to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a unit of great authority under Candace the Queen of the Ethiopians, who had chartered all her treasury and had camped at Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he asked Philip to come and sit with him. The place in the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, his justice was taken away. And who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth and began, beginning at this scripture, Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized? And then Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord brought Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way, rejoicing. By God's grace, the gospel went to Africa long before it came to Egypt. And gloriously, God's word going into Oh, Lord, we come before you now this evening and thank you for this company of your people. We thank you for one another. We thank you for the evidence of the work of grace in hearts and in lives. Lord, we thank you that you are the one who has saved us. Lord, each one of us is from a different background, from a different life, and yet every one of us now, by your grace, has become brothers and sisters in you, our Lord and our Savior. We thank you that you have made us not just part of your family, but part of your church. And we thank you that as part of your church, we do here are part of that vast company which spans the globe and indeeds time. Lord, as we come to hear of your work in Uganda, we thank you that we have brothers and sisters there too. And we thank you, Lord, for everyone. We pray this evening that as we consider that work, that work which is yours, that you will stir our hearts to prayer, to support, and Lord, we pray by your grace that the people of Uganda will hear the truth more and more, and that many will be converted, and many turn from the error of their ways. So, Lord, be with us this evening, that you might do your work in our lives. Be with our brother Sean as he speaks, and we ask, Lord, that you will strengthen us all to the glory and the praise and the honor of your name. Amen. Well, let's take a hymn box and sing a hymn. And as we do, Sean is going to come up. It's number 360. 360, we were talking about this over the dinner table. Translation has been put into Christian hymns. I know Andrew mentioned this some time ago. A safe, stronghold our God is still. If you've got the music edition, you'll see the actual German words. Ein Festburg, a mighty fortress or castle. A safe, stronghold is a very soft way of putting it. It's a mighty fortress. A safe, stronghold our God is still. A trusty shield and weapon. He'll help us clear from all the illness. O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? ♪ In the middle of wrath and power ♪ ♪ In heaven, in this hour ♪ ♪ On earth, this hour, this day and hour ♪ ♪ With force surmounting hand in hand ♪ The Lord so bravely watched over us. The only daughter was so small, but they had a lot of fun. ♪ My altar's brought away ♪ ♪ For my eternal praise ♪ ♪ Never shall we be slain here ♪ ♪ Outward borne, open, proud and full ♪ ♪ The bells shall have its post ♪ ♪ T'is written by his finger ♪ ♪ And the rains take a life ♪ ♪ The sun and children whine ♪ ♪ It is the prophet's call ♪ sure you couldn't hear me the first time, me being quietly spoken of course. Well it's good to be here back with you again. I bring you greetings from everyone I know in Uganda. Now I say that because everyone I know in Uganda said to me before I left, make sure you greet them for me. And so this is the official greeting and when I go back they shall say did you greet them for me and I say yeah of course I did. Well before I bring up the beautiful Natasha to help me present the work I want to just look at a few verses in the Bible, a little message for us this evening from Exodus 17 and I've got it up there on the board so you can either read it from your own Bible or follow along with me. It's from Exodus 17 we've been looking at Exodus in the church in Uganda and so this passage came to mind. Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and her held up his hands, one on one side and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. Amen. Now I think Palmer Robertson has been here many years ago and I wondered if he might have preached on this passage because it was a favourite of his. But I've used it because I want us to learn how to pray for missionaries, ministers and your fellow church members. I've been doing a how-to series in Uganda and so that's what I want us to learn this evening. And there are three things I want you to remember to take away. And the first one is, well it's a real battle out there isn't it? Poor old Moses. I don't know if you are familiar, most of you are I'm sure, but all he had heard from the Israelites ever since the Lord delivered them out of the hands of Pharaoh and the Egyptians was, moan, moan, moan. In chapter 14, verse 11, they said to Moses, is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? In