Hello from Lira, Uganda! We’ve been here for about a week
now and have seen God working in remarkable ways already. Praise the Lord! We’re
staying at a guest house associated with a Christian organization called
LightForce that does a variety of different aid work throughout Uganda. The
organization was founded by a man named George from the UK who is passionate
about the Lord’s work being done around the world. It turns out George is good
friends with Andrew Shearman – one of the speakers at the Awakening, a friend
of Adventures in Missions, and director of the G-42 leadership training school
that many World Race alumni end up attending. There’s a man named Ray here right
now who co-runs LightForce and when he told us about the connection with him,
George, and Andrew we all got a little excited and realized how small the world
really is. I feel like it gets smaller and smaller on the Race! Ray is an
amazing man of God – it’s been so encouraging just to be here with him and
learn from his wisdom, experience, insight, humility, and love of the Lord. It’s
nice to have an older father figure around to somewhat mentor and look after us
“kidsâ€� – he offers a different perspective and a covering for us. So yea, that’s
definitely been a blessing. 🙂
Our main contact is Pastor John – a Ugandan minister at
Christian Renewal Church who is fervent for Christ. He told us he’s been
praying and fasting for seven years for people from the west to come visit his
church to encourage and build them up; he said we were the answer to that
prayer. (Whoa. No pressure or anything, haha.) It’s been good though – we know
all of this is the Lord’s doing and we’ve been brought here for a reason.
Ultimately it’s not us doing the work, it’s Christ. We simply need to continue
abiding in Him and allowing His words to be spoken through us.
(Pastor John – on the right – making some announcements at church while JB – on the left – translated before inviting us up to take over the service. They had some AMAZING dancing and PRAISE and WORSHIP! I love Africa.)
We’ve come up against this mindset here that the white
Americans have it all together and we’re for some reason more holy, anointed,
or Godly simply because of our skin color. We’ve been trying to fight hard
against this mentality. We’ve been attempting to EMPOWER the people here and
let them know that we are ALL children of God with the same Spirit living
inside of us. It doesn’t matter where we’re from – we’re all citizens of heaven and have been given
giftings, talents, and passions that God wants to use for His kingdom. We can
all hear from Him and operate out of those giftings by the Spirit that is at
work within us. It’s not us, it’s the Lord speaking through us – and He can and
will speak through each of them as well. I think they’re beginning to believe
this… but we’re going to keep driving the point home. Empowerment is huge.
During the past week we’ve done more preaching than any of
us have done in our lives. Every day there’s a meeting at church where we just go
and two or three of us give testimonies/ messages for a few hours. It’s been
sweet to see how God is giving all of us words to speak to these people to
really encourage and bring truth into their lives and situations. The Lord is
definitely speaking on our behalf and it’s been an honor to just be a tool in
that process. Psalm 81:10 says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out
of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I
will fill it.� We’ve definitely been experiencing a filling of our mouths
by the Lord. Thanks, God! 🙂
(The girls in our Ugandan home – B.Cox, Angela, BP, and me… we love each other)
This next week (and for the remainder of the month) we’ll be
preaching at some more church meetings/ services, visiting other churches
around the area, making house visits to church members, ministering at schools,
hospitals, mental hospitals, prisons, and maybe some orphanages as well. Lots
of great opportunities for ministry! I’m excited to see what Jesus is going to
do in our time here.
We’ve also been learning a lot about the history of Northern
Uganda and the effects of the recent war. We are in a war-torn region and
people are just now returning to their homes from the IDP (Internally Displaced
People) camps that were scattered throughout this area. (I had heard so much
about this situation when I was in America and doing some work with Invisible
Children; now that I’m actually here it just seems unreal.) The effects of the
war are devastating; many child soldiers were abducted and forced to fight in
the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) during this time and were required to kill and
sometimes eat members of their own family. Others were taken as sexual slaves
for the commanders of the LRA and even Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA. This
past Saturday was Ugandan Independence Day and we were shown a film about the
whole conflict and how it has affected the Ugandan people. It was sobering and
disturbing to say the least. Some of the members of the church we’re working
with are ex-child soldiers and ex-child wives/ slaves of the LRA leaders. I
cannot even imagine what they have seen and been forced to experience in their
lives; it’s absolutely horrifying. We will be visiting the site of a nearby massacre
during the war later on in the month; many civilians – women and children
included – were gruesomely mutilated, tortured, and killed in the process. I
see and hear about all of this and am left with few words. Lord, help us! JESUS’ hope, healing, freedom and redemption needs to
sweep through this land. Please join us in praying for the beautiful
Ugandan people – that their eyes would be focused on the LIGHT of the Lord and
on His redemptive power.
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I HAVE OVERCOME THE
WORLD� (JESUS in John 16:33).
