Most of you that read this will either not believe me, think I’m crazy or ask “what in the heck!?” And, hey I am still processing through the whole thing too so all I can do is share with you what went on…
So, Uganda… To say the least, it was the most crazy, most intense, most “what the heck is going on” and most exhausting month of my life! As I look back, I am very thankful for what God has shown me and how He has grown me through it… Some things I will share and some things I wont. And, like I said, some people won’t believe me and/or some people will think I am crazy, but I know what I have seen and I know what I have experienced and so it is what it is.
To begin, our ministry was with Macindi Dioceses. When we arrived we found out that we would be going deep into the bush of the East African Rift Valley to places that have never seen Mazungus or white people… We get excited because this is one of the reasons we signed up for this trip, to go places others don’t want to go and bring Gods Kingdom to the ends of the earth! They continue telling us about the ministry and come to find out, we are basically going on a village tour! Every two or three days, we are packing up everything and going to another village. We were kind of excited about that, but thinking it’s going to be rather exhausting…
We start our excursion onto our first village and I am talking way out into the bush. Put it this way, we didn’t even need to go on a safari, because we practically lived on the safari land.. Warthogs, Monkeys, Gazelles, Impalas and Baboons everywhere!!! We didn’t see any Cobras, but they said they were all over the place and that if we were to see one, run away fast! Lol Which I believed they were everywhere because everyone of their jymbays were made with cobra skin. And as for Lions, our contact and I went down the road to talk with some people about future ministry. On our way back a woman advises us not to take a certain road because a bunch of people just spotted a group of lions… Great, the sun is setting. Therefore it’s feeding time and not to mention the road she was talking about happened to be the road we were taking… So, I am on the back of a motorcycle flying down the road and hanging on for dear life in Africa, where the roads are treacherous and there is a pack of lions that are spotted on the prowl for a delicious meal!… It was a little crazy!!
We arrive at our 1st village… I forgot to mention Emily caught Malaria and her and Bek stayed back in the town so Emily could get a few shots.. To begin our ministry, our team is down two people and we are at our first village! It’s incredible, people are wonderful! As soon as we drove up a huge group of them welcomed us, with drums, singing and dancing!.. It was the best welcoming I have ever received!! The first place we stay at was beautiful! Fruits and Vegetables growing everywhere, Pineapples, Bananas, Oranges, Papaya, Tapioca, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Corn, Sugar, etc… and right in the middle were four very nice mud houses and that was home for the next couple of nights! Unfortunately, you don’t sleep to well when you wake up in the middle of the night to smack roaches and/or spiders that are crawling on you… Continuing on, we find out that we are doing house visits every morning and preaching and crusades every night. we also learned that 40% of the people throughout these villages are Cannibals. Imagine having that in the back of your head that as you are walking from mud house to mud house to sit and talk with these people there is an almost 50/50 chance that the people you are talking with are cannibals. As well as the most common religion is witchcraft and they do human sacrifices. And, just a few days before we arrived, which I wont get into any details and I am going to say this as politely as I can, there was a sacrifice and the guy who performed the sacrifice was banned from the village… That’s it, no jail, no punishment, nothing but banned from the village.. That is the information we learn the first few days we arrive… 40% are cannibals and witchcraft is extremely common and they do perform human sacrifices and one just happened a couple days ago… That will smack you right in the face, tell you to wake up and get your game face on, because this was no joke! This is a war and we are at the front lines. Which I am coming to learn that when demons, Satan or witchcraft gets thrown out there, my chest starts to pound and my spirit gets pumped ready for war and TRUTH just starts coming out! So, I am not scared, but it does creep me out… I mean seriously, this is crazy… We do door to door every morning and crusades in the evening and night which run until midnight or even later. It is exhausting and when you have to use double translation everywhere you go that is tough too… Because by the time you say something, the first translator translates it, then the second translator translates it by the time it comes back to you, you almost forget what you were going to say…
So, we continue on through our journey to other villages. One of the first villages we come to, it starts out the same. House visits and crusades… The mood and spiritual climate here is extremely intense… The first night we were there, we have a crusade and it goes until 2:30am!… Only come to find out when we woke up the next morning, a man, his wife and his kid were locked and trapped in their mud house and some guy set the house on fire. Thank God the family survived! This happened less than 20 yards away from where we were sleeping… Later on that day a woman comes running up to us to ask us to come to her house and pray for her sister who is possessed and she is freaking out. Guess what, the house was right next door to the house that was burned down.. . I have never seen any demon possession nor did I really believe in it. However like I said, I know what I have seen and I know what I have experienced through all this. We prayed for this woman for about 3 ½ hours and delivered her and then she prayed to accept Jesus Christ the Living God! It was exhausting, but thank you Lord! I know most of you that are reading this are going, “what the heck” and hey I understand, but those of you that know me, know that I don’t lie or say anything just to say something. (ok, as I am writing this I am thinking everyone is going to think I am crazy, because the events only get more crazy…)
