December 10, 2024

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

I’m trying to get this newsletter out at the latest possible date. I usually do get my newsletters out late but this month I have a legitimate excuse. Last Wednesday evening Julie became very sick. I ended up taking her to the emergency room where we spent the night. By the next morning, she was admitted to the hospital with suspicions about her gall bladder. After extensive tests and a couple of days in the hospital the doctors decided it was indeed her gall bladder and that it needed to be removed.

She underwent some kind of surgery, the technical/medical name of which I cannot remember. The bottom line is that she had her gall bladder removed and spent the next couple of days in the hospital. When the doctors saw her gall bladder they knew they had made the right decision to remove it. It was severely inflamed, contained many stones, and was fraying/flaying/fileting (I can’t remember what the doctor said or how he pronounced it but the bottom line was that the tissue was very soft and beginning to come apart). It definitely needed to come out before it became very dangerous. I was able to bring Julie back home from the hospital yesterday and she is now home slowly recovering. Four nights in hospital in Kenya is no fun, let me tell you. Hopefully removing her gall bladder will help with some stomach issues she has been having lately. We shall see. Please pray for a full recovery and a future better health condition for my wife. Julie’s surgery occurred during term break, which I suppose is a blessing.

This past term I began to learn something very important about my students. I learned that to many of them, the grade they will get in my class is too important. For many of them, getting a good grade is of utmost importance. To me, however, the grade is just an assessment of whether they are possibly learning the material or not. Many of my students become obsessed with grades. I suppose that is typical among students worldwide. I tell them that the grade is important, but not all important. I have been telling them that the learning of the Bible is important. I stress that their learning of how to minister to God’s people and God’s churches and God’s Kingdom is really what is important. That is what they are here at this school to learn and the grade is more my way of telling whether they are importing and processing the information in the best possible way. I want them all to get a good grade. However, more than that, I want them to learn how to minister the message of the Bible, the gospel, and the love of Jesus to God’s people. I tell them that when they are done and “out there” ministering the gospel to God’s people that nobody is going to ask them what grade they received in Mr. Tate’s hermeneutics and interpretation class. It will be important, however, for them to interpret and teach the Bible correctly, which Mr. Tate’s hermeneutics and interpretation class will help them do. Nobody is going to care if they got an “A” in Mr. Tate’s General Epistles class. However, they will care that these students and future pastors can help them in their suffering the way Peter teaches in his letters, or help them work out their faith in action the way James teaches in his epistle, or help them love one another in word and in deed the way John teaches in his letters. My beloved students, keep your eyes on the prize – not a grade, but the ability to minister to God’s people and glorify God in doing so.

Please pray for me, beloved. I am really struggling with Chloe right now. Her whining, screaming, and throwing things is really starting to wear me down and I feel anger rising up within me that I need God’s help to control. Even in the middle of writing this newsletter I had to stop because Chloe was mad and threw a big container of powdered, pink paint on the dining room floor. I don’t know where she got it, but it exploded and powdered, pink paint was everywhere. To add to the problem, before she threw the paint, she threw a full bottle of shampoo, which also exploded. The powdered, pink paint mixed with the shampoo to make an extremely hard to clean, pink sloppy mess. I spent the next hour on my hands and knees trying to clean it up (all while fuming in my heart and muttering under my breath). God, please help Roger to have patience and to care more about Chloe than he does about himself.

Blessings to all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
Moffat Bible College
P.O. Box 70
Kijabe, Kenya 00220
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.