Our God is absolutely amazing! I’m so humbled by His goodness that my eyes are literally filled with tears of absolute joy as I’m writing to you. I’m almost at a loss for words, but will try my best to convey all the workings of Almighty God that are in my spirit. I have such a burning desire to share with you all not only what God is doing in the nation of Uganda but how He is changing me as a result of what He’s revealing to me! I am absolutely blown away. You know we go on mission trips with the mindset of blessing others, serving others, and loving others. However, I’ve found once you go, you always come back with so much more than you left with. Once we yield to Christ, it’s amazing what He does in not only our lives, but in the lives of everyone we are surrounded by and also to those we may never meet this side of heaven. You go to bless, but the Lord blesses you twofold by those you came to serve. It’s amazing! A lot of you know my heart for the nation of Uganda. I traveled here about two years ago and literally fell in love with the Ugandan people. They are the most warm and welcoming community of people I’ve ever had the privilege to know. It sounds crazy, but even back home in the States, when I would see an African American and they didn’t even have to be a true native, something inside my spirit danced for joy almost. I would get all excited. I’m just drawn to them. I almost wish you could see through the eyes of my heart if only for a second just so I could allow you to capture it and see it from my perspective. I want to take just a second and speak to “the church.” To my church family, I am brought to tears truly every time I talk about you and you know who you are! Those of you who have watched me grow up and have seen me develop. I say this at every presentation I give, I always take you with me on every trip, everywhere I go. I’ve taken you all around the world. Some of you can’t go on the mission field, but give so generously to send me. Words cannot express how grateful I am for you! For your prayers, for your encouragement, for your love, and your financial support. I would not be here if it weren’t for you being obedient to the Lord’s will. It brings tears of joy to my eyes just thinking about all the rewards you are storing up for yourself in heaven and that He will say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, for great is your reward.” So thank you truly from the bottom of my heart! And to my own flesh and blood: Mom and Dad, thank you! I would not be who I am and where I am today had it not been for your obedience to the Lord and raising me in the fear and admonition of the Lord! To know I have your blessing and wholehearted support despite the difficulty of not having me in your arms to hold means a world of words where there really are no words. I thank God for you all! Every single one of you! You have all blessed me in ways you may never know!
The team and I traveled into Northern Uganda Friday evening into a town called Gulu. This was actually my first trip there and it is at the heart of where the war took place around 1994. Gulu is where the Lord’s Resistance Army set up command centers in order to raise up child soldiers. These children were forced to witness unimaginable atrocities. Children were forced to kill their family members and were forced to watch their family members be mutilated and killed right before their eyes. The children were threatened with their lives if they did not obey the commands to kill their family. Many of the women were abducted, taken into the bush and raped, beaten, and left desolate. The violence was horrific and like nothing you could imagine. Gulu is about four hours from Kampala, where I’m currently residing. Our purpose for traveling there was to team up with an Engineer Missions International (EMI) team. This team is made up of experts that specialize in architecture, agriculture, and various other disciples. This team was put together by Almighty God and His fingerprints were all over it. This team came together from all over the world and worked together on formulating a master plan for what is to be called Koch Agriculture Technical College in Gulu. This team has been working extensively all day and all night for a solid week in preparation for the presentation in which we heard today. This college is designed to bring hope to not only the surrounding villages and community in which it borders, but also will target students in Watoto that have graduated from the Watoto villages that have a passion for learning how to farm, grow crops, raise livestock, ect. There was a particular lady by the name of Kristin. She is a native from Gulu herself and I was just blown away at how to Lord is using her. To me, she was an individual in which when she speaks, people listen. I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat, hanging on every word she was saying. What she was saying was so interesting. This project began about three years ago when Watoto purchased 150 acres to build this college on. However, she stated you have to understand the Acholi culture in order to truly grasp how inspired this project is by the Lord. The Acholi people view land as their inheritance. It is the only thing in which they have possession of being so poor, so naturally it is something they hold very near and dear and is extremely difficult for them to let go of. It means a great deal to them. So for them to come together and believe with Watoto that this college will bring hope and lasting change not only to those who travel through this college, but for them and their entire community, they bought into this belief in order to release their inheritance (their inheritance being the land that Watoto purchased to build this college on). One of the amazing things about Watoto Ministry is that it doesn’t just touch the lives of those it’s designed to care for, orphans and widows. It not only brings hope to the lives of the orphans, widows, and vulnerable women who have been abducted, raped, and who are now HIV+, but that hope spills over the boundary lines of Watoto’s physical property lines into the lives of the surrounding community and in turn the Lord brings healing to this war impoverished community. I am so humbled to be a part of this amazing kingdom work the Lord is doing. It’s so broad scale. Because you see it’s