What do you get when you combine four American women whose ages averaged together is fifty four?????? An awesome mission team! Together…Dr Brenda, Pam, Duck Ae and myself joined 2 Kenyans and 4 Ugandans and watched God work all around us in the hill country of Kenya. Overall Dr Brenda and the nurses were able to see over 150 children and 70 adults. Duck Ae, myself and our evangelism team had the opportunity to share the gospel and watched as God had a great harvest of more than 50.

Most of you remember a few months back I told you the story of Eric… a deaf boy who together we are helping to go to school. God has wonderful timing. As we were making our journey towards the hill country where we served, we passed right by the entrance to Erics school. His school was not 15 minutes from our motel! The morning I left to head back to Uganda, I got to stop and visit with him.

The Kenya school for the deaf and blind is an amazing facility. They serve 65 boys and young men who are either deaf, blind or both. They participate in raising crops, raising chickens, pigs, cows and ducks. They learn every aspect of agriculture, from making compost to harvesting the crops.

It’s a 3 year program and when Eric graduates, he will be able to do all of the above. The principle told me they cannot keep up the demand for job placement inquiries that come to the school. He told me these students are hired out before they graduate.

Walking in and seeing Erics surprised look was great. But the greatest thing of all was when I watched him use sign language and communicate with the principle. The principle asked him who I was and Eric signed that I was his sponsor. Then the principle asked him what my name was and Eric didn’t know. You see, before Eric went to this school he didn’t know how to communicate, so all he knew was that I was his sponsor. So, the principle signed my name and Eric smiled and signed my name! For the first time Eric now knows my name! How blessed am I to get to see such a wonder!

It was a great ending to the weeks of teaching and traveling for me as I left and headed back to Uganda and a great beginning for Dr Brenda and her team as they journeyed on to Tanzania and The Congo.

Sunday night I was listening to the podcast sermon from my daughters church. Pastor Richard Sego was talking about what it is going to be like when the rapture happens. He was talking about if a Christian here on earth is blind, that when the rapture happens the first thing they will visibly see is Jesus coming in all His glory. Well, that got me to thinking about my grandson Stephen and also Eric….the first thing their ears will ever hear naturally is the shout…followed by the voice of an arch angel…followed by trumpet blast!

Now I gotta tell you….I was covered in glory bumps as I realized what a special time this will be for Stephen, Eric and all the other of Gods special children that He chose to allow deafness here on this earth. Then I thought about those I met at the school who are blind….those who have never seen any image in their lifetimes….in the moment and the twinkling of an eye….their going to see the face of Jesus.

Wow…if you want to get excited about the day we are going to be raptured out of here, then I encourage you to visit http://www.airlinebaptist.org and listen to Sunday mornings sermon called, “Coming the way He left”.

It is good to be back here to the mission house in Uganda. Well, let me rephrase, it is good except the heat! 102 degrees, 96 in the shade, its just plain hot! It seems all is quiet and no evidence of violence from the recent elections. I’m still limited in where I can go alone, but hopefully that will all go back to normal soon. I especially miss being able to walk through the villages on my way to the orphan school. Thats a highlight of every day here. The armed guard that I wrote about last year moved while I was away, so now I have a new guard. But the other guards who rotated in and out are still here protecting me…so all is well.

I’m looking forward to serving with the teams coming in from the states from now until mid-April. I then have another conference in Kenya and two in Uganda before I head home for a visit in May. Looking forward to God continuing to do great and mighty things!

Love to all,

Joy Breedlove

Missionary-East Africa