So here it is
again, that time to write a blog and share my heart. Hopefully my plan to leave
all of you in suspense worked. These past couple of months in Africa have been
so good, so hard, so challenging, so rewarding, and a million other emotions
all wrapped up in two months. Through it all God is good. Uganda was a
beautiful place and the ministry was a lot of evangelism. We worked with Pastor
Rosemary and she is one of the most vivacious women I have ever met. She being
a widow herself has a huge heart for both widows and orphans. When you look
into her eyes, you can see the fire like passion that radiates from her eyes.
She is a bold woman to say the least. We had to the opportunity to go with this
God fearing woman into the homes around Busia, Uganda (right along the Kenyan
border) to sit down with a lot of young women and children and share about
Jesus. 8 months of evangelism and it doesn’t get any easier. Sitting down with
someone who has never known the love of a father or ever had anything easy in
life and well to try to tell her that there is a hope for something greater,
sometimes I have a hard time believing it myself.
But the Lord
reminds us in 1 Corinthians, “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give
yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in
the Lord is not in vain.” -verse 58
So I remind myself that going to these
small homes that house anywhere from 2-10 or more and sharing about Jesus has
an eternal impact on the Kingdom. I can’t see it! But it says there that it is
not in vain. The hardest part is sharing this beautiful truth with Gods kids
and then having to leave shortly after. Our hearts want to invest, our hearts
want to encourage and we want to be part of seeing the beautiful transformation
that the Lord wants to do in all of His children’s hearts. I don’t know if they
are truly going to understand the love when I come once or twice or three times
only to be moving onto the next place.
This really makes me realize how important
it is to invest and to sow into the lives of others. Gosh, the Lord just
desires us to stand together to be that body and community for all of us to be
able to push each other forward. A lot of my ministry is my team and I am
grateful for the opportunity to share their lives with them and run after the
Lord together. I am blessed because I do get to see the glory of God’s hand
over their lives and how He works in them daily to build them up as warriors
for His Kingdom.
So, I am grateful that God has placed me
here in East Africa to share and live life with this culture. I am grateful
that I can stand before a yearning soul and pray for them, to see healing
happen before my eyes, to see freedom arise and chains fall to the floor. I am
grateful that I can be blessed enough to have the memories of children running
up to us just to touch our hand.
Two other points in the month that really
touched my heart were when we were able to visit New Hope orphanage and
minister to the street kids. I was overwhelmed with joy and love by the Lord in
the greeting that I received from these children at the New Hope orphanage. My
teammate Sarah had worked with them three summers ago and she fell in love with
the kids. As soon as I got there I could see why. The kids swarmed us with
beautiful smiles and performed a dance for us. They asked us MANY questions and
we just enjoyed fellowship with them. One girl in particular, Olivia really
stole my heart. She was so sweet and filled with a tender and joyful spirit.
She wrote me a couple of notes that stated how much she loved me and that she
wanted me to tell my mom and sister that she loved them too. It was like a
sweet message from the Father himself spoken through a young 11 year old girl.
The experience with the street boys really
crushed my heart; all I can think is God they have so much hurt and pain in
their lives. They have so much innocence stolen from them. We left at 6:30 in the
morning with bread, ready to give them some food. When we got there, there
weren’t too many boys still around but after standing and talking for a little
while longer more came. There was a huge alleyway filled with trash, the place
where they live. Most of the boys sniff glue; some boys were so high that they
couldn’t speak very well. One was very evidently demon possessed. We scrambled
so desperately to have words for them, words of encouragement and to try to
tell them how much they are loved by God. After about 30 minutes the Lord highlighted
2 boys ( Rajab and Jisef) from the bunch that Rachael spent a lot of time with.
These two boys were ready, they were ready for something better and God new
that in their hearts. So Rachael worked very hard that week to set up a plan to
be able to send them off to a boarding school. The Lord opened doors and
blessed very quickly. The boys came to church on Sunday and so did a handful of
the other boys. These two boys wanted and heard the call of Jesus and the
promise for more and better. It is just the beginning for them and I am
grateful for Rachael who really stepped up and helped to pave the path for
these two boys.
pictures to come when I can upload them!!!
Rajab and Jisef