chapter 15, verse 24, it says, and the people grumbled against Moses, saying, what shall we drink? Then in chapter 16, oh, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. And in chapter 17, this chapter, verse 3, why did you bring us up out of Egypt? To kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? What an ungrateful bunch. I'm sure you could think of some other ways to describe them. And if that wasn't enough, poor old Moses, we then read in verse 8, then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. a war. If things weren't bad enough already, what with everyone moaning, now they've also got a fight on their hands. And I wonder if you think it will be better for us if it was like this for the greatest of Old Testament saints. I remember a guy called John Lawson down in Cornwall years ago he said to me a little bit in jest I'd had a bad day and he said well look Sean don't worry just remember things can always get worse and he was right wasn't he? He was right. Don't think that your victory over sin today, maybe your victory over a bad temper or lust or covetousness means that you won't have to worry about them tomorrow. You will. Then Hamelet came. It's a battle out there, remember that. Every day and that's for all of us. not just the minister, not for the missionary, but also for your fellow members. Pray for them. Secondly, you might not be a Moses or a Joshua, but you can be an Aaron or a Hur. You know we can't all be at the forefront of the battle, can we? And personally speaking, oftentimes I'm very glad that we're not. You might not be on the mission field yourself or in the pulpit, but that doesn't mean that you are of no use to God. Holding someone's arms up like Aaron and Moses, like Aaron and her did, doesn't seem like cutting edge stuff, does it? doesn't seem to be like you're on the edge. But what does the Bible say? Look at verses 10 and 11 with me. So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek. While Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. And whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. When those arms began to fail, Amalek began to prevail. And although it seems a very strange way to fight and win a battle, it's the way that God seemed to want it fought. And though you might think sitting in the back room of the church here or in there in the middle of winter maybe, and only a few of you turn up, maybe only two of you turn up, remember, It was the two holding up Moses' arms that swayed the battle that day and won the battle against Amalek. Just look, when his arms began to fail, Amalek began to prevail. But those two men, just those two men holding up the arms, they seemed to swing that battle. How, I don't know. You might not be a Moses nor a Joshua but you can be an Aaron and a Hur. Thirdly, let's remember that the battle belongs to the Lord. Let us look again at this Luther's hymn. I'll have to pick this one up because I've got the other version on here. But the first two verses read in 360, a safe stronghold our God is still a trusty shield and weapon. He'll help us clear from all the ill that hath us taken. The ancient prince of hell, that's the devil isn't it, hath risen with purpose fell, strong male of craft and power he weareth in this hour on earth. He's not his fellow on earth, he's not his equal. With force of arms we nothing can, for soon were we downridden. But for us fights the proper man, whom God himself hath bidden. Ask ye who is this same? Christ Jesus is his name. The Lord sabaoth's son, he and no other one, shall conquer in the battle. He will conquer The devil in the other version said he's full of guile, constantly seeking to make our lives so much of a misery. We might turn away from God in unbelief. That's what he's hoping, isn't it? But let us remember the book of Revelation. We can cheat, can't we? We can read the end before the beginning. And there we know, don't we, that we've won the battle. The 144,000 singing before the throne of God, a song by a throng without number, whom we all who have trusted in Christ will be among. The end is written already. The Lamb shall have the glory, Christ shall have dominion and we shall be more than conquerors in him. Psalm 20 verse 7 says, some trust in chariots and some in horses but we, we trust in the name of our God. Amen. Remember, it's a battle out there. You might not be a Moses or a Joshua, but you can be an Aaron or a Hur. And lastly, the battle belongs to the Lord. Amen. Amen. Now come up there, please. This is a photograph of downtown Kampala. This is what it looks like usually on a shopping afternoon maybe any afternoon you can see me I'm up there somewhere if you look carefully all right and well it's colourful isn't it it is beautiful and I often go down and try and fight my way through to the shops and the people are very friendly it's lovely to be there so that's our background picture this time So the Kinsella's in Kampala, and we have a theme this year. Our theme is continuity and change. Some