Simply Trust

The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him. Nahum 1:7

I was reading through Nahum last night and this verse hit me like a ton of bricks. The simplicity of this verse amazes me. I trust, He cares. That's it. That's all I have to do. TRUST. Yet I often make it so complicated. Why is that? Why is it that when God makes something so easy for us, we turn it in to something so complicated?

I leave for Uganda tomorrow and this verse has now become my prayer for the trip. To simply trust.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understandings.

Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Me heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.

If you would like to pray for me while I'm away, please pray for trust. Pray these verses over me. Pray that I would SIMPLY TRUST. Thank you for lifting me up in prayer. Over the years, your prayers have helped me to continue the Lord's work with strength, encouragement, and boldness. The power of prayer is evident to me, and I appreciate them more than you will ever understand.

Living in the Moment

A week from today, I will be on my way to Uganda.

One more week.

You'd think that at this point I'd be excited, ecstatic, so stoked to be leaving in just one week.

But to be honest, I'm not.

I have absolutely no feelings towards leaving. It's not that I don't want to go. I just have no emotions, good or bad, about going back. I'm sure that once I step off the plane and smell the smells, see the sights, and hear the sounds that have become so familiar to me and have brought me so much joy that's when all my emotions will come rushing back to me.

Excitement. Happiness. Passion. Joy. Love.

I'm looking forward to that moment. I can't wait for that moment. 

Until then, I have one more week to enjoy my life here and that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to live in the moment and be excited for where God has me right now.  

Waiting and Praying

I am often asked, "What's next? What will you be doing after Uganda? What will you be doing this winter? What are your plans for the next year?"

To be completely honest with you, I don't know. I have no clue what I will be doing once I get back from Uganda. It's honestly the most frustrating thing I get asked because I'm personally annoyed with the fact that I don't know.

For now, my plan is to wait and pray, and when I get back from Uganda, my plan is to wait and pray. I'm waiting for God to reveal His plan for me. Until He does that, I will pray.

Sometimes impatiently.

Sometimes questioning.

Sometimes angrily. 

All the time hopeful and thankful that God has a plan that will be revealed in HIS perfect timing. 

I wish I could tell you that my plan is to go to a four year college and learn something, anything that will benefit me in my missions work.

I wish I could tell you that I will be spending a certain amount of years being a nurse, a teacher, or even starting my own organization or orphanage in a specific country.

I wish I could tell you MY ten year plan for my life.  

But for now, I will wait and pray for God's plan for my life.

Because I often times, always come to find out that God's plan for my life is much bigger and more significant than anything I could ever plan for my life.

And I rest in the peace of knowing that.

Missionary Medical Intensive

The past two weeks I spent in North Carolina taking an intensive medical class provided by Equip International. I can honestly say I have never learned more in two weeks then when I was there. My brain is overflowing with information on anything medical you can imagine. We learned things like suturing, injections, wound cleaning, childbirth, NG tubes, dentistry, and so much more. These past two weeks have been two of the most beneficial weeks of my life.

Each day, we had a new teacher with three or four new subjects that we would learn about. The day began at 8:30 with a few coffee breaks and a lunch break throughout the day. 5 o'clock is when teaching would end and homework would begin with a break in between for dinner. Homework consisted of case studies, drug and fluid calculations, hands on practice of vital signs and practical questions about patient evaluation, infectious diseases and drug dosages.

I would highly suggest this class to anyone even considering missions work in a third world country. You can't go wrong with taking this class. I feel so much more prepared and "equipped" for serving the Lord in Uganda.

I enjoyed learning and gaining so much knowledge, but what I loved the most was the encouragement and fellowship I had with other like-minded believers. It was such a huge blessing to be spiritually poured into from those around me. The friendships I made there have helped strengthen, encourage and build my relationship with the Lord. It's so great to know that there are others out there that have stepped out in faith, not always knowing what they are getting themselves into, in order to serve the Lord and share His love with those who need a renewed hope.

Another Paul, Another Story

While we were in Uganda this past year we were able to meet and build relationships with a lot of awesome people. One person I am particularly blessed to have gotten to know is Paul. Paul is a nineteen year old awesome man of God, and our next door neighbor while we stayed at Morris and Aida's. We spent a lot of time hanging out with him. He tagged along on a lot of our adventures. He was our translator, our Lugandan teacher, and our right hand man. Needless to say we built an amazing friendship with him and he blessed us in so many ways on our trip. Every night we would have conversations about school, life, friends, and laughter was always involved.

