Nov - Dec 2008
Not only did He reach down in the mire and save us but He has allowed me to preach the gospel. Even greater still, He allowed me to become a missionary. We have been allowed to see and be a part of things that most people only dream about.
We can then add to those blessings the fact that God has called all of our children into the ministry. Our 3 sons are missionaries starting churches, not just anywhere in the world but in the same country we work in. Although we only see some of them every few months we are able to keep in regular contact. Cheri and I just got to spend Christmas with our 3 sons, their wives and our 14 grandchildren. God is so good. He has now given us a further blessing by bringing a young man into our daughter’s life who was also called to Uganda as a missionary. After they get married on May 2nd and finish deputation, they will be joining us in Uganda.
If you would have told us years ago that by believing God’s Word and being obedient to Him that we would be enjoying all of these blessings I would have told you that it was impossible. Nothing is impossible with God.
We can then add to those blessings the great group of churches and friends we have who support our ministry and pray regularly for us. Truly we are blessed and God has shown us Great and Mighty things that we knew not of.
We pray that each one of you and the ministries you represent will have a wonderful New Year and together we will see God give us many, many souls as we continue laboring together.
The culture has placed our people in a difficult situation by telling them they are married when they in fact are not. Once they find out the seriousness of the problem, they work very hard and sacrifice in order to obey the Lord. Three of our men who are studying to become pastors called me to their village for not one, but three weddings on the same day. It was a wonderful thing to see the seriousness and willingness to sacrifice, going against tradition, to be right with God so that they can become the men of God they should be.
Ministries
We also had another week of training for all of our pastors. We taught through the Gospel of John. That might not seem much to you but these men held in their hands the first honest and accurate translation of the book of John in the Runyankore language. Needless to say it was an exciting week for both us and them. For the first time our Bible (KJV) and their Bible said the same thing and had all of the verses.
Souls are being saved and the ministries are going on well. Pray for us in 2009 that God would use us for His honor and glory. Thank you again for working with us in the Great ministry.
Note our new website address www.stensaasmission.org/wordpress
Because of Christ,
Bryan and Cheri Stensaas