Psalm 34:8-9 “O taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. O fear the Lord, you His saints; for to those who fear Him, there is no want”.

Where is one in their thinking patterns when you are now less than five months away from a serious life changing event? I would quickly say “all over the place”. It seems that the things around us are taking shape yet our minds are a bit unfocused in the split screen of Bismarck, Florida, and Africa. The things of God are incredibly good and we see them gleaming overall each day. We have our house “under contract” even though we have yet to list it anywhere. Who else but the Lord could show us this kind of favor? We have sold many of our life “treasures” and even that feels really good. As the time progresses; we are anxious to unleash ourselves from even more worldly possessions. THINGS seem to take on more burden than meaning in this transition.

I am finishing up with the writing of the Biology curriculum. The material is quite interesting so I am hopeful that I can finish these lessons in a timely manner. We are just beginning to do some “good-byes” and they are precious yet painful. Kent’s brother, Max was here for a week and we had a really nice visit. Kent will see him at a school reunion in August but I will most likely not go to that reunion. We do feel that Max and his family will come to visit us in Moshi.

Anna has now passed the BAR for the state of Maryland and can also be barred in Washington, DC and North Dakota. She is actively looking for a job in the DC area. I pray that she will find a good position before we leave for Africa. I dream that she might be able to fly over to Moshi for Christmas…maybe this year. We will see.

We have finalized the plans and the contract for the renovation of our house in Florida. I will most likely be flying down a few times this summer to “oversee” the progress. Again, we see God’s blessings of good in giving us a wonderful contractor to work with there. My first trip down should be June 21 to 25 during the Rafiki “Enrichment” week. I am looking forward to the time with others missionaries that are on the field in Africa.

God has blessed us greatly in raising our support funding. We are getting close to the required amount and that is also something that we cannot do without the Lord. We have a “new” 2003 fourth owner car in Moshi just waiting for our arrival. We were notified of a missionary “coming home” and our friends in Moshi cemented the deal for us. We have also had a wonderful time of visiting the small groups in our church to solicit prayer support for us and the Renners. It is hard for me even to imagine a prayer force near 400 people!! What a great God we serve.

Here is a reminder of what we are looking forward to! I already think of them as “my children”, even though I know they also belong to the Lord. All in all to say that life marches on at an increasing pace; yet the LORD is GOOD!

Some weeks ago I attended a leadership conference for about 150 people and we were addressed by a nationally known speaker. To my surprise at the end of the lecture we were each presented with a copy of his book on personal transformation. My colleagues had mixed comments about the lecture but I started to read the book on the long drive home, hoping that there would be something positive for me even though I have only about 5 more months before stepping out of my role in senior leadership. With our preparations to sell our house, get rid of needless baggage and get remaining items ready for shipment to our new residence in Florida, I laid aside the book until this present brief vacation in Mexico.effectiveness and productivity. With such opportunities ahead of us in Africa, outlined previously in this blog, I have finally given it a try with the hope that I might enjoy a greater potential for the benefits.

(note the picture of the Mexican sunset).  Despite the fact that the book is entirely secular I discovered in completing it that I now see clearly why I need to compose a “vision/mission statement” which before had seemed entirely superfluous. During this week in Mexico I have thought and prayed about it and think it is a very good idea now that we see such a major transition ahead. The author suggests a good reason for doing this; by observing that it helps us capitalize on

 Before going over them, at least the rough draft, I would like to share what additional insights have been provided to Peggy and me about the years of missionary work which is already history; starting with Livingston’s great trial blazing work. Livingston is the Scottish missionary doctor who vanished for a while in “darkest Africa” until found by the journalist Stanley on November 10, 1871. The event is immortalized in the words carved on a stone marker in the town of Ujiji which is situated on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, “Dr. Livingston, I presume”. There are two books which are very easy to read about typical missionary work there written in the 1940’s and 1960’s which were immensely popular several generations ago. The author, Dr. Paul White, eventually turned his experiences there into an internationally syndicated radio program aired once a week on four continents, 85 radio stations, and over 1000 separate programs spanning a twenty year period.  They are Doctor of Tanganyika and Jungle Doctor Progresses which sandwich at least 19 other volumes about his various experiences. Just recently one of our dear friends who was a lifetime missionary in Africa died in a retirement home and she left us a heavy workbook style history of what happened during the years she served with her physician husband in a lonely outpost on the shores of Lake Victoria (the giant fresh water lake shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya). These references make us realize that we are only following in the footsteps of many, many who have gone before us and some who have laid down their lives often quite unexpectedly. During our first terms in Africa we were largely ignorant of their noble deeds and how they contributed to the progress of modern Africa. No one anticipated what AIDS would do to this continent, wiping out much of the public health progress made since the 1880’s. In Tanzania alone there are about 3 million orphans among the present 48 million population which would compute to 19 million orphans if the US had the same kind of problem! I write these things to help you realize we have good reason to consider how to capitalize on effectiveness and productivity if the Lord should grant us the remaining 7-10 years of vibrant service, which we hope HE will give us.

