Pastor Jesse Part 2

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Team Building African style

So there I am in a dark 20 foot storage container trying to enlarge an 8mm hole on a piece of steel plate with a round rat tail file. It's 11:00 ast night, my hand hurts from the incision I made while cutting the sidewall out a used truck tire to mount bull horns on an old landrover. That's when Dr. Jean starts to tell me how we're the intelligent ones on this crew. The humor of it all gets us to laughing and soon the entire team is cutting up and it is just another gorgeous full moon night in Africa.

Dr. Jean and her hubby Tom are setting out on Sunday, the next morning, along with Ryan to scope out their new ministry location in Karamoja. As a precaution we are mounting Ankole cattle horns on the front of the landrover to assure the people of the area that this is the vet who can heal their cattle. That explains the bull horns. The filing is to enlarge the hole on the steel mounting plate that supports the horns. As hard headed as the bull's skull may be it seems that when you drill into it, it may wander a bit, the hole not the bull. Although the bull would probably wonder what you're doing. Anyway the filing works and we get the bolts in place.

Now comes the rubber from the tire. I had sliced my hand about 2 inches long and 3/16 inch deep cutting the sidewall to make a mounting cushion for the horns. I must admit that this was the sharpest I had ever gotten a knife blade to be and when I sliced it I felt no pain. Kelli started to worry about the amount of blood seeping out of the wound and went and got a rag from Bev to wipe up the spill before someone slipped on the slick spot. However Bev picked up on the implications of Kelli's question and asked "How badly did my husband cut himself?" That's when Bev came outside to join Ryan, Jean, Tom, Kelli and I in this team building moonlight adventure. We had already decided to use the soles of Ryan's sandals instead of the tire rubber since the smell of the shoes might be greater than the smell of the bull horns, so I had cut myself for nothing but it still was funny.

Anyway we finally finished about midnight and the horns look great! Not very loud but they do make a statement.

It is hard for all of us to think about Ryan not being here in Jinja full time but God has opened a great door of opportunity for the team to minister in an unreached area. The mood is a bit somber at the thought of Ryan, Tom and Jean leaving but we are resilient in Christ and He makes changes as He sees fit. The travelers will be back for Ryan's farewell party on Saturday the 3rd.

Lord give us strength to rejoice in what You will accomplish through our friends even though we will miss them so much.

And thanks Lord for healing my hand.

Jesse Blog