Well It is May and that means that we are starting to dip into a bit of a dry season out here in Yembiyembi. That means that we have to conserve a bit more water (Beau and I washing at the river, laundry not as often, etc..) but our airstrip will be out of the water for any unexpected flights so that is nice. It also means that we will have a great sand bar down at the river for our 2nd set of baptisms coming up on the 24th.
The believers are very excited and it looks like anywhere from 15-30 people might get baptized. About 20 have given their testimonies and have been "approved" by the believers for baptism, and there are quite a few more that are debating it. Remember that the first group we baptized almost resulted in myself and one of our believers getting speared in the water, so the tension is thick when these things happen. Baptism here is not simply a confession of faith and following through on that. Anyone involved is making a very public break from their old way of life and committing themselves to stand on this new talk ALONE, it's almost Biblical J.
Last week our co-worker Tim came back to the village to help out for 5 weeks, (which is a huge blessing) so that caused a lot of excitement among the Yembi's and brought out the mud, flowers, face paint etc… to "welcome" him back. He is going to be teaching next week as we push into Romans 7 and 8. The believers continue to grow and mature and we seem to be getting new faces every Sunday. As we have been going through Romans being "saved by works" or by "following the 10 commandments" has taken a pounding and that is reverberating around the village. Last week as I was walking home one night I stopped and stood by my brother's (Roger) house listening as he read to his wife and 2 boys and explaining our "Adam part" (old nature), "and "if the law could save us why did Jesus come?" Then further on one of my in-laws (Stanley) was explaining to his mother that "Abraham crossed to God's side (was saved) by belief, and not by cutting skin or by the Law of Moses, they came later, so how could they help him cross, and how can they help us cross now?"
Nina and Beau are doing well. Beau continues to do battle with his mother through 2nd grade but his chickens (an egg a day now), his dog, his kitten, and rubberband wars with his Yembi buddies are seeing him through. Two weeks ago he flew on his own to the Mariama tribe to see his friends (8 other missionary kids) and get a break from Mom and Dad, so that was a huge hit.
Nina is carrying a heavy load as usual and has been doing great on the content checking (making sure the meaning of what Paul was saying comes through in the translation) of the book of Romans. We are hoping to wrap Romans up in the next couple of weeks and start the checking on the book of Ephesians, so pray we can keep our energy level up for all of that. God has smiled on Nina and our cat (Snow) has started to catch rats resulting in 3 rat-free weeks now….it has dropped all our blood pressure quite a bit (Nina because of the rats, Beau and I because of Nina).
Guys that should do it. In 2 weeks I head out on a survey of a new tribe (the Garamambu language group) that has been asking for missionaries for 5 years now, so pray for that. These things have a way of breaking your heart as you see people ready, waiting, and wanting missionaries so bad, but having no families to go in there. Pray that the Lord would send us a few new families to put in there, so that the Garamambu people could "cross over" someday.
Once again I tip my hat to all of you and say a big "Thank You" for the prayers, packages, encouragement and support you are to us over here, the Yembi's would not have the gospel, would not be growing if it wasn't for you. Someday you will get to see the result of all the efforts, but till then you will have to suffice with just these bad e-mails.
Appreciate you all,
Brooks for Nina and Beau
P.S.
This is from my uncle Zaccheus a very down to earth, humble man that has just learned how to read well and loves talking about the "Bridge-man". Our Council (the government representative for the village) was trying to intimidate him to stop coming to the teaching and he responded to him like this, "Brother-in-law, you are a big head (knowledgeable) man, I am not. You know more about government, money, town living, you win/pass me in knowledge on these things. But I know this book (the Bible), and I know that I have the found true talk in it, and I win/pass you in knowledge of this book. I am one of little knowledge, but I do know what is true, and you will not loosen my fingers from it."
P.S.S. the pictures of the Yembiyembi's continue to be at http://www.flickr.com/photos/yembiyembi/ and the blog of all our communications from out here is at http://bringingthesecrettalk.blogspot.com/
(((Pictures next time, our radio connection has been poor)))
