Mission: Love Uganda 2012

The long flight home

2012-02-27T22:51:00.001-08:00

We left Uganda at 12:40am Uganda time on Monday morning. An 8 hour flight to London, 4 hour layover, 9 hour flight to Dallas, 4 hour layover there and finally a 4 hour flight back to Portland. That is a lot of time to process what has happened to us over the past 2 weeks. By the time we get home to bed, it will have been over 48 hours since we will have been in a bed. God literally has taken us to the other side of the world and back.

I was looking back over some of the original blog posts marking weeks until we leave. Then there was the thought that this trip would be somehow life changing. We visited an orphanage and fell in love with babies whose parents had died or just abandoned them. One young child’s mother had even tried to stab her to death. What possible circumstances could cause a mother to do this?

We were showered with love by everybody we met. From the overwhelming greeting at Kachungwa, to the church plant we visited, to the homes of the people we visited. Everywhere, we loved and were loved in return. It is said that God is love – which, of course He is – and from what we experienced, God’s love is thriving in the poorest parts of Uganda.

We saw children at the high school saved by the dozens (153) and as a result a new church was planted in Uganda. We saw children sponsored by our church family benefitting from the financial contributions to their lives. We waded in the sea of beautiful smiling faces of children. We waved constantly as we drove through the country as children came running and waving and calling “Muzungu”. They delighted in the gift of a small sweet.

We witnessed generosity like none of us have ever witnessed before, let alone been the recipient. We were humbled that the poorest of the poor in Uganda would take food off of their family’s table to offer it as a gift in gratitude for what we have done for them. How could we receive the gift of a couple of avocado’s, pineapples or eggs when we have plenty and they have nothing? How do we sort that out in our minds.

We have been in the homes of people who pray only that they have a home that doesn’t flood when it rains. We have seen single women raising many children who are not their own because others abandoned them on the street. With barely enough to feed their own children, they find a way to feed and house the others. It may not be what WE would call acceptable, but they are alive because these women choose to love and sacrifice.

We have seen pastors, teachers, social workers, doctors, nurses, children and many other volunteers dedicate their time, ,money and lives to serving these people who are precious to God. Not only do they serve, but they do it with joy in their hearts, praise on their lips and a smile on their face. We were in the home of Pastor Sylver, the pastor of Kachungwa Community Church, who is raising his own 6 children plus 5 that are not his own. We met an associate pastor who has had his business burn to the ground and while he tries to rebuild his life, is serving the poor in the slums of Kampala.

We were there when a child died of malaria because medical care was not available to the family. Even though there was a one-day clinic, it wasn’t enough. You saw of the face of the father whose child died, but you just saw the picture. We saw the man and the child. We saw the hurt it caused the medical team to see a child die. They are strong Christians with whom we had the privilege to serve side by side to minister to the children of the village of Kachungwa.

We have seen the servant leadership of a young Christian man named Dalton. His desire was to serve and he tirelessly met our every need. He assured that we had safe water and food. He answered questions of all sorts that we asked him. He polished Pastor Ken’s shoes because he wanted Ken to have sharp looking shoes when he preached. Dalton prayed, worshipped and loved God like he was a friend of God. We are all humbled by his servant’s heart. We learned that, like most in Uganda, Dalton doesn’t own a car and while we stayed in the guest house in Ggaba, Dalton walked to and from his apartment each day – a 45 minute walk each way. He was there when we got up in the morning and was there until he was satisfied all was attended to in the evening.

It was with incredible excitement, laughter and anticipation that we spent our last evening in Uganda. We are all longing desperately to be reunited with our families who we have missed so much. But this much time on a plane offers a lot of time to try and process what has happened over the past couple of weeks. We will all say that this was a life-changing trip for each of us individually and for all of us as a team. It may be different for some than others exactly HOW God changed us, but He did. There are a lot of emotions that we will need to sort through. We have been tested, challenged, stretched and blessed more than any of us could have dreamed.

Me, I am thinking about a young girl that we sponsor who sleeps in a horrible place with her mother, grandmother and sister. She gets up every day and walks over 6 miles to school and then home at the end of each day. What kind of future will she have? Who will be the father to love that beautiful young girl when she needs the strong love of a father’s arms? I loved the way that she would come and take my hand with a huge smile on her face and walk with me. I loved the gift that she must have worked so hard on just to show me her thanks. I will forever remember her words “I have no father – you are my father.” Who will be there for her? I know that God will and am confident that He has plans for her life. There are millions of children in Uganda that are in the same situation as Gorretti.

I am thinking about our two other sponsored boys – the lives they have ahead, the hardships they and their families will endure and have endured already. Sponsorship is an investment in their lives that will give them an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had with a few dollars each month that we won’t even really miss.

There are hundreds of young faces smiling joyfully as we would walk with them, teach and play. Each one has hopes and dreams for their future. Already we find ourselves talking about how much we miss their faces, their hands reaching out just to be touched. I remember standing in Luzira Community Church listening to Pastor Alex and his church worship in the midst of a poor area and a beautiful little girl in a torn red dress standing there beside me. I put out my hand and she held onto it until both of our arms were tired.

We all learned about God. We experienced His presence, His power, His leading and His love in very surprising and delighting ways. We saw the power of prayer and had come to rely on Him for everything. One that struck me was that towards the end of the trip, when anybody was feeling sick or had some need, the first thing we did was go to prayer for that person confident that God would answer our prayer. I think that back home, I would have called the doctor, run to the medicine cabinet and maybe remembered to pray if I had some time along the way. The experience of prayer and seeing the awesomeness of God is something that I wanted to see down here and God has answered that.

There is way too much to process and try and even highlight all that has happened these past weeks. If you haven’t already, please take some time to read back through some of the older blog posts to get more of a real-time description of what happened in Uganda. The real question that I am facing now is “what next”? God certainly didn’t take us through the things He did just for a 2 week short-term mission trip. Yes, He accomplished some great things through us while we were there, but there is much yet to be done. There are children who need to be sponsored, a medical clinic that could save many lives and cure/prevent disease. There is a need for clean water and toilets. There is a need for reliable power and computers to enable ARM to work effectively with the various projects like Kachungwa.

One thing that I do know is that we as a church have been blessed by God to be partnering with ARM and the village of Kachungwa. God is going to do great things there, but it must start with our prayer.

Next Sunday, the team will be talking to the congregation during the morning services (Ken said that he has about 5 years worth of sermon materials out of this trip, so is happy to let the team take this first Sunday to share with you). Please come listen to our experiences first hand. We can only do so much with words and pictures on a blog. You need to hear the passion in Ashley’s voice, the joy of Isaac leading worship and meeting Daniel, the heart of Bryan for children, the passion Renee has for the people there, Ralph's humbling experience with the gratitude of a poor people and the direction Ken believes God has ahead for us in Uganda.

It is our gracious God who is glorified by all that He has done in Uganda and in Canby. We are blessed by your prayers and knowing that you are there supporting God’s team (us) in Uganda. Our anticipation of seeing you all again grows as each mile in the air passes. We love you and eagerly await seeing you again soon.

In the name of Jesus Christ we pray and believe,

Dave

PS The good old American Fuddrucker’s bacon cheeseburger in the Dallas Fort-Worth airport was incredible!

God, have mercy

2012-02-27T22:43:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the tardiness of this post, but it couldn’t be helped. The computer battery ran out and the power was out for an extended period of time and we have not had any internet connections until we got home. I am disappointed because this was as important as any other work that we have done and I wanted to share it with you sooner. By the time this gets posted, we will either be travelling between Uganda and Portland or we will be home. While we are looking forward to being home, we hate to leave the beautiful people we have come to love in Uganda and are REALLY not looking forward to the travel. But enough of that, let’s get caught up a little bit.

ARM has a branch of it’s ministry called Mercy Net. This is a ministry that provides food to the neediest of the needy. ARM works with local churches and will work with the local church for three years to develop the program and enable the local church to actually be the ones who will sustain the program in the local area and reach their community. They partner with Children’s Hunger Fund to receive most if not all of their funding for this program.

We went into the slums of Kampala which was a very different experience for any of us who had not been there before. I had heard the team that went last year talk about the slums and have seen them on TV, but really had no concept of what a slum truly was. It is a very bad area in many ways and it was a shock walking into the middle of one for the first time. You can’t imagine the utter poverty until you sit in a “house” there. I say “house” (in quotes) because it is hard to use that term by any understanding we have of what a house is.

We started out the morning with an overview of the project at Word of Life Community Church. They described their program and introduced the people who work there. We then loaded the food to be distributed into bags for individual distribution and headed out. Each family was to receive 2 bags of corn meal, one bag of mixed beans and one bag of rice. They deliver this to the families supported by the church one time each month.

I was fortunate enough to be teamed up with Isaac and Ashley as well as Ruth, the Mercy Net program director for ARM, and two people from Word of Life church. The first house we visited, we were able to share the gospel with the woman who lived there and she accepted Christ. She was a single mother with 3 children under the age of 5. Her husband had abandoned her and her children. This, as we learned, is a very common thing in the slums. We learned that many of the women are either prostitutes to try and earn money, or the husbands are unable to support the family, so just leave. The rate of HIV/AIDS, malaria, cholera, typhoid and many other diseases is very high due to the horrible conditions that people there live in. We praise God that this woman was able to hear the gospel, be saved and that there is a local church to follow up with her.

As we went to the next house, we were feeling encouraged that God had been preparing the way. However good we were feeling, we were not prepared for the quality of life people have there. At house after house, we found similar stories of abandonment, hunger and poverty beyond what we can imagine, living in Canby, Oregon. A couple of days later, I can still picture the people and the way they live. We would arrest people in Oregon for keeping their animals living in such conditions. Here, it is just the way life is.

