Calling the Shots

Yesterday I made 200 Prayer bookmarks to hand out with letters asking for support to possible sponsors. Today I called the Health Dept. to get the necessary shots for travel in Uganda. The only mandatory shot is yellow fever, but to be on the safe side I am including typhoid, hepatitis A, and a prescription against malaria. I had been informed that shots would be $1,000 or more, hence the $4,500 on my handy-dandy thermometer. The total is actually $251 making my new goal $3,751! Wow, Uganda gets closer every day. Please continue to pray for me as I make my preparations, and while I am on the field. Thank you.

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/uganda.htm

Typhoid - $64  one shot

Hepatitis A – 2 shots 6 months apart $38 a piece

Yellow fever – $101 one shot

Malaria prescription – $10 per fill

$251- Total

Phil 1:19-26 says

- For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 20 according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. 24 Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. 25 And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, 26 that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again. - NKJV

In Christ,

David Greene

Created to Create

Lately, I have been given a large amount of time to myself. My mother made the comment to me last week that this is the first time in my life that I don't have to do anything. In school I had to do schoolwork. In college I had to do college studies. At work I had to labor, but now though still employed, just unused for the past few weeks (till the boss finds more work for me to do) I have been given 'time'.  I have been led by God to discover the meaning of time, the time that is given to us. I want to be a good steward of my time and the goods God has given to me. We were made in the image of the creator and so we are called to create, as in the beginning when God gave the garden to Adam and said for him to work in it. We are made to work, and now it is left to me to decide where to place my time, whether to glorify God or to glorify self. If I glorify myself, I am given just that, self... and all that evil that comes with it. I don't want this to be my end prize. This unused period of time comes in week long spurts and has happened before at TAG with me. I used to panic and run out and grab all the applications I could and fill them out, but before I could turn them back in, my boss Travis, who is also my older brother, would say he needs me back at work. A month later the process would happen again and now the third time. I just anticipated the same... for the first week at least, now Wednesday of the second week I realize that I have been given this time to learn. To learn what to do with my self.

 On Monday I woke up early and set out to take my time by the horns, and I did. By the end of the day I had made several life changing decisions about a large quantity of the money God had given me and about my future time. Then at the end of the day I looked out at the waning purple and deep black of twilight over the mountains and thought to my self. "At what point did I ask God what he wanted me to do?" Wow, what a powerful mistake I could have made! The feeling sunk into my gut. I realized that when I mess with the amount of money God has given me for this trip, I mess with the time that I leave, and that is God's time! Not mine to mess with. The next day I never left the house; it was spent in dedication of Christ, to peruse and to listen. With that, I spent my time far, far more productively being subject to God than by taking instant initiative, possibly in the wrong direction. The choices I made on Monday I now feel were the right ones, but I have prayed that if they were not that I may still be able to change them. Now if only I can blend the initiative of Monday with the obedience of Tuesday... He is still working on me.

 My time has gone now into The Truth Project, The Federalist Papers, upkeep of a home, time in prayer, and seeking to send out prayer letters. This is Wednesday and I am looking for something to create. Pottery, painting, a short story perhaps. We were created to create and I feel that desire today. There is a deep fulfilling pleasure that comes with being a good steward of what God gives.

Gen 2:2-3

-And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 

Gen 2:15-16 

- Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 

 NKJV

Soli Deo Gloria

In Christ, David Greene

Finance and Recent Events

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s starting to hit home - the reality and grandeur of the life to which Christ has called me. I have taken my own initiative to see his purpose out and am currently in his will. I had about 45% of my expected $4,500 raised. Half of that is sponsor money which I don't touch. That amount stays current and is at $1,100. Today I am about to create letters to hopeful sponsors. So I anticipate that number to rise as the Lord puts his call on individuals. I, this year, have earned $3,000 in labor with TAG contracting, but $1,000 has gone to fix my car and another large sum has slipped into the gas tank and gone for food and other necessities. I did buy a knife from Dick's Sporting Goods for $70. This is the only superfluous purchase I can recall. The rest has gone to pay for C.H.E training ($550) and Water Pumping ($500) courses at Equip Intl. I now have $434 set aside for my three month trip. So that's the financial side of my endeavors.

          Now let’s talk current events. On May 13th I will take a week-long water pumping tech class from Equip, the second part of preparing myself for a lifetime of missions wherever I am. CHE, the first class I took, opened my eyes to a greater worldview and taught me how to evangelize. It gave me set models for community evangelism to use as a tool for Christ. I'm hoping the second course will give me something to bring to the table as a contributor. People have drilled wells all over Africa, but when those wells break no one locally knows how to fix them.

          One day I was praying that the Lord give me someone to share the gospel with and in a few minutes after I had stopped at a store for a sandwich, I met an old friend who currently works there. I have watched this young man turn from a life of sin and drugs to a fervent pursuit of God. He used to read the Bible constantly in class, to the dislike of everyone, but the called. It is unusual and I don't know if he had a walk with Christ or liked to present himself in that way for attention. He is a most depressed youth then and now. Please keep him in your prayers as he has rejected the Lord for himself and is depressed. I shared with him until I felt the peace of the Holy Spirit. I have returned to the store to follow up on his spirit. Would you take a moment to pray for the enlightenment of this individual? It is a deep concern for me that I may be used to proclaim liberty to the captives and open the prison of those who are bound.

