We will be leaving early Saturday morning for a very important trip to DR Congo. I will be traveling with my oldest son Timothy who will on the conclusion of my portion of the trip remain behind in Congo with Pastor Oloo. They will then return to Kenya by bus a week later. Timothy will have the opportunity to preach one Sunday morning at our church in Uvira, DRC along with many other ministry related responsibilities. What an honour, joy and privilege it is to serve the Lord with my son. God has called him to be a missionary and he decided long ago that he was not going to wait until after graduating from Bible College to begin serving the Lord. He has gained a wealth of experience and has begun putting that experience to use. God has burdened him for the Congolese people and he is doing his best to reach them.
The main purpose of our trip is to travel about seven hours south of Uvira into the Baraka region to meet with the church that has been started in Sebele. We will be spending a few days with them preaching, teaching and laying the final preparations to opening up a branch of our bible college in that area. It is difficult to put into words the tremendous need and opportunity that has presented itself to us in this area of Congo. The last time we were in this area we saw Satan put up an enormous fight. This is the area where we were harassed at night by the police and early the next morning as we were leaving they pulled us off of our vehicle and "arrested" us, accusing us of being political spies and not preachers. The day after we left the village of Sebele the rebels came out of the forest, attacked the village, killing many and sending the rest into hiding.
As a matter of fact we desperately need your prayers as we have already seen Satan do his best to keep us from making this trip. Last week when applying for our VISA at the embassy we were unexpectedly DENIED a VISA for DR Congo. During the last two years we have monthly applied for at least two VISAS for our men and have never been turned down. We were told that because of a directive from the government some VISA issuing policies had been changed. Until we could meet the new requirement which basically was an officially stamped letter from a certain government office in Congo, we would not be given a VISA. During our initial trips into Congo we took the time to visit all the government offices, explain who we were, what we were doing, answering questions AND collecting papers. Well it just so happened that one of the officials we visited and one of the papers we collected and filed away is what they were looking for. Earlier this week the restriction on issuing us a VISA was lifted. Halleluiah, thank you Jesus!
Early Monday morning around 2 am my phone rang. When I answered the phone a voice on the other end told me to listen to his instructions carefully. He said he was outside our gate with a gang of men and they wanted me to open the gate to let them in. If I obeyed they would only take our money and things, but if I refused they would use their guns and KILL us one by one. I quickly got the attention of my wife to press our silent alarm that would bring a security team to our house. I knew it would take them a few minutes to arrive so while waiting for them I tried to stall the one who was on the phone. We did not know that our buttons to call the security were not working. Over the course of the next 45 minutes we received three different phone calls with the same threats, trying to get us to open our gate "or else". We finally succeeded in alerting security and they showed up at our house. They parked their vehicle at our gate the rest of the night just in case whoever was calling decided to come and make good on their threats. A report was filed with the police but we do not know if anything will come of it.
With this serious security threat taking place just a few days before my scheduled departure it required some quick decisions in order to increase our security so that I can be sure my family will be safe while I am gone. We had to do a complete "overview" of our security needs and make the necessary adjustments, so that my families safety would not be an issue. I will not go into detail in a public posting like this our security arrangements but they are such that I believe with confidence that if anyone tried something they would not succeed. However I ask that you seriously keep this a matter of prayer while I am gone. God has given Wendy the strength she needs to handle herself in these situations and she is confident of our security arrangements and the rightness that this trip goes forward as planned.
I realize that we cannot nor should not blame every difficulty we have on Satan. However I am quite sure that Satan is trying to hinder this trip. The fact that we are going to begin training people in an area that he has controlled is not something that he will allow to happen without a fight.
I ask all of our friends, supporters and prayer partners to make this trip a matter of prayer. We leave early Saturday morning. I will be returning to Kenya one week later and Timothy will be returning two weeks later.
Thank you in advance for your prayers,
Bro. Mickey and family
