Update on Mama John's roof

Yesterday and today have been the first days in over a week that I have not woken up feeling sick. I think I am on the rebound now, thankfully. We have been getting tons of rain the past few weeks. It causes the plants to bloom and I think that triggers my allergies which brings on painful sinus headaches.

Speaking of rain, a few of you have been wondering about Mama John and her house. I was really surprised when several people were led of God to help this lady. It is a huge testimony of the ability of God. We were given gifts of money that exceeded my estimation of $300 to finish her roof. It is always a good thing to have more than you need, especially in this case. By the time we got done with everything the total bill was a little more than $600.

Mama John is lacking one small piece of roofing and a door, but please do not send any more money for this project. It is an difficult situation to be in. If we help her too much it actually does more harm than good. Especially for the others that are in the church. Envy is one of the worst sins in this country.

Here is a video of Mama John saying thank-you.

My translation is very loose but basically she says: Thank you, I am thankful for the good gift to help build my house. It is going well. Thank you to all of the churches who love Tanzania. I only need help in buying a door so that I can move into the house. Thank you so much.

If you missed the opportunity to give to this cause you can still get in on other blessings. We have a new church to build, property to buy, and many other people we could help. One woman in our church who is a widow and new Christian, asked me if I could loan her the money to buy 20 liters of cooking oil. She thinks she could re-sell it at the market in a matter of 1-2 days and make a weeks worth of profit from it. I love helping someone who is not looking for a free ride but is willing to do the work. There is a little risk that she may decide to never pay me back the $26 for the oil.

I think we are beginning to fall into our niches here on the mission field. Cathy has been teaching two young women some basic baking skills at our house. It began as one of those “this might be a good idea” discussions and has begun to grow.

We decided to send Anna, our part time house worker, to English school while we are gone for our 7 month furlough. She is in her 2nd week of classes and was struggling a little. Recently, Cathy went to the adult school in town where they are teaching the English class and while the class waited for the teacher to wander back from his 2 ½ hour lunch was able to help many of the students understand their lesson better. They all asked Anna where Cathy lived so they could come and get some more English lessons at our house. Thankfully, Anna declined to give out that information.

Please pray
I have been busy preparing Sunday School lessons to leave behind during our absence. Pray that I would have the energy to complete them all.

I would like to sell my van so that I can afford to buy a truck when we return next year.

Pray for us as we pack up to leave for fourlough, only 3 ½ weeks away.

Please pray that God leads us to a good house to rent in Michigan. I made some errors in my budget and it has left us homeless because I can’t afford the rent for a house I had planned on using.