Isaiah 61:1-3 says

 "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me

To preach good tidings to the poor;

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives,

And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 

2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,

And the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn, 

3 To console those who mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes,

The oil of joy for mourning,

The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;

That they may be called trees of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." - NKJV

 At TAG Contracting I always took time to share some level of the gospel with the other workers, asking if they knew Christ and having a time of prayer before starting work in the morning. Now, however, due to cutbacks, my future with the company seems unstable and I have applied elsewhere. I feel I may be called to work somewhere else so that Christ may use me and teach me other skills. This past week I have not been needed to work, so I’ve put my time in the most useful places as possible. I have discovered MIT's open course ware, or classes free online without a teacher or credit. I have taken an interest in the foundation of America and have been reading the Federalist Papers. I desire to get my hands on a copy of the New England primer. I have been watching the Truth project with Dr. Del Tackett and Focus on the Family, as well as fellowshipping with my church and Equip’s personnel. I plan to plant in my perma-garden when it warms up and perhaps see what other missionary projects I can learn. As well, I went on my first date this Saturday, nothing serious though, but it was a fun evening.

Isaiah 61: 1-3

In Christ, 

David Greene

Thank You, Grace Community Church For Supporting Me

Grace Community Church's Finance committee has donated to Equip for my trip to Jinja! Thank you so, so much. I will be writing them a weekly update on Wednesday afternoons during my three month stay with Chris Spearling. May God bless and keep this amazing Christ-centered, evangelistic hearted church!

My Church Site!

http://graceforall.org/testsite/

 - 1 Chronicles 16:34 "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." - NIV

In Christ,

David Greene

Peregrinatio

Peregrinatio:

- a leaving of one's homeland; a self-imposed exile and wandering for the love of God.

Jinja, Uganda

Five months ago I came before Equip Intl. to ask to be sent to a mission field for three months that I may see what a missionary is, and to experience the poverty on a longer time scale than a church based mission trip. I figured three months to be long enough to get past the happy go lucky feelings and to sit down into the poverty. I have never been on a mission trip before and never seen a missionary work. This is an important first step towards being a full time missionary. Jinja is the result of my request. It is the second largest city in Uganda. Located on the banks of Lake Victoria, Jinja is at the headwaters of the Nile River. It thrives upon agriculture, and reliable rainfall. White water adventure rafters frequent this town for its intense rapids. I must remain prayerful and submissive to God through all of this, so I don't damage the ministry of the missionaries already at work. It is so easy to hurt when you're trying to help. I will observe and shadow Chris Sperling, an Equip missionary, who is implementing an agricultural process called Farming Gods Way. This is a no-plowing prayerful way to farm which yields unparalleled crop results! I have raised $640 dollars towards a goal of $3,000 that is Equip's estimate at this point. I added $1,000 to the cost for vaccinations and an extra $500 for visa, passport, health insurance and any extra surprises that may crop up to bring in us to a grand total of $4,500 for a three month mission trip to Jinja. Not bad for getting across the Atlantic, but the figure is subject to change. I need your prayer right now this moment, that God may send out His Holy Spirit to go before me to prepare a place for Himself in the hearts of those He calls, that He may use me a lot, in Jinja or wherever He calls me.

Matt 28:18-20

- 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." - NIV

In Christ the son of God,

David Greene

Missionary Education Part 1 C.H.E (Community Health Evangelism)

This week I have been attending full day classes with Equip Intl. learning the basics of mission work. The class was taught from 8:00am - 5:00pm.  Each hour was a different lesson. It is very difficult to put a class like this into words. Topics were always open for discussion and the multiple solutions for problems were what we as a group of 10 evangelists could think of. Every answer was written on a board, no matter how well thought. The class was arrayed in a circle with no tables or podiums. Our leaders, Harold Bracken II and his wife Brenda, sat in different seating arrangements every day to keep us from a feeling of their authority. The whole process Harold and Brenda were modeling is a teaching strategy to use in other cultures. We learned as much or more from each of the missionaries' experiences as we did from the curriculum. This made the assimilation of mass quantities of knowledge easy. I took several pages of notes that earned a special place in my black journal. I used pictures I drew alongside the notes for further retention; scrolls were for verses of valuable scripture that I needed to memorize. Spider webs were networks I can use and such like that. I learned how easy it is to hurt when you want to help. When we sent shoes to Haiti, we put the local cobbler out of business and the same with food and clothing handouts. I learned that you need to assimilate with the culture and learn the language (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11bxy9bSYG4 ß a funny demonstration of why). It would take two weeks to post all the knowledge and experiences I had in one week of CHE. Definitely the best education I have ever received! The classes at Equip are so on key with what is practical in the field. We need a delicate balance of meeting peoples' physical needs: water, medicine, food, and sanitation and their spiritual needs: evangelism, follow up, and discipleship. Equips' main focus is to meet God where he is working. Their main goal is Christ’s Kingdom. Thank you, Lord, for sending me to this place! In a few weeks I plan to pick up a missionary trade to take to the field. I am hoping for Pumping water tech taught by Keith Larrimore, and if I have the funds at that time, a well drilling class will be added. But in all this I must remember "A man may plan his ways, but the Lord prepares his steps". I need to spend time in prayer to see if this is the direction of the Lord our God.http://chenetwork.org/index.php

