Three Weeks

A lot has happened since my last update.  That’s just the way life is here.  There’s always plenty to do and when you’re a IT Manager preparing a hospital for opening there’s not much time to sit on your hands.   Here’s just a quick glimpse of what we, as an IT team, have been doing to prepare for opening day each with a specific prayer request.

Even with the hospital opening day on March 2nd there is still much work to be done. That’s just three weeks away!  We’ve been readjusting to how life and the team works here in Mango.  (Even Christoph isn’t a Mango native.) Each of us has a unique role that fits our gifts and talents. Susie handles the majority of the training and works with our contracted company toward the upgrade and debugging of the hospitals software system.  Christoph does the majority of the day to day setup and maintenance work. I handle everything else from the highly technical server setups to meeting with administration or coordinating with construction managers to get the resources needed so that everyone else can stay on schedule.  Simply, I act as an advocate, supervisor, and techie nerd.

• Pray that our team would grow in unity within and working in partnership with the rest of the staff to spread the gospel message.
• Pray for continued energy to get done with all of the setup before the hospital opens.
• Pray for clarity of through and guiding wisdom as hard decisions about priorities and needs are made, policies set, and
• Pray that through each other we will grow in our faith and through that encourage others.

For the next weeks leading up to the opening we will be training users on the computerized systems of the hospital. Additional training on business flow, and by it’s nature needing input from the IT department, will take place to smooth the bumps in the system before.  Susie has been leading this effort.

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  Employees train to use computers and the hospital software system.

  Pray for the staff as we work through challenges of opening a facility of this size.

• Pray for open minds, a testimony that points to Christ, and opportunities to share the reason for that hope to non-christian workers.

 While here I will be taking extra time to train Christoph in many of the more complex setups.  He is a fine young Christian man motivated and energetic.  The goal is to be able to have him maintain the hospital IT infrastructure on his own and begin to take over many of the responsibilities.

• Pray that I will be able to teach patiently and gracefully.
• Pray that he will understand these complex subjects and grow in confidence of his abilities.

Lastly, is the overall mission. I want to share with you an update from another missionary here.

“This weekend at the local mosques in town the Imams made an announcement. They were urging all of their members to pray hard that the youth will not leave Islam or want to follow what we are teaching. They are realizing that people are getting tired of Islam and some are even wanting to become followers of Jesus. There have been churches in this town for quite some time, but they have never bothered with the Muslims. Now that our group is here, they are realizing we are sharing with Muslims and some of the people we are sharing with are listening. They thought we just came to give good health care but now they are worried that people will leave Islam. Exciting news and a sobering reminder that we are engaged in a spiritual battle that is only going to kick up several more notches in the coming months. One of the new believers in town who used to be Muslim got to share the Gospel with one of his close Muslim friends this week. His friend said, “I know that what the mosque teaches isn’t the truth and I’ve known that for a long time, I just still go there to say my prayers.”

It is both encouraging and frightening to know that the enemy is mobilizing his cohort.  It means that he fears us and our commander, the Lord and savior Jesus Christ!

• Pray that God would give us strength to stand (1 Corinth 16:13) against the adversary who is actively waging war against us.
• Pray that the death grip of the adversary would be broken and these people reconciled into God’s free kingdom.

We expect God to do a mighty work in this land. Please commit these things to prayer over the next month and help us to show that like Elisha against the prophets of Baal and David against Goliath that we are the army of the living God and that, through Christ Jesus, we are more than conquerors.