This past month was proof that you never know what to expect on the World Race.
Going into Uganda, so many of us were so excited for ministry. We had contacted the hosts and they seemed like really nice people, and we felt like our team was a perfect fit for the ministry. When we were coming up on our last week in Rwanda, all of us were eager to see what the Lord would do through our next adventure.
Then Ebola happened.
Just a few days before we were supposed to leave Rwanda, we got word that there were some cases of Ebola in Western Uganda. It only effected a few people, but since Ebola is HIGLY contagious, the organization took that very seriously. It took them a little while to decide what would be best to do for our safety, but eventually they determined that no one in our group could be within a certain amount of miles of where the cases were reported.
And that’s where our ministry was…
So, our month in Uganda went from helping serve a local community with some American missionaries to ATL. In other words, “Ask The Lord”. We had to do this because there was not enough time to line up another host in such short notice, so we were told we could choose to stay either in Kampala or Jinja for the month and find ways to serve and evangelize there.
We got an Air B&B just outside of Kampala and decided to do our ATL there. We were all super excited to go into this month and see how God would speak to us and what we could do. Each day, we started with prayer and worship, and then we would determine what we wanted to do for ministry from there. We did a treasure hunt one day in a mall, we took a few days to just walk around the neighborhood and evangelize to people working in local businesses. Some days we would just prayers walk, others we would go to church, and some days we even got to help with a ministry called Word of Life.
It was a very different month. We had almost no structure and how we chose to serve was entirely up to us. We also had a lot of free time to press into each other and spend time together as a team. We cooked meals together, played games, and watched movies, and had a lot of time to pray, read our bibles, and press into God, too. We were so grateful to have had the freedom to make the connections we did. We got to lead one woman to Christ who worked in a clinic near where we were staying, and we got to pray and prophecy over some other women we met. We also got to make a connection with Word of Life, which may have been my favorite ministry on this race so far.
Word of Life is a school outside of Kampala near Entebe. They have a school for children of all ages, as well as a bible school for people to be discipled and gain a firmer grasp on Bible. In the 3 days we were there, we helped in the kitchen, fixed a fence, shared worship and a message at the high school’s chapel service, break down a wall to expand the library, paint new offices, help the. Word of Life interns lead bible clubs at 2 local high schools, helped move office furniture to a new building, and led a devotion with the guards of the campus. The people we worked with were AMAZING! They were thrilled to have us help around the campus with different things, and we got to have great conversations with the people we worked with. The campus was absolutely beautiful, and we all could feel the presence of the Lord there.
It was amazing to see where God led us this month when we had no agenda. We got to do some incredible things, and we were reminded that this is how we are going to get to do ministry when we get home. Sure, we’ll have jobs and other things filling our time, but in the free time we have, we can be open to where God is leading us, and serve the people around us however God tells us to. We just need to be open to His voice and willing to go out and serve in new and different ways, and not just in times we set aside to serve, but all the time.
