The last couple
of weeks have been busy with traveling, plans changing and fun
experiences. Our squad met in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday the 21st, and
we were supposed to help with a youth conference there. However, for
some unknown reason to us, the conference was canceled at the last
minute. So, we ended up with a few free days in Kampala. It turns out
that's exactly what we all needed. God could see we were tired and
drained, so the free days were a great time to rest and be refreshed
before more traveling.
We also had a great time of worship together
Tuesday night. I was not really excited to go, but it ended up being
a huge blessing. Many times you don't realize how much you miss
something until you have it again. That's the way it was with
worship. We've had some great African worship, but we really needed a
chance to do worship the way we're used to with songs we know. We
spent a good two hours just singing, praying and worshiping God. It
was so good!
Wednesday, we
traveled from Kampala to Nairobi, Kenya. It was a very long trip (16
hours including 2 hours spent at the border crossing waiting on
transit visas), but we made it safely. Thursday night we flew out to
Dublin, Ireland. My group had layovers in Dubai and London on our way
here. We flew on Emirates airlines, and it was awesome! We each had
our own TV screen with hundreds of movies to watch, including new
ones. It was awesome! I I should have tried to sleep but instead I
stayed up to watch movies! It was definitely not World Race style.
We arrived in
Dublin Friday evening. We had a couple days for debrief, and today the
Awakening conference began. I'm camping out with about 300 current
World Racers. Some are about to return to the States while others are
just in their first few months. This is the second annual conference
for all current and past World Racers. We have worship, speakers,
breakout sessions and other fun activities.
I've had some
time for site-seeing in Dublin, and I love this city! It's so nice
and clean, and the people are super friendly and helpful. I
definitely experienced some culture shock coming from Africa, but
it's so nice to be back in the western world. We ate at Subway for
lunch yesterday and have enjoyed other delicious food. Finally a
break from beans and rice!
In September, my
team will be working with an orphanage in Romania, near Bucharest I
believe. Then the next month, we now have the chance to ask the Lord
where we should go and what we should do. Our team gets to choose our
own ministry in one of these six countries: Hungary, Czech Republic,
Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia. So, we've started praying for
God to show us where to go. Our last month will still be Ukraine.
So, there's an
update of changes and what I've been doing the past two weeks. Africa
has been challenging as well as rewarding. Ireland comes at the
perfect time to refresh us, and I'm looking forward to what eastern
Europe will bring for our last three months.
(Side note: I wanted to post a picture or two with this, but with all of us using Internet, it's taking too long to load. I'll try to add one later.)
It's been another eventful week in
Uganda. I decided to provide several pictures to give you a recap of
the week's activities.
We visited a memorial site where 121
civilians were killed by rebels during the time of unrest in northern
Uganda. Thousands fled to camps where they hoped to be protected. We
went to another village later that used to be a camp for 70,000
people in a relatively small area.
We visited some schools and did
programs for the kids. One school was out in the middle of nowhere
down a bumpy dirt road. The kids were so cute, and they sang many
songs for us.
I went to the village of Aloi with
Jedediah, Tash and Charity. We did an outdoor crusade one day, and
the next day we did some teaching in the church. I was so encouraged
by the enthusiasm of the people to hear God's word. For the crusade,
we got there late because of problems with our transportation. Many
of the people had been waiting there since 9 in the morning, and we
didn't arrive until nearly 4! It was just amazing to see their
excitement and love for the Lord.
We went to another village called Apac
where we did more outdoor crusades and teachings, as well as
preaching in churches. I enjoyed the traditional instruments they use
in the church services. I preached in two services at this church in
Owang area.
We got to do some manual labor while in
Apac. They are building a new church so we helped mix concrete for
the foundation. It felt so good to do some manual work again. We were
sweating and dirty; it was great!
I'm a backup dancer for an African
singer named Charles! We've joined his choir of backup dancers at
several events. Now, we have it down, and he even asked us to be part
of a music video, which we worked on yesterday. I definitely would have never
thought I'd be doing this!
