Only one week and two days until my teaching time with the pastors is up! It is crazy how soon this part of my work has gone by. I have already learned a whole lot about teaching and about God’s word. The pastors have been a blessing and they are always encouraging. When I got here, I started in Romans. Then, when I finished Romans, Sabet had to leave to the States and asked me to finish up 1 Corinthians. So then we finished 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. We are currently learning from Ephesians and the usual pace of two or three chapters a day has hit some mud. Today we spent about two and a half hours on Chapter four verses nine through thirty-two. There is just so much to learn from those verses that we couldn’t run through them. This is a New Testament survey, but there is great truth that has practical application and we found the need to talk about it more. We got cultural and lifestyle applications for all the teachings in these verses. It has been great and the pastors commented that it has probably been the best day yet. I agree, I guess God just has a lot to teach us.
Category Archives: Pastor Training
Joshua Blog
It’s day twenty one for me today. It doesn’t feel like three weeks have already past but the calendar tells me otherwise. I couldn’t imagine being back home working on my boss’ farm right now. This is where I want to be, regardless of the work it takes to be here. This isn’t a real easy life but it is rewarding.
Today we will be starting to record the New Testament in Dinka! It is so exciting! We have these little audio players with a small solar panel on the back so batteries are not required. They fit in the palm of your hand and can be distributed to the community. Every day we will have a pastor read from their Dinka Bible for two hours in the afternoon while I record it on my Mac. Then, later, we will edit out any mistakes and send it to the audio player. This is a great opportunity to get the Message out to more people. I have four pastors who are going to help. Today we will have a pastor reading from Matthew. Tomorrow, Mark. Two days, Luke. Friday, John. Then we start over on Monday. Each pastor wants to read his own book. That’s a great idea so that you don’t have multiple voices reading the same book. But I am pretty stoked to see what happens with this project.
Your prayers are needed and are a fragrant aroma to God.
Joshua
Puppet Show
We have Beverly and Greg here with us for two weeks. They have been a huge blessing on the compound. Saturday night they showed “Jesus of Nazareth” to the pastors. We transformed their class room into a movie theater. We covered the windows with blankets and set up the projector. The pastors really enjoyed the movie. It’s six and a half hours long. They only got through four hours so they will finish the movie next Saturday. Beverly said they were really cute watching the movie. When certain things would happen (like Jesus’ birth) they cheered.
On Sunday, Greg preached at our church while Beverly taught Sunday School. They both are gifted in teaching and are passionate about the Word. Beverly taught about Joshua and the walls of Jericho. She set up a town and the kids walked around it seven times with the trumpets they made. We could hear their trumpets from the church. At the end of Sunday School, there was a puppet show. Beverly taught two of the students in the pastors school how to use the puppets. It was fun to see them perform the skit and see the kids’ reaction.
Pastor’s Workshop: Day Three
The pastors just left for home. What a blessing it has been to be with them the past three days! I have thoroughly enjoyed and been stretched in faith while teaching them. But God has blessed beyond expectation, and many pastors expressed their very thankful and encouraged hearts. Hearing their encouragement to me, and hearing of the ways God has blessed them this week, has turned my heart full of affection to God. It is a powerful blessing to realize the reasons why He told me 16 months ago to come to Sudan.
And I am learning so much about following the Lord, being fully obedient and dependent on Him, and seeing Him come through in every situation. Never fear! Our God is an awesome God.
The picture is of me with a couple of the pastors last Sunday after church.
The Pastors Are Back!
We have just finished our first week of the fourth term of the Pastors Training School here on the IDAT compound. The pastors came with excitement and we were blessed to be here to teach them. The school did not start on Monday as scheduled due to the fact that our vehicle that went to pick them was on the road for two days because of getting stuck in the mud. But on Wednesday we opened the school with almost all the pastors present. This term we will be studying the books of the 12 Minor Prophets in our Old Testament Survey Class and continuing with the Foundation Bible Course in the other class.
Thanks to the generous donations of God’s people in the States, we were able to provide ox ploughs so that the pastors could get their cultivation done in time to be here for the pastors training on May 10th. Without these ox ploughs they have had to plow the ground by hand hoes and it was time consuming for them and very hard labor. So they are really blessed to have them.
Please continue to pray for the pastors as they dedicate this time to studying the Word of God so that they are better equipped to minister to their people and go out and preach the Gospel.
—Joe and Nancy Losee