Ralph and Bryan delivered food to a woman whose home doubled as a “store”. It was described as “about the size of a twin bed”. There was barely any room to stand and the woman had 2 children living there with her. The children stayed under the counter. There was no floor and all of their earthly possessions were contained in that area. She had a couple of trays of vegetables – not horrible, but they said it is certainly nothing that they would buy in a store in Canby. She was trying the best she could to eke out a living and feed herself and her children. We thanked God for the people who deliver this food to them every month.

Many of the homes had barely room for a bed. When they invited us in, we would sit on the edge of the bed, barely able to move our feet because there was no room. The people were happy to welcome visitors and it was an honor to pray with the people there in their homes. I have been so blessed by the house I live in and have thought about it with a whole new perspective. We’ve seen a pastor raising 11 children in 500 square feet, grandmothers raising 5 or more children – how can we ever look at our homes the same way again?

One elderly woman that we visited was a grandmother caring for her 3 grandchildren and also two other children whose mother had abandoned them in the street (not streets like we’re used to them). Her back is injured and one of the children is sick. She has no income and no ability to provide for her children outside of what other people do to help and what Mercy Net does to provide some of their food and spiritual needs. Also, the church helps in other ways. The church in Uganda is a very important provider for helping the needy. She was a Christian, but we prayed for her back to be healed, her children to be healed and that God would care for her. We encouraged her by telling her that God had brought us to her home all the way from America (you think being anywhere we went was a coincidence?) and wanted to remind that He loves her and is with her. She was so happy that she just kept saying thank you, thank you, thank you, ameena (Amen), ameena, ameena. As we left, I told her that she was my hero – a woman taking care of all of these grandchildren and abandoned children in the conditions she lived in IS just plain heroic. I apologize for the fuzziness of the picture, but it was hard to focus with so little room to move around in her house, not to mention fighting to keep my composure.

Below are just a few more pictures of some more people we visited and provided food, encouragement and prayer to:

This woman was a Christian and was thankful for the food and encouragement. Her prayer was to be able to move into a house that didn’t fill with water when it rained and a job for her husband so he could provide and would not abandon them. What was particularly difficult for all of us was that we all heard similar stories about the houses flooding when it rains. After we left and were driving back to our house, it started to rain – hard! We watched the streets fill with water almost to the curb and running down the street like a river. All of us could imagine the people we had just visited sitting in wet houses with the water just flowing through and soaking everything on the ground (which was most of their belongings and beds).

The mother of these children asked that we pray for somebody to sponsor her children so they can get an education. Our escort from the church informed us that there are very few sponsored children here. The children were beautiful and caught our hearts. If we can even help one…and one more…and one more… One at a time is the way we can make a difference in Uganda. One at a time is the way we can make a difference for the needy in Canby. We just need to do it.

Isaac and Ashley provide a scale for you to see the size of this house. There was a woman and 3 children living here. It was impossible to get all of the visitors in this house.

Ken & Renee’s team met a woman who was raising 5 children on her own in the size of apartment to the one you see below. It is roughly 10’x12’ in size. Not only was she raising 5 children of her own, the single father who lived across from them had abandoned his 5 children. Seeing the need of the children, she took the additional 5 children in to her home and cared for them. She was than determined to do whatever she needed to provide for the children. She would sell fish, do laundry and any other work that she could find to support her family. Ken said that she is a “strong person living in sparse conditions, but she chose, rather than better her own life, she opted to take on the additional 5 children. She did it because it was the right thing to do”. As a Christian, the team was impressed with her sacrificial love for the children.

They also saw a woman sitting on a bench with a beautiful smile. They were terribly poor, her husband was crippled, but they were drawn to her smile. When they learned she was a Christian, it explained it, but was still hard for us to imagine the true joy that Jesus can bring to a person wholly committed to Him, even living in such circumstances. Listening to Ken describe the encounter reminds me about the trivial things (relativity again) that tend to discourage me or cause me to complain when I don’t get what I’d like to have – the nice car that I’d like, the bigger house, the property in the country. Not in and of themselves bad, but as the song says “I’m trading it all for the joy of the Lord”. Would I be able to make that trade?

This grandmother was caring for her grandchildren because their mother had died and the father had a leg amputated due to cancer. She also had an infant and absolutely no way to provide for them. We had seen utter poverty in the villages, and now we were seeing it here as well. There were different challenges that they faced, but all need God’s grace where they are. It is hard to imagine living like this every day of your life. The baby had the softest hair…and she was beautiful. God alone knows the future ahead for this sweet one.

Streams of water like the one shown above run through the area where the people live. There are also spots where rancid water gathers because it has nowhere to go. It is foul smelling and you would not want to be within 20 feet of it, let alone touch it. We saw children filling water buckets from these ponds. In Revelations 22, John talks about the River of life flowing from the throne of God. Pure water, full of life. It is going to be a great day indeed for the people who are used to this. It made us heartsick to think of people actually drinking or cooking with this “water”.

This house had the doorway built up almost 3 feet high to keep the flooding out. This family had 3 children and inside was a bed and a couch. The floor was covered with garbage. The children literally had to climb in and out of the house.

One of the other unique experiences we had was that as we were passing a particular house, one of our escorts informed us that it was the house of a witchdoctor. One of our escorts told us that she had once been a witch doctor - but she met Jesus through the work of people reaching out into the slums and sharing hope and truth. THE truth. Evil is prevalent in the slums and is very real. There is a spiritual battle and God has won. It is in the name of Jesus that we pray and believe – we have no other way to battle this evil.

But the news wasn’t all bad. In the midst of this horror, God is working. And we were blessed beyond belief to be part of His great work. In the picture above, our team had finished delivering all of our food and were starting to head back. A woman stopped to ask for prayer for a new house, but I felt God wanting me to direct her to Him. So, Ashley and I shared the good news of Jesus with her and she accepted Christ right there. She said that she had been to church a couple of times, but was open to hearing. She prayed with us and accepted Christ in the street. At the same time, an alcoholic man was walking by and Isaac stopped to talk with him. Isaac shared the gospel with him and then talked with him about the need for him to take some action on his own to break the hold of alcoholism. Isaac suggested that he just throw away the bottle in his front shirt pocket. It was amazing, but the man accepted Christ right then and there and THEN threw away the bottle into a pile of rocks. I couldn’t help but shout a very loud AMEN (Ameena down here) – it caught the attention of many.

None of us were prepared for what we did that morning, but God went ahead of us and did some great work in the lives of a few of the people. It made the difference between heaven and hell for them. There is a local church there to follow up with them and the church is also assisting in setting up home churches for people in the slums to meet and encourage one another. In what seemed to me to be a hopeless situation, God is doing some great things. He used us to do some of His work – we were so blessed! The hard work of ARM and reaching out to the local churches is making the day-to-day difference. The volunteers, the pastors and others working day in and day out serving God faithfully need our support and prayer as well.

Let me see if I can get this posted and convey our love and thanks to each of you for your prayers. We, and by extension you, made a difference in Uganda. Thank God for his grace and mercy.

See you all soon!

Dave

The Theory of Relativity

2012-02-24T20:08:00.001-08:00

Our perspective has changed on a lot of things in the time we have been here. Probably one of the greatest eye-openers is in the difference in quality of life between Oregon and Uganda. Let me start by talking about hotel we stayed in t Mubende. It was called the Pride Travellers Hotel. To say the least, it was a shock for all of us the night we checked in. Here are a just few of the deficiencies we found in the hotel:

There is no hot water. Well, there is, but they carried it up to our rooms each night in 2 gallon buckets.
The “shower” in my room consists of a shower head on a hose connected to the water spout.
There are tiles missing on the floor of my bathroom with standing water.
The lights hang from the ceiling by a bare wire – no fixtures at all. Certainly not up to American electrical standards. Many of our lights just didn’t work at all.
We were on the 5th floor of the hotel and there was no elevator. We had to climb the stairs every time we wanted to get to the room.
There were no 2 stairs the same height. They ranged any where from 3” to 14”. One of the stairs near the lobby had a loose wire strung across the stairs.
Most nights, the power went off at 8pm and stayed off all night.
The beds feel like sleeping on the ground they are so hard.
Most of our toilet seats were broken (I won’t even go into the toilets…)
There are cockroaches roaming the hallway. BIG cockroaches…
The windows don’t close and Bryan’s room was missing a pane of glass altogether. It actually rained into his room one night.
The restaurant doesn’t have a menu. They set out the food for the night for us and that’s what we get.
The mosquito nets didn’t necessarily fit the beds – many left large gaps around the edges. Nor did the screens necessarily keep mosquito nets out.
The showers in the bathrooms don’t have curtains and no hot water – there wasn’t even a drain.. The entire floor was the drain and water filled the bathroom until you were standing in water wondering when it would pour out into the room. There was a small drain in the floor near the outside wall that the water eventually drained through.
The restaurant in the hotel did not have an inside kitchen – they cooked outside over a fire.

The list goes on and on, but suffice it to say that this was a totally unacceptable hotel by any of our standards. If I was asked to take a room in a place like this in the US, I would promptly turn around and leave. There is no way I would pay to stay in a “dump” like that. There is absolutely no way that my family would want to stay.
Then we had the opportunity to see how people who have nothing live. Most have one set of clothes, most of the people we saw outside of the school didn’t have shoes. Their mud huts were so small and the conditions are like nothing I could have imagined. Let’s list a few of the deficiencies they had:

They have no windows
They have no floor – other than dirt. Actually, the the walls are made of dirt as well.
They have no kitchen – they cook outside on a fire
They have no shower
They have no bathroom – they go outside.
They have no food besides what they can produce in their fields.
They have no transportation besides walking – or sometimes a beat up old bike.
Children have to walk to school. Often they have to leave before sun-up to arrive on time. Many walk as many as 10 Kilometers (6 miles) each way to/from school.
The furniture in these homes usually consists of 1 or 2 wood benches and a straw mat to sleep on.
They have no dining room.
They have no silverware. They eat with their hands.
They have no garage to park their cars or store their camping supplies. I suppose that’s because they don’t have cars and most do not even have motorcycles or cars.
They have no electricity and thus no lights after dark.