The four of us decided we wanted to show our thanks to him for making us feel so welcome and helping us to understand the culture a little better by doing a little something for him. Two things we often talked to Paul about was his worry for paying his school fees and not having food that day because there was only enough for his mom and siblings. At first, we thought of maybe helping pay his school fees with the extra money we had left over for ministry costs. We decided against this because we weren't fully comfortable with handing over about $400 and not knowing for sure if it would end up being used for what we intended it to be used for. We then came up with buying food/ingredients so he would be able to eat as well as his family. Unfortunately, one thing we did not learn how to do while we were there was shop for food to make meals for a family of six. So we thought it would be fun to have Paul "help us"/pick out what he thought would be best to feed his family.

On our last day, we went for a hike to some waterfalls and had lunch with our friends, and when we we finished, we told Paul to meet us in town for some shopping. Little did he know we were shopping for him. When he arrived we told him our plan. We had 50,000 Uganda shillings ($25) that he could use to buy food for his family. I'm not sure I had seen a bigger smile on that boys face. Instantly, he took off towards the market. It took all that we had in us just to keep up with him. Once we got to the market, Paul began his shopping spree. We were told to stay behind him a little so the people selling the food would not see us with him and charge him the "mzungu price". With his $25 he was able to buy a bag a rice, two bags of potatoes, fish, meat, and a bag of sugar. With the extra money he had left over, he bought us bananas. It was a fun and crazy experience, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

On our way home we decided to carry the bags the way the Ugandans do.

 We got quite a few looks,

 as well as a lot of comments,

accompanied by some clapping and cheering.

It's funny how whenever you try to bless someone else, you always seemed to be the one more blessed. This was the case with this story. We love our friend Paul, and I'm so glad for the friendship we built this summer.

I've got Paul on my mind

On my last post, I said I would expand on the story of Paul. Now I want to warn you, if you cry easily, you might want to have some Kleenex nearby. This is a story of a miracle; a story of how God is daily working in the hearts everywhere.

The day started off pretty normal, who am I kidding, there's no such thing as a normal day in Uganda. I guess it's better to say, the day started off as another new adventure. Our plan was to visit our friend's church in the village of Kidoko, feed the orphans there, and help with Awanas. We attended church, got to witness two baby dedications, help teach Sunday school, see beautiful children being fed, and watch the kids get so much joy from participating in the games of Awanas. So far, everything was going as planned. We decided to set up a wound clinic on the front porch of the Pastor's house to do basic treatment of wounds. Right as we were finishing up, the pastor and another man came to us asking if we'd be willing to work on the wound of an older man. They told us he wasn't able to walk because the wound on his leg was too large and too painful. We decided we'd go check it out and see what we could do for him.

Now keep in mind that none of us are have ever been trained medically to take care of these wounds. We were basically taking the knowledge we had gained as kids when we got cuts and scrapes. Our supplies were hand wipes, half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, quite a few tubes of neosporin, some gauze, some band aids, and some tape. We were running low on most of our supplies and didn't know if we would have enough to help this man. But we decided that some help is better than no help and got ready for another new adventure. We Afripacked into our little five seater car and drove to this man's house. When we arrived, we didn't know what to expect. We got out of the car and started walking to our new "patient". Once we were about ten feet away, the smells of his wound penetrated my nose. I instantly froze. God, what have we gotten ourselves into. I started to panic. I got down on my knees and introduced myself to this very old, very skinny, very frail man. His name is Paul. Paul began unwrapping this tattered, dirty rag off of his wound. The more he uncovered, the more the smell intensified. Lord, let me be your hands. Give me Your strength to continue on and get past the smell. The wound was uncovered and just looking at it made my stomach queasy. Right away we got to work.  I was in charge of cleaning and bandaging the wound, while Taylor was my assistant, handing me what I needed. Kayla was put in charge of leading Paul to Christ, while Keesha began to pray.

As Kayla began to share the love of Jesus with Paul the crowd of Ugandans around us began to laugh. Keesha noticed right away and turned to the local pastor, Charles, to ask why. I was completely oblivious to the laughing and continued on with the task at hand. Keesha and Charles stepped off to the side so that Charles could share Paul's story with Keesha.

This is Paul's story...

Paul used to be a very rich man. He had a beautiful wife, lived in the city and had everything he wanted. Until his whole world was flipped upside down. His wife divorced him and he lost his house and all his money. He became an alcoholic and a chain smoker Paul went out into the village and decided to hang himself. The man that came to us and asked us to take care of his wound found him, cut him down and has been his caretaker for the past four years. Paul had given up and was sick of life. He didn't want to go on any longer. He even stopped bathing because he truly didn't care about taking care of himself. Satan had gotten a hold of Paul and pulled him down to his weakest point, BUT God had a different plan for him. When the church of Kidoko was planted, the team that started it tried sharing the Gospel with Paul. Over and over again they would come to Paul and share just a little bit more of God's love with him every time. Paul didn't care. Paul refused God's love every single time. He told them, "I know you think God's real but He's not. I don't want to live in heaven, I want to go to hell when I die. I choose hell. You will never get me to change my mind." His heart was hardened. Little did Paul know, every single time a person shared with him, a seed was planted, and his heart was slowly beginning soften.