Anyways, then that evening we put on another crusade and as we put on a movie the Gospel of Luke, we get attacked by bugs!… When I say attacked I mean attacked, there were literally 1000s and 1000s of them, they swarmed us so much that all the girls started freaking out and running, by then all I could do was laugh because it was kind of funny, but as I was laughing they were flying into my mouth, it was disgusting… Then, I immediately started praying and claiming authority in Jesus Christ and I kid you not, within seconds, they were gone… Afterwards we all started laughing, because it was kind of funny. I started talking with Jordan that this is freaking crazy, what is going on today… I began to tell him that once the bugs began to fly in my mouth, I had enough and just started praying and claiming authority and right about then when I said that we sat down. We both put our feet on the sand ground (because that is what they have there, sand ground) and there were bugs everywhere, we turned on our head lamps and there were thousands and thousands of dead moths and bugs all over on the ground.. It was nuts… Then the next couple of nights, I couldn’t sleep, I’d wake up in the middle of the night pouring sweat, then 15minutes later wake up freezing cold, crazy dreams and nightmares every night, one night I kept waking up and getting a picture of a black snake crawling around and come to find out everyone is in the other room praying over one of the girls because she woke up in the middle of the night feeling like someone kept punching her, even when she awoke, she kept feeling the same thing… I am telling you, it was crazy and intense…
So we continue, as we left each village they would put on a little show, with their local traditions and dances and they were all very cool! We were about mid way through this month, our whole team has not been together because we have had a few sicknesses, with Malaria, stomach bugs and who knows what else, except that the girls were extremely sick and I wont get into details with that either.. But, we had to send a few of them back into town because it got pretty bad… and at one point we decided as a team to come together because half the team was in town sick while the rest of us were way out in the bush and one thing about my team, is we are a unit, a solid unit that brings love, Kingdom, encouragement and we are there for one another for anything! I love my team! My team is the ultimate picture of what God wants in community and what community is supposed to be like! We decide to ride back into town and meet up with the rest of the girls to decide if we were going to continue with ministry in the villages or stay together as a unit and have to end ministry early. Three of the girls whom are not feeling well are stay back in town at an American missionaries house. Her name is Janine Legrand and she was absolutely awesome!!! Janine, I hope you are reading this because you are such a blessing to us! And, since Austin and Krissy were with us for the last half of the month, we would go back and finish the ministry.
As, I never thought a welcoming could be better than drums, singing, dancing and food as we normally receive when we arrive to these villages! One of the last villages we visit, they actually built us a brand new mud house for us to stay in for the one night, we would be there! How awesome is that! Unfortunately, as soon as we show up, guess what “Another one bites the dust!” yup.. Bek gets extremely sick for a couple days… We continue on with our double translation house visits and crusades until late hours of the night… As we did house visits, we prayed for people with leprosy, people with fungus that are eating away at their fingers and toes, pray for deliverance, for healing, you name we prayed for it! We actually led a funeral and that was crazy… Because, in these villages, they don’t have tombs and like I said, I won’t get into any details, but it smelt horrible… We preached and preached and preached until we could preach no more.. And, one preacher, Margie spoke so much truth and she hadn’t even made it through her introduction and this woman starts freaking out! They say that she is possessed and they begin praying for her. She gets delivered and prays to accept Christ! We tell Margie, that’s the best sermon ever, because she spoke so much truth in less than a couple minutes and someone gets delivered and saved!! How awesome is that!
This is just a little glimpse of our ministry in Uganda. So, you can imagine that my whole team and myself are still processing a lot of what happened. Because for every one of us, this was all new. It was all things you hear of, see on TV, or read about, but now it became reality. Some things we can no longer deny… Some might still question “What the heck?” but it is what it is. All we can do is ask our Amazing Father in Heaven to continue to show us what He wants us to learn so that we can continue to grow into the man, woman, son, daughter, warrior or princess that He wants us to be for His Kingdom! Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Strength, health, wisdom, love, joy, boldness, truth, patience, I can go on and on so anything and everything that comes from God, we want it all and we ask for your prayers for us! Thank you and God Bless!!
