No monkey business allowed

Over the last several weeks on the missionfield most Saturdays have been free days to just "relax" and have some fun. For the majority of these days, the "relaxation" we've taken part of has consisted of playing ultimate frisbee at an internationl language school about 15-20 minutes away from our home base with several other missionaries in this area of East Africa. (Of course last Saturday I got to hike one of the surrounding mountains--what a trip! P.S. If you normally listen to me preach on a regular bases I am sure you'll hear a lot about that adventure but those stories are for another day.)

 Anyways back to our day in the park at the international language school. We got out there and were enjoying a good game of frisbee with my beautiful bride cheering our team on from the sidelines when her attention suddenly shifted to someone else who decided to join us in the park. This guest was about 18 inches to 2 foot tall, and had a tail which was almost equally as long. This animal we'll just say likes to eat bananas if you're following my drift; and we will call his name "Sam." Well anyhow Sam decided that he was thirsty so since all of us who were out playing frisbee had left our water bottles on the benches off the field, he thought no one would mind if he had a drink. This was when Beth stepped into the picture and tried to get Sam to leave the water bottle which was about 4 feet from her alone. But of course he had to come up and greet her from about 2 feet away. So after our fury friend's formal introduction to Mrs. Beth he went up into the trees where one would think he belonged. (In case your curious: yes everyone playing frisbee watched the whole thing happen from the field.)

Back to the game for us--so we thought (someone else was playing a game of their own and we were his opponents unbeknown to us). We played hard on the field until it was time for a water break which was when round number 2 began. And now Sam was in it to win it. Here we are enjoying our refreshments and he starts jumping up onto a couple of the kids who were with us. This was terrifying for them to say the least. Even though we see a lot of Sam's kind around, most of them are extremely fearful of humans since people tend to kill them (illegally mind you) because they destroy gardens and other types of crops which people farm for a living--not to mention on the black market their meat I'm told goes for a pretty penny. Thus we tend to see them up in the trees and occasionally on roof tops (yes we have heard and seen them in the early morning on top of our hosts' house - they've woke us up several times when jumping on the roof above us). Plus these animals are considered to be vehement-- some have been known to have rabies.

After several minutes of watching our fury friend named "Sam" from a close distance and several adults monitoring his interaction with the children, he left again; so we went back to frisbee for the third time. But now it was too late for one of the kids who would just as soon stay in the car until we were done playing frisbee than take their chances with Sam.

Round number 3: with the majority of the adults back on the field Sam decided it was time to come back but this time he came with his owner. The gentleman told us that Sam became on orphan when he was about a month old. Here in this country of East Africa there is a lot of power lines which are being added thus a lot of trees are being cut down. So this certain man decided to have a rather unique fury pet. And now Sam was about 9 months and very friendly, thus he just wanted some attention--he wanted someone who would spend some time with him.

As I reflect on our monkeying around on one Saturday in East Africa, I can't help but think about something which will begin on August 1st. August 1st begins a month long religious holy month for a major world religion; and this is no monkey business. This just happens to be a really big deal for us. We are currently in a country which has about 1/3 of its people who follow such beliefs. During this time the spiritual warfare which is already obvious, will get much worse, so no monkey business is allowed!

The souls of millions here in this country need our attention. We can't be afraid that they might bite us and give us rabies like a monkey might. They need our prayers. Please join us in praying that God would lead these people into circumstances which would open their hearts to the lies they have been living under and the truth of God's Word. Please pray for the wisdom of the missionaries and other Christian workers here as we seek to reach them for Jesus Christ. Please pray that the powers of the evil one are not able to get a stronghold in any of the missionaries lives, but that the Word of God would be victorious. This will be a long-term battle which will probably take more than 3 rounds like we experienced with someone named "Sam."

Please also pray for the translator's workshop which begins on August 1st as well. This will be a workshop to train individuals interested in becoming national Bible translators from several areas here in East Africa. The majority of these individuals will be working on translations in areas which are dominated by this other major world religion. Therefore I encourage you to join us in this spiritual battle for “our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12);” so there is no monkey business allowed in this war.