Once Charles was done sharing Paul's story with Keesha, Keesha immediately asked if they could pray together for Paul. They prayed. They prayed that Paul's heart would be open and willing. They prayed that Paul would see God's love and want to change. They prayed that God would do a mighty work in Paul's life. And that's exactly what God did.

Keesha and Charles joined us again, and as they walked up to the crowd of people, they heard Kayla leading Paul in the sinners prayer. Paul was repenting and turning his life over to God. Yesu Asimiwe! (Praise Jesus!) We explained to Paul that now he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. He had to stop drinking and he had to stop smoking. That part of his life was done and over with. We told him that his body was a temple of God's and that he needs to start treating his body that way. We explained to him that when he accepted Christ as his Savior, he was cleansed from the inside and now he needs to be cleansed on the outside. So we boiled some water and he went behind the house to bathe himself. After four years of not bathing, he realized that needed to change. He realized he needed to respect his body because it is not his but God's. He made a complete transformation in a matter of minutes because of the awesome power of God's love. When he finished bathing, we cleaned the wound once more, wrapped it in gauze and prayed over his new relationship with Christ.

We were able to return two more times to help re bandage and re clean his wound. On our last visit, I told him that God is the one who healed his wound and the one who healed his heart. I told him the first place he needed go when he was able to walk was the church to give thanks to God for His healing power and love shown to him.

His life has been forever changed. He no longer drinks. He no longer smokes. His leg is fully healed and he is able to walk again.

God performed a miracle right before my eyes. He showed me His love, His grace, and His power to heal.

Slacking

So, it's been over a year since I last posted. For some reason, I have not been keeping up with my blog, but I have recently had a change in heart and figured I might as well update. Better late, than never.

This summer, I spent six weeks in Mbale, Uganda, with three other girls(Taylor VanDuinen, Kayla Dick, and Keesha Sedgwick), doing just about anything you can imagine. We were nurses, mamas, painters, Sunday School teachers, Bible Study leaders, elementary school teachers, evangelists, wedding helpers, birthday planners, and so much more. This trip was my favorite by far because of all the new things we were able to experience.

We started our trip by joining seven wonderful ladies from Wimberley, Texas. The leader of the trip, Becky Ball, started a sponsorship program called IChooseYou in the year of 2009. Becky provides sponsors for 30 beautiful children in the slum of Namatala. Before IChooseYou began, these kids were digging through piles of trash to find any food for them and their families. Because of Becky's response to the Lord's calling, these 30 children are now receiving an education and a month's supply of corn flour, sugar, soap and Vaseline. The corn flour is used to make a food called posho. Posho is basically corn flour and water mixed together to make a substance that looks like mashed potatoes, but much denser.

We spent our days with them visiting each of the homes of the children, doing hut to hut evangelism in Namatala, and giving out clothes, shoes, toys, etc., to the children. We could not have been blessed with a better team to start our trip off with. Each of the seven girls were amazing servants of God and had such wonderful hearts for the people of Uganda.

We had two days on our own after they had left and before our team from home was coming to join us for a church plant in the village of Lutonyi. We spent these two days visiting a baby home and teaching P1 and P2 classes (1st and 2nd grade level).

We were able to love on and play with the kids at St. Kizito's Baby Home right outside Mbale. They have very few visitors and volunteers coming to the home so it was a major blessing to be able to spend a day there helping out. We played with them in the morning then helped with lunch, baths, and getting ready for nap time. There are about 36 babies living at the home; many are abandoned and many have lost at least one parent.

Being teachers for the P1 and P2 classes was quite an adventure. Our plan was to go there to observe and help out where needed. We arrived, walked into the class and the teachers walked out. We were on our own to teach a class of 50 kids from 9am to 4:30pm. We covered reading, writing, math, P.E., Bible, and music. At the time it was a nightmare because none of us have ever been teachers, but looking back on the experience, it really was a lot of fun.

Our team joined us that night and we began our church planting ministry. We started off by revisiting our previous church plants at Angalia, Namunyu, Kerekeren, and Busiu. On Monday, we started hut to hut in Lutonyi and school and prison ministries. Needless to say, it was a very successful week with a full church of 700 people on the first Sunday.

We were then dropped off in Jinja to visit Amani Baby Cottage. I volunteered here last year and thought it would be fun to revisit and see all the children again. It was very cool to see the kids growing and becoming healthier as time has passed. Many kids were adopted this past year and there were a lot of new faces but it was still a very good experience.