things are the same, but some things change. And we have a few sections. The first one is our campus. So I think most of you have met us before, but we were called in 2013 to be missionaries in Uganda. You can see on the map there, our campus, African Bible University, is between Entebbe and Kampala. And you can see, Sean has helpfully marked it out between the two golden horses. Oh, sorry about that, I didn't know. We're based in the borough, right in the middle there. We're just off the road there. So if you ever fly into Entebbe, you have to pass us to go anywhere. So, you must drop by and see us. This is the sign that you'll see on the Entebbe road, which directs you up to Abercrombie University. And you'll see this outside, because we're teaching the treasures of God's truth. This is an aerial picture of our campus. We have our chapel near the gate there. We meet Monday to Friday, 10 to 10.30. We also have our library, just you can't quite see it, it's behind the trees. And then the classroom block around there. The football pitch behind, and the gym. And then this building here is our radio station. We have the gospel, we have gospel music going out 24-7. And we live behind that tree there. You can see it's very green, yeah? You can see there the classroom block that we just saw, and the gym, and the toke plantation. The toke is the staple food in central Uganda, and it's a small, stable banana. And then we have the student hostels just here. And below you see we have a farm. And of late, we've been working with a partner called Farming Foundations, and they are doing training in regenerative farming, which means that they teach them how to compost and try and put nutrients back into the ground. Especially in northern Uganda, the soil isn't great and so they really struggle to farm. And so we're hoping to work with this partner and train the community and anyone who wants to come to help them develop their farming skills. Well, you can see it's a very safe environment and very pleasant. Our calling, so secondly we've had our compass, now our calling. I'm still there, called to teach, to preach and to outreach. I think the look on my face, I was teaching maths. So last year I asked you to pray for me to teach the maths class and I tell you what, I needed every one of those prayers. It's one of the hardest classes I've ever taught and it went so well, unfortunately I've got to do it again this year. So do pray for that. We're going to look at using AI to draw up maybe a syllabus because it is a tough class. The thing about Uganda is They're not taught to learn. They're taught to know. So we even had a couple of students with A-level maths who couldn't pass the primary school level test because, you see, they don't realise that they're not learning. They're just picking up things to know. And so we are trying, we're working with them to get them to learn how to learn. And if you, you know, I can see one of you nodding there, that's a big thing in Uganda. You know, if you ask them something and they give you an answer and you then say why, well they would be like, that's it. Now, of course, you might wonder, well, what's the problem with that? Well, when it comes to then going to church or anything, they will listen to the big man. And what the big man says, they do. So if you say to them, have you read your Bible? Some of them would say, well, I don't need to because the pastor tells us. And we would say, well, how do you know he's right? Well, he's the pastor. Well, how? Yeah, but what makes the pastor right? Well because he's the man of God. Who says he's the man of God? Well he does of course! So you can imagine there's this sort of circular argument that you need to get through. So that's going on in the classroom and also in the pulpit. Like I said, I've been preaching a series of how-to sermons. For some of you, how to find a spouse, you can find that one on Lines 2, one of the most recent ones I think I'm doing, how to kill the Goliaths in your life. Okay, and there I am here on the third one, outreaching with the senior students, playing, not Johnny Cash there, probably playing some, I think, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. It gathers a crowd and then the students, they do some of the preaching. Here I have Norman Nguero, he's from Kenya and I have a Congolese student and the rest are Ugandans and he's using the board there you can see they have to make up their own talk and present it to the public. for the class, for the grades. So pray for them because they love doing it and always afterwards they say, I wish we'd known about this years ago. So pray for them that they would be able to take it to their villages. I am the registrar at the university, so this is me in the reception of the admin building. I've been doing most of the admissions and timetabling and all the sort of background work that goes into the university. But this year has been particularly challenging because we seem to have come across a lot of government