Back in the beginning of month five, our month in Uganda, we were given new teams. I was joined together with four incredible women, who happened to be four of my dearest friends, now known as Team RAD. When deciding a team name, we knew our goal as a team was to bring Kingdom and the Lord’s joy, so we started there. We choose RAD for two reasons – RAD stands for Radiate and Delight in the Lord, which we choose as a declaration over our team for bringing joy to every place we go AND we just love the word rad; it’s rad, ya know!?
Beginning as a new team in a month without a host, we established values, goals, and proclaiming specific requests for what our month would look like. We asked God to make things very clear, to leave no room for doubt or our own agenda. A few specific things we asked God to do during Ask The Lord month in Uganda was…
1. To provide a place (specifically free or under budget) to stay that would push us to rely more on God to provide the things we usually want to provide for ourselves. We desired for this to be a month where we abandoned the security of taking things into our own hands when they became uncomfortable and uncertain, and instead leave room for the Lord to answer prayers and work in unexpected ways.
2. A family for Christmas morning! We were all away from our families during the holidays, some for the first time ever. We knew the five of us would be a family but it was important to each of us to still have the aspect of family to celebrate Christmas, share traditions, and spread love and laughter with.
My team decided to book a place to stay for ONLY three nights. These three days would be a time of praying about the month, asking Holy Spirit to speak to us and move like only he could do, and be a time to allow the 5 of us to get to know each other deeper. We searched and searched for an airbnb or hostel but couldn’t find anything in budget, all until the night before when we found an airbnb with Anne. We booked it last minute really not expecting much out of it other than 3 days.
God far exceeded what little expectations we had ten fold! What a tremendous blessing Anne and those 3 days spent in her home turned out to be! Within the first day in Anne’s house, it became our home. She so generously offered to let us stay with her the remainder of the month. What we found out was that while we were praying for housing, Anne was praying for joy and laughter to enter her home. God answered both of our prayers! We not only received a home but a new sweet friend, sister, and a family.
On the second day in Anne’s home, she invited us to roadtrip to her family’s village, where she grew up, to celebrate Christmas with her family. It was only day 2 of our initial 3 days when God answered both of our requests and gave us much more.
On the third day, Anne brought home a Christmas tree for our new family. The beauty of Anne’s sweet gesture was much more than a Christmas tree, it was a gift to 5 girls who felt homesick being away from their families during the holidays. Obviously what we did next was fill the house with Christmas music, offkey singing at the top of our lungs, and dancing while we fluffed the tree and strung the lights. The house was filled with Christmas spirit and joy! This will forever be a memory and gift I will hold dearly to my heart.
Throughout the month, Anne continued to be a huge blessing to our team. We shared family dinners, testimonies, Christmas morning, Bible studies, trips to the market, HopeSmiles work Christmas party, family vacations to lake Bunyonyi, road trips, laughter, tears, cookies, card games, after church lunch outings, and so so so much more.
Enjoy a couple of my favorite pictures from one of my favorite Christmas mornings! It’s February but let’s pretend it’s Christmas again 😉
