Update #1

Greetings in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
To start out with, I should make a quick disclaimer that this will inevitably be a long email as our lives have changed drastically over the last week. So bear with me if you will.
We made it safely to our destination. Our layovers and flights lasted about 30 hours (with a 12 hour time zone change). We flew out on Tuesday, August 5th and got in on Thursday. Our plane landed in J------ where our American friend picked us up and drove us two hours to our new city. The driving here is off the wall. It makes Chicago and New York City look like a child’s playground. We were whipping past cars, swerving in and out of lanes, horns honking all the time, and nearly hitting the hundreds of motorcyclists on the road.
When we finally got to B------, and we realized that it is not a city that is as ‘Westernized’ as we had thought. They have roads and fast food restaurants (McDonalds is considered a ‘nice’ restaurant), but any feel of Western America was defiantly left on the plane. B------ is a very crowded city with people everywhere. There is a large wealthy and poor division among the people and many rundown shanties lined the streets, garbage is thrown everywhere, and the open culverts to help with water displacement are used for garbage disposal and usually stink.
We arrived at some people who are working as M. in the city and we are staying with them until we can get our work visas. Due to new laws issued by the government, a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate is necessary and so I’ve been taking online courses to get certified. Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long to get or visas, then I’ll be able to start teaching fulltime.
We made our first trip to the school on Friday. It was more than we were hoping for. There is an enrollment of 450 students this year, more in the younger aged classes then the upper school age children I’ll be teaching. It was great to get out and begin meeting the teachers and students. My classes are currently being taught by other teachers until the work visa can get through. The school is on about 13 acres of land and has been growing exponentially since its start 4 years ago. We spent an hour or so at the school and then headed home to recover from our jet leg.
On Saturday we took our first trip out into the heart of the northwest part of the city. It was great to get out and see where we’re living. Little vendors are on every street corner trying to sell their products (everything from fireworks to day old fried foods), at every stoplight there are beggars asking for money, playing guitar, or having their pet monkeys perform tricks. Quite a site to behold!
Sunday saw us attending C. with the family we are staying with. We had a good time of fellowship with many of the native people afterwards and we were treated to a real native meal at a local restaurant. It was wonderful getting to know some of the locals.
This week has been busy thus far preparing for my online courses, visiting the school again and sitting in on my classes. Rachel and I picked up a couple of dictionaries and we are attempting to learn the language. The M. family we are staying with has been here for 20+ years and have been helping us out with basic statements. We met with some Southern Baptist M. who live down the street from where we’re staying and had a good conversation with them. We went on a walk and got in a brief dialogue with a local, but to our dismay, she only spoke the native tongue, no English.
Our time here has been good. We are anxious to get our feet more in the water with each passing day. We ask that you would continually pray for our encounters with people and that we would have wisdom as we seek the Lord’s will. Proselytizing is illegal here and we pray that we would have wisdom to know when to speak openly and boldly and when to hold our words. We have been told that relationships are the best means of reaching out, and we pray that in the midst of our soon-to-be busy schedules and jobs, that we will have time to form relationships with those around us. The city is in need of the Gospel. The Muslim population is very evident here and we hear the call to prayer five times a day; it would be our hope that the call of the Gospel would radiate throughout our lives and those around us. We would also covet your prayers as we begin a ministry with the Christians. We pray that they and us might be mutually edified for the glory of God.
Words to leave you with come from Psalm 28:9, ‘Oh save your people and bless your heritage! Be their shepherd and carry them forever.’ We pray that God would save His people, not only here but in America and the world as well. That the true seed of Abraham, drawn from the four corners of the world, would gather together under our head Jesus Christ. We rejoice that Christ is the Good Shepherd and we are entrusting all of you into His grace. May we all have a boldness of speech, as Isaiah says, ‘Let those who know YHWH not keep silent’; and may the Shepherd of our souls carry us all now and forever. Amen.