red tape. where we need to produce a lot of documentation in order to get the right permits that we need to function as a university. Our NGO permit is up for renewal. That is a list of 15 items, of which one has 19 items that I need to provide in order to get that one thing. You can see it's very time consuming. Please pray that God would grant us fable and we would get our NGO permit because it's hard for us to function without these proper permits. Pray for us that we wouldn't grow weary in well doing, it can be quite difficult working in the government offices and dealing with the different situations there. I think a lot of that stems, doesn't it, from the government in Uganda are concerned about a lot of American non-government organizations, NGOs, who come in and where they use those NGOs as a way of providing money for political opposition. And so the government is trying to sort of, you know, squeeze out some organizations. So unfortunately, everyone has to do all this paperwork. Thirdly, our colleagues. So last year we asked you to pray for this family, the Goodman family. They were in Barry in Wales, they're an American family but they are They've joined us this year and as you can see they're very happy. This was at Christmas and this little boy Timmy, well he's living the dream, that lad, he just has the run of the campus and he's out first thing in the morning, he's out all day, he loves the place and he's a really happy one. This one is Luke, he's 11, they call him little Sean. not because he's really good looking but because he's a good singer, he's a loud singer and in fact at 11 years old you can hear him over all the other students and so that's why I don't know why they call him little Sean though. and but he and them and Peter the boy and Geneva and Lauren and Drew, they're having a great time. Drew has been such an asset to us, we're so thankful for him and his service already and he's a great preacher. You know the students need to hear good preaching so that they hear it and they think that's what I want to do. This is the Pitts family. It's Jeremiah, he's the Vice-Chancellor with his wife Kari and their children Maya, Mitchell at the back and Ezra at the front. They joined us in 2021 and they've really settled in well. Jeremiah works so hard in recruitment trying to get the name of African Bible University out there and get students to come. We do have low student numbers at the moment and so he's just He just travels around and works really hard to try and get people to join us. Actually, let me show you. Mitchell at the back there, he's 13. And recently I gave his dad some of my old t-shirts, you know, to wear. And Mitchell wears them and they're tight on him. He's 13. He's massive. He's bigger than everyone in his family. You can see there he is at the back. And this is us on our last Sunday evening there. This is most of the faculty who attend our Sunday evening service. There is a church meets in the chapel on the morning, but usually in the evening we meet together as well for our own service. Some of the students join us. And as you can see, there are a lot of children there. This is Deus. This is Deus. What's his wife's name? Jacqueline, they're our neighbours, our new neighbours, they live next door to us. Darius, it's fitting that he's standing in front of the chapel because he built it, he was the bricklayer for the chapel and he was a bricklayer and the foreman, Kenny McKenzie, got talking to him and found out he'd been to school through to A-levels I guess and he said, you know, would you be interested in coming to the university? Deus did and he's finished his studies, he's at the moment doing a master's, he's a great preacher, a great preacher and he's African and a great preacher which for us is a double whammy and it's a delight having him and his family next door to us. He's the chaplain and one of our teachers too. Most of the parents on campus homeschool their children. Lately they've done a homeschool co-op, so they gather homeschooled children from the area. You can see there are mainly American families and Ugandan families. Once a month they come to our campus and they do classes. One of the things that they did this year was a small production of the Jungle Book. And so you can see them all dressed up in their costumes there. It was amazing, it was a fantastic production and they really enjoyed it. So did we. Next we'll talk about our cares, what are those people who we also tend to care for and we've told you a little bit about. We've got a lot of children in school as well as sponsoring students. We oversee the sponsorship of some children. This is Juliet, who we've known for 11 years. She's 23 now, just finished School, that's how old they usually are because of the delays with school fees and stuff. And this is Jacinta with her mum, Olivia, who used to help us at home. Those two have just finished school and they're both 23. Pray for them. See what they'll do next. I told you about this one, this is Brenda