Month 4 in Uganda was a strange paradox. It was the hardest month conditions wise in the sense of having less direction from our host in comparison to other months, being away from family and friends during the holidays, and not having resources like electricity and internet where we stayed. It’s not like any one of these things was extremely difficult in and of themselves. It was just the combination of a lot of things that made it feel difficult. On the flip side of this, Uganda was my favorite month in that we really saw the Holy Spirit moving. For me personally, it was the month in which I’ve grown the most thus far. I think part of that growth can be attributed to the fact that it was a difficult month with fewer distractions and a greater need to rely on God.
I want to share a few things from the month that show what the Holy Spirit was up to. All I can give is my perspective but I hope this blog shows more of the Holy Spirit and what he was doing as opposed to just what our team was doing in the natural.
Revelation through prayer: One thing that has been on my mind this month (In Uganda) is Marin and I’s future. This has really been the first month where we have thought about it a lot. Our team had what we call a “burn” towards the middle of the month which is where we had a full 24 hour day in which one of the 7 of us was always praying. We essentially all signed up for 3 or 4 hour long sessions in the day. The prayer time is pretty open so it can be worship, walking prayer, listening prayer, bible reading, ect. Diane, on my team, prayed for me during one of the hours and wrote me a note and a bible verse. I hadn’t read the verse she gave me yet but the next night I could not sleep so I started reading, and then I started thinking about the future, and then I started praying about the future. I was thinking about callings and if God would put a true calling on my life and Marin’s life. It’s hard to explain how, but I felt the Holy Spirit telling me that he wants Marin and I to take the next 9 or 10 months to really pursue our calling from him. I next read Diane’s prayer and bible verse for me. Her prayer note and bible verse hit me so dead on that it was literally like the Holy Spirit was talking through the words she had written. I won’t share everything, but part of what she gave me was the verse from Luke, “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” This applied directly to my desire of seeking a calling at that time. This is just one simple example of the Holy Spirit moving through prayer. (and prophecy with Diane) Prayer is powerful in and of itself but its very encouraging when it becomes something dynamic; when its not just us talking at God but it’s the Holy Spirit interacting with us.
Revelations through manifestation: One thing about Africa is that the spiritual realm is just more out in the open. Their are probably lots of reasons for this but I’ll save the time of giving my opinions on that. We saw the Holy Spirit manifest in several ways this month but I will just share two of the ways. At one church service we went to their was a woman who was experiencing demonization and was being prayed over by the pastor and several other church members. She shrieked a few times while the pastor was praying and eventually came to a place where she was calm and peaceful and not longer experiencing demonic presence.
I personally had a bought of holy laughter come over me when I was praying for a woman outside her house. (that has never happened to me before) I literally could not stop laughing with joy while praying for her. I probably sounded pretty ridiculous to the woman but she didn’t seem that suprised and actually decided to invite us in afterword to pray for other members of he family.
Revelations in healing: Our team had a great night of prayer with Favour, who I wrote about in my last blog. We were mostly praying for each other and praying for healing in various forms (emotional, physical, spiritual) and believe it or not, we saw some healing. Anna, from our team, had been experiencing neck pain and headaches for a while. When we prayed for her, her neck pain went away on the right side first. We continued praying and after about 5 minutes the pain was completely gone in her entire neck.
Another way we saw healing was less definite but it opened up a great relationship. During our house visits we prayed for a woman who had bad asthma that was keeping her from sleeping well. The next time we came back we were told that the night after we prayed she slept through the entire night for the first time in over a month. Her asthma did not go away after that but it opened up a great relationship for our team because she always wanted us to come back and talk with her and then pray for her more.
The point of sharing all of this on our blog is simply to lift up God and what he has been doing through the Holy Spirit in Uganda. God has been faithful in answering much prayer for our team on the World Race and we are extremely thankful for that. I wanted to share the above stories as a brief testimony of some of the other ways God has been faithful to us and others.
A brief update on our team:
We are now in Rwanda at it is an absolutely beautiful country full of rolling green hills and weather in the 70s. We are staying with a pastor (pastor Fred) and his family. He has 9 children and the entire family has been so generous to us. Pastor Fred is a native of Rwanda and he, like many here, lost family in the genocide of 1994.
Our squad raised up 3 new squad leaders, and with them being raised up a couple of teams had changes. Our team was one of those. Diane Kelly moved to a different team but the rest of our team stayed intact. We miss Diane already and are praying for her on her new team.
