We studied the background of the gospel of John. It is common over here to hand out this gospel to members and non members. It is more expensive than handing out tracks to be sure but also much less than buying full Bibles. We try to distribute as many Bibles as we can but when money is tight we hand out the Gospel of John. It is easy to see why. This Gospel was written as a witness, especially suited to those who have little to no background in the Old Testament. John claims in essence to have written the first Christian apologetics book. Here he sets forth in compelling detail all the evidence for the deity of Christ. And yet this God whom John writes about is always the God who “dwelt among us.” John speaks of himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” yet never fails to show how much that love of Christ extended to every human He came in contact with. In one story after another John pictures for us the love and grace of God pouring forth from Jesus Christ and changing the lives of all those among whom He dwelt.

Oh yeah, Moses took me to the beach

School Staff and Church Eldership

Sunday School

Sunday School

More photos from Mary in the month of March.  You can take a peek at the new church cabinet, donated in large part by Russ Schmitt.  This keeps all of the church ware, books, and school supplies in good condition and very safe.

Also pictured is the Sunday School choir and the teachers and elder people of Holy Cross Emmaus of Milimani.

Christmas Gifts

Guest House Construction

Guest House Construction

Guest House Construction

Guest House Construction

Guest House Construction

Guest House Construction

Guest House Construction

Here are some recent photos received from Mary Sagala.  There are many shots of the progress being made on the guest house.  This is located on Anna Sagala’s property.  After the completion of the guest house, construction of Anna’s new home will begin.  This is something undertaken by Anna and her family members to improve their home property and have a place for many friends, family, and other visitors to be able to stay.

Also shown is the distribution of Christmas gifts of toothpaste and toothbrushes which were purchased back in November but given out for the Christmas celebration.  The children either received a small toothpaste and toothbrush or a gift of similar value.

First off, Julia Otieno is still hospitalised from having part of her leg amputated.  This was due to complications from diabetes.  A fundraiser to offset the medical costs will be held at their home on the 18th of this month.

Desks have been constructed and purchased, outfitting all five of the classrooms of Emmaus Hill school adequately.

Since my departure in the middle of December, 9 people have been baptized in the church and a very trustworthy elder has joined the church fully.

The school enrollment for pre-school through standard 3 now stands at 152.

The school staff consists of 6 teachers, 3 of whom are fully trained, the other 3 having many years of experience in education.

Pictures of all these recent events are on their way.

There was some difficulty getting together with the members because of the nearness of holy week and the fact that the younger members had exams. Victor himself got sick the day he was supposed to leave to meet me there, but the members all know English pretty well, so it wasn’t a problem for me to meet with them by myself.

I meet with the members at a hotel in Vasco on Thursday and Friday evening. There were ten members that were able to make it, for about two hours. They were all for the most part younger members. I’m not sure why the older members weren’t able to come. We went through a quick overview of basic doctrines rather than spending an expended amount of time on one or two.

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I have been rather lax in my journaling activities for the last two months. As I become more accustomed to these foreign surroundings my activities and travels seem more and more routine and therefore less worthy of chronicling. But it always makes for an exciting and noteworthy week when friends from the home side of the world come to visit.

A little over a week ago, on Thursday the 15^th of March, Mr and Mrs Duden from the Red Wind MN area arrived early in the morning for a visit to India. Purely by coincidence Vanessa Meyer had been also planning a trip at the same time and arrived a few days later on Sunday the 18^th. Duden’s brought crayons, coloring books, and other presents for the kids. Vanessa who had little experience teaching nevertheless courageously accepted the challenge and prepared a bible story for the kids. Thus we spent the week traveling to various churches, teaching two parables and handing out gifts to the children. The four of us visited four congregations in the evening Tuesday through Friday. The Dudens visited two more congregations traveling with Dave Koenig to Nellore and Chengleput. While I was with them we handed out a total of about 350 coloring books and crayon boxes, also balloons, candy, pencils, and Vanessa’s handmade necklaces.

On Friday the visit was a bit more extensive. Mr. Duden as a farmer was interested in visiting the rice paddies of the BELC. After this we stopped at D Paul’s house for supper. D Paul’s second daughter was home from school for the weekend and had brought a friend along. They wanted to take Vanessa shopping but since she had to leave Saturday night there wasn’t any chance for this. After the normal lessons and worship in the village that night the Indian children put on an extensive program of songs and dancing, which Vanessa and Mrs. Duden enjoyed while Mr. Duden waited patiently in the car.

Besides this mad rushing about, our visitors also received the chance to visit a wedding the first Sunday they were here and stopped at the Chennai reptile zoo on Saturday. Saturday evening we all got together at my apartment and barbecued chicken on the roof of my apartment building while watching the sun set over Chennai.

