So here goes my attempt at reviving this much neglected missions blog of mine. Strangely, this is the first time that I’ve found myself the sole individual in charge of my PR over here. So I’ll give you all fair warning right now that the updates and news may be slightly sporadic until I get used to this whole blogging thing. We appreciate your understanding. 😉
What has happened here in Uganda since we last put words on this page? Well Andrew and I wrapped up the Ambassador Institute class in Jinja town. Some of those students are already beginning their own classes as teachers and bringing the word of God to others in this area.
Right now I’m helping teach in a few of those classes and meeting with others to help prepare them for their classes each week.
Since our class finished Andrew has returned home and the Jores are about to return here.
Also in the works are some translation projects for the Ambassador Institute curriculum. I’ve heard that Uganda has about 50 different languages, although many of them share similarities to others. Right now we’re in various stages of work with the languages of Luganda, Lusoga, Luo, and Karamojong. This is a big area of need for your prayers as we desire to see these translations completed in a timely yet accurate way. Some of them are going faster than others but ideally we would like to see some finished work before the Ambassador Institute graduation ceremony at the end of January.
Another prayer request/praise is that in recent days we’ve had a surge of interest in our training as multiple churches from various places have requested us to begin new classes with them. It’s wonderful to see such eagerness for God’s word here although we’re not yet sure how to supply teachers to all of them. Please pray for wisdom for us in that. The fields are indeed white and so we find that we need to request more workers from the Lord of the harvest. That means workers from our own churches in the states of course, but perhaps even more so from right here in Uganda.
Also, please remember the Jores in prayer as they return to Uganda. We’re all hoping to see them arrive safe and sound at the end of this month.
I’m extremely grateful to all of you who have been keeping us and this ministry in your thoughts and prayers.
That’s all for now, I guess. Lord willing I’ll have some pictures to post next time.
Somebody once told me how Martin Luther answered the question, “What would you do if you knew you only had one more day to live?” They said his answer was, “I would plant a tree.” Whether or not Martin was ever actually asked that question or answered in such a way, the thought struck me. The thought of spending one’s last day to plant a tree which he would never see flourish and produce fruit could easily seem foolish. However, I have become increasingly aware that God calls me to plant trees and sow seeds…that I often don’t get the privilege to watch produce fruit.
I have less than ten weeks left in Uganda. Micah will be returning at the same time as me, but he’ll be coming back within a month after that, so we’re not quite in the same boat. During our last stint out in the village, we planted almost 100 trees on Nate Jore’s land. The thought of the quantity and quality of oranges, mangos, tangerines, and avacados that could be produced in a couple years is exciting…but not mine to see. I labored to plant those trees, but I’ve got move on to the new place God is calling me. Thoughts of my physical labor and the hope for physical and very edible fruits have turned to thoughts of spiritual labor in the kingdom of God and the fruits which bring Him glory.
I’ve met a lot of people, seen a lot of sights, and done a lot of things in Uganda. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve been a failure at times. But through it all, I cling to the promise that God called me here, and that He has been using me. Looking forward at these last two months, I want to be planting as many trees and sowing as much of the Word of God seed as God allows and enables. There is a great spiritual need for Christ in Uganda – in our apartment, on the streets of Jinja, in the villages, and on the islands. I know that I likely won’t get to see any of the longterm affects of my investing in the lives of people here in the next couple months…but it’s not about my getting to see the fruit. It’s about God’s glory. He calls me to plant and sow His Word, so planting and sowing is what I am going to do.
The Bible has a lot to say about sowing seed, trees, producing fruit, reaping harvests, and the growth that God alone can give. If it interests you to look at just a few, check out: I Corinthians 3:6-7, Mark 4:26-29, John 15:8, 1 Peter 1:22-25, and Psalm 126:5-6. There are many others, but those are some that have interested me today.
Don’t try and produce fruit in the lives of others, my friends. It doesn’t work. Listen to the voice of God and obey in doing what He calls you to. He provides abundant grace, and His Word is full of promises to which you can cling. God is surely good.
I look forward to my last 10 weeks in Uganda. I don’t know everything that is going to happen nor whether I am going to get to see any immediate fruit from my ministry…but I know God is going before and with me. And that’s enough.
May the grace of God and the riches of Jesus Christ be with you.
Planting and sowing,
Hans
Here are some pictures from our last couple weeks in Uganda:
Now that I finally have had a stint in town that has been long enough to sit down and do some computer work, I can share with you some glimpses into our lives through the pictures I’ve been taking. There’s been no lack of great pictures to take! Actually, I think that photography is becoming a new passion of mine. The previously unknown joy of pouring creativity and effort into capturing the Creator’s completely creative creation in pictures has got me hooked. Thankfully, I’ve got a connection to a superb photographer in the form of Janna’s sister, Abby – soon to be my sister-in-law. I’m soon going to be asking her for loads of advice! Hopefully, the pictures show the results of what I learn.