This list goes on and on and on and on and on…I can’t even begin to tell you the scope of what the people don’t have. It would be a far shorter list to tell you what they do have. And that is just in their homes. In their community, they have no stores, no pharmacies, no police, no roads (well, there is the one that runs through town and into the school, but the main method of transportation is walking on a maze of trails), no fire department, no supermarkets…

Let me stop and talk about that last one a bit. Food has been on our minds a lot since we have been here. We have been fed like kings while we have been here. But not kings like American standards. Our usual meal consists of 3-4 types of potatoes/yams, beans, rice, matoke (pronounced muh-toe-kee – it is mashed plantains – a staple food here in Uganda), some kind of meat in small quantity (usually chicken, but sometimes beef – though not beef as WE know it) and fruit. There is no bread and we have seen virtually no vegetables. I haven’t seen a green salad anywhere. For supper last night we had chips (actually french fries though not as we know them), grilled plantains, ramen noodles, chicken and pineapple/watermelon.

Here are a couple of pretty typical supper plates that we have eaten.

I have yet to see anything that looks like Thriftway with it’s row after row of food, huge meat selection, produce area that is unimaginable here. I had no idea what we had in comparison to the poor here in Uganda (even the rich for that fact).

As I said earlier, we have eaten like kings – certainly not what the children or those in the village eat. Below is a picture of the sponsored children lining up for their lunch. They are the fortunate ones because they are guaranteed at least one hot meal each day. There is a cost to feeding children and this village is poor and can’t afford to feed all of the unsponsored children.

Sponsored children lining up for their lunch. Because of the food they receive at school they are far better nourished and healthier than the unsponsored children. One of the most heartbreaking things we have all had to endure is to watch the “haves and have-nots” live side by side. The sponsored and the unsponsored. You can see it in their faces, in their clothes, in their overall appearance.

Ok…I will NOT go into the whole bathroom thing other than suffice it to say that we are blessed in America. Ok, it will not do to let this one go by without at least one picture. This is the restroom at the school – really just a hole in the floor. No toilet paper there and just pray you are one of the fortunate one who has shoes!

This is the bathroom facility at the school. The ladies were blessed with the fact that the hotels we stayed at had western-style toilets. Like I said, we lived like kings in comparison…

So, how is it that the people in Kachungwa are so happy? So full of joy? The children laughing, playing and full of love? I would have thought that they would be so beat down by having so little and living in such horrible conditions that they would be miserable. But instead, it was quite the opposite – they have a joy that is unexplainable by our standards. They rely on God for everything down here and He is very … present. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always singing and dancing – but they rise above their living conditions by the grace and love of God. Their relationship with God is something that I envy and will strive for in the future. Their worship, prayer and fellowship are something that Canby Christian Church should strive for. God is evidenced in their love.

This relationship with God, the trust they have in His provision and the fact that they “pray in the name of Jesus and believe” fill them with love. As John 7:35 says, and we see here in the people of Kachungwa: “If you love me as the scriptures have said, out of your heart will flow rivers of living water.” I so want that love to be in me and flow from me as I have seen here.

So, who has it better? It depends on what is important to you. Many times since I have been down here I have thought of the rich young ruler. He did all of the right things, followed the laws, but when Jesus told him to sell all of his possessions, give them to the poor and follow Him, he turned away and was sad. As I look around, I realize that if I sold everything I owned and gave it to the poor here, it would be like taking a teaspoon of water from the ocean and thinking it might make a difference. But that’s not the point that Jesus was trying to make. Do my possessions own me? Am I so caught up in my comforts that I am missing the true, unexplainable joy of the relationship that God wants to have with me? People here have given us everything they have - how can they do that? I think I'm beginning to learn. But, like the rich young ruler, will I see the right thing and turn away or will I trust in Jesus? It's not about things, it's about Who or what I am fully committed to. I/we have a choice to make.

All of us have had time to contemplate this while we have been here. We have been blessed with so much, how can we return to it knowing what we have seen here? What can we do to make a difference? It would have been so much easier to just send a check and not bothered with the travel to Uganda. After all, how can a short term mission like this possibly make a difference? Isn’t that like the teaspoon from the ocean?

It’s all about what we do when we get home and who we are when we get there. I pray that God will use this to change me, my family, our church and this nation. He can do that we have learned…

In the name of Jesus we pray and we DO believe,

Dave

The Lighter Side

2012-02-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

It has been a blessed couple of days of travel and enjoying God’s creation. The team is refreshed, renewed and back in Ggaba (headquarters of ARM). I want to take just a minute and share the beautiful creatures that God created that we have seen in the past days as well as a little behind-the-scenes look at our time here in Uganda. I mentioned last night that we were all in need of a time of refreshing after all that we have been through. God wants us to work hard for Him and the advancement of His Kingdom, but he also wants to take time to rest and also to enjoy His creation. I have never been to Africa and seen the animals only in a zoo before. It was amazing to see a herd of elephants crossing the road yards in front of us, or a school of hippo’s only feet from the boat. The beauty of the land is something that God provided for us.
We were able to go on a drive through the African savannah and saw many animals in the wild. In addition, we took a boat tour to the head of the Nile river Below are a couple of the animals that we were fortunate enough to see.

Wart hogs were plentiful. In fact, when we arrived at the hotel, there were several near the parking lot.

The Cape Buffalo is considered the most dangerous animal in Uganda because of it’s propensity to charge.

We saw many giraffes. The kind here in Uganda gets darker spots as it ages.

We saw a LOT of elephants. They were all you would imagine! This one stopped and took a good look at us before moving on.

We saw hippos by the hundreds. The boat took us within feet of these huge and dangerous animals. We had an excellent guide that taught us a lot about these giants. A few times they would disappear under the water and we thought for sure they were going under the boat…

There were many crocodiles as well. They were BIG!

And the most incredible animal to see was the lion! Not spotted too often, but we were fortunate to see these beautiful animals. We do have a lot of video footage that we will show later.

Finally, we wanted to share a few pictures that show some of the lighter moments that we have shared here in Uganda. For some reason, many of them seem to have Ashley in the middle of them – she has been an absolute blast to have around!

Trying to decide if she should really try out the Ugandan woman’s hairstyle.

Bryan trying to decide if he should try out the Ashley hairstyle – we thought it might work for him.

Ashley was trying to decide if this will fit in her carry-on.

Ashley meets her family’s sponsored son “Innocent”. Everything was going well until Ashley said “I am 16 also – in case you were wondering”. Well, it came out a little cuter than she might have intended and Innocent blushed (and smiled big) and all in the room busted out laughing.

How many people can you fit into our van? 17 as it turns out…

Ralph learning to carry things on his head like the Ugandan’s do. Great form and posture Ralph! Oh yeah – have we mentioned that nobody in Uganda has ever heard the name Ralph before? Whenever he introduces himself, there is dead quite for a while and what we’ve dubbed “the Ralph look”. Finally, Dalton gave him a Ugandan name to make it easier: JJaja Semacola –which means Grandfather Leader.

Ashley learns the Ugandan way to peel a hard-boiled egg. It took both David (our driver) and Dalton (our guide) to teach her. Ugandan hard-boiled eggs ARE hard to peel until you learn the trick.

Ken is showing his iPad to Pastor Sylver. We weren’t sure if he was teaching him to play angry birds or what, but it certainly wasn’t spiritual! It was a joy to see how the two pastors bonded.

The last picture is proof that middle-aged white guys from Canby don’t have near the rhythm that Ugandan’s do. However, this was a mud hut with brothers & sisters in the Lord – and I know that God was pleased by the fact that I tried, but more that His children are dancing in worship of Him. I pray that video never hits YouTube!!!

Well, there are at least a hundred more. As we have been serving together, we have also been having a lot of fun getting to know each other and enjoying each others company. Thank God for this time.

Tomorrow we will be working with the local Mercy Network program administered by ARM and heading into the slums of Kampala to distribute food and pray with the people there. I am not anxious to see what is ahead there. We will also be having some wrap-up discussions with the leadership team from ARM to discuss with them what we have learned, listen to what they have plans for and the vision of ARM and how Canby Christian Church can partner with them in the future. Finally, Sunday we will be attending church at Pastor Alex’s church then preparing for the long trip home.

Thank you again for all of your prayers and for those of the people in Kachungwa. One thing that I have learned is that I was not praying for them as I should, or as God has needed me to. The sponsored children who I was able to spend a short time with desperately need not only our sponsorship, but they need our prayer. I was humbled (there is that word again) by the prayer and thankfulness that small church offer up for us. They truly are a people of strong faith, joyful in the Lord and our friends.

In the name of Jesus we pray and believe!

Dave

Sabbath

2012-02-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

It is time for a day of rest, so will not be posting any news today. We woke at 4am Uganda time and drove 8 hours to the largest national park in Uganda. We went on a drive throuogh the game park this afternoon and saw lions, elephants, giraffes and more.

The team is exhausted and in need of a day of rest. God has blessed us with a nice place to stay, warm showers, good food and the chance for rest tonight. I understand that I was a little difficult to wake up this morning after only 2 hours sleep.

Tomorrow morning, we will take a boat ride up to the headwaters of the Nile river and then drive back down to Kampala. The day after, we will be working with the Mercy Network and distributing food into the slums of Kampala. We are all anxious to get home and see you, but right now recovery and preparing for what God has next are the next up.

Thank you for your continued prayer and thank God for His plans and work here in Uganda.

Dave

Bittersweet

2012-02-22T13:02:00.001-08:00

Today was our last day in Kachungwa. While God has greatly multiplied our time here, it has come to an end for now. Today was different than the other days thus far and for me, as for all of us, it was a highly emotional day. In the few days here, we have seen God move in some ways we could never have imagined, learned to love people we have never met before and been changed. Of all of the posts I have written thus far, this one is going to be by far the hardest to get through so bear with me.