who I think she's 23 and she's doing hairdressing and she will graduate this year. She's done two years of hairdressing. That's the first schooling she's done in her life. So she was 21 before she did a day, well 20 before she did a day of school. She did a day in infant school which got her English up and I took her to this vocational school and they said, yeah we'll teach her do hairdressing and beauty therapy. So pray for her. This is her cousin Meron and she's as you can see doing catering and makes nice cakes and also there is Johnson who is only 17 but he's learning car mechanics. So if they are not fit for school or you think well they're not going to be able to do six years of schooling, there are vocational colleges that will take them. Now Johnson, he's Honest's brother, he's younger than her although she's smaller. She was the one who burnt her legs in the fire. I don't know if you remember me telling you that She was reading her Bible by candlelight, fell asleep and set fire to the bed, to the mosquito net, burnt all her legs. And then at midnight, waited till seven in the morning to call me to take her to hospital. Then took her, they wrapped her up and the mum took the bandages off the next day and burnt them because some neighbor said, that's what you're meant to do. It's like it was a bit of a crazy time. But Honest has been in school now for about four or five years. She's doing well. So is her brother. I picked them up at Christmas and they'd come from the village and they were both really scrawny. And I said, oh, how come you're so thin? They said, well, mum had us dig in the garden all Christmas. I said, oh, so you won't want to be going back there in the summer? They said, no, we'll stay at school, thanks. They said, well, come and stay with you. I said, well, we're going to the UK. But she's doing OK. She's at school with Immaculate. And this is her brother, Edson, as well. This is a family who, this one, stopped me on my motorbike one day and said, Uncle Sean, send me to school like you did Honest. So I thought, all right, well, OK then. And then, of course, You've got the brother, and then of course, you've got the rest of them. So this is Phil Haines from Cardiff. He sort of helps me cover some of the costs of all of them. And we took some sodas and cake, and some neighbors came around. I want to draw your attention to this one, though, this little girl here. That's Peace. And this is Immaculate. And when Immaculate was five years old, She found peace abandoned by a well, dumped. And so she took her home and the stepmum said, out, no way. So she took her out and hid her. But then she started, when everyone was asleep, she'd climb out the window and bring her back in. And this went on until the stepmum said, right, both of you, out. And so she ended up going back home, I think, to her mother and Peace is with her. Peace doesn't know this, but she's a lovely girl and she's in school as well now. Pray for them. We call them the Immaculates because you tend to call them by the one person, the main one you know. But we're thankful that they're all doing well. This is Matthew, another young lad we sponsor in junior school. And this is Shareena and Terrin. Shareena on the left, left right there. She actually works in our accounts office at ABU and that's her youngest sister who's in primary school and we're also, someone from another church is helping to put her through school as well. Sharina also has family worship with us a few times a week, so she's part of the family really. We've mentioned the kindergarten before. This is James, one of our graduates, with Phil Haynes from Cardiff when he visited us. This is one of the classrooms. The school is doing fairly well. It has a good number of students, but again, They've kind of been troubled by government registration and different bits and pieces that are coming in. They've had to put a fence up and do a few bits, but things are going on well, I think. Last year, we talked about some family troubles they had with land, and thankfully, it got resolved, and you can see the family has sold the land behind them, and they're now building these apartments. So Craig has asked that families will move in and send their children. to Royal Child Kindergarten at their Hear the Gospel. This is a good friend of ours, Martha. She lived with us for about three years, pre and during COVID. She married Nelson, and they have a boy, Jotham. He'll be a year at the end of this month. This is a more recent photo of them. You can see Jotham's a bit older now, and they're expecting their second in October. The next part is a case study. We want to talk to you a little bit about something that has happened and what we want to continue happening. So first picture is this man here. This is Johnson Enamu. And he is from Lira, which is in the north of the country. Lira was affected badly by the Lord's Resistance Army. Johnson and Amu and many of the students from that area would have personally had encounters with Joseph