Farming

We have spent the last two weeks repairing the farm from the earlier flood damage and trying to prevent this from happening again. We finally received a break in the rains and were able to hand dig ditches through our crops and out of our fields. We also dug a culvert under the new road that was causing all of the problems. A steady flow of water drained through these ditches and out of the crops for almost five days straight. It was a lot of water.

Once the water receded we were able to go in and look at the crops. We

Trenching out the farm after heavy flooding. We have lost 20% of our corn. 30% is yellow and nitrogen deficient but we cannot get nitrogen to it until all the water drains off the fields. This means that around 50% of our corn crop is doing well and for that we are thankful.

While we were looking at the corn we realized the army worms were back. When we saw a short recede in rains (we only needed 5 hours but God graciously gave us 24 hours) we sprayed again to hopefully kill the worms.

Monday, we replanted our bean crop. We are praying these flooding rains are over and that the short shower rains will come now. If they do, we hope this replanted crop will do well.

Also, our farm manager, Agustine, and his wife had their fourth child Monday! We love this family dearly and are rejoicing with them on their new baby girl.

Evangelism

This month we conducted a children’s seminar at Manyire. Anna and Jane taught the children the story of the 1 lost lamb in 100 and about how God cares for all of us. The children, shepherds themselves, responded well to this story. Next, they talked about Paul and Silas in prison and how God cares for us even when things are bad and we can rejoice in that. It was a great day overall and despite the weather conditions we had many in attendance. While Anna was teaching I had the opportunity to share the. Gospel with a man in Manyire. He had many questions and even called his preacher and was upset when his preacher could not answer his questions. He has invited us back to meet with him and other church members including the preacher. Please pray for this man and that he will seek out the church and obey the Gospel.

Anna continues to teach at the local school and daycare. She also continues to go and do encouragement studies every week with members of the church. This week she went to visit and encourage a recent convert. This lady is 18 and recently gave birth to twin boys at 7 months in her shop in Kisongo. Someone took her to the hospital and thankfully the boys survived. She was in the hospital with the pre-mature babies until last week when they released her. She has lost her job and her home due to the hiatus in the hospital with her babies. The church has graciously been covering her needs. Please pray for this new mom who has no family here. And pray for the boys, David and Dennis.

I am also continuing the lessons on leadership/eldership at Kisongo for the past 5 weeks. The next two weeks we will start the qualifications and have a final week of question and answer before Central Church of Christ arrives and will be doing a seminar all week on leadership/eldership. Please pray for the Church as they look for spiritual leaders to guide them.