Clay Pots ~ Family Picture

Clay Pots ~ Merry Christmas!

“Yesu Winneyep Muat Nalia”

“The Time Of Jesus Birth”

His Clay Pots, Jason, Kellie, Micah, Sophia, Malachi
& The Tobo Church
(Some believers not pictured due to the fact that some were scared of the camera, and some men not pictured because their pigs got out of their pens, and they had to go round them up.)

On January 3rd we are very excited to have a representative, from one of our home churches (Walnut Hill Bible Church in Baraboo, WI) come to Lengbati. Brain Hawkins and his daughter Sarah will be staying with us for 10 days in order to meet their new sister church here in Tobo land. We and the church are really looking forward to them coming so that we may all fellowship together as a church body. We are very encouraged by our church families back home who have been rallying together to send representatives here to show God’s love to these young believers! It reminds us of how in Acts the church in Jerusalem sent representatives to Antioch in order to encourage and exhort the believers there. Thank you for being used of God!

Clay Pots ~ Truth and Forgiveness

“…laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another…

… and do not give the devil an opportunity…

…let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:25, 27, 31-32)

Kips is known as a fighter with a hot temper. In the past, if anyone crossed him, he would not think twice… he would just nail the guy. Kips is now a strong believer and admitted to me in his testimony that he finally realized that he could not fight with God and win. Well, the man with whom Kips has had a gripe with, and with whom there is still bad blood, is coming from town to our village for Christmas. Welsen, another believer, was concerned that Kips would fight this guy if the opportunity arose, or if this guy came and threatened him. And Welsen knew that if Kips fought with him, that he would ruin not only his name(reputation), but also the name(reputation) of the believers. Welsen said to me, “I am praying that Kips would forgive the guy’s sin, not fight, and show his new life in Christ.” So I asked if we could bring this up to him before the other believing men, and he said yes, we could, and we should.

So when we were all together last night, Welsen, in a very culturally appropriate, yet graceful way, told Kips his concern, and exhorted his brother to forgive his enemy and to show the community how Jesus has changed his insides. He told him that Satan would desire that he fight so that his reputation would be marred. It encouraged me to see Welsen truthfully share his heart and what he thought could happen and the repercussions of it all (it is not traditional Tobo culture to care that someone else does the right thing).

After he was done sharing with him, Kips said, “My big brother. You are right. I was sitting in my house the other day just thinking about this. I was heavy of heart and Satan was putting many bad thoughts in my mind like, ‘What if he comes and starts hitting my house and calling me out?’ What should I do? Should I grab my bush knife or my axe? Should I come down quickly and hit him and then go and hide? Or Satan said, ‘What if he doesn’t come to my house, should I go to him first and hit him?’ And again I thought of how I could do that. I was sitting there planning all of this in my mind, but I knew it was Satan’s thoughts in my head. I don’t know what I will do, and I cannot say that I will do what is right because I know that Satan will try to fill my head with bad thoughts when this man comes.”

After he confessed that to us, all the guys pitched in and offered encouragement to him, telling him how important it was that he peacefully settle this thing, and how he needed to be a good example. They said that culturally, if this guy comes to hit him and comes to his house, if Kips comes down and is peaceful and does not retaliate, then the other party will be forced to not do anything, and their “strength will fall down” and the fight will be over with. So after they encouraged him in this, and after I told him a little bit more of how the Spirit will guide us and what kind of thoughts He will put in our heads, we had a time of prayer. Kips prayed. Welsen prayed for Kips and totally lifted up his brother before the Lord. And then Nikos prayed as well.

Afterwards, we picked up our guitars and Nikos lead us in a song, and then he abruptly stopped when it was done and said, “Guys, I love coming to sing, pray, talk, encourage and share from God’s Word with you guys. I look forward to it every week. When people come to my house and want to talk about things of the ground, I am repulsed and tired of it. But the time when we are together makes me happy and you guys are my true brothers.” To which Alex with tears in his eyes, gave a hearty, “I agree and you have just shot my liver. This is what Jesus has done for us.” Then we all sang another song or two and then went to our homes.

Please pray for Kips and the other believers, that they will not only be learning the word of God, but applying it in their every day lives.

