Hope

I just returned from a 2 weeks mission trip in Uganda with my oldest son Michael.  It was life changing for both of us.  I know I will not be able to articulate all that I experienced but I want to record some things here so we can remember.  From the first day we saw many people give their lives to Christ and that continued the whole time.  It sounds crazy to me to hear myself say this but I lost track of how very many people were saved by day 3 because it was just so many.  Our team was 24 in total and so each day between schools and prisons and hut to hut evangelism and teaching at the local churches there was a harvest.  Since we have never seen that kind of response to Jesus here in the states, it was wonderfully overwhelming for both of us.  

           This was the first women I saw give her heart to Christ on the first day of ministry.

This Muslim woman, whose name was Rheema, told us she had never heard of Jesus.  She listened intently as we shared and accepted a Bible from us.  She thanked us for coming and telling her the story of Jesus and that she would think about what she had learned.  The next day some other people in our group visited her again and she accepted Christ. 

This woman accepted Christ after I shared with her.  Her daughter

(in the yellow dress) stopped me afterward and said she too wanted to be saved!

Here she is after praying for salvation.

Praying for salvation!

The same women and her daughter after they both received Jesus

with 2 team members and 2 translators.

The man in the center and the two women at the lower left corner all were saved after I shared the gospel with them.  They had a lot of questions and we spent a long time visiting with them.

All of the adults in this photo were saved except for the woman holding the baby (she was already a Christian).  We shared with the man and woman on the bench and the woman kneeling at first.  The man standing in orange came up after we started and the man kneeling in front was walking by this house and heard us talking and stopped to listen.  All of them made the decision the trust Jesus for salvation!

39 men at this prison accepted Christ after the gospel was presented.

This woman heard that out group would be in this village on the day we were there.  She started walking and took a boat across Lake Victoria the day before we met her to get to us.  Her journey was long and her son was very sick with Malaria.  She arrived late in the afternoon as we were finishing up a full day of ministry.  She sat beside me and said, "You take my baby."  I know I will never forget that moment.  I had a translator come and help us talk to each other.  She told me she needed hope for her baby.  I shared the great love of Christ with her and she eagerly accepted salvation.  A nurse from our team treated her son and gave him medicine to take home.  We fed them both and gave them some water, money for the trip home, clothes for her son and flip flops for her.  She thanked us as she got up to start the long trip home and said she had found the Hope she was looking for. 

Jesus is Hope.  His gospel is still the greatest story ever told.  He is still seeking and saving those who are lost.  He is still renewing the hope of those who wait on Him.  "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you"  I Peter 1:3-4