I celebrated my birthday a couple weeks
late. My birthday was August 2 on a travel day, so we didn't have an
opportunity to celebrate that day. The rest of our time here has been
planned or we've been unable to go anywhere. However, my awesome
teammates worked it out Monday to spend the afternoon at a nearby
American cafe we discovered. The woman who started it is from Oregon
and very nice. I got a real birthday cake, probably the only real
cake I've had all year, and ice cream! It was so good!
The past week has been full of
activities. I've traveled to some different areas and done a number
of things. I've met political leaders, church leaders,
agriculturalists, designers and entrepreneurs. I've visited a
hospital, HIV/Aids clinic, disability rehabilitation center,
agricultural research center, schools and churches. I've preached,
prayed, encouraged and been blessed in return. I've signed a lot of
guest books, drank a lot of sodas and eaten a lot of sweet potatoes
and bananas. I was able to pick my own pineapple and eat it a few
days later - so good! Even though I majored in agriculture in
college, I've seen more different crops and plants than I've ever
seen in one place. I've prayed for mothers, babies, school kids,
teachers and children with HIV.
Uganda is still recovering from civil
war that has plagued the country for the past 30 years. Just in the
last few years has there been peace. The northern part of Uganda
(where we are) is where most of the violence took place. The most
visible signs left from the war that we've seen have been the people.
They are still recovering. They've been through hard times and need
hope.
Last Saturday night around 10 p.m. when
I was wondering what to preach about the next morning - God gave me
the word hope. That's what these people need more than anything right
now. They need hope that there's a brighter future, that there's a
God who loves them, that one day there will be no more pain or
suffering. Really that's what we all need - HOPE - and that hope
only comes through Jesus Christ.
To start off month eight in Uganda, our
squad met in Jinja to go whitewater rafting on the Nile River. It was
so awesome! I've rafted a couple of times before on the Colorado
River, but that was nothing compared to this. We were going on class
five rapids, which is about the biggest you can get. There were some
class six, but we had to get out and go around those since it's not
safe to raft over them. Only the kayakers can handle class six, at
least that's what our guide told us.
We had six in our raft - John,
Rachael, Charity, Andrea, Emily and me - plus our guide, Paul. Paul
was amazing. He kept us from flipping over. Most of the other boats
flipped at least once, but Paul took care of us and kept us upright
even though we had some close calls. He also made us work hard. We
paddled a lot. The Nile has some really strong rapids in places, but
in other places there's hardly a current, so we got a good arm
workout.
The scenery along the river was
beautiful - yet another chance to enjoy God's wonderful creation.
Lunch was also great. We had sandwiches with wheat bread, ham and
lots of fresh vegetables, including avocados. We also had fresh
pineapple, which is my favorite! We were possibly just as excited
about the lunch as we were the rafting. It was seriously some of the
best food we've had in months. It's crazy how you can miss food as
simple as a sandwich. At the end of the trip we also got steak
kabobs, chapati and cold drinks - delicious!
Overall, it was a great day of rafting.
No one got seriously hurt although there were plenty of bruises,
scrapes and sore muscles to show for our efforts. Thankfully, God
protected us and allowed us to have an enjoyable time. I would
definitely do it again!
I have just a short time on the Internet so will quickly update you on where I am and what I'm doing. We are now on month eight in Uganda. We started the month off by whitewater rafting on the Nile River. That was awesome! I'll try to get some photos up when I have more time. For now, I'll tell you about our
ministry. All the teams on our squad plus N squad are working
with the Anglican Church of Uganda. Right now we are all separated
around the country to work with different churches, but at the end of
the month we will meet back together in Kampala to help with a youth
conference hosting students from all over Africa.
My team is in the city of Lira, which
is in the north central part of Uganda. We just arrived yesterday so
haven't yet begun with ministry. From what they tell us, we will be
traveling to different cities in the region and doing outdoor
crusades, street preaching, teaching and visiting of prisons and
schools. It sounds like we will have a busy few weeks here, but we
are excited.
So far, Uganda has been great. They
speak more English here than in Kenya or Tanzania. It's kind of
disappointing since we were finally getting better at Kiswahili.
However, they have many other tribal languages. Where we are they
speak Lango (I think?).