VISION: To be Christ’s ambassador among my colleagues and the medical students at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC), to have a servant’s attitude among my fellow workers at our mission station: Rafiki Village Tanzania and to seek the best interests of Christ’s church in Tanzania.

Comment: I am hoping that many of my colleague teachers at the plus one thousand student medical school will be men and women with a personal relationship with Christ but this is unknown. Most of the students will have a nominal Christian or Muslim background. I see many opportunities not only for evangelistic Bible studies but encouraging believers in a deeper walk with our Lord. It is a terrible thing to be a sour missionary, seemingly an oxymoron but nevertheless seen from time to time on the field. Our close colleagues are often the ones who see it and suffer from it most. Our Lord told His disciples very plainly that greatness is attained by being a servant after the pattern of Himself who did not come to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. Then lastly, the church is more than 150 years old in Tanzania and there is still so much to be done. We must seek to encourage every believer wherever they are found in the denominations of the visible church.

MISSION: to know Christ and make Him known, to daily become more like Him in my thoughts, words and deeds through the power of the Holy Spirit and to seek relationships characterized by openness, vulnerability and mutual accountability.

Comment: The mission part of this statement is necessary as a road map is to a destination. How will we arrive at our vision which is seen as a distant point on the horizon?  Most of us would be familiar with the first two parts of the MISSION from the apostle Paul. I judge from my experiences, that fewer believers know that the Father has purposed from eternity that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, the unique one of a kind and termed in the NT, “the only begotten”. I include the word “daily” in this part of the statement because of being convinced that the process of becoming like Him takes place in daily increments which starts with personal communion with Him in prayer and meditation. In the years that I have been a physician with being on call and attending to all the other duties which come our way there is no substitute for that disciplined daily meeting with our Lord and subsequently taking delight in doing the will of the Father. This process is mediated through the Holy Spirit, who actually makes us know in the inner man that we are sons of the Father, we are loved,and He hears our prayers despite His incomprehensible greatness. But we must not imagine that this process takes place outside the communion which we enjoy with our brethren. As I have gotten older I realize with increasing clarity that the most cherished human relationships which we have in Christ are the ones which are characterized by being open, vulnerable, and mutually accountable. These are some basic requirements of growth stimulating fellowship among believers. Our growth comes as our thoughts, words, and deeds reflect more the character of Jesus our Lord, and understand what He meant as He told His disciples in John 6, “for My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink”. They nourish and change us because in partaking,  “…he also will live because of me”. But we must be careful to take in these words and allow them to change us with a holy expectancy.

VALUES: To have the mind of Christ (the selfless mind, the serving mind and the sacrificial mind) and thus receive guidance as to right praying, right thinking and right living.

Comment: As we read the map in our journey toward the heavenly country we are constantly making moral choices, some of which can have life and death consequences. What values will guide us in making those moral choices? Again we learn so much from Paul in his letter to the Philippians as he writes about Christ’s willingness to empty Himself and become a bond-servant. In the book of Isaiah written some 600 years before the Messiah finally appeared it is said in chapter 52 that His form was so disfigured that He was not recognizable (from the swelling, cuts, shredding of flesh and bleeding that scourging would inflict, including being crowned with a wreath of long thorns). He knew in advance that all this was coming (Matt 20:18,19) and yet was determined to endure it including the indescribable agonies of crucifixion. All of this for us because He loved the Father and was determined to do His will. Paul tells us what the practical implications of this mind of Christ was as he instructs believers in right praying (Phil 4:6,7), right thinking (v.8) and right living (v.9). What a treasure it is to have these values as our guide.

GOALS: I have decided due to the length of this blog entry to break off here and comment on these for the next time. The goals are what milestones we can see as necessarily ahead in the details of following the road map. For example, we are hoping that our house will be sold by the next entry, we shall have shipped most of what we want to keep to our new residence in Florida and expect that God will provide a place for us to live in Bismarck until my contract is finished at Sanford Health in late October.

We will look forward to sharing these goals with you for prayer and information. The next major event for us will be attending our daughter’s swearing in as an attorney in Washington DC in about two weeks. We are thankful for God’s work in her life recently in response to your prayers and ours.