Last night, we met a group from Oklahoma who were spending 6 months travelling around Uganda putting on medical clinics at various ARM projects. It was a blessing to get to meet them and see the work they were doing. Ken and I were talking while they were setting up this morning and thought that if we were doctors, this is what we would do. But we’re not, so it is fortunate that God has put it on the hearts of wonderful Christians like this to do this important work. They had taken over the church building and had set up in there. Another area was set up to document the people coming in, give the children worm pills and perform a brief triage.

I happened to be in the clinic area and spotted the Doctor from the Ggaba ARM clinic talking to a father and his sick daughter. The girl had malaria and had been unable to get any medical care in the village she lived in and when the father heard that the doctors were coming to Kachungwa and offering medical treatment for very sick unsponsored children as well as sponsored children, he brought his daughter in (not as easy as it sounds). After a quick diagnosis, the doctor sent the girl and her father to an area in the back of the church to get a shot. The medical team asked me to snap a couple of pictures while they were giving the girl the shot so I took a couple and didn’t think anything more of it.

It wasn’t until later today that we learned that the little girl you see above went home to be with Jesus.

The father loved his child as much as any of us love our children. As he leaned against the wall waiting to see if the shot the doctors had given his daughter would work, I could see the soul sadness in his eyes. This is why we believe that God wants Canby Christian Church to be part of establishing a medical clinic in this area. There is just nothing around for medical care. This is also why we raised money for and spent our time hiking through the banana fields delivering mosquito nets – to prevent malaria from happening in the first place. We are thankful that the child’s suffering is over, but this was a stark reminder of the reality of life and death in Uganda.

We were scheduled to visit a church plant nearby that had been started several years ago and they were anxious to meet the guests from America. On the way, we were passing by two of my sponsored children’s homes, so we arranged a time for me to visit. The first stop was the house of Shafik. He, like so many others, lives in a small mud hut in the middle of the banana fields. As we approached his house, his mother came out and carried a wooden bench for me to sit on. To be sure it was clean, she removed the scarf from around her neck and wiped off the bench and then knelt and waited for me to be seated.

I know that like most others living in the fields, they have nothing. Above is a picture of me with Shafik and his mother taking a moment to pray together. What a horrible feeling, knowing that they lived like this, but also, their son Shafik as a sponsored child has better opportunity than most. As we were leaving, the mother wanted to give me a gift. She went into their house and handed me a large bag of avocados. Their family would not have that to eat and I am sure they have precious little as it is and I could hardly breathe as I considered the sacrifice of this woman to thank me for loving and sponsoring her child. As we were leaving, I gave her a hug (that’s what I do…) and I we left more than a few tear’s on each other’s shoulders.

If that wasn’t hard enough for me, the next stop was at our sponsored daughter, Gorretti’s house. I was totally unprepared for what I saw there. Gorretti lives in a village near the highway and her family lives in a tri-plex. This isn’t a tri-plex like you might think though. It is basically one of the mud huts like the others you have seen pictures of, broken up into 3 rooms, each with a door. The size of her entire house was probably less than 300 square feet (see the second picture below for a good idea of the size). The floor was dirt and there were no windows.

Gorretti took me into her home to meet her mother and I received the same type of welcome that I had at Shafik’s house. I have really become attached to this teenage girl with a beautiful smile and a hard life. Her mother is single, never married, and has 3 children and her mother living with her. As I sat in this tiny mud room, I could only imagine the type of life they lead. I talked with the mother and prayed with them for a bit and then told the mother that Debbie and I are thankful that God has allowed us to be her sponsors and that I felt like I was almost like a father to her.

Quietly sitting next to me holding my hand, Gorretti softly said “I have no father, you are my father.” I was unable to speak, as were the others with me. There was nothing more to say. Gorretti took my hand and lead me back to the van so we could deliver her back to school. I can’t even begin to tell you how I feel. This girl a world away needed a man to be a father, even for a couple of days and God blessed us both by providing a father to the fatherless. It is hard to process…God alone knows how she will make it in the environment she lives in. All I can do is pray for her and her family.

Praying with Gorretti’s mother – Gorretti on the left wiping her eyes. This is extremely hard to type as the tears are blocking my vision, but it is something that I believe God wanted me to share.

OK…let’s both take a breather and get to a moment of the sweet! We went from Gorretti’s house and visited the church plant that Pastor Sylver wanted us to encourage. What a huge blessing that was. I went from an emotional wreck to being on top of the world. The greeting as we drove up to this little mud church was mind blowing. People came running out of the church and surrounding buildings to greet us. The picture below is of a man who came running straight to me, tears of joy running out of his eyes – joy that God had brought their church visitors from America.

The pastor took us on a tour of the facility. The church has a school which consists of 2 classes both of which meet under a tree. Several grade are combined in each class and the students all said poems of greeting when we arrived to their classroom. Once in the church building (mud building with no windows), we proceeded to have some of the most incredible worship together you can imagine. These people love the Lord and love worshipping Him in song and dance. We were singing with them (well, actually just faking it because we had no idea what they were saying) and a couple of people came to front and started dancing the most joyful dance of praise I think I have ever seen. After a little while, I looked at Ashley and nodded for her to join them. That didn’t take much convincing. It was such a joy to see this beautiful young woman dancing, smiling and worshipping with our new brothers and sisters from Uganda. It wasn’t too long after that that I joined the dance (I will spare you the details – it wasn’t pretty I’m sure, but I can say that I loved being part of that dance to the Lord). Soon, Isaac and Jaja Semacola (aka Ralph) joined in. There is some video of this, but it seems to have been accidentally deleted!

The church then put on some prepared songs for us, Ken preached, it was just a blessing from God to be here. Isaac & Ralph sang a song and were joined by the young boy playing drums. Somehow, “Our God” didn’t need to be translated for everybody there to be touched by the power of the moment. Following the singing, the pastor presented a gift from their church to Canby Christian Church. I won’t ruin the surprise, but you will be amazed at what they gave us. But, that didn’t seem to be enough for them to give, so several went out and returned with some pineapple and eggs in a basket for us. We were humbled by the sacrificial giving of these beautiful Christians in Uganda to their visitors (us). Well, it seems that even that wasn’t enough, so they took up an offering right there in front of us. People walked to the front of the church bringing offerings of love to us. I was sitting by Ken and for the first time since I’ve known Ken, he was speechless. All we could do is to watch these people who had so little give to us and then accept it in a way that would honor their giving.

I remember sitting there with this in front of me thinking “would I give my last pineapple and eggs to visitors who I didn’t know if it was taken from my poor family’s table”. I was ashamed by my answer…but have learned much from these amazing people.

OK…I am just about out of gas and I just have a couple of things and I will wrap it up. We need to get up at 4am tomorrow to leave for a day of R&R. We have learned the wisdom of God when he wants us to work hard, but also rest. He has given us the chance to enjoy some of his unspoiled creating in a way that most of us can still hardly imagine. But enough of that.

At the end of the day, the people of Kachungwa had a good bye ceremony for us. They talked of the great things Canby Christian Church has done to help them and the bond in Christ that they feel with us. They believe it was providential that God has connected us and has great things ahead. One that was mentioned was that as a result of the students saved yesterday, Kachungwa is going to start a new church plant there and has committed to working with the bible club at the school and weekly sending someone on Sunday to get the church started. God has used Canby Christian Church to work with Kachungwa in Uganda to start a new church – can you see what has happened as a result of you sending us? I never in my wildest imagination would have thought – but God’s ways are not our ways and our plan is not His plan. By being faithful to our calling, we have made a difference in the Kingdom of God – WOW (to quote Isaac)!

Oh yeah…one more thing that I MUST absolutely write about (don’t worry, this is SWEET). Do you remember me writing the other day about Isaac giving the mosquito net to the woman who was so joyful that she was dancing under the net? Well, she came to the sending off and I managed to get a picture of her with Isaac. She brought him eggs to show her gratitude for the gift.

So, sometime later, I saw Isaac with tears in his eyes as we were getting ready to leave. I talked with him a bit to see what he was feeling. It turns out that sometime during our time here, Isaac has met a young boy named Daniel who is an unsponsored child. He formed an immediate bond with the boy and they had been spending a lot of time together. While Isaac was with this beautiful Ugandan woman, Daniel approached them and the woman introduced Daniel as her grandson. God had dome something to Isaac’s heart and it just broke – only this wasn’t a bad break, this was the heart of a boy breaking away and the loving heart of a man of God set free to love like God intended him to. It was joyous to watch Isaac try to grasp what was happening to him.

Rose (the wonderful social worker at Kachungwa Child Development Program) and told me that Gorretti’s mother had come and wanted to give me a gift. Rose led me to a place where there were to plastic chairs sitting side by side. Gorretti’s mother was sitting there and presented me with three gifts – two baskets and a grinding bowl. One of the baskets was one she had made and was stunning! She also gave me a bag of banana’s. She was on here knees when she gave me the gifts and eventually came back up and was sitting in the chair beside me. We talked for a few minutes and I wanted to make sure that she heard the gospel as she is not a Christian and understood why it was so important not only to her children, but to her. It was more than difficult getting words to come out. I sat there looking at the tremendous gifts this woman had brought me – thinking of where she lived and how little she has. I could only cry. It was my turn to get down at her feet, humbled by this woman’s gift. I don’t even know how to express how I felt – and feel even as I type this. God had shown me things I never imagined in a place I never thought I would be – and I thank Him for all that He has done.

While this post has been mostly personal in nature, I can assure you that every one of us have experienced similar feelings both of joy and sorrow, hope and seen the love of a most gracious God in the most dire of places. I hope I never forget.

As we loaded up in the van and drove away from this small village that isn’t even on any maps known, we knew that we had been changed and that this isn’t the last time we will be in this place. God has much more to do with us and is not finished in Uganda.

God bless you. Thank you for reading and praying for us. It has been an honor for us all to represent you here in Uganda and know that Canby Christian Church is loved by the people here.

“Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

153 and Everything

2012-02-21T12:06:00.001-08:00

Well, I find myself again in my hotel, no power and hunkered down in my bed with the mosquito net pulled down. Having no power is a common thing down here. But that’s not important – really! What IS important is the work that God is doing through us here. Every day is new and truly life changing. I thought that I would find that I had over-hyped the trip in my mind and that it couldn’t ever meet those expectations. Well, I was wrong. We, as a team, decided that we aren’t the same and can never be the same again after what we’ve experienced here in Uganda. It’s not just seeing the poverty and need, not the love that we are being shown, but rather experiencing the power of God. Nobody who has seen what we have or done what God has done through us these past days could ever, nor would ever want to be the same. Let me get right to it – we have a lot of ground to cover today. Oh…you will have to read clear to the end to learn what today’s blog title means!

We started the morning teaching the children’s classes. One of the classes they have every day is a bible study time that consists of memory verses, bible reading and a devotional. We taught in teams of 2 with an interpreter. I had the pleasure of working with Isaac and we taught about Zacchaeus and how Jesus saves that which is lost (remember this for later). At the end of the class, we handed out little sweets to each child in the school. Boy, were they excited! Below is a picture of Renee teaching under the trees!

The children enjoying their sweets! This beautiful child is named "Pleasure" - you can see why!

Later in the day, Renee found some children by the road and handed out some extra sweets that we had left over from the school. The child is bowing out of respect and gratitude. None of these children had shoes and probably didn't own any.

After teaching, we went to the church building where we met with all of the sponsored children in the school to hand out the gifts that you sent. It was very hard sitting in the church with the chosen few, while hundreds looked in the window. The children approached the front of the church as their names were called, most bowing at our feet in gratitude for the gift they had been given.

One of “our” children receiving her gift and so excited!

Two of the unsponsored children looking in, but unable to be part. We were all reminded yet again of the tremendous advantages (not just gifts like this) afforded to sponsored children. Tomorrow there is a medical team coming in to the village to treat the sponsored children. We ARE making a difference, though, in the lives of the children we sponsor. There is a great need though! As Ken said while we were talking about this tonight, when there are such overwhelming problems, we can have one of two responses: we can not do anything because it’s too much, or we can do what we can for the ones we can help. We choose the latter and pray hard for the rest.

After the gifts were delivered, we went on a couple of separate paths (literally). Several people went to deliver food they had purchased to sponsored families and Ken & I were invited to Pastor Sylver’s house. The pastor lives in one of the nicer houses around the village and is about 500 square feet. This pastor and his wife have 6 children and are caring for 5 additional children in their home. Their living room was about the size of an average sized bathroom in America. We don’t know how they managed, but they have been there for about 10 years. We were so blessed to hear the Pastor share his story of faith. You can read about on the ARM web site under his testimony – I won’t repeat, but would highly recommend that you check it out. He is amazing man of God serving the people of this poor village. Below is a picture of us in front of Pastor Sylver’s house with his wife and two of his sons.

Bryan hugging (he does a lot of that here). He had provided some food for a family of a sponsored child. He had a similar response to what you are just about to read.

EVERYTHING

While we were visiting with the pastor, Ralph and Isaac went to visit their sponsored family and take them some food – rice, cornmeal and some other basic staples. I wish I would have a picture to show Ralph’s face as he described what happened, but unfortunately, that is a moment in time that will have to be captured by word and emotion. However, here is a picture of the inside of the house and the family.

Ralph described going to the house which is the typical mud hut for the villagers. They literally had nothing there. When the mother saw the food that they had brought them, she broke down in tears thanking them for their love and provision for them. She wanted to give them a gift, but had nothing. She did look and found that she had a couple of eggs and an old basket – she put the eggs in the basket and gave them to Ralph. She said “this is everything I have and I want to give it to you”. Please just stop here a minute and consider what this woman just did.

If you haven’t seen people who have nothing, it is hard to comprehend. Of course, he was respectful of the woman’s generosity, but as he told the story, he had to stop many times from the tears as he thought of this woman’s gift and God convicted his, and all of our hearts as we contemplated our own lives. There was no greater gift that could be given, than everything.

This was one of the most blessed moments of the entire trip – even for those of us just hearing the story. Before coming on this trip to Uganda, I was afraid that this talk of “life changing” was just a bit over hyped and that I wouldn’t ever truly see my life changed. Hearing of this woman who gave everything did it for us though. I had been given eggs and a pineapple by families while distributing mosquito nets yesterday (was it yesterday?) and was moved that people with so little would give me eggs – the key food for their families. Humbled, honored, blessed, amazed, loved, . . . there just aren’t the right words to describe it. I hope I was able to honor the experience here – this changed our lives in a way none of us could imagine, but are so blessed by God’s love, mercy and grace that He would teach us this lesson.

153

We were wiped out. After days and days of God working amazing things around and through us, we were exhausted. We had walked miles through banana fields in the noon day sun to get to our last home visits and were emotionally exhausted as well. God had one more stop for us today, however. We were scheduled to visit another high school from 3:30 – 5:00. There were many delays and we didn’t end up getting to the school until 4:45pm. We talked to the headmaster and he told us that he wanted us to preach the gospel to his students (can you imagine this in Canby?) and that we could have 40 minutes. We were making plans to have a similar program to the one we had at the high school yesterday (was that yesterday?). However, as we walked to the area under the tree where the students (probably 400-500) gathered, we learned that we only had about 15 minutes to spend since the students have a long way to walk home and it was getting late.

Ken sharing the plan of salvation with the students of the high school.

We quickly altered OUR plans and went with GOD’S plan instead (we find ourselves doing that a lot down here). Isaac wanted to share his testimony again, but we didn’t have time – just enough for him to sing a song. There was a generator running right behind us and the sound equipment was not working well at all. It was frustrating that we couldn’t even take advantage of the few minutes we had. God, is awesome though and after Ken shared the gospel and path to salvation, Pastor Sylver talked with the students. We were all completely unprepared for what happened next.

Nobody moved for a long time. We were standing waiting for students to come for prayer, and still nobody moved. I looked and there were a few students starting to mill around and started to make their way to us for prayer. Suddenly, there was a flood of students pouring to us wanting to accept Jesus as their savior. We were all surrounded and praying for as many as we could. Many were wanting to be saved, many wanting healing, help with school and other needs. It was overwhelming. I looked at our people and each was literally surrounded by students and praying for as many as we could. It got to the point that we would be praying for groups at a time. I particularly remember one young man. I don’t remember his name, but he told me that he wanted to repent, know Jesus and go to heaven. I prayed with him and when we were done, I looked at him, he had tears flowing down his cheeks and a joy in his face that could only be explained by a new life in Jesus. He looked different – probably because he was.

Altogether, 153 students raised their hands at the end of the movement of the Holy Spirit (how else could we explain it) saying that they had prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their savior. We had stopped for a short visit at the school, exhausted and ready for rest, a weary team from Canby and God used us to add 153 young people for His kingdom. All I can say is Praise God!!! (The response down here to this is “Amen”).

When we were back at the hotel praying in the hallway for what had just happened, Ken was reminded of John 21:11. This is the passage where Jesus tells this disciples to throw the net on the right side of the boat after they had caught nothing all night. They did and pulled in a net full of fish so full they could barely pull it in. John 21:11 says “Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land full of large fish, 153; and although there were so many, the net was not broken.” Isaac wondered if God didn’t put that number of fish in the net just for today’s work….hmmm.

Isaac prayed with this young man to be saved. This was the first time Isaac has done this and was “blown away” by the experience.

I was overwhelmed by the blessing of God pouring out onto these youth through prayer and His Spirit.

Renee praying with a young woman.

We ended up leaving the school at 6:30pm. Most of you were waking up and I am sure that you were praying for us in your morning quiet time. This is the answer to your prayer! Thank you. We went back to the hotel excited, exhausted and honestly overwhelmed at what we had just been part of.

We truly do serve an awesome God and He is glorifying Himself and changing Uganda. We are part of it because of your support and prayers.

Wow…that was a full day. I wonder what God can do to top that? I do have one personal thing that I’d like to include at the end though. Below is a picture of one of our sponsored children – Gorreti. She gave me a bowl she had made by hand and it is one of the most beautiful bowls I have ever seen. Undoubtedly, she spent many days working on this and was so proud to give it to me. OK…lets pause again to consider young Gorreti’s life. She lives in a mud hut in Uganda, walks many miles to school each day. When she goes home at night, she must haul water, help prepare supper and do other chores at the house. This is planting season down here and all family members work hard out in the fields. With all of this in her life, she took the time to make us this bowl! Wow…

When I told her that Debbie had asked me to bring her home a bowl from Africa and this was just exactly what she wanted, she just beamed. The bond I have formed with our sponsored children and the gratitude for what we do for them, with just pocket change for us, is humbling. I have learned about love, generosity and God in ways that I would not have imagined. And this picture of a loving young woman a world away just makes me cry – with absolute joy in my spirit.

God bless you and thank you for reading.

In Jesus Christ we pray and believe.

Dave

Our God is an Awesome God

2012-02-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

Until today, I found that finding a catchy title for the daily blog post has been somewhat easy. Not today though. As I said yesterday, we were all convinced that God was going to stretch us all in ways that we couldn’t imagine and He delivered – plus some! I am going to include a few additional pictures tonight as images can show far better what happened today, than my words ever could.

Let me start by saying that we are incredibly blessed to have Ken Harvey as our pastor. I have had the honor of watching him respond to God’s challenges, not just by getting the work done, but fully submitting to the Holy Spirit to minister to the church in Kachungwa and beyond. Today, Ken held a pastor’s conference. It was supposed to start at 9:30 this morning, but that time came and went and there were only a few of the area pastors that had arrived. Then they started arriving on bicycle and on foot – 133 of the pastors from the surrounding area. I was able to listen to part of the session and was impressed with Ken’s ability to guide, educate, encourage and enable the pastors. He responded to questions we normally don’t hear. For example, one pastor said that he “was struggling with people in his village who were uneducated, did not understand the word of God and were going to witch doctors for healing – what can we do about this?” I know for a fact that this was not a question that Ken had anticipated (who could have?) – yet he spoke with power and authority. Another thing that happened in the conference today, a girl of about 20 years of age came up to Ken and asked him to pray with her to be saved.
Because of our pastor’s work today, the church in Uganda will be a different place. Please continue to pray for him! Below is a picture of the group of pastors attending the conference and the next one is Ken praying. One of the special moments of today for Ken.

