Spiritwick

I'm back at home in Texas now, but my trip is not yet over.  God is still teaching me and working things out in me that became illuminated in this trip. I want to share with you a brief list of some of my big take-aways from this trip (so far). * God is SO big and SO loving. Watching Him knit together the big and small details of this trip was incredible.  Daily, I had moments of recognizing "That was God.  He did that right there."  It made me realize that back at home there are probably a lot more of those moments that I don't recognize.  I see a good "coincidence" or even a "blessing," but I don't stop and say, "That was awesome, God!  Thank you for that!"  James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." God wasn't different in Uganda than He is here. Is there a good and perfect gift in my day? That was ...

As I mentioned in my last post, I didn't journal the last 2 days in Uganda, but I do want to share with you an overview and some highlights from those days. On Wednesday, June 26th, our team focused on teaching about children's ministry to the male and female attendees of the conference.  Since one of our senior pastors and our family pastor were on the team, it was a natural fit for them to be the ones to explain the importance of intentionally reaching out to children.  (Considering that the median age in Uganda is 15.5, this is an incredibly important population in Uganda.  Of course, I think it's an incredibly important population anywhere!)  After our lessons on some whys and hows of children's ministry, we all participated in a demonstration of a children's lesson.  It was a lot of fun to see all the pastors and their wives participating as the "children" in the singing and dancing.  In fact, Mama Bishop said that she has never seen the men dance s...

I haven't posted on here in about a week because I've been in the throes of house cleaning. If you had seen the "before" views of my house, you'd understand how I could be in the "throes" of house cleaning.  I estimate about 55-60 man hours of labor were put into getting my house in decent shape over the previous 3 days, and there is still more to do.  I mean, I know there will ALWAYS be more to do, but there is still some catch-up cleaning to do, not just maintenance stuff.  Anyways, all of this is to explain that I was busy each day and exhausted each night, and blogging just wasn't going to happen. I'm taking a bit of a break from cleaning today though, and I thought I'd share my next journal entry during this "break." On Tuesday, June 25th, I presented 2 lessons to women leaders in Jinja on the 2nd day of our conference.  By the end of that day I was pretty exhausted too, so my journal entry for the day is quite short.  In fa...

Instead of posting about the Tuesday when I presented my lessons at the conference, I thought I'd take a pause in the journal entries and share the devotional that I wrote out on the evening of June 22nd and shared at our team's nightly meeting on June 24th.  I hope and pray that it blesses you. (Please pardon the awkward formatting of the block quote.  I don't know the HTML to keep the whole thing a block quote with multiple paragraphs but without the separating lines between paragraphs.) Some of you have read The Hiding Place, I'd imagine.  For those of you who haven't, let me briefly summarize it.  It's a true story about a woman named Corrie ten Boom.  She was an unmarried daughter of a watchmaker in Holland who lived with her father and elder sister into her 50s when WWII came to Holland.  Holland resisted briefly but became a German-occupied nation. In their desire to help the persecuted Jews around them, the ten Booms started a resistance cell i...

At the end of the first full conference day, I was working on looking over the lessons I'd be presenting the next day to make sure that I was familiar enough with them that I wouldn't just be staring at my notes the whole time.  As a result, I didn't manage to write out a whole journal entry that day.  However, I did jot down 5 highlights of the day.  I'll post the highlights as I wrote them then, and I'll expand them a bit. Highlights from June 24th  Connecting with Mary and Teopisto          These were the 2 women that I had the opportunity to talk to the most on that first day.  Mary led our praise sessions each day, and upon our first meeting I told her that she had the same name as my mother and that she sort of reminded me of her.  By the end of the trip, she was officially going by "Mama Mary" and sending greetings from my Ugandan mother to my mother back home!  Teopisto had many questions for me that first day ...

June 23, 2013        10:10pm I am tired but surprisingly I'm less exhausted than I was 4 hours ago.  Today was like 3-4 days all wrapped up in one. I went to Jinja Christian Center this morning, and it was an amazing experience.  Before last night, I hadn't known which church I'd prefer to go to -- the Cathedral or a more charismatic church, but as soon as Brenda asked last night, I had an immediate knowledge that I wanted to go to JCC.  I'm so glad I went. The praise and worship time was spectacular.  The first song was in Lunganda, but there was a repetitive "Hallelujah" that I could join in on , and I enjoyed participating with their praise by clapping with them to God as they sang.  Their next song was "Worthy is the Lamb."  I was so excited to know the song and to be able to sing with them this time.  It took me to such a deep place or worship and praise -- the words of the song itself, singing with those people, and bein...