Once again we have a nice place to
stay. We have a small house to ourselves. All five of us girls sleep
here, while the boys have a room in another house nearby. It's really
refreshing since we are a few miles outside of town. It feels like
we're in the country - so peaceful! We are thanking the Lord for a
quiet place to stay.
I'll try to post some pictures and let you know more soon!
We have finished our time of ministry
in Tanzania. As always, it's sad to go but exciting to know what God
has for us in the next place. I really enjoyed Nyamwilolelwa. The
village church we worked with was great, and we really developed
relationships with the people there even though most of them can't
speak English. The people living in the village are very poor. Most
of them can't even afford a Bible, but they were a huge blessing to
us. They did a love offering for us Sunday, which was a humbling
experience. Here were these people who have so little, and they
wanted to bless us.
The church building
In return we provided many Bibles for
the village and church. We presented each person who had been helping
us during the month with a Bible in Kiswahili. We also handed out
Bibles to many new Christians in the village. It was so encouraging
to see the new believers reading God's word and asking questions.
This is Bulobi who accepted Christ and
started reading his Bible as soon as we gave it to him.
We did come across another challenge.
Many of the people can't read and write, and some only know their
tribal language, which is Kisukuma. The good news is one of our
translators has been teaching people to read and write at the church.
We encouraged him to keep doing that and use it as a way to witness
to others in the village. While teaching them to read and write, he
can also teach them about Jesus.
Standing with Pastor Faustine (to my
left) along with some villagers we encouraged and told more about
Jesus.
The pastor and church members have
started a great work in the village, and we encouraged them to
continue following up with people and showing Jesus' love to
everyone. It's been a good month of ministry. This has definitely
been one of my favorites so far.
Some ladies from the church who went
with us to visit homes.
About two weeks ago, several from our
squad went on a safari (which means journey in Swahili). We went to
the great Serengeti Park, which is just an hour and a half from
Mwanza where we are located this month. Below is a video of our
experience. This is the first video I've made myself, so I hope you
enjoy it! I loved seeing many of God's wonderful creatures in their
natural environment. His handiwork is so amazing!
How many are your works, O Lord! In
wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
Our past week in the village has been
very interesting. We've gone out in groups every morning and
afternoon to evangelize. Some of us have been a little hesitant about
it, since we don't just want people to accept Christ, but we want
them to really understand what a relationship with Jesus is like.
We've really pushed follow-up with the church because we want to see
these people being discipled. Thankfully, they have agreed, and it's
been a good balance of visiting new homes and evangelizing then going
back to visit homes again and provide encouragement and more Bible
teaching.
At first I thought this would get to be
really tiring, and it has at times, but it's also very refreshing.
One thing I can't get over is how open they are to the gospel. The
people here are so friendly and inviting. We walk up to their house
uninvited, and they pull up some chairs in the shade outside and sit
down to listen to us. At many houses, we stay for more than an hour.
Many of them have never heard of Jesus. Many more are Roman
Catholics, so they know about Jesus but they don't understand what it
means to have a personal relationship with Him.
We've had some easy conversations where
people are open to hearing and accepting Jesus. Then we've had some
more challenging ones where they have many questions or confusion.
Both are rewarding. It's exciting to see someone accept Jesus as
their Savior, but it's also a joy to see people seeking the truth and
really wanting to understand.
View of Lake Victoria while walking to another area of the village.
One interesting encounter has been with
the village witch doctor. First of all, he's nothing like any of us
would imagine a witch doctor would look or act like. He's a
middle-aged man who wears normal clothes and loves to laugh. We first
met with some of his family members when he was not home. We shared
with them, and the witch doctor's wife as well as some other members
of his family accepted Christ. We've gone back a couple other times
to encourage them and to visit with the witch doctor. He's very open
to listening; however, he still is blinded to the gospel. He doesn't
believe the things he does as a witch doctor are wrong. He thinks
since he is healing people, it's good. We are slowly trying to
explain that working with evil spirits is not pleasing to God, no
matter how it's being used. So, we are praying for God to soften his
heart and open his eyes. He has invited us to come back again, so we
will definitely be doing that.