Kony because he was always around and if he was in a good mood that was good if he was in a bad mood well God help you really I mean one of our girls who was from Lira was shot by the Lord's Resistance Army. She's got a scar on her head and one on her back where they shot her and she collapsed and they went around and because she had sort of fainted when they kicked her she didn't move so they didn't finish her off. And she came to us and is now a successful teacher. Johnson started that work really. He was a charismatic preacher, but he started a church called Truth Fountain and was putting some of our teachings into action. He then brought along these young men, Regan, James and Silas. And these are a couple of the wives. I went to see them at Easter. I think I preached in three churches in the morning. And I tell you a wonderful thing about Uganda. So at eight o'clock, I'm going to church and the streets, and I'm not joking, the streets are packed with people carrying Bibles. And it just warms your heart, you know. People are just, you know, walking down the road, crossing the road, like, busier than probably Wolverhampton Centre on a Saturday afternoon, but on a Sunday morning at eight o'clock. There's nothing like it to warm your heart. And I got to preach at three of the churches. And this was the third church I went to. This is Solomon O'Kello, another one of our students sent by Johnson. And this is his church called New City Bible Church in Lira. And that's his wife there. And this one is Christine Joy. She was one of our students. She married Andrew Ogwell and they're doing well serving the Lord up in Lyra so we rejoice in them. And mentioning Christine. So from Johnson in Namu to Solomon to Christine to Mercy. So as they go back they encourage other students to come to us. So Mercy is a student with us now. She's doing education, English language. She is just a beautiful lovely Christian girl. I really enjoy her. She's been raised by a single mum. She's on just the two of them together. She studies really hard and it's just a delight. One of the things that many Ugandans struggle with are stomach ulcers. Mercy has a particular bad case of it. It really is a disabling thing. They get very sick with it. and I'd been doing a bit of research around it, and I'd come across some papers that said that cabbage juice can help with stomach ulcers. So I asked her if she wanted to be my guinea pig, and she faithfully came three times a day for two weeks to drink this fresh cabbage juice. And after the two weeks, she was brighter, healthier, and said that all the pain was gone. So we get on well and yeah, enjoy her. Sounds wonderful, eh? Two weeks of cabbage juice, two months of cabbage palm. The house smells of cabbage, I'm telling you. But it's for a good cause, so we don't complain. But yeah, that's just the story. We want all our students to do that. We want them to go and tell somebody else. Jeremiah said to the students when they graduated, your job now is to send your replacement. You see, they are our best advertisement. And Natasha and I were driving here tonight, and we're talking about how many students, many children, they want to go to Macquarie. It's like the Oxford or Cambridge of Uganda. But you know, our students, they learn how to learn, and they've got a better chance of getting a job coming out of our university than that one in the country. So do pray for numbers to increase. We'll talk about those now as we talk about our closing prayers, some prayer items we've got for you. So yes, the first one is really to pray for recruitment. We'll start our new academic year in August. I can say that we have many more applications this year than we did last year, so hopefully that will translate into students being enrolled. We won't know how many students we get until the day of registration and when they come, and two weeks after that. But right now, we have a team up in Lira and Gulu in the north of Uganda who are doing recruitment and entrance exams. We have entrance exams to check to make sure that their English is at a level where they can study with us. And there will also be a group going down to Ibanda, which is in the south west of Uganda. So please pray that those efforts will be successful, that we will get students who can afford to pay or partially pay, or that we will get scholarships so that we can increase our intake this year. Pray for Jeremiah Pitts, here he is, so we've got new students and now we want new opportunities. Jeremiah here is with some of our alumni, that's the old ex-students, those who have graduated and he's having a meal with them again, trying to encourage them to send students to us, to find someone from their churches and do what they can to get their church to sponsor a student. It's a lot of money, but you know, people, when they're putting in the collection, they're putting pennies in, you know, and university education costs pounds. So do pray for them and pray for Jeremiah. He's tirelessly working and he