June 22, 2013        8:22pm This morning we packed our bags, loaded the van, and headed into Jinja.  The drive had some beautiful scenery.  It also had some new glimpses into living conditions here.  I saw people living on the 2nd floor of a building whose top (3rd) floor was completely collapsed on one side.  I saw round huts as well as adults and children working fields, market stands, ditch clean-up, and all manner of other business.  The trees were surprisingly tall.  You know that classic silhouette of an African tree?  I saw trees like that, and they were at least as tall as 3 story buildings, some closer to 5 stories I think.  We saw fields of tea and fields of sugar cane stretched across the hillsides.  As we crossed the bridge over the Nile, I even saw a crocodile swimming! We finally arrived at Hesed after 3.5 hours of driving.  The returning team members were clearly thrilled and relaxed upon arrivi...

This journal entry references some highs and lows with teammates.  I've excluded the names and a few details as my intent is not to gossip.  However, I thought it was important to share the reality of my struggles in this area too.  Before we left on this trip, we were told often that there would be challenges to our team unity on this trip and that we needed to be sensitive in how we handled these challenges and attacks.  I had to lean hard on God in trusting that He designed this team specifically, that He knew where each of us were on our journeys with Him, that His grace would be sufficient as His power is made perfect in weakness, and that we were meant to build each other up in Him.  One of my biggest takeaways on this trip was that God is bigger and His love is deeper than anything or anyone that I can encounter or imagine. I can truly cast my cares upon Him. June 21, 2013      10:52pm      Today started well enough wi...

I'm going to post this day's a little differently.  I'm posting my journal entry and my morning prayer out of order.  As I was re-reading that morning's prayer to type it out today, I was struck by how much of the prayer God answered.  I want you to be able to see that too, so please read my nightly journal entry first and then my morning prayer as ordered here. June 20, 2013       9:25pm      Today was Kampiringisa day.  I didn't know what to expect.  I read in my quiet time this morning Proverbs 17:15 which reminded me that the Lord detests this placement of these children in a prison-like environment for no actual crime.  I also read in Philippians, which I remembered Paul wrote while in prison, and it's largely about joy!  Philippians 2 also told me to value others above myself.  I prayed that God would help me to do this today and that He would love others through me.      We left the Inn at 8...

June 19, 2013     8:23pm    Today was a good day.  I only got about 3.5-4 hours of sleep last night before waking up near 3:40am.  I was still tired but unable to fall back asleep.  Around 5:30am, I found my flashlight and Bible for some quiet time.  That was a great start for my day.    After a breakfast of beans, potatoes, banana, and toast, I climbed aboard the van to head into Kampala.  Uganda is indeed beautiful, but I was surprised at how familiar and comfortable it all seemed to me.  In some ways, it reminded me of Belize or the Mexican Riviera towns.  I'm pretty sure God was in that calm space for me as I was expecting Africa to feel completely foreign.  Instead, I have to remind myself often that I am actually in Africa.    We exchanged our currency and ate lunch in Kampala.  Cafe Java could have easily been any little strip mall restaurant in DFW.  In fact, it would be a relatively tre...

My time in Uganda reinforced so powerfully how big and good God is.  God is bigger than our weaknesses, than our faults, than our governments, than our pasts, than our circumstances, than any evil. God loves to give good, sweet gifts...even when He doesn't have to...He delights in being faithful and loving to us.  He delights in our faithful obedience to Him. While I was in Uganda, I tried to journal every night and write out a prayer every morning.  I'd like to share some of these entries with you all to give you a glimpse of God's workings on our trip and in me. I'll be editing the entries here and there to add a detail, to protect a child, to clarify, or to cover over a situation that would only be gossipy to share.  However, I won't edit out the reality of what I experienced on the trip. I know many of you were praying for me, for my teammates, for the people in Uganda, and for the trip in general.  Thank you.  God was answering prayers big time. I ...