Bwanabob

5/24/2005

Dear Friends,

Things are going well here in Turkana, the Lord has blessed with rain and we are so thankful. The temperature has dropped into the 80s and 90s which is a welcome change.

Rain brings interesting developments among our churches. Two weeks ago it rained near one of our churches closer to Uganda so many Turkana migrated that direction. The result was a large drop in attendance in two of our churches where it hadn’t rained and a large increase in the church in the area where it rained. It is a challenge working with nomadic peoples, but it seems the best strategy is to try and plant as many churches as we can in the different trading centers around Turkana District, then as folks migrate to different regions they will be able to attend the church in their area.

Recent work has involved much preparation for a group of college students who will be coming in June. I have set up the wall posts for two different church buildings in hopes that we will be able to put the roofs on when our group arrives. We have also dug a well, poured a foundation and prepared cement blocks at the Bible Institute in preparation for work we plan to do there. By the end of this week we hope to have completed a second foundation and made enough cement blocks to build a kitchen and caretakers house at the Bible Institute.

I was greatly blessed these past two weeks to spend some time with some of the Pastors in their churches. In Namoroputh we put up the wall poles on a Saturday and then I preached on Sunday and afterward baptized 23! The following week I went to Neremit and again we set the wall poles on a Saturday and on Sunday I preached. At Neremit I was able to fellowship with three pastors and our missionary to Sudan. It was a great blessing to hear of their vision to reach many new villages in Turkana and Sudan with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe if the Lord moved us on tomorrow we could leave knowing that the national pastors have a vision of reaching their own whether they have my help or not.

Ericka is working hard preparing for the group that will be coming and on top of that trying to keep up with three little boys. Our boys are certainly boys, Vance tries to run down the dogs and cats with his little push car, Edward eats anything that doesn’t eat him first and Riley has a strong set of lungs and can inform the whole neighborhood when he is not happy. So, pray for Ericka, she makes our house a very nice home even with the chaos of those three little ones and my traveling.

The longer I’m here the more I realize how much I don’t know about Turkana and the more I realize that the nationals are so much more effective at reaching their own for the Lord Jesus. Pray that we would be good partners with the national pastors and that all of us would be grounded in God’s Word, abiding in Him, that He may bring forth much fruit in our lives.

In Christ,

Bob Clark