We returned to Mbale to help Natalie Rolfe, who has taught Phonics at Lulwanda Children's Home for the past couple of years. She had a closet at the home that needed to be cleaned out, organized and inventoried.

We attended a wedding that weekend and threw a birthday party for our friend Jerad. Jerad doesn't know when he was born and has never experienced a birthday party before. So, on June 19, 2010 Jerad turned 22. We celebrated with cake and presents and a time of hanging out with friends.
On Sunday, we attended church at our friend, Pastor Charles' church in the village of Kidoko. After church we bought lunch for the kids there, did Awanas with them, and set up a wound clinic on the porch of the pastor's house. We were then taken to old man Paul who has a wound on his leg so we could treat it(I will do a separate post on this story).
For three days we worked with a sponsorship ministry called Hine's Ugandan Ministry, just outside the town of Mbale in a village called Kamonkoli. Hine's was started 15 years ago by Katherine Hine's who is from Colorado. She sponsors widows and children in the area of Kamonkoli. She has helped over 200 kids throughout the years, and we got to work with some of her first kids a part of the program who are now at the university level. The first day, we did hut to hut evangelism in the village and visited a few of the homes of the children and helpers. The second day, we painted a house for a widow in her program and attended a Bible study at the local church. The last day, we did more hut to hut evangelism in the morning. In the afternoon, we visited Kerekeren to check out the school, look into potential grounds for a school, and visit my girl Nora, whom I fell in love with two years ago.
The next two days, we joined a team from Midland, Texas to help at a wound clinic they had set up at the church plant they were doing. We helped distribute mosquito nets, fill prescriptions, and treat wounds. The rest of the clinic was set up with pediatricians, doctors and nurses. The first day we were met by around 1,000 people; the second day close to 3,000 people came from miles and miles away to receive free medical care. By the time we were done, we treated around 4,000 people.
The following week, we spent three days, visiting six different churches doing discipleship lessons at each. We tried our best to return to the churches who have yet to have mzungus(white people) come back and visit their church. We would go to a church in the morning and a church after lunch. Taylor taught on God's promise and shared a story of a slave girl who was bought at a very high price to be set free. Kayla shared her testimony and explained how important it was to surrender your life to God; to say I will go anywhere and do anything for our Lord. I compared to passages in the Bible. One that says we are saved by faith alone and the other that says faith without deeds is dead. I challenged them to serve the Lord and live out their faith in a way that people would see they're different. While Taylor, Kayla and I were teaching these things to the women Keesha taught the kids on Jesus being the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
On our down days, we would visit Namatala to work on the kids wounds and visit the children who are sponsored by IChooseYou. We also returned to St. Kizito's Baby Home to play with the kids and love on them.
That Saturday, we attended another wedding, which got rained out during the reception. In Uganda, if it rains on the wedding day, it is considered a blessing from God that their children will be strong and healthy. We also learned that a wedding is not a wedding if there is no rice. We got to hear Pastor Morris preach for the first time at the wedding. I have never heard such a funny, powerful speech at a wedding.
On Sunday we made a surprise visit to the church of Lutonyi. We wanted to show up without the announcement of the mzungus coming because when people here the mzungus are coming everyone shows up. We wanted to see how many people really showed up without the arrival of mzunugs. To our surprise, they had a full church, three different choirs, and have been training up elders, deacons and leaders in the church.That night we went to Busiu to help with Awanas. We played the games and Keesha taught the lesson.
For the Fourth of July, we went on a hike to see the beauty of Uganda with our friends from Hine's Ugandan Ministry. We got to see a few different waterfalls. It was a fun relaxing time to end our trip. After our hike we went out to lunch with everyone. The four of us got our favorite food, Sambusas/Samosas(we haven't exactly figured out the right name for them yet). They are similar to eggrolls but are filled with meat.
After lunch the four of us stayed in town to meet our friend Paul. We went to the market to buy him and his family some food as a thank for making us feel right at home and helping us throughout the trip(I will expand on this in a later post as well).
This is just an overview of the trip. In later posts, I will share more of my favorite parts of the trip. I will also be updating everyone on my plans for this winter and my trip next year.
Before I end this post, I want to acknowledge how good our God is. We went into this trip with somewhat of a plan only to find out that our plan was not God's plan, and I am so thankful it wasn't. God put us in the right places at the right times. We experienced the power of God in so many incredible ways. For most of the trip, we really had no idea what we were doing or how to do most of the stuff we needed to. Because of God's amazing power, we were completely adequate(even tough sometimes we felt inadequate) for every situation we were placed in. God performed miracles right before our very eyes. He gave us the strength that we did not have to serve each and every day with full energy. It is through God alone that this trip was possible, and I am so grateful to be serving such an amazing, gracious, loving and powerful God.