While Ken was holding the pastor’s conference, the rest of us went out into the surrounding villages distributing mosquito nets and sharing the gospel with people who had not yet heard it. All the people I visited where Christians, but among the others, 4 people were saved in the villages today. We basically split up with each one of us paired with staff from the Kachungwa church (except Ashley – who we don’t let go anywhere by herself – she was teamed with Ralph). When we all got back to the church after distributing the mosquito nets and sharing with the villagers, there were SO many stories. I couldn’t even begin to share them and hope to get to sleep tonight. Bryan was awestruck, Ashley and Ralph were able to meet their sponsored children’s family and go into their homes – an experience they both say was amazing. Isaac came back just busting with stories of how people had given him Jackfruit, a basket of eggs and a woman who was so excited to receive the mosquito net that she was literally dancing under the net and praising God for providing this to her. Can you imagine seeing that when you were Isaac’s age?

Let me share a couple of short experiences that I had. I’ve been spending so much time on the blog that I don’t get to journal, so am trying to make sure I record some of my own personal experiences in addition to sharing those of the other members of the team. The first mud hut I stopped at, an elderly woman opened the door and sank to her knees. My guides told me that she said she was honored to have us there to see her and that she was showing respect. This woman was wearing basically rags and was dirty from head to toe. She had nothing inside of her hut. She was not able to communicate very well, but we were able to get her the mosquito net along with instructions on how to use it and learn that she was a Christian. This woman literally has nothing. But, she was so thankful that we had stopped to see her and delighted at receiving the net. As we walked away, I had no idea how she was going to hang the net up or if she even had a bed. As I was thinking about this, I looked up and realized that we were walking on trails through banana tree fields and there were the same little mud huts scattered throughout. I was kind of numb when I realized that these were actually people’s homes and they lived here. It sounds dense I know, but I never could have imagined. A picture of one is below to give you an idea of what they look like:

We visited home after home, giving them mosquito nets and praying with the people who lived there,. They were sweet, loving people who worked hard in the smothering heat to farm their land and survive. I don’t think I saw anybody who had shoes and the children had little or no clothes to wear. Below is a picture of a couple of children I saw sitting in the doorway to their home. They had no toys besides a tree leaf to play with. There is still something beautiful in the eyes of these children though. I am utterly captivated by them. While their conditions seem unbearable to me, they are truly the image of God.

Meanwhile, in a lighter moment, one of our other teams were practicing a local method of carrying bulky or heavy items (nice work Jaja – I mean Ralph). God loves for His children to have fun doing His work and rejoice in Him!

Ashley seemed to catch right on, while Dalton was still struggling a bit. While it was hard, God gave us an unusual joy to go about His work. I can say that we are all experiencing God’s love and the power of His Holy Spirit in ways we never have before – and it is………right!

There was a moment when I found myself completely awestruck. We had come to a home and talked with the people there, provided them a mosquito net for their children and prayed with them – hand in hand in front of a mud hut in the middle of a banana field with people I had never met and we didn't even speak the same language, but we share the same Lord. As we were turning to leave, one of the women who had a baby strapped to her back called to me and asked me to come back. She unbundled the most beautiful baby girl from her back and held her up. She told me that this precious little child was sick and needed special prayer. So, here I am in the middle of a banana field in Uganda 9000 miles away from good old Canby, Oregon, with my hands holding the face of this child praying to God on her behalf. Who am I to do this? That the woman would ask and expect confidently that God would answer her prayers and had sent me to pray for the baby was a moment that will remain permanently in my mind. Only God could do this and I was humbled to think that He put me there. I do have to admit that I feel completely unworthy to pray such an important prayer. In spite of all of this, they were overjoyed to receive the gift of the mosquito net and were beaming with smiles at their gift from God. In the picture below, the woman and child are the ones on the left, though you can only see the baby’s feet poking out.

The final image I wanted to share with you is the one below with Ralph praying – I can only imagine that he felt the same as I did.

Well, this was only half of the day. After lunch, we loaded in the van and were headed to speak to a high school in Mubende. We had absolutely no idea of what to expect, how many students were going to be there or anything. Since Ken was going to be at the pastor’s conference all afternoon, I was going to be delivering a message to the students. The only time I had to prepare was after my blog last night. I had put together a fine plan on what we were going to talk about, the order of the program, etc. We were to have 1.5 hours with the students.

I should know better by now. My plans just don’t work. God had something totally different planned for the afternoon. For starters, our time was cut almost in half. In Uganda, religion is not banned from the school, in fact it is encouraged. I was going to provide an overview of the history of the USA, form and branches of government, etc. What God wanted was different than that – when will I learn? What ended up happening is that we were ushered into a room with 100-150 high school students and they were told that we were here to share the gospel with them. Sooooo…our plans rapidly changed to God’s plan. We did a quick introduction of ourselves and I told the students that we wanted to share some personal information about ourselves and that a couple of us wanted to share their personal testimonies. We were already anticipating this, so Isaac, Ashley & Bryan all stood up in front of these young people and were amazing. Isaac followed the Spirit’s guidance and slightly altered what he was going to say to be a full gospel presentation. Ashley stood up in front and had them all smiling and cheering at what she had overcome. Bryan probably got the loudest applause from the youth when he told them how God had granted their request for more children in a way that he could not have possibly imagined when all seemed hopeless.

I talked with them for a while about them being the next leaders of Uganda, what leadership meant and how important God’s love is to an effective leader. They then heard the plan of salvation and were given an opportunity to come forward if they wanted to accept Jesus as their Lord. Isaac and Ralph were playing guitar and singing while we waited. We could all tell that something was going to happen, but nobody was moving. We made another offer for them to come forward, but nothing happened. Dalton stepped in and made another plea and nothing happened. Then we offered to pray for anybody with a special need. For about 30 seconds it was still except for Isaac playing, then one brave young man, Peter, slowly walked forward to me and asked for prayer. He wanted to renew his walk with Christ and was having temptations that he was struggling with. As I prayed for Peter, others started coming forward. Below is a picture of me praying with Peter:

I can honestly say, and all of us present agreed, that we have never felt the presence of the Holy Spirit like we did in this small school room in Uganda. Students streamed forward for prayer. Again, I found myself awestruck by God’s grace and love for his children. Standing in a run-down school room in Uganda praying for His children in need of prayer – and he had brought us there at that time for His purpose. All we could do is pray. We prayed for students concerned about their grades, those needing healing (legs, eyes, brain), those whose families are struggling and they don’t know where their next meal is going to come from let alone how they could afford to continue sending them to school without sponsors. I could not begin to put into words what happened there, so will stop here.

Bryan praying for a student, while Ashley prays with another.

Ralph, CCC’s elder on this trip, praying for a student.

So, where is Isaac in all this? He told me that while was playing his guitar, he wanted to get up and pray with the students, but God told him that He had brought him there to minister through music and that he was to continue playing – so he played. Later, several of us related stories of praying and right in the middle of a prayer, the words and music that Isaac played were exactly what was needed and did indeed do the work that God asked him to do.

In front of the school with the students.

Let me just add one personal note – I am humbled to be traveling with this group of people. Every one brings a gift and we are working in unity to love the people of Uganda as God has asked us. I am so proud of both Ashley and Isaac for the spiritual maturity that they have shown, the joy and personality that they bring – everybody loves them and are instantly drawn to them. The parents of these two young people should be proud of them and know that they are representing their families, the church and God in the best possible way.

It is very late in Uganda. I have been awake for almost 24 hours now, and it is time to get some sleep. We have another day similar to today ahead of us tomorrow. We aren’t exactly sure what God has in store, but will find out. Please continue to pray for the Church in Uganda, the children, the villagers we met, the students needing continued prayer and whatever God puts on your heart. I apologize if this was a little long, but God is doing a lot here and I want to make sure that our family, church and anybody else watching see all the great things God is doing.

In the name of Jesus we pray and believe!

Dave

Sunday in Kachungwa

2012-02-19T11:08:00.001-08:00

Greetings from all of us in Uganda. Today was a day of worship and celebrating God in Kachungwa. As we expected, we need to be prepared for the unexpected. We drove to the village this morning expecting to go to church, but instead learned that they have all of the children attend Sunday school before the adult service (which, by the way, the children also attend). We were ushered to the school building and watched the children sing a couple of songs and as they were breaking up into small groups, we were told that we were going to be teaching the children this morning. We had not even thought that this might happen and were all caught completely off guard. They broke the children into groups by age and assigned a pair of us to each group. Eventually, there were so many in some classes, they even broke those up into smaller groups – which meant some on the team had to teach alone.

I was blessed with teaching with Bryan! When we got over to the classroom, we talked with the teacher and asked him what he had been teaching. He told us that they were currently studying David & Goliath. Bryan and I stepped aside to pray for God’s guidance. He put on both of our hearts to teach about how God helps those afraid and facing big challenges to overcome them with faith. So, we added discussion about Daniel and the Lion’s den, talked about Jesus’ love and shared how He will help them to not be afraid. Finally, we opened the class up for questions and had a lot of interesting questions like “what does Abraham’s name mean?” and “what was God’s promise to Sarah”, “How did God make Jesus in Mary’s [womb]?” and soon. Bryan and I both felt like we were being quizzed rather than teaching! These children are very well schooled in the bible! Below is a picture of Ashley teaching a class.