Clay Pots ~ Church Buildings

The believer’s New Meeting Place
Budget: $0.00
Materials: $0.00
Labor: $0.00
Amount of time to build: 3 hours

For the past 11 months, the believers have met outside in the rain, and sun. Before you assume that it was a poor lack of planning, I will assure you that we did this with intention. With so much emphasis put on church buildings in this country (if you show up to the church building on Sundays, then God will be appeased or satisfied and allow you into heaven) it was important to us that the believers learn that God is only satisfied with us on the basis of our belief in his Son. And we wanted them to realize that they are not a “church organization” but an organism… a body of people who trusted in Christ’s finished work on the cross. Their belief in Christ is what binds them together in unity, not a building. It has been an incredible testimony to each other and to the community around them that they didn’t need a building in order to hear God’s word and worship Him.

But with Kellie and the ladies meeting every Tuesday and with their numbers continuing to grow, they needed a place to keep all the kids out of the sun or rain as they met. Also, God has been overwhelmingly faithful to us as we have met outside every Thursday since January and have only had two rain days, but the people felt a need to at least get out of the sun which is fairly intense. So this past Thursday all the believers rallied together to throw together a ‘make shift’ building. It is not permanent by any stretch of the imagination, but it will serve it’s purpose. It has no walls and is open so that everyone can see what we are doing and yet keeps the sun and rain off. The Grandpas and Grandmas watched all the kids while the woman went to cut long pitpit grass for the roof. The men built the structure and put the grass on. It is always so incredible to see the body of Christ at work and the intimate fellowship among fellow brothers and sisters, not to mention the laughter and singing that took place as well!

On Sunday the men met for our weekly Bible study. One thing that was mentioned was that God’s Word is not bound to any one place or building; but that it is a powerful word that should and does infect our every area of life (going to the garden, walking on the trails, sitting in our houses). WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT ANYWHERE, because it is LIFE! So I asked them, “What did Jesus say to do with this message of life? Did he tell the disciples that they were supposed to sit in Jerusalem and call people to come and hear it?” They said, “No, he told them not to stay in Jerusalem, but to go out to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” So I asked, “What does that mean to us? Should we sit down here in our house and tell everyone to ‘come’, or what?” They said, “No, we are to go out with this message, just like the apostles and Paul did. In fact, Jesus even said of Himself that He did not have a house to sleep in, and he kept telling others of God’s way of life. We need to be like that.” So I said, “Yes, and this little make-shift building which we just built will rot and fall down and we will probably not meet here in a few years, because we will be going out and telling others of the road to eternal life, Jesus.”

Please continue to pray for the believers. They are beginning to sense an urgency to tell their families and clans this gospel of life. We want you to pray that they will not just feel the urgency, but do something about it.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement, we appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.

Malachi said the mud found HIM

The 3 Kiddos




Malachi said the mud found HIM

Clay Pots ~ Dancing, Paychecks, and Earthquakes

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ala with her scriptures, drum and smile!

Ala used to be able to walk with the help of 2 sticks but now the disease has completely taken over in the past couple weeks and she can no longer walk at all. Her only desire is that she would never miss a believer’s meeting on Thursdays. So 2 ladies carried her all the way down from the village to our place for the believer’s meeting this past week. Her smile never faded from the moment they put her down to the moment they carried her back up to the village. She led the singing with her homemade drum and listened intently to every word Jason said. One man went to tell her what a tremendous testimony she is to everyone by her contagious joy despite her circumstances. She just smiled and said , “I am ready to go to heaven and see my Jesus”. I don’t think it will be very long until Ala will be dancing in heaven with her Savior, on an eternal Thanksgiving Day!

We celebrated an awesomely relaxing Thanksgiving day last Friday with our partners. It included Jason and Jason playing football with the kids (speaking of football is there any one out there who has taped any of the Packer games? We are “dying” out here without our green and gold fix!) , lots of food, a nap, Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving movie, and lots of laughter! So what were we thankful for?!! YOU !! (After my cute husband of course). We are very privileged to have a “job” where our paycheck comes from people who care for us. Thank you for being sensitive to His leading and willing to make that sacrifice for us and the Tobo church. We celebrated you on Thanksgiving!

Last week we experienced a HUGE earthquake. From what we have been told it registered a 6.7 on the scale. We were scared and, excuse the pun, very shook up! We raced outside with the kids as things started to fall around us inside the house. Thankfully no one was hurt, though our house needs some extra TLC after it. As Malachi said during it, “God is SO big!” Sometimes we need those little reminders of our God’s incredible power.

We hope you find lots of things to be thankful for in the days following Thanksgiving, a reason to say your God is SO big, and a DVD recorder to send us Packer games!