The Sperling Jerry Can

…carrying Living Water in practical ways…

Dear Friends and Family, January 21, 2009

“Kulik’omwaka!” This is the greeting that we tell each other here in Uganda after the New Year. Literally, it means “Congratulations for surviving the last year!” We have survived and we thank God that, in Christ, we are more than survivors and we are even more than conquerors. We are trusting that this next year will be a significant year for us in our ministry with Equip where we will see more Ugandans come to know Christ and understand how to follow Him. With so much spiritual opposition to God’s kingdom here, sometimes we just want to survive, but God wants us to be over-comers. Thanks, everyone for your part in building God’s kingdom here in Uganda.

A Dream Come True! For many years, I’m sure many have read and heard about our vision to have a Demonstration and Training Farm at which to offer more advanced agricultural training to rural Ugandans - especially to pastors and church workers who need to support themselves in some way. We are so excited to announce that this dream is slowly becoming a reality. Over the last year we have been developing a relationship with Arise Africa www.ariseafricaintl.org (a long-standing national NGO) with whom we will be partnering to offer both training at a proposed 20 acre training farm but also mobile community work that will aim at improving rural agriculture through the Arise church network. The farm will be at the Arise Africa Base at Bukaleba (0º27’00”N, 33º23’30”E) which is 2500 acres of land. The land is situated right on a large bay on Lake Victoria about a 35km drive around a bay from our home (0°28'9.92"N, 33°15'35.05"E). The land is spectacular, with great views out over the lake and west, back towards Jinja. The Farm will be located on 20 acres of the inland portion of the land with good road access and an onsite spring for a clean water source.

Once fully running, the Training Farm will not only host agriculture courses but also hydro missions classes, medical missions classes and community outreach programs. The training farm will also co-ordinate with other work going on at the Arise Africa Training Centre to provide pastors and lay people a fully rounded community missions education.

We wanted to share this with you before we come back in spring so that you are all aware of these changes when we come to visit you. We have begun, slowly, our shift between our current work with YWAM and Bushfire to our next phase with Arise. It is a blessing as all of the Directors of these organizations are friends and companions in mission work here in Uganda. We also are excited about Arise because it continues to broaden our work with the Ugandan rural church. Rise has 198 churches in 21 districts here in Uganda.

Equip Uganda. As we start our work with Arise we are also starting to formally start Equip, Uganda work. Until this point, Equip missionaries have all come under other NGOs; we are currently praying about going through the lengthy and a bit complicated process of registering Equip as an NGO here in Uganda. This will help us give immigration status to our Equip workers/missionaries as well as to conduct some of our own work, in addition to having access to potential funding through large donors such as USAID. We are excited as we anticipate another Equip missionary couple, the Boones, joining us here in Uganda full time in the spring. We look forward to growth here in Uganda with our Equip work, especially as the Training Farm gets up and running.

Please Pray. We ask for your prayers for wisdom and knowledge as we forge our partnership with Arise Africa International. Currently, we have an agreement in principle to work together; we will now be working on detailed documents so w can work together as partners. Chris has a lot of work to do in writing up agreements, policies and proposals let alone course work and syllabus development for the Training Farm. Please pray that this will all go well and smoothly and that we will sense God’s guiding hand as we believe it to be His will to start up the Training Farm.

Our Itinerary: We will be happy to share in your church, life group or home during our furlough which will run from May to October. We will also be setting up some formal info meetings/fundraisers in most of the areas where we normally visit and raise support. These meetings will be excellent times to see formal presentations about the Training Farm and the funding needed to establish this new Equip work. Please contact us via e-mail to set up dates for sharing with your group.

Some Needs. We have a few needs that need to be met for our time back in Canada. We will have a vehicle available to us but we will need some housing from May to mid-August in the Langley/Abbotsford area. We are happy to house-sit or squeeze ourselves into a basement sweet. Also, we need finances for our airfares back and forth from Uganda. As well, we continue to need additional monthly supporters. We welcome any help that God leads you to give. Thanks, already, as we have so many wonderful and faithful supporters.

Hope to see you soon,

God Bless,

The Sperlings – Chris and Jane, Andrew, Tugume, Kenny, Albert, Isaiah and Ezra

Financial contributions can be sent to:

Equip Canada PO Box 683

Duncan B.C.

V9L 3Y1

In the US donations can be sent to:

Equip, Inc.

PO Box 1126, Marion, N.C.

USA, 28752-1126

Cheques should be made out to Equip with a separate note;”for Sperling support”.

Donate online at www.sperlingsinafrica.com