The thing that saddens us most about
sharing Jesus in the village is the lack of Bibles. The church itself
does not have many Bibles, and very few people living in the village
have a Bible. Most who have come to Jesus really want a Bible, so we
are looking into a way to get some for them. We know that is the best
way for them to grow is to read the word of God. So, that is our main
mission for our time here is to get Bibles into the hands of those
who are new Christians, and also to find a way for the church to get
more Bibles that they can distribute.
God has been teaching me a lot during
this time of door-to-door evangelism. I've really enjoyed the times
of follow-up where we just share Bible stories and truths from the
scriptures as well as open it for them to ask questions. Some of
their questions are difficult and hard to answer, but it really
stretches my faith and understanding. It's so cool to have them ask a
question and then look up scriptures in the Bible to provide an
answer. Those times are always challenging for me to remember where
things are in the Bible. I'm good at remembering concepts, but ask me
where it's found in the Bible, and I don't have the best memory. So,
I'm working on that. I believe God is teaching me just as much in
this time of evangelism and discipleship as the new believers are
learning.
We are now in
Tanzania. My team arrived in Mwanza on Monday after a long and rough
overnight bus ride. We made it safely and are thanking God for that.
Mwanza is the second largest city in Tanzania, and it's right by Lake
Victoria. It's beautiful. We are staying in a house with two other
teams. Our team is working with a church in a village. It's about a
30-minute drive out of town. The village is called Nyamwilolelwa -
yep, it's a tricky one. We are doing mainly door-to-door visits and
evangelism. Door-to-door in the village takes on a whole new meaning.
It's not just a few steps to the next house, it's more like half a
mile or more walking through fields. We are getting our exercise,
that's for sure, but I like it! I'm very excited to be working in the
village. I feel we get the best of both worlds - we have a nice
place to stay with electricity and running water close to town, but
we still get to work with people in the village. It's really strange
how they can be so close to the city, yet live so differently. I
think it will be a good experience for our team. Please pray for
health, endurance and for wisdom and discernment while visiting with
people.
Walking through the fields.
Some women and children from the village we visited.
Let me introduce you to Esther and
Chalis. This is a couple we met while evangelizing. John and Tash met
them first and led Esther to the Lord. The next day I went out with
John to give Esther a Bible. Chalis is blind and also has a problem
with his leg making it difficult to walk. After their first meeting,
John and Tash prayed for him, and that same day he received papers
from the Kenya government to apply for disability. He had been
waiting for awhile to receive that. He needed to fill out some
paperwork, submit two passport photos and pay 500 Kenya shillings
(about $6.50) for the application. Esther and Chalis live on Esther's
small business of selling food. They live in a tiny room with walls
made of mud and sticks. So, the money for the application process
would be difficult. We told them we could help out.
John took a photo of Chalis and went to
town that afternoon to print his passport photos. We went back the
next day with those as well as the money they needed for the
application process. Chalis had a neighbor help him fill out the
paperwork. When we gave them the money and photos, they were so
grateful. They would have to go to town to submit the application. We
asked if they had money for the transport needed to get into town.
They didn't, so we gave them another 120 shillings for transport.
Again, they were so grateful. We
visited more with them. While talking more with Chalis, we began to
realize he knew Jesus in his mind but not with his heart. He had told
the others earlier that he was a Christian, but after talking more
about it, we realized he didn't really have a relationship with
Christ. So, we began to share some scriptures with him and explain
more about being a Christian. He listened intently and then decided
he wanted Jesus in his life too.
We prayed with him and he invited Jesus
into his heart. It was a wonderful moment. After praying he pointed
to our translator Phyllis and said he could see something white she
was holding. She had a white handkerchief in her hand. God was
opening his eyes! He still couldn't see much, but that was probably
the most he's seen since he's been blind. We praised the Lord
together and asked for continued healing for his vision. We told him
even if God didn't fully restore his vision, he would see perfectly
when in heaven some day.
A week later (today), we visited Esther
and Chalis again. They turned in the disability forms. It will be
about a three-month waiting process before it will be approved. We
are praying for the process to go quickly so he can receive support.
Chalis said his vision is slowly improving. He still can't see much,
but I believe God is continuing to work in his life, both physically
and spiritually.