I just sent out an email with a detailed update on different aspects of the ministry that is occurring here in Uganda. If you didn’t get it, and you want it, just let me know. For now, the plan is to primarily use the blog for sharing pictures and videos.
Here are some of those promised pictures:
We love getting our hands dirty! And just about the rest of our body as well!
We were working in the swamp to plant rice. It is a meticulous process of planting one piece of rice grass at a time.
Believe me, hoe work makes for blister-filled hands. Thankfully, those blisters later become calluses.
Sitting in the mud is actually really calming after having spent hours digging in it. Going to try it some time?
A picture of Nate’s whole swamp on the Nile – now completely dug and planted with rice.
Nate’s cow just recently gave birth to a calf! Micah, Godfrey, and I had to physically help mama cow in her process of giving birth – quite the experience!
Fresh milk! Yum!
Mulch Rd – an essential part of having a good crop.
This was one of three pictures that I captured of lightning on a particular night. It wasn’t easy!
This was a strange looking fruit that I found on Nate’s compound
Ha! This was an idea of mine to combat one of our chief enemies in the village: smoke. It is incredibly painful when it gets in your eyes while cooking. Now if only I could figure out a way to deal with the breathing problem that smoke also creates.
The Creator’s creation is captivating
There’s always an odd one in the bunch
Feel small?
Flower for my Fugleberg
This is a picture of the landscape overlooking where we meet for class on Wednesdays.
Godfrey’s grandpa (the man behind him) caught this bird while we were in Kamuli visiting Godfrey’s family
This is what he used as bait to catch the bird. Look tasty? I hear they’re not bad fried.
A recent family picture that I had the privilege of taking for the Jores
Sorry for the delay in an update on this blog – but we truly have been busy guys. Micah, Nate, and I were just reflecting last night on how there really has not been a dull moment these past couple months. It seems like our time here is passing both quickly and slowly.
Anyhow, I just sent out a more detailed update via email on our situation, Jowali and his family, and some other stuff. If you want to be receiving the email updates, just let me know in a comment, or you can send an email to hanstanner@hotmail.com.
Here are some of our recent pictures that each have stories connected to them:
This is our good friend, Godfrey. He is a student in the Jinja town class, works for Nate in town and on his land in the village, and he teaches Micah and I many things about how to be a Musoga. I affectionately refer to him as my "stinky skunk" (yes, there is a story there).
This is just one of the many beautiful sunsets that I have witnessed out in the village. Our God is such an amazing artist.
So I call Godfrey my "Stinky skunk" - want to guess what he calls me? "Stubborn Chicken" he calls me. This chicken in particular was very stubborn. When trying to capture it to return it to someone, it was very quick to evade us, and it even escaped once after we caught it!
This guy is getting really close to walking, and it is really fun to watch him grow!
It is also a lot of fun to be around this "princess". She is quick to let you know how much she loves you...and what her favorite colors and animals are. You know that you are really loved by her when she places you on a level above gum!
Beware bending down too quickly when doing village work! On one such occasion, these pants yielded to the pressure forced upon them – to my shame and for the enjoyment of others! They have since been repaired by a tailor and are being used in the village dirt once again.
This is a picture of the Ugandan landscape that was taken from one of the village class locations
This is Trevor, Godfrey's two-year old son. He is a bunch of fun, and I am glad that he has been staying with us out in the village these past couple weeks. One of his favorite English words is "pussy cat" - he pronounces it "puchy kake". Also, "potato" is "ta-toe".
Thanks so much for following us, praying for us, encouraging us, and being with us in this journey. We are grateful for all the ways in which the Lord uses you!
Welaba Banange! (Bye my friends) & Mukama Abenimwe (The Lord be with you)
So it’s been three weeks since we arrived here in Uganda and where do I start? We’ve been learning a lot. I think God’s starting to teach us the meaning of “becoming all things to all people” as we’ve begun to experience life in the shoes of a Ugandan. So far we’ve had the chance to get our hands dirty in the field with Godfrey and Kilenzi, learn the local way of cooking over an open fire, and practice speaking the Lusoga that we’ve been getting from our musomesa (teacher) Nate Jore. Hans even got to slaughter a chicken which was promptly plucked, gutted, and cooked before being ingested by the two of us and our “cooking instructor” Godfrey. I sincerely apologize for the lack of video.
But what’s really blessed us has been seeing the hand of our God actively at work here, even in the short time since we arrived. We’ve seen it in a lot of ways, but I’ll just share one short story here.
