Week #7

Dear Friends and Family:

 

Well we finished the week of teaching with the final thought being "Next week we will start the talk of the bridge-man (the one who will be the bridge for the sons of Satan to come to God's side)" and people are getting excited. Many already know that this talk will culminate in this guy called Jesus, and that he did something big and our books (record of our sins) and our Adam part (Sin nature passed down to us from Adam) will get taken away allowing us to move to God's side. They are not sure how it all works though, and why this man is different, but they want to know and badly.

 

2 days ago my brother Roger said this "I know that my Adam part makes me dirty, because of that I am not sure there is anything my hands can work or my mind can think that can bring me to the other side. He (the bridge-man) must do something and that alone will carry me across".

 

Thank you for praying for the river and the flood situation that we were facing. Incredibly as we were getting 1", 2" and even one night 3.5" of rain we did not go under. The river is holding steady and we have been able to stay in the teaching house and continue in the momentum that we have there. Continue to pray for individual people and for the tribe as a whole. The talk of the village (especially from 6:00pm till 2:00 in the morning) is about the teaching and the new ideas brought by this teaching. Some are visibly excited as they hear these new things from God's book, and some are scared of the implications this will have on their life. One of my fathers, Lawrence, was talking last night and said "I know that a chicken and it's feathers cannot make my daughter better, I know that the smoke does not remove our dead ancestor spirits, they are all far far away probably in the fire lake. But these ideas came from our great-great grandfathers, and to give my backside to all of them is very hard to do." No doubt these things will take time for them to grow in, but praise God they are seeing a stark difference between what God says and what they have believed, and recognizing one as true others as false.

 

Last Saturday night's meeting was again a big highlight of my week (9:00pm till 3:00 in the morning). Many in that group are now understanding points of truth that are way passed where the rest of the tribe is at, and applying it to their lives. One of Nina's brothers, Silas, who is our right hand man that drives the boat and motor, cuts the grass on the airstrip with the tractor, and has been faithful with many other things.  Silas (whose wife at the beginning was not attending the teaching very well, but recently has been coming faithfully) talked about this "We are in your hands (us 3 missionaries), but my children and wife are in my hands, if they die and go to the fire lake I will be the one who God will ask the hard question to, I must work hard so they too can be clear in the thinking on God".

 

The highlight by far though of this week was putting together the lesson of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus with my language helper Job. As we read John 1:29 where John says (Bises translation) "Look you ones, this One coming is the sheep sent by God, He will remove the sin debt of all the men and women living on this ground" and Job put it all together. He didn't start crying or jumping up and down he just said "I see it, I see it is just like that" (which means he understands). Then he took me back from the beginning with Adam and Eve and our sin in them, then he walked me through Abraham and Isaac and the sheep taking Isaac's place, then through the Passover and the sheep without blemish was the only thing that could take the place of the Israelite first born, and that if Jesus was the sheep for all mankind then he (Job) counted and He was his sheep, his substitute. It was a….once in a lifetime experience.

 

Guys there are a lot of men and women who are close or right where Job is now at, and in a little over 3 weeks they will be hearing the last lesson we have to teach. Keep praying, keep holding your people up in prayer, that they would be faithful in their attendance, that they would be tracking with the lesson, that they would recognize their immense need for a Savior, and when He comes on the scene they would fall in love with Him.

 

We are in good health just run down a bit. Pray that the next 48 hours we could get some much needed rest and gear up for the next week of teaching.

 

There are only 3 and half weeks to go till we teach the final lesson, if we stay on schedule (big if) the final lesson will fall on the 28^th of April (27^th in the U.S). Keep pressing on and petitioning God for His grace and mercy to these people, your prayers are really make a difference.

 

Thanks guys, appreciate you all so much,

Brooks for Nina and Beau

 

P.S.

The pictures of all the Yembi's are still at http://www.flickr.com/photos/yembiyembi/ and there is a blog of all these e-mail and other links at http://bringingthesecrettalk.blogspot.com/

 

And if somebody could send me an e-mail and tell me:

1. Who was in the final four,
2. Who won
3. Where the Padres are in the standings
4. Who is going to be the next President of the U.S. (in that order of priority)