Hi! Greetings again from Africa!

Back in April, I was traveling by bus to Sudan with Tony and Bryan. As we took our seats on the bus, one of the bus employees began to explain to us the usual rules of the bus: no smoking, no standing, no leaving things in the aisle, etc. Then she said something I won’t forget: “Don’t be worried if the bus breaks down. Breakdowns are automatic.” “Hmm,” I thought to myself, “automatic breakdowns. That’s not exactly a selling point. But it does make sense – they happen without you doing anything…” Sure enough, on our journey, the bus broke down. It left us for several hours on the side of the road wondering why they can’t also have automatic repairs!

As I’ve come to see, breakdowns are automatic at least in Africa. It happens to my vehicle all the time, usually in the worst possible place. It happened to my truck back in March while we were 5 hours from anything resembling civilization. What did we do? We just left it there. Broken down vehicles are de rigeur around here and apparently it’s not a big deal if you just leave them for several months until you can fix them.

So that’s what we did, but now the time has come for me to fix the darn thing and I’m not looking forward to it.

On Monday I’ll be traveling to Wamba with a mechanic and a new transmission and I would appreciate your prayers. I don’t expect the fix to be easy or quick. But more than the details of the repairs, I would appreciate your prayers as I try to counsel my mechanic. You see, his name is Mouris and he used to work for my friend Shane in Nairobi. He’s very qualified and gifted, and, even better, I trust him. However, Shane had to fire Mouris because of immoral behavior. Mouris used to be walking the narrow road and following the Lord, but recently he’s started to wander away from God. I’m not the best at confronting and counseling people, but I’ll have at least a week with him staying at my house in Wamba as we try to fix the vehicle. I really need God’s help to counsel Mouris and help him get back on track with the Lord. So I want to enlist your support in prayer as Mouris and I travel together and stay together. Please pray that God will give me the right words to say and pray that God will soften Mouris’ heart so that he will be willing to listen and respond.

Thanks so much for your prayers. I’m sorry I haven’t written much in the past few months, I was busy with Bryan and Tony, but now they are back in the US and I am going to make a more concerted effort to keep you updated. Thanks for bearing with me!

That’s all for now. I really appreciate all your prayers, support, and encouragement. They mean so much to me!

Take care and have a great day! Your friend, ERIC