After Sunday school, we walked down to the church building. All of us had children holding our hands as we walked. The service was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. It went about 3 hours or so, with worship, Ken preaching a very powerful message (God was definitely speaking through him to our brothers and sisters in Kachungwa. There were some challenges with the translation, but it all worked out. Below is a picture looking back over the congregation of the Kachungwa church. They reserved the seats in front for their guests (us).

At one point during the sermon, a dove landed in the rafters directly above Ken’s head, then turned with it’s tail pointing out towards the audience. Another first in church for me – I prayed for a bird not too poop on Ken (though, I admit that under different circumstances it would have given me some degree of pleasure and made up for some of the jokes he has been telling on the trip). Ralph and Isaac had the chance to lead the congregation in a worship song – see the picture below.

You will notice Ralph holding the mic for Isaac. The church now has sound powered off of batteries and a generator (not running during the service), but did not have things like mic stands. They have a electric piano and are able to play CD’s off of a laptop. This village has come a long way thanks in large part to Canby Christian Church. All of the children sat in the front of the church on the floor, just packed in. They sat that way for almost 3 hours and were incredibly well behaved.

At the end of the service the children filed by. Each of them stopped by to give us a hug, shake our hand and many knelt before us as a sign of honor and respect to us for being there. These beautiful children living in mud huts honoring me! I should have been honoring them for their faith, strength and the joy that they obviously have in Jesus. When the children were done, all I could do was to sit and weep. An elderly woman of the church took my hand and I cried on her arm as she stroked my head. I looked up through my tears to see a smile and she told me, without saying a word, that she was honored by my tears for their children.

After lunch, we had some joyous time with the children out in the church yard. They LOVE having their pictures taken, then getting to see them on the camera. I was constantly mobbed by children wanting their pictures taken. In the few days we have been here, we have combined taken over a thousand picture (though the number is probably higher than that). As I stood up from a mob of children, I looked over to see Ashley, in her usual sea of smiling faces. She absolutely loves the children and they adore her. They are fascinated with her hair and she the picture below was just too good to not post. This captures the essence of how we are connecting with the people here.

The last part of the day was another joyous and difficult time. I do want to say that we are all finding that there is a lot of this – there are parts of what we do that brings great joy and at the same time great pain. We gave our gifts to our sponsored children! Not all of them yet, just the ones the people on the team sponsor. The children getting the gifts were overjoyed at the gifts they received, like the young girl obviously delighted at the first doll she has ever even seen (see picture below), but there was row after row of children outside the door and window wondering if there was something for them. The sad fact is that of almost 600 children here, only 250 are sponsored.

THIS IS IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ: There is an obvious difference between the sponsored children and those not sponsored. Pastor Sylver told us that it is terribly sad to see the unsponsored children, many of whom have never owned a pair of shoes and their clothes are rags. They attend school beside the sponsored children, but are not equal. Often, one child in a family is sponsored while their brothers/sisters are not. You can also see the difference on their faces. The sponsored children have bigger smiles, they look healthy, they are cleaner and life is better for them. The unsponsored children are hoping and praying for someone to help them. The first day we were there, a man came up to me with his son begging for me to sponsor him. He looked to be about 12 years old and both he and his father tried to dress well, but their clothes were just old, dirty and tattered. Both were desperate for help. I could only refer them back to the pastor and the church. I also found that as I was taking pictures, mothers would shove their unsponsored children to the front so I would take their picture in the desperate hope of getting them some attention. Please, prayerfully consider sponsoring a child. We all talked about this tonight and agree that we could never have imagined the dramatic difference it makes in a child’s life and certainly would have had non way of knowing if we had never come to Uganda..

Tomorrow is where God begins to stretch us in ways that we can’t imagine yet. We are starting the day going into the village in pairs with an interpreter/guide, distributing mosquito nets that Canby Christian (you) have previously purchased and also sharing Jesus Christ with them. In the afternoon, we are going over to a high school to meet with the youth there. We have no idea how many to expect, but could be upwards of 400-500 students.. Several team members are going to share their personal testimony, Isaac and Ralph are going to minister to them in song and I am going to share a message of hope and salvation in Jesus Christ – followed by an invitation to be accept Jesus as their personal savior. PLEASE PRAY FOR US TOMORROW! One thing that we are all discovering is that when we absolutely rely on God, He is faithful and powerful in answering. We have all experienced Him in new ways and tomorrow will be even more. I could really get used to being this close to God and experiencing Him working through us to reach even one more child.

The power is out again here tonight, but thankfully, no more rioting or tear gas…just a little too much excitement for us folks from Canby, Oregon. I’m sitting hunkered down in the dark under my mosquito net as I write this note. Please check back for more tomorrow night. Thank you again from all of us for your support, your prayer and mostly for taking your time to share this experience with us. We miss you all!

In the name of Jesus we pray and believe!

Dave

Welcome to Kachungwa

2012-02-18T11:29:00.001-08:00

Before arriving in Kachungwa, those of us who hadn’t been to Kachungwa yet had been asking Ken & Renee what to expect. All we could get out of them was “you’ll just have to experience it for yourselves”. Not really what we wanted to hear, but it was all we were going to get from them.

As it turns out, nothing that they could have told us would have, or could have prepared us. As we drove progressively further away from Mubende (the town we are staying in), the poorer the conditions got. As we got close to Kachungwa, there were mud shacks, children with no clothes on playing in the mud and the roads were hardly passable by car. Seeing the buildings people are living in are hard to describe. I will try to get some pictures up in the next couple of days. My stomach was really beginning to hurt as we passed by progressively smaller and more run down “houses”.

Finally, we saw the sign that said “Welcome to Kachungwa Child Development Program”. We have probably all seen the video that was posted and shared that walks us through the school and heart of the villiage. Well, that’s about what it looks like. But more on that in just a minute.

As our van drove up to the church building, children and adults came streaming from the building and from other buildings around the facility. They came to the bus to greet us. It was at this point that I understood what Ken & Renee were telling us. There IS nothing that they could have told us that could have come close to possibly describing what we experienced. In my mind, I imagined that this is what it must be like when we are finally welcomed into heaven. We could not hardly get out of the van the mob was so big. They were cheering, hugging us, waving, singing…I am honestly not sure what all happened, but what I do know is that God’s love for Canby Christian Church was unleashed through the smiling faces of children, men, grandmothers, mothers, pastors – I am convinced that Jesus was standing in the midst of us smiling!

I couldn’t see for the hugs and mob around me. I remember one grandmother grabbing my face in her hands, crying and saying “God has blessed us” then giving me a huge hug leaving her tears of love on my shoulder. It is just impossible to describe - there is no way you could understand because you weren’t here. I looked around and saw Ralph’s head once in a while, but other than that, the others on the team were likewise being swarmed by a generous, loving people showing their love in a powerful way. Below is a picture of Pastor Sylvar and some of the children.

Here is a picture of some of the women who came to greet us.

After feeling the love of a loving people of God, we spent some time with them in worship, praise, prayer and a message from Rose (the social worker at Kachungwa) and Pastor Sylvar. We then had the very great honor of participating in the graduation ceremony of 4 students from the school. This was a very important milestone in these young people’s lives. For graduation gifts, each of the young women was given a brand new Singer sewing machine and table and the young man was given tools enough to become a carpenter. See their picture below (though we will have some better ones) – they are the four on the left. We were honored to stand up front with the pastor and congratulate each of the graduates, followed by Ken giving them a blessing to start their new lives. It was humbling to be here in Uganda honoring the efforts of these young people starting out as Uganda’s next generation of leaders.

We spent the next hour (only seemed like about 5 minutes though) mingling with the people of the village. The children loved having their pictures taken and then getting to see them on the camera. I was swarmed by smiling children. I could ramble on for a long time about this, but it’s late here and we have a long day ahead.

Today it rained in Kachungwa – in fact right now it is pouring rain with a lightning and thunder storm outside. For over two months, they have had hot weather and no rain. You may recall that the last time a team from Canby Christian Church visited Kachungwa, it rained. The people view this as a blessing from God – and the timing isn’t coincidental. When Pastor Sylvar was welcoming us with the church, we noticed that the church now has a cement floor. We saw a new, very nice playground as well, and were told that financial donations by Canby Christian Church had paid for both of these amazing things for Kachungwa. The people couldn’t thank us enough – though we all recognize that we are just being stewards of what God has given us, helping where he has lead us and give all of the glory and honor to Him!

Let me just close by saying that there is much good here, but there is also much evil. When we arrived back at the hotel, we found that the “opposition party'” rally held just a few blocks from the hotel had developed into a full blown riot. As we got out of the van, the air was thick with tear gas and sounds of cannisters being launched into the air. The wind was blowing the gas right over our hotel as the rioters ran past. The power was out and the situation was uncertain. As we sat in the dark hotel restaurant, we did the only thing we could do – pray! And did we pray. Before praying, Renee was having a horrible time with the tear gas affecting here eyes and nose – as were the rest of us. Within just a few minutes, though, the tear gas was gone and the riot had basically ended. We can only thank God for His comfort (none of us were afraid) and His protection. Above is a picture of the opposition rally that ultimately resulted in the riot.

Thanks to God for our safety and thank you for all of your prayers. I will say that none of us could have seen this coming and I am confident that your faithful prayers provided protection for us. Please keep praying for us and the work God has us doing as we spend the next 5 days worshipping with and witnessing to the people of Kachungwa.

We have learned a new way to close in prayer while we have been here:

“In the name of Jesus, we pray and we believe, amen.”

Dave

Good morning from Africa

2012-02-17T21:02:00.001-08:00

God’s grace shows in so many ways here. The Ggaba church has an all night prayer meeting every Friday night. I woke up to drums at 4:30am and was then treated to another sunrise that I could only watch in awe and reflect on the glory of God. Judges 5:31 says “Let your enemies perish oh Lord, but let those who love You be like the sun as it comes into the full light of day.”