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On Friday the 24^th of March the district chairman of the BELC meet with Dave Koenig and me for our bimonthly chairman’s meeting. Normally we would have held it in January but both Pastor Koenig and I were absent from India until early February.

All of the Chairman spoke about the growth of the word of the Lord. Moses has started a new church Naidapet. Victor has gained again a lost pastor. Dave Koenig spoke about the completion of eight church building which is now possible because of the very generous gift of one of our American brothers. We certainly thank the Lord for this donation. Rajamani spoke about his trip to Malaysia.

Across the Bay of Bengal in Kuala Lumpur a number of Tamil speaking Indians live and work. Some of these men know of Pastor Rajamani and his work here in India. They have been asking Rajamani to visit them and investigate the building of Lutheran churches among them in Malaysia. Finally they were able from their own pockets to provide the means for Rajamani’s trip. Rajamani left last November and spent one month in Malaysia. He met with 15 pastors and discussed the catechism and 4 of the seven pamphelets. D Paul and Rajamani plan to remain in touch with these men and continue to send them materials.

An alligator in the Nesbit Castle Hotel

Conference with the men from around Bulwayo

Todd teaching the men from Bulawayo

On Sunday around noon we finally meet with the Apostle Liberty Atawa for the first time in person. We were speaking with him about the problems in Zimbabwe for the spread of the Gospel. He complained that no one wants to listen to teaching. “They will say, ‘yesterday we were dancing and singing and today we are only talking.’”

Liberty gathered twelve men for us to meet briefly with on Sunday night, and another five for a total of seventeen which gathered together on Monday for study. Again since it was our first meeting with these men we went through the CLC statement of faith and purpose. Already in our brief talk Sunday night many of the men were eager to be taught. They expressed a great desire in the possibility of going to school at the Bible School in Tanzania, even though that would mean leaving their homes and families for five years. A few of them were already taking correspondence courses from a Bible School in South Africa, and a few were enrolling in classes at local bible colleges.

During our conference on Monday there were definitely some questions and even some lively debate. These mainly centered on speaking in tongues/miracles, baptism, and women in the church. I always find it far more encouraging when pastors ask questions and challenge what I am teaching rather than simply nod along in agreement. For one it shows they care. For another it shows they are familiar with God’s word (they were often taking me to passages ). For a third it shows that they know what their churches teach. And for a fourth it shows they have the backbone to stand up for what they believe to be right. Furthermore they often seemed not to be asking so much because they disagreed with us but because these were arguments they faced and questions the wrestled with. For example I noticed that the man who was grilling me most ardently on speaking in tongues was also the quickest and loudest to clap after Todd and I had answered those questions with scripture.

After everything it was a very encouraging meeting. We pray that the Lord would continue to bless the work through Pastor Gullerud and Liberty here. Liberty is going to continue to meet with these men every month and take them through more lessons, which Pastor Gullerud will be sending him. Hopefully when a missionary returns next year there will be seventeen solid foundations and even more in the process.

In Christ, Matthew Ude

The Pastors from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Pastor Ibrahim pretending a bowl is a hat

Victoria Falls

Todd Ohlmann, Ibrahim, Matthew Ude at Victoria Falls

Friday January 27^th we held a short conference with the pastors from Lusaka, and pastor Yumba from D R Congo. Pastor Yumba had accompanied us from Lubumbashi in order to meet the new pastors in Lusaka. As this was our first meeting with these men we took them through the CLC statement of faith and purpose. These men had already been studying with Ibrahim and were familiar with our doctrine. There were some questions, but not really any disagreement. The men seemed ready and eager to study and learn and join Ibrahim in working for the Lord in Lusaka, and throughout Zambia.

We ended the conference at 3pm and Todd, Ibrahim, and I packed up for the trip to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. We had intended to take a plane but there are apparently no direct flights. The journey by car it is close to 15 hours. So we had decided to drive to Livingstone Friday night and get a bus from Victoria Falls City to Bulwayo on Saturday. Saturday morning we woke up and since Victoria Falls is right there we stopped to see it. There is little I can say about Victoria Falls other than to simply state that is without a doubt the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. I will post a few picture but of course they can hardly do it justice.

Zimbabwe ran into a bit of economic trouble a few years back and was having some serious currency problems; as a result they took a rather unique solution. They quit printing money altogether. Instead they just use American Dollars. Almost everyone will apparently accept Euros, and Pounds as well but as far as I could tell Dollars were the predominant form of currency. However they don’t use American coins instead if they have to give you change for less than a dollar they give it in Rand (from South America). It all seems like it would be a bit confusing for them but for us it made things easy.

[I will post more pictures of Victoria Falls later ]