A Different Thanksgiving...

You know with the American holiday thanksgiving approaching, all I could think about was all the marvelous food that I would be missing out on. My mind then began to drift back to my childhood with all the Thanksgivings we spent at my grandparents. Oh it was always about the amazing food, I would stuff myself silly and pay for it the next day or two. It didn’t change to much as I got older and was on my own. Thanksgiving was always a time of stuffing myself until the point of popping but I also really enjoyed being together with my family. As this did not happen very often due to me being overseas so much doing missions. My celebrating thanksgiving got less and less, most of the time forgetting it completely. Out of sight, out of mind I guess you could say.

This year because of Face book it was brought back to my memory due to all the friendly chatter around it. I did enjoy readying all the comments, allowing my mouth to salivate thinking about all the yummy food. I must admit that I started to get a little sad, thinking, I wish I could go visit family.

My Thanksgiving took a different route though.
As you know the Lord has brought us to Burundi to start HTE (Heaven Touching Earth) “An Orphan children's village”. We also hope to be here when God begins to pour his spirit out on this nation and the so long promised and waited African Revival will start to become a reality. We spend a great deal of time encouraging the locals to not lose hope but to begin by praying it in.

We are very much aware that just like our time in Rwanda our battle here is not against flesh and blood. God has got some amazing things in store for this place. But as Satan knows what will happen when this out pouring of the Spirit takes place. He works more than over time to see that the Heart of Africa stays weak. This means that our times of thanksgiving are sometimes short lived. As soon as God begins to do something the enemy tries to snuff out any excitement by following the God thing with several bad things.
As you may have read in our last newsletter, this last month has been a very busy time for us. God has really showed up and some awesome things have been happening.

Now on the day before thanksgiving I got a phone call from the Minister of foreign affairs office. This is the office that all international organizations have to go through to get an agreement with the government to start working in the nation. I was asked to come in to see them. To make a very long story short, I show up and they share with me that we have been denied permission to start our organization here. So they are going to draft up a letter of rejection then we are expected to leave.
This immediately did not sit well in my spirit. I said one of those quick little prayers like “God this is not your will and it is not my problem. I am here on your terms not my own. Please fix this!”
Now what I have not told you is that in the last couple of weeks, more than once. We received the same message from God, yet from different people, from different nations. It went something like this “Don’t worry, God is in control and he is going to bring many different people into your path that are going to be there at just the right time to act as stepping stones to get you to the next spot that you need to be.”
Well this was one of those times, a local guy that we have been building relationship with all of a sudden was there and the next thing I know he is talking to the director of foreign affairs and the people in the office. The director agreed to let us have another chance. As for our new found friend he looked at me and told me that he is going to oversee this until we get our agreement with the government. All I can say is Hallelujah.

On Thanksgiving Day, no let me back up a bit more. Without an agreement for our ministry with the Gov. we can only get three month tourist visas, a visa is $240 per person. This is meaning that I have to pay every three months $1200 for me and the non Africans of my family to stay here. Divine and Yaida because they are Rwandan get to stay for free. We put in a few weeks ago for our new visas, I was back every other day to check on the progress of them being finished. I would not offer to pay any under the table money (bribe) this is why I was told almost every day for weeks, sorry try again tomorrow.
When one of my friends found out that we had still not gotten our visas he was there talking to them and on Thanksgiving day all of a sudden a few week process was finished in one day, imagine that….

So my Thanksgiving was spent with me taking my family out for Pizza as we praised and thanked God for his Sovereignty. He really is in control of things!

The way I look at it, every time Satan puts his finger in Gods path of our life here. We are going to chop it off. He’s bound to run out of fingers at one point.