does such a good job. We also need some staff. So if you would pray with us that we would find, we're trying to start a new IT degree, so of course we need a head of department to do that, and so we're advertising for that. We're also advertising for a head of business administration, and I need someone to teach taxation management. That's quite an urgent need, so please pray with us that we would get all the staff that we need to push our programs forward. If you think you can do it, have a word with us after. we'll listen, we'll listen. Pray for our chapel services, like I said, Natasha said we have them every day 10 till 10 30. The students, the senior students do preach in the second semester but only once, most of the other time it's faculty and visiting speakers, we guard the pulpit very carefully, we really do want good men and men only and we want them preaching the Bible and the Bible only. So do pray for that work and you can see it's well attended, there's Deus there preaching and also it's recorded so you can find them if you ever wanted to listen to some of the sermons they're on the site called Radio ABC 99.3 on YouTube. And we also, one week in our academic calendar, we stop classes and we have a whole week of what we call Spiritual Emphasis Week. So we have prayer meetings in the morning and then we have three different teaching sessions in the day. And we invite usually international but also local preachers to come and teach us for that week. So please pray that that would be a blessing to our students and pray that we will be able to get in faithful men to preach for us. Pray for our families. This is my mum, she's got her eyes closed, but the only picture I could find of her husband who died last summer. So he died at the end of our holiday. I don't know if some of you, if you get the newsletter, will know that he died and we had the chance to be with him on the last day. Mum and Natasha went for a coffee and I was left in the hospital room with him. And he was on a breathing machine, but I managed to speak to him to the gospel from John 14. I said, Roger, you and I, we're big sinners. Jesus is a bigger saviour and I had some moments with him and I talked to him and I prayed with him and at the end of my prayer he squeezed my hand and that was all he could do and it was encouraging because later that day he died and so that was heartbreaking for mum And so we would have been in touch. And then this spring, my brother here, who's younger than me, he died. And we didn't always see eye to eye. And my sister and some of the other people in the family didn't want me to go to the cremation because they didn't want to hear about God. And when I spoke to my sister on the phone about it, she said, well, he didn't want you there and he didn't believe. I said, he does now. He does now. And my mum is not a believer. This is my sister and this is my mum. My mum's a nominal believer but people are praying for her and she's asking questions and she's seeking, pray she finds. this is my sister's daughter my niece she's in a same-sex relationship so again very anti towards me and even actually falling out my sister my sister's not a believer so both of our families are not no believers in them pray for them because it's you know there's nothing worse that when you come to the time and someone dies you're the only I mean you're the only one who's got any idea where they've gone And please pray for our graduates. This is the graduating class of 2024. There are just 11 of them because they're part of our COVID years, but they're just a wonderful group of young people. We ask you to pray that they would get jobs and that they would be faithful witnesses in the communities that they go to. So that's our prayer requests. They're usually similar, aren't they, each year? But do pray for them, pray for us, and pray the Lord continues to bless the work in Uganda. We're teaching the treasures of God's truth. We're teaching the Bible. Any questions? Any questions? Courtney, have you got a question for me? Before you nod off, I can see you. Again? Well, they broadcast my sermons. I did have a radio show, but they sacked me. So I, you know, you know why as well, because I've got the face for radio. And I felt I was doing a good show, but oh well. But yeah, they do play sermons every day. And the sermons go out and we get a good sort of group of people listening often I go over the supermarket and they'll say oh I was listening to you this morning so that's wonderful to you know for people to say that yeah so the gospel is going out. Jeremiah does a BC's hour every week where he pre-records a message and something about the university. I think it's 50, I don't know if the radius is 50, I think the radius is 50, 50 kilometers, so 100 kilometers diameter. Do people write in or email? Yeah, yeah, yeah, very often. So the radio actually is a bit different to here, you know, people are still using FM radios. Internet radio is not a big thing at all yet, you know, so. Do you