It’s an Ant-Eating Night

A Word from Curt:  Curious!     There is so much to see and learn such as how Africans collect ants to eat. Scroll down to learn more.

Key Prayer Need:  Safe travel for Bob and Nancy Calvert as they travel to America

More prayer needs are at end of post

Invasion of the Termite Ants

I stop at the small circle of tukuls (thatched huts).  It’s part of African culture to speak to everyone gathered outside the tukuls.

After shaking the hand of a dozen children, I worked my way to the adults.   Mzee, an older man I see often,  was tying together dried weeds.  His daughter, sitting beside him said,  “We’re getting ready for the ants tonight.”

I’m always curious.  “What?”

“We’ll set these weeds on fire over a small hole.  The light attracts the ants and they collect in the hole beneath the fire.”

“Do they fly in?”

“No, they crawl in under the fire and drop in.  We scoop them out and have a feast.”

I had another question: “How do you know the ants will be out tonight?”

Mzee smiled.  “It rained.  That makes them come to the surface.”

They promised to keep a plate just for me.

I’m staying at a guesthouse.  As the sun went down, the ants arrived in droves. They took advantage of every crevice and crack to visit the light of my room.

It was September Louisiana-Love-Bug thick.  I shut my bedroom and endured their arrival in battalions and brigades.

At least they don’t bite.

My mosquito net is an flying ant net tonight.

I hope someone eats my plate of fried ants for breakfast tomorrow.  If not I’ll be saying the missionary prayer,  “Lord, I’ll get it down but You’ll have to keep it down.”

We’re drilling two boreholes tomorrow.  Pray for water.

You can read the GPS coordinate on one well site near  Boratuku Refugee Camp.

The other well is at Nyumazi 1, a huge camp with over 27,000 refugees.  Pray for the Block E borehole.  They are desperate for water.

Photo: Beyond the mountain lies the Nile.  The large tree is where a borehole (water well) is being drilled for Boratuku Camp (see roofs in background) and the local village.

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This is DeDe’s prayer post on our friends and team mates, Shannon and Carrie Lewis:

Prayer-What a privilege! Such amazing access! Such freedom! Such delight!

We could all go on and on. One of the joys to me in being on the mission field is to actually know the people who live and work among unreached people groups.

As we pray for the Toposa to come to know The Most High God, let’s lift up the Lewis family.

The Toposa of South Sudan are a Nilotic group that originated from Northern Uganda and are located in the southeast corner of South Sudan, the world’s newest country. They number approximately 500,000. They are animists that heavily believe in witchcraft and ancestral worship. The Toposa are very superstitious and not very trusting of outsiders. They do believe in the Creator God but don’t have a good understanding of how to have a relationship with him or that they can have a relationship with him.

Please pray for the Toposa to have ears to hear and hearts to understand the scriptures.

Pray for the “light” to shine on the darkness throughout the Toposa villages.

Pray against the spirit of witchcraft, drunkenness, and evil.

Pray for the Toposa believers as they herald the Good News of Christ.

Pray for the Lewis family as they balance family and ministry. Pray for our middle son Davis, as he will be joining big brother at boarding school in Kenya in September.

We are now seeing first generation churches reaching out and starting new groups. Pray for these churches as they take what they have learned to those who have not heard.

Pray for us as we have a very busy summer with volunteer teams. Rainy season will be in full swing and that makes the roads nearly impassable at times.

We have close friends that will be joining our team. They will arrive in NBO on June 23rd. They are the Sigler family.

Shannon and Carrie