so much more than teams coming together to build schools, village homes, or an agricultural school. It’s about being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ and bringing hope to a community who has literally been through hell and back. You see we all have our own sphere of influence. Those only we can reach as Christ paves the way. Kingdom work has such a ripple effect. Similar to when you throw a rock in a body of water, the ripple begins small, but begins to grow. The larger the ripple grows, the more people are touched by Christ’s love shining through you and me. The same is true when a believer is doing God’s work. One may never know what a difference one person can make in another’s life. We may never understand this side of heaven how the Lord has used the work of our hands to benefit so many lives. That excites me in ways I can’t even begin to describe to you! It puts the work I am doing into perspective as well. Facilities Management isn’t exactly my passion above passions. But I see this position as the gateway to unlimited possibilities. So right now there is a need and I’m serving diligently to meet that need for the betterment of the children, the house mothers, and the teachers. I love people! I love interacting with them, observing them, learning about them, ministering to them, serving them, ect…just offering them my presence because to me that’s what Christ did. He loved, He served, and He gave. So I’ve adopted that as my motto for my stay here. I’m here to love the Ugandan community, to serve them, and to give to them. That’s what I see as my mission. To be an extension of the hands and feet of Christ. After the presentation today there were several points it just brought tears to my eyes. Just to think about those things that may seem small to us, the work that we are doing, may at times seem so small and maybe insignificant. But when you look at it in the light of the cross, wow, it’s absolutely amazing! God only knows who you are touching through Christ both in the present and in the future. You may never know whose life you are touching with your ripple. So whenever you feel your work in the kingdom may be insignificant, be reminded of this. No work for Christ is ever insignificant. Don’t believe the lies of the enemy. The mayor of Gulu was at this presentation also and the government supports Watoto and the work they are doing in the community which I think is amazing in itself. After the presentation he spoke and asked when are we getting this thing on the ground because he believes it will change this entire community. The hope is to also teach the surrounding villages how to grow their own crops for their families and reach out and train them as well in addition to the students in the college. Amazing! After the presentation, our team traveled to what they call Living Hope. Living Hope is a branch off Watoto that specifically ministers to vulnerable women. Every woman in Living Hope resides in their facility and has been abducted by the Rebels, most of which have been beaten and raped. All the women in the Living Hope Program are HIV+. Living Hope is designed to restore dignity to these women. The purpose is to keep these women alive so they are able to care for their children. They are also taught life skills and Watoto provides them with a trade such as sewing, making sanitary pads, ect. Gulu has recently begun a new project making sanitary pads for women. In Uganda teenage girls began to drop out of school and not finish their studies because they have to miss a week of school every month because of their period. They had no sanitary pads and no way to clean themselves so they had to stay home. So an individual actually invented a way to make sanitary pads out of papyrus and paper. They go through an entire assembly line process in Living Hope that the vulnerable women assist with to keep teenage girls in school, which enables them to finish their education. As we toured through the facility, Kristin, the same individual at the presentation I spoke of earlier gave us the tour. We entered a room full of about 50-75 women all HIV+. Every women had a story, every women had been abducted in the war. Here I am standing in front of these women as they are each seated in front of their sewing machines, making dolls for the Watoto Choir to sell and make money for the Minstry and as I just look into their eyes, I’m brought to tears. I would try to scan through the room, looking into their eyes, but I was brought to tears every tim. Everything is my life that remotely concerns me is completely erased and it so insignificant when you look these women in the eyes. Wow! Talk about humbling. Every scar they have tells a story. Some women have been mutilated, having their ears cut or pieces of their body cut by the Rebels. Every one of them has a story to tell. It’s in moments like that one is brought into the reality of what really matters in life. Then to hear Kristin talk about how much joy they have. Yes, they have been through more than any of us can ever imagine, however, they understand they are not defined by what’s happened to them in the past and they understand they don’t have to live chained to their past. Their circumstances do not define them! Christ defines them. Kristin was saying once they realize that, they are filled with such hope, and they just let it all go by the Lord’s grace. Each women journey’s through the Trauma Rehabilitation Program, which is extensive counseling before they enter into the Living Hope Program. It is here they learn to forgive. They learn that forgiveness is a choice. Kristin told us that in a lot of cases the very individuals who abducted them still live in their villages and these women come into contact with their abductor’s daily. She said at first these women just want to kill their abductors, however, once they learn that forgiveness is a choice, it changes everything. Unforgiveness acts as a poison that slowly kills you. It’s only when they choose to forgive and let that go, they find freedom. Kristin compared it to a poisoness snake. The faster you run, the faster is kills you.
I pray this entry has blessed your heart and has allowed you to capture only a small taste of all the amazing things the Lord is doing in the nation of Uganda! I love you all!
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