 This is a snapshot of the page in our kids’ devotion book from last night.  The story was about Joseph meeting Pharoah’s cupbearer in prison and the lesson was, “God brings people into our life for special reasons.  He always knows what we need.”
          A year ago we were on our way back to South Sudan after a period of time when I was here building our house and Amy and the kids were in Uganda.  We stopped for lunch on the way up and saw another American family with children, so we started visiting with them.  We happened to see the same family at the same restaurant twice after that, it just turns out that all of our trips happened to coincide.  A few weeks ago, our family was headed home after training in Kenya and we stopped to visit our new friends for lunch on the way.

While our family was headed home we started having car trouble, again.  While we were in Kenya our mechanic was working on the transmission and injector pump, but it turns out that the problems weren’t completely solved, and we were halfway back to Lohutok before we found out – the hard way.  We stopped in Kitgum, where we normally overnight on the way home, but instead of just spending the night we spent five.  The mechanic came from Kampala with a transmission in the back of his car, installed it in our LandCruiser, it still didn’t work, he went back for some kind of computerized control unit that was required and he didn’t realize was missing from the car when he came, brought that back to Kitgum and installed it, and the transmission still didn’t work.  While at the hotel Caleb got a bacterial infection that kept him up at night, and Ezekiel went on antibiotics for an ear infection.  At this point I (Justin) was just ready to give up.  How much time are we going to spend on car trouble and sickness?
          When the mechanic told me he had to go BACK to Kampala again to get a new control unit, I told him to just go in our vehicle.  It was drivable but not shifting right, so if he could get it back to Kampala he could finish the work there instead of doing more back-and-forth for spare parts.  He agreed, left me with his vehicle (a funny little Suzuki that looks like a roller skate) and left with our LandCruiser.

          The next problem I had to deal with was where we would stay.  We were already way over budget on car repairs, and the hotel stay that was supposed to be 1 night had turned into 5 already, and who knows how long it’s going to take to actually fix our vehicle?  We have a place in Kampala, but that means having the kids in the car for an extra 2 long days of driving, and our place was being used.  We messaged a few other friends just to see if there was anything available that was cheaper than where we were staying, but doors just closed left and right.  Finally, Amy decided to message our friends whom we had only met on a few short occasions (and who lived just an hour away from Kitgum) to see if they had any ideas.  It turns out, they have a guesthouse and, although they normally charge per night for people to stay there, they wouldn’t ask anything from people like us having an emergency. 
          We ended up staying in the guesthouse for the next seven nights.  Amy got to meet some new missionary wives/mothers while Ezekiel and Caleb got to make some awesome new friends, and Justin got to go back to Kampala to get the car…and then spend the night again on the way back because the alternator/battery weren’t charging! 
          Last night was our first night home getting back into the routine of family time/devotions.  When I opened the book and realized what story we were on, we talked to the kids about how God used all of Joseph’s problems to bring about something really awesome, and God put people in Joseph’s path who could help him later when he needed it, just like our friends in Uganda were there when we needed them.  Praise the Lord for his kind provision!

Now that we’re back it’s time to get going on language learning again.  Pray for us that we make good progress in language and homeschool over the next stint in Lohutok, and that God would protect us from more car trouble and sickness!

Thanks for praying as always,

Justin, Amy, Ezekiel and Caleb

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