Prov 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. – NIV

In Christ,

David Greene

EE-Taow! The Mouk Story

This is the powerful story of missionary Mark Zuck and a Papua New Guinea tribe called the Mouk people, a must see for those with a soft spot for evangelism. The celebration when the Mouk people come to Christ makes me cry every time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFQQ5TvrzsU&feature=related and this is the "follow up" and discipleship of the Mouk people. EE-Taow! the next chapter... the villagers teach the story of Jesus to other tribes.

Rev 5:9-10
"You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth." - NIV

In Christ,
David Greene

It's Official, I Am A Missionary!

Dear David,


With this e-mail I want to officially welcome you as a member of Equip effective today, February 24, 2012.


We're glad to have you as part of Equip, and we'll be looking forward to your 3-month short-term trip to serve under Equip in an overseas ministry, possibly in Uganda, in the near future.




In Him,


Harold L. Bracken II
Director of personnel
Equip

The Rabbits & Permaculture

Over the summer I came upon a great idea from a man at my church named Stan Smothers, the idea was simple... one female rabbit with heavy breeding could in one year produce as much meat as a cow, and he puts it "They come in meal sized packages." I found this hard to believe so I looked it up and it’s a true fact. Wikipedia stated around 800 offspring. But you never know. Stan's old college had a self-sustaining ecosystem project using rabbits, a garden, and a worm bed. The system went like this... a rabbit cage with hardware cloth for flooring perched over a worm bed next to a vegetable garden would with a little catalyzing take care of its self. The droppings from the rabbits fall threw the floor into the compost pile  (rabbit pellets are like solid gold for a garden). Then once mixed up by the worms it can be shoveled into the garden to grow vegetables. You eat the produce and then the scraps get fed back to the rabbits,and occasionally when the cage gets crowded you eat a rabbit. Of course, the rabbits need more to eat than scarps from the garden, so I figured they could eat the grass around my house. (Rabbits can eat almost anything plant material wise, as long as its not poisonous). I researched this and put it into action. The missionary Keith Larrimore at Equip with whom I was working at that time had informed me, that mostly you need to use scraps in third world countries as opposed to fresh building materials. So I dove into my father’s scrap lumber pile and in a day or two had a very nice rabbitry with some help from my brother Aaron. The rabbitry stood four feet off the ground with a box below for catching the droppings and hardware cloth for floor and sides and an air tight breeding box filled with straw in the back. I had a steel pot for feeding the rabbits some pellets when needed, and two water feeders so they could stay hydrated. I bought two large snow-white New Zealand rabbits and kept them in the cage and they seemed to like it. They were more like pets than livestock. Then my brother Aaron who helped me a lot during this process found two more rabbits - a New Zealand male and a mystery brown female rabbit who turned out to be a mutt of some very rare and very valuable species of meat rabbit - Chinchilla, Champagne d'Argent, and Californian. I named the male Buck as he was the tamest and let him run around in the yard. He followed me around like a dog on a farm and used him to breed the other rabbits. In a month’s time the brown rabbit gave birth to eight baby rabbits, five of which survived infancy and are now rather large and crowding the cage, and one white female just gave birth yesterday to a litter of naked little baby rabbits sitting in a white nest of the mother,s fur. No major problems have occurred during the whole project other than a bear break in or two. The manure doesn’t smell too bad, because its just dry little pellets. That is unless it gets wet, which it does under the water feeders, yuck. I take the manure and place it on my Hugelkultur garden or permaculture garden (richsoil.com/hugelkultur) which is just a pile of rotting logs and debris that break down over 20 years to release nutrients and create a underground sponge, like how under the forest floor its always wet. It also adds benefits like... how the dirt partial compaction is less on a domed structure rather than a flat mono-crop garden allowing for less strain on the roots and a variance in sunlight for different plants depending on the bed’s position to the sun. I will plant crops on my garden during the spring that benefit each other such as carrots, that draw nutrients from down deep for the plants surrounding them due to the long tiny root they send way down. I have completed the Hugelkulture garden, but due to it being winter I won’t start the cycle until spring planting season. As well, the rabbits have already eaten every green weed, grass, and plant I could give them. They cleared out a plot of impenetrable weeds behind the chicken feed house (my father raises chickens on our farm) so this winter the rabbits are eating into a project deficit at 10$ a bag of feed. The total project has cost 75$. I will post a photo album of my project when I can; my computer is not synced with my printer at the moment. I did all this with the thought of one day using a process similar to this in the mission field if it is God’s will, or even in some small way, use it to His glory.

 - Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

In Christ

David Greene