Wednesday, July 14, 2010
"Father, help to the street children."
Monday, July 12, 2010
Please Pray
- Pray for the families of the victims of these attacks, our Ugandan brothers and sisters and Nate's family too.
- Pray for safety over potential targets in the international community abroad.
- Please pray for God's comfort, peace and healing to overshadow the pain and confusion.
- Lastly, as we are taught, please be praying for the hearts of those terrorists responsible, that their hearts might break over what has been done. That they might actually turn from this lifestyle of terror and destruction.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Let's Start at the Very End. A Very Good Place to Start.
Friday, May 28, 2010
...the adventure begins...
- Please pray for an end to over two decades of war
- Security, peace and restoration for the people
- Nearly two millions displaced people to be able to return home and to receive back their land (check out IJM's mission in Uganda: ijm.org)
- Rehabilitation and healing for child soldiers
- Reconciliation for families
- Protection, health and wisdom for relief workers and church leaders
- Lives, homes and farms of the people to be rebuilt
Sunday, May 23, 2010
An Overwhelming Response!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Sobering Reality
Right now I am catching up on the reading we are completing to prepare ourselves for the trip. We have been assigned "Girl Soldier" which is a split testimonial by former child soldier, Grace Akallo, and American activist, Faith McDonnell.
The passages in this book reveal a sobering reality. Published in 2007, it is not completely up to date on the strides peace and hope have made in Uganda, but it paints a painful picture of the horrors these child soldiers faced.
I am going to completely misquote Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission, but he alludes to social justice work and its message needing to include roughly 30% facts and 70% hope in order to motivate people to help. I think that's pretty accurate.
The graphic descriptions of murder and rape in this book are so hard to stomach. I am sitting here in the Admissions office for my final shift getting sick to my stomach, feeling a distant echo of the wounds I am reading about.
Come to think of it, now is probably not the best time to be reading this, when I am expected to answer the phones in a chipper and professional way...
All that to just be reminded that Uganda has had an intense past. I want to do all that it is in my power, through God, to prevent any more of the children of northern Uganda from going through such despicable tortures.
Please join me in prayer today for the current and future leaders of Uganda, that they might find peaceful ways to avoid the violence that has shed blood on its past.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
A Birthday and a Cause
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Poked and Prodded and getting Prepared
Shots have never been a great experience for me. There's always the mental build-up and insurmountable fear that creeps in. But this time I knew I had people praying for me and can honestly say that God filled me with so much peace. It was great. No tears, little fears.
Three shots later and the only obstacle between me and Uganda is two final exams and jury duty. Yes, two years into my American stay and they already tagged me for jury duty...this should be interesting...
In other news, Tom has updated us about possible projects we'll be working on in Uganda that could use your prayer! Ready for the break-down?
-While we're in Uganda, we are partnering with local university students knows as FOCUS students. Please pray for real bonding and relationships to grown between us as we travel and work together.
-While we work with the NGO Come Let's Dance in Kampala, we'll be helping out with the New Start Center for boys. This includes tutoring, cooking, cleaning and learning from the boys.
-Child Voice International is in Lukodi village, just north of Gulu, and there we will be doing a LOT: Construction on the school, beginning an adult education center and planning a Women's Conference in June. We'll also be doing a lot with the youth there and coordinating Vacation Bible School.
Hopefully those are some more tangible things for you to pray over. We will have to be very flexible, so we do not know which projects we will see through to completion, but we trust that God is going to use us in his timing, in his plan.
Countdown: twenty-two days. Let's do this.
I'll leave you with a snippet from Psalm 10 that hits the mark for me re: Uganda:
"You hear, O Lord, the desire of the
afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen
to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the
oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Shalom?
Shalom's Hebrew meaning indicates a sense of being complete, perfect and full. It is used in the Bible to mean "Prince of Peace," describing Jesus' character. It has also been taught to me as describing our world before the Fall. God created the world as being perfectly whole, yet now we behold it broken.
"Seeking Shalom" is part of my life every day. I believe that our purpose as believers in Christ is to allow him to restore this world person by person, neighborhood by neighborhood, nation by nation to Shalom, to its fullness in Him, through broken vessels like us.
In regards to Uganda, He has already begun that work, the work of slow, painful but lasting restoration and I am humbled to be in any way a part of that.
Let's start at the very beginning...
Welcome to my first blog EVER! This is exciting news, all. And even more exciting is the fact that in exactly one month from today I will join my friends from schools all over New England in starting our journey. Destination: Uganda.
For months now, we've been preparing for this five week trip. Led faithfully by Tom and Nancy, we have been reading books and articles to brush up on Ugandan history, and it is a very, very dark one. Uganda's past is wrought with intense spiritual battles and yet God is bringing hope and victory in the midst of it all. This summer promises to be challenging emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Am I ready? Well, I do believe that God will not send us where he has called us empty-handed. He prepares us in his own timing for the moment when we need to act, and we know we are not alone. So, I will be as ready as I am going to be :)
This blog will be your go-to place in the weeks and days leading up to departure for information on Uganda, our team, this trip and how to pray. Many of you have committed to pray daily while we are gone, and that is a real blessing! Thank you so much.
My parting words are not my own, but King David's. I have been digging into the first Psalms lately and yesterday God touched my heart with this one. To me, this is sung on behalf of my brothers and sisters in Uganda for the horrors they have endured, horrors I cannot even begin to imagine. The good news? God is for us, not against us and is with us through it all. Please join me in praying through this psalm (9).
I will tell of all your wonders.
2 I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
3 My enemies turn back;
they stumble and perish before you.
4 For you have upheld my right and my cause;
you have sat on your throne, judging righteously.
5 You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;
you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.
6 Endless ruin has overtaken the enemy,
you have uprooted their cities;
even the memory of them has perished.
7 The LORD reigns forever;
he has established his throne for judgment.
8 He will judge the world in righteousness;
he will govern the peoples with justice.
9 The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
10 Those who know your name will trust in you,
for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.
11 Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion;
proclaim among the nations what he has done.
12 For he who avenges blood remembers;
he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.
13 O LORD, see how my enemies persecute me!
Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,
14 that I may declare your praises
in the gates of the Daughter of Zion
and there rejoice in your salvation.
15 The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug;
their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.
16 The LORD is known by his justice;
the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.
Higgaion. Selah
17 The wicked return to the grave,
all the nations that forget God.
18 But the needy will not always be forgotten,
nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.
19 Arise, O LORD, let not man triumph;
let the nations be judged in your presence.
20 Strike them with terror, O LORD;
let the nations know they are but men.
Selah