There’s a man here named Jowali who hass become a close friend of the family’s and who lives not too far from their place. The Jores have been praying for him and his family to come to Christ since long before we arrived. And we’ve seen the Lord calling him in a variety of ways. Just last week in fact, one of his sons was in a motorcycle accident on his way to the capital. He wasn’t badly hurt, but he needed to go to the hospital. Well there was a Christian man whose name we don’t know who “happened” to be walking past at that time and helped to get Jowali’s son and his passenger into the city.
Now you have to understand that in Uganda it’s more likely for someone to stop and steal your bike and whatever you’ve got in your pockets than to bring you to the hospital. So once he was safe at the hospital, the young man was moved to ask about the Christian’s faith. We only heard about the encounter later from his father, but he told us that his son had become very interested and curious about saved people.
Please pray with us for this man and his family, that they would come to Christ and receive salvation.
We we able to celebrate Elijah's and Jeremiah's birthdays with them last week as well. It was lots of fun
Elijah's favorite gift was a swiss army knife from his parents. You know that your nearly a man when you get one of those.
Micah and I are now in Uganda! Praise the Lord! He graciously protected and provided for us every step of the way. Here are just some of our adventures from the couple days of travel:
We got to the airport at about noon on Monday and had a couple hours before our flight left at 2pm. People who came to see us off included my parents, Micah’s dad and two youngest siblings, and Del Palmer (World Missions Director). We were grateful for the send-off. During check-in, we experienced our first surprise. Micah and I each had to pay an extra 200 dollars for our 2nd and 3rd bags. We are trying to get a refund, but we’ll see what happens.
Our flight to Chicago was rather uneventful and quick. Though we left about ten minutes late, we arrived twenty minutes early. Soon after arriving, we found out that our flight got delayed about 2.5 hours. With the extra time, I finished writing some letters. Micah…
…did some sleeping. We eventually boarded our plane and got situated. Micah ended up not sitting next to me because he wanted a family to be able to sit by each other. Shortly after I was seated, two young men came towards me and said they had the two spots to my left. I let them in, and we began to talk. Within about a minute, I discovered that these two young guys were actually Mormans. They were on their way to Johannesburg, to serve as missionaries for a couple years. Conversation with them got very interesting. I was silently praying that God would direct my words, and that He would use me to reveal to them His truth. We reached a point where they realized that we had different definitions of the gospel. They viewed Christ’s atonement as something that enabled them to be good enough to be saved. They are placing their trust in their works, not in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Pray for these two young men (their names are Elder Meyers and Elder Mackey – within Mormanism, you can be 19 years old and an elder!). They hold that Scripture is authoritative and true, but they do not know it. My hope and prayer is that God would make them think about some of the things we talked about while they are in Johannesburg.
While I was talking to my two new friends, Micah was figuring out some stuff for us to do in London. He got the recommendation to check out the British Museum because it is free. So after Micah and I got to London, that’s what we began to investigate. It was really nice to get out of the airport atmosphere for a while!
Our greatest linguistic challenge so far came when Micah and I tried to have lunch in an Italian Cafe. After struggling to try and tell the waitress that we wanted the special that was advertised outside the store, we finally got some food. We gobbled it up and made off for the Museum. It was huge! There were many different exhibits that were organized based on continent. We thought it fitting that our first visit should be to…
…Africa! We saw many interesting things and got a taste of our year to come.
We continued to travel around the museum, taking in many of the interesting things stored there. One of the things that I enjoyed most was getting to see things that dated back to Biblical times. It was fun to think about how these things were present in the world during the time of Jesus Christ’s life on Earth.
We eventually made our way back to the airport by way of subway. This was also an interesting experience. We missed getting on the subway we wanted because we were not aggressive enough and pushing our way onto the subway before the doors closed. Thankfully, we only had to wait a few minutes before we could catch another one (we had now learned our lesson). There were so many different people who filled the subway, all of them with different life stories. It seemed to me that London was also in need of missionaries, people who would be intentionally proclaiming and living out the gospel.
We got back to the airport, went through security one last time (I found out that Micah loathes security), and waited for our plane to Entebbe. We boarded on time and got situated for our last flight. This one was a bit more uneventful. We both got a decent amount of sleep, so that we might dampen the effects of jet lag when we reached Uganda.
We finally arrived! After getting off the plane, Micah and I hopped in line to get our visas. We were able to get 3 month visas, so we have some time before we have to worry about getting them renewed. We found our bags (Praise the Lord that all 6 came!)…and then we found Nate Jore! He and his second oldest, Judah, were waiting for us.
And those were our adventures from our travels…you’ll have to stay tuned in to find out soon what our first days in Uganda have been like. I’ll say this much: “they’ve been great!”