In a short time, we will be boarding the bus and will be off to Kachungwa. We learned some tragic news yesterday – one of the sponsored children in Kachungwa drowned in a tragic accident. Please pray for the village of Kachungwa and the family of the boy. Sherry Linger was the young man’s sponsor and would appreciate your prayer as well. We are comforted that he is no longer troubled by the pain of this world, but is dancing on golden streets with the Lord Jesus right now!

Pray for our travels and our meeting the children of Kachungwa this afternoon.

Praise Jesus!

Dave

A few pictures from the day

2012-02-17T10:05:00.000-08:00

It is getting late here and we are all exhausted, but before we turn in for the night, we wanted to post a couple more pictures so you can get a little better idea of what we experienced here.

Sunrise in Uganda over Lake Victoria

Worship with Isaac

Ashley sees a spider (BIG spider)

The Operating room in the clinic

Our favorite – the team holding precious abandoned babies at the orphanage!
What a blessing to us all!!!

This is a kitchen – this is it. In fact, this one is unusual as it is indoors.

Children leaving primary school at 4pm – Bethany Village.

Good night from Uganda. Tomorrow we get up and drive to Kachungwa. More then...

Dave

Greetings from Uganda

2012-02-17T07:48:00.001-08:00

Praise God! We made it safely to Uganda. We arrived at 10:30pm last night (local time). It was an incredibly long travel day (well, a little more than a day). All of your gifts arrived in the luggage and we had no problems getting visas, through customs, etc. We were greeted SO warmly by Michael and others from ARM at the airport.

Our introduction to Uganda was getting on a bus in 80 degree temperature and driving in crazy traffic on the wrong side of the road (they drive on the left here).

Let me be brief as we have a lot going on. Today was our first full day in Uganda and it was a very busy day. We started with a tour of the ARM office and the amazing program that they have going here. We then went to a local medical clinic and spent time with the people there and had a wonderful conversation with the doctor there. After lunch, we went to Loving Hearts Orphan Home. I will need some time to describe that experience, but one thing I will say is that Ashley said that one of the babies who was there because her mother tried to kill her by stabbing her, “looked into my soul”. I personally, held several of the children who were so beautiful and soaked up the love we brought there.

After the orphanage, we visited Bethany Village which is a self-contained community that consists of a medical clinic, school, orphanage, farm (pigs, chickens, vegetables and other crops) and the church. More on that later as well, but they have a God-given vision and people dedicating their lives to raising Uganda’s future leaders. To get to the village, we had a 40 minute boat ride to get to the village across Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria is the second largest lake in the world (do you know the biggest?) and is the source of the Nile River.

I really apologize for the brevity of this post, but we have many things going and I wanted you all to know we are here, safe and blessed by God. Please pray for us to travel to Kachungwa safely tomorrow and that God will bless the people here in Uganda.

Thank you for your prayers and we will be getting you more soon. In Christ – Dave

Life Changing

2012-02-11T05:19:00.000-08:00

“This is going to be a life changing trip for you!” That is a message that I have heard many times over the past couple of months – most recently was on my flight back from Florida yesterday. It is interesting how many times I find myself speaking passionately about wanting to help people that I have never met in a country (let alone continent) I have never visited. Without exception, the response from people is the same – this is going to be a life changing trip.

When I was saved, THAT was life changing. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.” I remember clearly that experience of becoming a new creation and how my life was changed forever when I met Jesus Christ as my savior and was forgiven of my sin. In a moment, the message of the gospel and the truth of Jesus Christ transformed me and I was different – it was truly a life changing event.

For myself, the trip to Uganda is about the people of Uganda and how I can, even in a small way, be a part of God performing life changing work for the people there. My prayer has been and continues to be that God use our team to share the same gospel that changed me to change people’s lives in Uganda. How? I don’t know for sure – each member of our team are stepping out in faith here. I don’t expect that I can set foot on the continent of Africa, with all of the issues they have been struggling with for generations, and expect to turn things around in 2 weeks. If we can help one person, if we can encourage one church, if we can enable one pastor, if we can make one life better, if one person is saved as a result of our sharing the same gospel that saved me – we will be part of God’s life changing work.

But, all of that really isn’t up to us, it is up to God. We need to go faithfully to where He has sent us and be the evidence of changed lives. Being part of God’s work is life changing, and that is what I want for this trip, what we all want.

We are looking forward to the commissioning by the church on Sunday, knowing that we are going with the full blessing, support and prayers of Canby Christian Church to Uganda and the village of Kachungwa. Only a couple of days now…

Dave

Less than 2 weeks

2012-02-04T18:37:00.000-08:00

The mission team had a breakfast meeting this morning. Ken and Renee have been to Uganda before, so they were sharing their experience with us "rookies". I think that there is a general consensus that as much as we may prepare, we will be unprepared.

Ken shared about the last trip when he and Neal were given about 2 minutes to prepare for teaching Ugandan youth about HIV/AIDS. Renee talked about some of the questions she fielded when talking with the women there. The thing I took away from this morning is that I will not be prepared. It will be God who gets us all through what He has in store for us.

We are all so excited at what God has ahead!!! Stay tuned and please keep praying for us all.

Uganda - The Pearl of Africa

2012-01-30T16:43:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 15th our team leaves for Uganda! We will be working alongside Africa Renewal Ministries. www.africarenewal.org ARM’s vision is “To develop Next Generation Christian Leaders in Africa who transform society by living Christian lives based on Biblical principles.”

Uganda, known as “The Pearl of Africa” is a land of striking contrasts. Alongside the peaceful beauty of Lake Victoria, and the lush green tropical countryside, are people living in extreme poverty. They are crowded into the slums of Kampala and scattered around the countryside. And yet, the people we met on our first trip were warm and friendly, grateful, and genuinely joyful.

Uganda is about the size of Oregon, but the population of Uganda is around 32 million, which is about 8 times more people than live in Oregon! - (population 3.8 million). Half the population of Uganda is 15 years old and younger. 1 in 8 children dies before the age of 5. Life expectancy is 53 years. A heartbreaking statistic is that there are an estimated 2,500,000 orphans in Uganda. That’s more than the entire population of the Portland Metro area! Can you even imagine?...

But orphans are close to the heart of God and He wants us to care for them. We are really looking forward to spending time in Kachungwa with all the children sponsored by our church family. Thank you for sponsoring a child in Uganda. You may not feel like you are changing the world, but you are changing the world of that child!

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27

Meet the Team

2012-01-17T11:39:00.000-08:00

Our team is very excited about the upcoming trip to Uganda, February 15 - 27, 2012. God has placed a strong desire in each of our hearts to “go” to Africa. We don’t know exactly what God has in store, but we want to be obedient and follow Him. We look forward to being used of God to minister to those we meet in Uganda. We are especially excited about spending time in the village of Kachungwa with all the children and our friends there. We also know that God will use them to minister to us in powerful ways.

Meet the team that Canby Christian Church is sending on this 2nd mission trip to Uganda.

Ken Harvey: I believe God has called me to connect with the people in Uganda. It was great to meet with the pastors there and to hear their stories of how God was working in their congregations. I want to go back and encourage them and help in any way that I can.

Ashley Davis: I feel like I have to go to Africa to help people and share the joy of Christ with them. I also hope to come back and affect peoples lives with my stories. It will be such a great impacting experience and I'm so excited!

Dave Howard: I knew that I was going to Africa even before I knew that the church was sending another mission team. God put a love in my heart for the people of Uganda after reading the stories of the first mission team - particularly the visit to the hospital. The disease, hunger, death and living conditions in Africa are mind-numbing when you stop to think about them in terms other than just huge numbers. Every one of those "statistics" are a person that God loves, a child a parent loves or a parent providing for a child. Only the hope that comes with knowing Jesus as your personal savior can truly bring peace and joy to a people living in conditions like that. I am anxious to take God's message of hope and salvation, to help the people in the village of Kachungwa as I'm able, but also to learn about faith from the Christians living there. God called, so I'm going.

Bryan Lemly: For several years God has been working in my heart to go on a mission trip. Last year he confirmed in multiple ways that I would go on the mission’s trip to Uganda with CCC. I am extremely excited to see what God has in store for us and to spread God's word and love with the people in Kachungwa. Sharing how Jesus as my personal Savior has changed my life with the people there will be an indiscernible experience that I cannot wait for. My wife and I have been working with children for many years in our personal ministry and I am very eager to see how our past experiences will be tested and applied in Uganda. God has been preparing us and although I am sure the trip will be challenging it will be priceless to us and above all to exalt God.

Renee McClaugherty: My first trip to Africa was in Sept. 2010 as part of the team from CCC. I fell in love with the people we met in Uganda. God touched my heart deeply and He has given me a strong desire to continue to serve the people of Kachungwa. I can’t wait to go back!

Isaac Williams: I want to go to Uganda. When I heard about the trip I felt a nudge from God, so I went to the meeting. While I was in the meeting, God really spoke to me about my need to go.

Ralph Williams: I feel that God is calling me to be a part this team and go to Uganda. I look forward to seeing what God has planned and how He wants to use me and the rest of the team. I am excited to meet our sponsored child and am looking forward to sharing this trip with my son Isaac as well. I am excited to see how God will use us while we are there. I believe that this will be a great and life changing experience. I would also like to thank (You) my church family for your support in this mission.

5 Weeks until takeoff

2012-01-13T17:55:00.000-08:00

It is impossible - we are just under 5 weeks from boarding a plane and flying to Uganda. I honestly in my life never thought I would be going to Africa. That is the way God works. It has been a time of growth for the entire team as we prepare for what God has in store. Africa Renewal Ministries has been awesome to work with and have put together an amazing itinerary for the team.

Ken will be leading a pastor's conference - and he was more than a little surprised to learn that there are expected to be over 200 local pastors in attendance. What an opportunity for God to use the training Ken has had to equip the local pastors to spread the word of God and plant churches across Uganda (really, no pressure Ken).

More to come, but wanted to get this started. Please continue to follow the mission team as we prepare and then travel to Uganda representing God, Canby Christian Church and apple pie!

Dave