get news in Converse? Yes, yeah, and many come in to visit. Some get students from the radio as well, people who say, oh, we've listened to your radio, we love the preaching, we wanted to come and learn more. We're in quite a hilly area, so sometimes it doesn't reach out as far as you'd hope, but yeah, people in our vicinity can definitely go, and lots of people do listen to us. You know, they have it on their phones, like they have the small phones, but they have an FM radio. As in numbers or high numbers? I mean, in the last, I can't tell you how many are in Kampala itself, but like over 11, 12, 13 million. Where we are? Where we are? No, there wouldn't be as many, but I think even in the time we've been there, in the 11 years we've been there, you know, as you used to look out the back, if you went back to the first one, the hill behind and all around us, the number has not just doubled, I would say probably five or six times the amount of people than when we first went. It's growing so fast. You know, it's just amazing how quickly, you know, Uganda is growing. Our road from us to Entebbe is 15, say 15 kilometers, maybe, yeah. 15, 20 kilometers and yet when we first were there, there were lots of spaces along the road. Now nearly every space is filled with a business, with a house, with a petrol station. It's just growth. Is exponential the right word? Yeah, that's how it is. It's just amazing. And lots of young people. Everyone's young, yeah. I think the average family size I heard recently was seven children. Here it's, what, 1.3? There it's seven. And who was it that was saying they knew someone with 30 children? What was that? 20 children. Oh, that's right, I was listening to something earlier. And they said their dad had 20 children. It's just, Uganda's just, it's just mad. And they all live in such small rooms, you know, so. So there is a Uganda Bible Society. And if people send me money, I will order them. But they don't always have them. In fact, I've been waiting for some Bibles with them since about February. They keep saying, oh yeah, we'll get them. So we get them all. Some people give us them here and I'll ship them over. But we always want Bibles. If you know someone, if you're able, let's talk after. Now what about you young lads, are you going to go to university when you get older? What about ABU? Think about it. If you want to do business or education, communications or IT, I tell you what daddy, it'll be a lot cheaper. Yeah. I need to come back with a wife, I can guarantee you. The wife is there to tell me. All right, so... Yeah, yeah. Let's leave it there, then. All right. But if you want to ask any more questions, we'll be around. The table's at the back. Please come and ask us, come and talk to us. If you think you can do a job there, definitely talk to the missus. Thanks very much. Thank you. We've got some time for prayer, so I suggest we use it wisely and bring these matters before the Lord. I should just say... Those few of us perhaps who haven't been here for insurance being the default path, the large part of what you actually do, it's not just a degree in a subject like business or IT, but it's actually at the core of it, it's more of an American style curriculum. I went to university and my first year I did music and education, my second and third years I just did music. That's not the American way, it's more modular. in the middle of it all is teaching scripture as much as you would in a Bible college and preparing particularly the men for some form of ministry within the church as well. So it's not just churning out degrees, it's preparing men for the ministry across. Yeah, a ministry wouldn't be enough to support your family, you would need something else, so we give them something else as well. So it's a really important thing that they're doing. So let's bring it before the Lord as well, let's pray for these methods and see the Lord's blessing on them. Lord, we thank you for the work there in Kampala and Uganda. We thank you, Lord, for the many who've been trained over the years. We pray, Lord, that you will bring in many students in this new academic year. Indeed, Lord, our prayer would be that you would bring so many in that the university would struggle to accommodate them. Lord, we would pray that such a problem would be there, that you might so bless the work. Lord, we pray that those who are trained will go out, not just simply to recruit others, but Lord, that through their ministry, through their witness, through their lives, others will be brought to know you as Lord and Saviour. Lord, we pray that in days to come you will have the joy or fury of many conversions in the land of Uganda, many not just simply brought to believe in the Saviour, but then taught the truth and seeing them and knowing of them, growing in grace and in their understanding. So we just pray that you will bless our brother and sister as they continue to live in this country until they return. Keep them safe, Lord, we pray. Bless this community.