For those who have not yet received the news – I am engaged. To Janna Fugleberg. God is good.
I won’t use this blog to share the story of our relationship or how the proposal occurred, but I thought I would publish the news in one more corner of the cyber world in case some of you hadn’t yet heard. If you want to hear about either of those stories, just let me know – they’re fun to tell.
Here are some of our engagement pictures that were taken by Abby Anderson (Janna’s sister):
Abby was able to catch a wonderful sunset. One thing that Janna and I love doing is standing in awe of our Creator
Janna and I love to laugh - this was after twirling Janna in the air and getting very dizzy
Janna and I love to play - we're both very much golden retriever personality types. At the end of our session with Abby, we took some pictures of Janna and I fighting with the Mashoongas that I bought her for a graduation gift. This capture and editing by Abby was accidental - while working on it, she noticed that it looked like Janna and I were holding up the Cross. Though unintentional in this case, this is exactly what Janna and I want to do throughout our lives - lift high the cross and point people to Jesus!
I look forward to being her walking companion for the remainder of my earthly life after May 26th
Reeses has been a thematic candy in our relationship
She's got amazing eyes - I could do this for a long time!
The time period of raising support is an incredible time of blessing – and a time that has its challenges. Let me talk about the latter first.
Both through my own personal experience and from what I’ve heard of other missionary’s experiences, I’ve discovered that raising support really tests the faith that you have in God’s provision. Several doubts and questions can easily enter the mind, such as: “What if I don’t receive any support?” “Am I supposed to be so bold as to ask people for their money?” and “What if I am not covered by a strong prayer team? What will my ministry be like?” These are all questions that have run through my mind in the past few months. I’ve debated as to whether God has called me to raise any financial support at all. I’ve been stretched in trying to find the most effective way to raise up a prayer team that will faithfully carry me to the Lord. In all these challenges and questions, I’ve seen the hand of the Lord blessing me.
God has comforted me with this truth – because He has called me to go to Uganda, I can know that He is going to provide exactly what I need. Is this an excuse for me to sit back and be lazy until I leave in June? Most certainly not. Rather, as I speak to different individuals and congregations about what Micah and I will be doing, I don’t have to worry about whether God is going to provide. He most certainly will. And the cool thing is that He knows my needs so much better than I even know them. He’ll raise up the perfect amount of support – in His perfect timing.
Blessings certainly have abounded for me during this season. I’ve been greatly encouraged to see God confirming the call He’s given me to go live/work in Uganda this coming year through the words of those who are supporting me. As well, it has been a wonderful comfort for me during this time to know that people are already covering me in prayer. I’ll be entering into a mission field where the Lord has already gone ahead, working through the prayers of the righteous. What good news this is! Could you continue to cover Uganda, the Jores, Micah, and I in prayer?
One of the most effective ways to raise support is to let the missionary describe his own ministry. He certainly can do it much better than I could! That being said, below is a couple videos of Nate Jore being interviewed by Pastor Wade Mobley (of Living Word Free Lutheran, Sioux Falls, SD). Among things discussed are the ministry of the Jores, some information concerning Uganda, the roles of Micah and I during our time there, and recent prayer requests for the Jores.
My hope and prayer is that God would not only bless me through my time of raising support, but that He would bless you as well. Hopefully, you would be made more aware during this time of the mission field that God has placed you in. The only thing that is different from the mission that I am called to and the mission you are called to – is context. Every Christian is called to live a life that is holy, that is set apart, and to be a witness of the God of glory and grace. The entire world is filled with precious, but lost, eternal, human souls. They all need to encounter and come into a relationship with Jesus. I’ll be praying during this time in which I am making people more aware of the mission God is calling me to (raising support), so that He might make you more aware of the mission He is calling you to.
Welcome to the blog of Hans Tanner and Micah Berger, where our year in Uganda will be chronicled! It is through this blog that we will be sharing with you, our supporter, many of things that we experience. The focus will be to post on a regular basis pictures of some of our adventures, short stories, and some of our prayer requests.
We leave June 20th – two months from tomorrow! Our goal is to work with Nate and Rhoda Jore for about a year, coming back early summer 2012. Our ministry focus is to assist Nate Jore and his family in whatever ways possible. Much of this will involve simply living with Ugandans and sharing with them the love of Jesus Christ. We’re sure that we’ll be kept busy, and that our year will fly by quickly!
We cannot stress enough the importance of your prayers for us during this time of raising support. We will post soon with more information about this season of raising support. We’ll share many different opportunities that exist for getting involved with what we are doing, and we’ll be praying that God would create an excitement within people about what He plans to do with and through us.
There’s much more information to come soon, including life testimonies from both of us.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 - All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Ugandan Mission 