Back in America

I made it back to america yesterday. I arrived at the knoxville airport at 7:00pm. Thanks for all of your prayers.

Sheep

I just wanted to update a little about what has been going on here recently at Kibidula. More specifically with the sheep program. Well about a month ago on a Tuesday one of our Maasai herders was out with the cows and a dog came up and bit him. Then a little bit later the dog came and bit me but very slightly on my leg and it fought with my dog a little bit. Then it went on to the lambs that were home during the day and bit a lot of the lambs. Well it turns out that the dog was most likely rabid. So the Maasai and I went to the hospital to get a rabies vaccine and then that Thursday we hopped on a bus and went to Dar es Salaam to get an Immunoglobulin shot that would practically give us 100% protection from getting rabies. I heard later that the same day I was bit the dog had fought with some other dogs on campus. The local villagers killed the dog the day after I was bit. There is no way here to send the dogs head into a lab and have it tested. But the local dogs here don't normally go around biting people and other animals so we have to consider that the dog is rabid. A week later my dog was euthanized because she didn't have a rabies vaccine, and so to prevent anyone else from getting hurt we put her down. The other dogs that weren't vaccinated or that weren't up to date were also put down. Well anyways about a week ago a lamb started to have trouble walking and then it couldn't move and then it died. So about 3 weeks after the dog went through we have lambs starting to show signs of rabies well at least we think so. So please pray that God can help us to stop the rabies. I hate seeing all of these lambs die. Thanks for your prayers.

Sheep

It has been really busy here the past few weeks. I got back from visiting a Mikumi National Park and hadn't heard from work much. A lot of sheep had died during the time I had been gone :( maybe 8 or 10? The sheep would pretty much just fall down dead they would stagger some and then fall down kick some and then die. And when we opened them up there was no visible sign of why they died. And we finally figured it out that it is probably Magnesium deficiency. But it was so weird it was only affecting our young pregnant ewes that were about to lamb within a few days or a week. But thankfully the deaths have slowed down and so far no new ones have died with these symptoms since Monday.

Now onto better news. Lambing season has begun here it started Friday I think with one or two and has escalated rapidly. Today 15 were born. The lambs are so adorable I need to take some pictures and post. One started to follow me around like a little puppy dog. She is so cute. Oh and I'll post some pictures of the animals I saw from the National park to. I'll try to write more tomorrow about what else is going on here. There is never too many dull moments here. And when there are they are much appreciated. Have a great day.

Molasses

Someone told me the other day that I need to write on my blog more. So here it goes. :) My supervisor and his family just got back from a three month furlough, and so I have been busy taking care of the sheep, cows, and Masai.

Well know we are in the middle of the dry season and so have started to feed hay and some grain to the sheep. We are mixing molasses and water together and then pouring it onto the hay and the sheep love it. Some of our sheep are changing color because they really get into the food. :) 

When I was mixing the molasses and water one da,y a lot of flies were trying to get some of it. Molasses is somewhat sweet and so the flies like it. As I'm sure most of you know molasses is very sticky and hard to get off. Well the flies would land on the molasses and then when they were ready they would try to get away but couldn't. Seeing this I thought molasses is a lot like the pleasures of this world they might be sweet and enjoyable for a time, but then when you want to get away you are caught in it and it is very hard to get away. Or maybe we are like the sheep the molasses helps the food taste better, but then you can see the molasses stuck on them. And so it is like that with us. We may go into the world and take part in its activities, but then when we are done we always have the scars or stains of the past with us. Only God can help us get rid of the stains of our past.

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.   Isaiah 1:18 KJV

Prayer

This last Tuesday as I was sitting outside near the barn on a trailer used to haul bales of hay. I was listening to one of the Maasai reading out of a Swahili Bible. A few Maasai, that work here at Kibidula, that I know of are Christians and the rest I don't know. But I was praying that as Lesikar was reading he would understand what he was reading. I had been praying that God would send at least one person that either was Maasai or knew how to speak the Maasai language to reach out to our Maasai herdsmen. Then yesterday one of the Evangelism teachers Tamara came and told me that there were about 8 Maasai here and that some even had Bibles in the Maasai language. I was so happy and excited. God had answered my prayer before I had even prayed it. He has done it before, but it is always so exciting every time it happens. Then tonight at vespers I got to meet some of the Maasai evangelism students. One is an older lady she is really sweet. She even started to teach me a little of the Maasai language which I am excited to learn. I wish you could have been there to see all of the Maasai they were so excited to have more of their own people here. I'm so happy. I know God has a plan and it will be excited to see. I also learned this week that former students of the Kibidula Training Center have gone and worked with the Maasai in Northern Tanzania and I think some of these students that came maybe the results of former students efforts. It is so amazing to here of how God is working here in Tanzania.

There are 3 people here from the Czech Republic, hope I spelled it right. They are preparing to do evangelism efforts in Kisada and Nlolo villages somewhat close to Kibidula. They will be here for  a total of 2 months, and 3 more people are coming to help with the preaching.

Tonight I was asked to give the worship talk next Friday night. I am not used to talking in front of a group of people much and am nervous and I have no clue what to talk about. So please pray that God will give me the words to say, and that what I will say will be what, the Evangelism students and whoever else comes, will need to hear. I know that God will help me, but I'm nervous. Thanks for your prayers.

Please pray that God will give me wisdom every day when I work with the Maasai and with the sheep and cattle.

Please pray for two of our sheep specifically one lamb that was bitten by a snake earlier this week, and has recovered and seems fine, but I don't know if anything else is wrong with her. Then earlier that same day another lamb broke it's leg. It looked like  limp noodle thankfully no bone was sticking out of the skin. Please pray that it will heal, we set  the leg but it was  bad break.

Also we need more workers here at Kibidula to do the work. Please pray that God will send people here to help with the work of spreading the Gospel to Tanzania.

Thanks for following my blog. Have  a wonderful Sabbath Day!!

Little Bo Peep

I did lose some sheep, but they came home wagging their tails behind them. :) I have a new nickname Little Bo Peep. Over a week ago I was supposed to have the sheep come back to the barn a little early and when the sheep weren't back at the right time I went to look for them. Meanwhile the director who was waiting to pick up some sheep to take to Mafinga called and asked where I was. I said I'm looking for my sheep. He said something about Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep. Then on Sabbath I received a call from one of the Maasai saying that one of the sheep couldn't walk and needed to be brought back to the barn. Well there were no cars down campus so we had to wait until one returned from church. Well we finally got up there and the Maasai said that they had gone back to look for it and it had walked away. But it was found two days later. In the mean time on Monday I had someone come to me and tell me that if we had any sheep missing that most likely one of the Maasai was going to sell it. Well to make a long story short it wasn't true we had accidently picked up a village sheep in our herd and some people were wanting to go look at it to see if it was theirs. But it got all worked out we still have a villagers missing sheep but we will wait to see if the person gives the right description of the sheep before we give it back to them.

Oh and we will be doing more regular counts of our sheep. So I will be counting sheep over the next few days, but I will not fall asleep while doing so. :)

The Lay-Evangelists were here for a week and they have returned or started their return journey's home today. Tomorrow our Evangelism students start to come for the new session. So there will be many more people on campus.

Thanks for all of your prayers they help  a lot.