January 3, 2017
“I Don’t Usually Come This way”
I woke up at 2:45 today. Wide awake. I noticed a couple of my teammates were awake in their beds as well, which comforted me to know I wasn’t alone in being awake at the darkest hour of the night. I tried my hardest to fall back asleep, but the jet lag and time change were holding tight to me. I gave up trying to sleep and finished reading a book I’ve been in, Blue Like Jazz. Highly recommend, by the way. After that I laid still until 6:30 and decided to get down out of my bunk and begin my day. A day that would soon surprise me in so many ways and help me truly appreciate living life with no expectations.
My team and I got together after breakfast to discuss the plan for the day and to pray before we headed out. We are doing ATL (ask the lord) ministry these first few days in Kampala. We prayed for God to highlight people who needed a touch of His love, who needed prayer, or just someone who needed a smile. While praying, I heard the Holy Spirit tell me the name Rachel. We paired off into two groups of three and went separate directions on the road outside of our hostel.
Our first stop on the way was at the Home of Drums drum shop. There we met the owner, Marjorie and her husband, Henry. We chatted with her for a short while and then asked if we could pray a blessing over her. She kindly obliged, and when we finished praying we all noticed the difference in her face. She was smiling, she looked happy. She didn’t look this way when we first started talking.
We left the drum shop and walked farther down the main road, when one of us noticed some little kids playing on a dirt road close by. We decided to try and make friends with them. The kids were adorable and shy, sweet and playful. As we were trying to talk to them a young girl came by, we exchanged “hello’s” and she stopped. We introduced ourselves and asked her name. Winnie, she said. Then she asked if we were Christians, “yes, we are! Are you?” She said yes, and we stood there talking with her for some time. We asked if she had any prayer needs, and she gave many heart wrenching answers.
Winnie is 14, she has two younger sisters and a mother. Her family moved here years ago when the wars began in South Sudan. Her father lost his job with the UN, and moved to South Africa to have a good job to support his family. He had just been up to visit after two years of not seeing them; she showed so much joy when sharing about this. She then told us that her mother had found out yesterday that her father passed away. The news was really hurting her mother, and she was so disappointed because she couldn’t afford to travel to Sudan to be with her family there.
We laid hands on Winnie and prayed with her. After we prayed she thanked us and shared that she was so glad to have ran into us. She said she usually didn’t come the way she had walked, because it was a longer walk to the pharmacy she was headed to. She had decided to eenie-meenie her decision, sort of asking God where to go. We told her that God just knew she needed to come this way today.
We all told her that we would walk with her to the pharmacy since we had to go back that way. Along the way I asked her if she had a friend or knew anyone named Rachel. She did, and that got me excited, knowing that a Rachel existed! After we left the pharmacy we walked her back home, and she invited us to meet her family. We said yes, we so wanted to pray with her mother.
We began our walk through the dirty, smelly, poor village roads, passing locals and giving out smiles. We were walking by a house where two children were doing laundry when Winnie said, “Hope, this is Rachel.” I stopped, seemingly dead in my tracks. “This is Rachel?” Yes, she said. I asked the girl her name, and for sure it was Rachel. At this point my mind is blown and my spirit is overjoyed. Lord, I found Rachel!
Rachel is 10 years old, she loves math and wants to be a 2nd grade math teacher when she grows up. She was a beautiful little girl, and after walking away Winnie told me that Rachel was a dancer. She dances on a worship team and is very good at it. That made me so happy to hear! I prayed many blessings over her life and that she would keep dancing for Jesus.
We made it to Winnie’s house, which was just the size of a large living room in the US. Her mother shared her heart with us and we prayed with her, it was such a sweet moment. She had a friend visiting named Miriam, and while we talked Winnie told us that Miriam’s daughter, Fortune was very ill. She had come down with something a couple months ago and was now unable to walk or talk, she just lays in her hospital bed. She is only two-years-old. We prayed with Miriam at that moment as well.
After we left Winnie’s we ran into the other group from our team, they were at the church in that area playing with the children. They told us that they volunteered us to sing worship that evening at the church’s night service. That was a very special moment, singing praises at that African church!
Continued on January 15, 2017
In that one day doing ATL I was reminded of how much God speaks. How much he cares to share with us, and how amazing it is when the things he speaks become real in the natural. If you ask the Spirit, He will lead you. Sometimes it will be easy, sometimes it will be hard..
More on that coming in my next blog.
Love and Blessings from Uganda,
Hope
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As always, thank you so much to each supporter who allowed me the chance to be here! I still can’t believe I jumped continents just two weeks ago. Right now I am about 80% funded for the Race. My final deadline of 100% is due at the end of January. Last August, almost $4,000 came in for my funding, so I am believing the remaining $3,500 can come in this month. Will you please pray with me and believe for that? If you wish to help me financially as well, you can click on the “Donate” tab at the top of my page. Thank you so much for choosing to partner with me so that more opportunities like this one can happen as I continue the Race!
