Fear

While we were in Uganda we spoke with and prayed with many people.  In one village we were asked to pray that the lightning would stay in the sky because many people were being killed by it.  This became a bit of a theme in other villages as well and I realized that for many rural villagers this is a real fear for them. 

Another fear for them is demons.  Witch doctors and the powers of darkness are very real in Uganda and in one village one of my team members asked the children we were working with, "What are some things you are afraid of?"  One child raised his hand and replied "being sacrificed" because in his village the witch doctors sacrifice children.  Some members of our team actually had a child in their group who had a demon in her and there was one room where we stayed that the girls in that room experienced many scary things at night.  Demons are a real fear in Uganda and even I spent much time in prayer about them because I was fearful too, especially for Mike.

Kids who were afraid of being sacrificed.

The biggest fear I saw in the people of Uganda, though, was sickness and death.  They see so much of it.  The people of Uganda fear malaria.  Everywhere we went the nurses on our team were treating malaria.  Access to treatment for this is nearly impossible for many because of cost.  Many, many people die of preventable and treatable illness every day in Uganda because they can not afford the prevention or treatment.  They fear AIDS.  We saw AIDS orphans everywhere we went.  They fear death.

graves in the village

AIDS Orphans

My comfortable, suburban, American life doesn't easily relate to these things.  I am not afraid of lightning.  I do not worry about children being sacrificed.  I have never stayed awake at night praying for protection from demons for my 12 year old son.  I have access to adequate medical care in the event that I or one of my kids gets sick.  I do not fear death because I know it is only a doorway to life. 

I had the priveledge of speaking to a group of women, wives and mothers, while in Uganda.  I chose scripture from the end of Mark 4 and all of 5 to remind them of the power of Jesus.  He has power over all nature as seen in the calming of the storm.  He has power over lightning.  He has power over demons as shown in the account of Him casting them into the swine.  Demons need His permission for anything they do.  He has power over all sickness as shown by the healing of the woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of His garment.  He has power over death as the story of the synagogue ruler, Jairus, clearly shows.  I reminded them that lightning does not have the final word.  Demons and witch doctors do not have the final word.  Malaria does not have the final word.  AIDS does not have the final word.  Most of all, death does not have the final word.  Jesus has the final word.  Faith in Jesus is not confidence that bad things won't happen but confidence that He is with us in them.  Jesus' power is most clearly displayed by walking with us through the bad stuff not keeping us away from it.  Even if we are not healed from physical disease He always makes us whole.  Even if we encounter demons, our salvation is safe with Him.  Even though we die, we live. 

The women I spoke to.

Our fears may look different than those rural villagers in Uganda but I was reminded in a BIG way that Jesus has power over anything that we fear.  He is always with us. He cares for us.  He calms the storms of life. We are safe in Him.  He brings peace.  Praying for my Ugandan friends today.

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

Preparing for Uganda

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."  Jesus in Matthew 13

Jesus is worth everything.  He is so good, satisfying, and rewarding that He is worth leaving all we have and all we own to follow Him.  As we pack our bags in preparation for 2 weeks in Uganda I know God is unpacking that truth from His Word in my heart.  He is worth everything.  He cares for the orphans, the poor, the destitute and especially for the lost and He commands us to care for them too if we bear His name. 

"Today more than a billion people in the world live and die in desperate poverty.  They attempt to survive on less than a dollar per day.  Close to two billion others live on less than two dollars per day.  That's nearly half of the world struggling today to find food, water, and shelter with the same amount of money I spend on french fries for lunch.  More than twenty six thousand children today will breathe their last breath due to starvation or preventable disease."  David Platt - Radical 

It is hard for me to even comprehend that 26,000 children die every day from hunger and preventable disease.  26,000.  I don't even know 26,000 children... so I think in terms of the children I do know... mine, my friends' kids, my neighbors' kids, the ones at my church, the ones we see each week at sports practices, the kids in my homeschool support group.... all of those would be gone in one day and thousands more.  It is an overwhelming thought.

I am taking my 12 year old son to Uganda on Saturday.  He loves the Lord.  This will be his first mission trip out of the country.  He is excited but I know he will be broken by much that he sees.  He is tender hearted and I know his heart will hurt when confronted with the number of orphans, the children with bloated bellies, the reality of the AIDS epidemic and the great poverty.  I know something else too.  I know that even though it will hurt him, he needs to see it.  If he learns everything in every text book perfectly but does not learn to care for the lost enough to go tell them they can be found... or the sick that they can be made well... or the orphans that they can have a Father... or the impoverished that they can be rich... then Kevin and I have failed him as his educators.  If he knows a zillion facts but doesn't care about the things God cares about.... then what?  My prayer is that God will minister to his young heart as it sees the reality of what we often would rather pretend does not exist. 

I am trusting my faithful God to care for Michael and I as we go and to care for my other children and my hubby as they stay at home.  Prayerfully anticipating .... 

This is Michael in Boston almost 2 years ago.

                                   Michael and his best friend working at "With Love From Jesus"

"My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep (God's) commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you."   :)
 from Proverbs 3 

Worship

Today, I had the best experience I have ever had with Ellie in worship.  I believe it is my job to teach her to worship.  It is not easy, at times, because she is 3.  When it is hard I try to remember that it pleases God a lot for her to worship Him.  Today as we were singing she was in my arms singing as well.  When I raised my hand or my husband raised his, she raised her's as well.  When we were praying she put her head down and closed her eyes.  She sat with her sermon notes paper in her lap and a pen during the service and "took notes" just like the rest of us.  What a blessing it is to worship as a family... the whole family!  She wants to know who Jesus is and she has the capacity for learning much in worship.  Is there anything else as important as teaching her to worship God?  What else will she spend eternity doing, but worship?  Tonight I am thanking God for the joy she was today in worship and the priveledge I have to teach her why we worship and show her how!  <3 

A good book on the topic... Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman

Making Pickles

Today I made pickles for the first time with the help of my friend Gwyn.  They need to soak in the pickling lime overnight and then we will finish them tomorrow.  Slicing 28 lbs of cucumbers goes really fast when you have a friend to talk to and laugh with.  I would not suggest doing it alone!  :)

"Camp"

So, two of my boys have been taking Tae Kwon Do.  The yougest for 6 months and the middle son for about 2 months.  They are really enjoying it.  At the facility where they attend there recently has been a push for summer camps.  My youngest son brought me the flyer with the "PLEASE!!!!!!! Can I go? PLEASE??????" not too long ago.  Well I talked with my darling husband and we chose 1 week of the several they offered to send our boys to "camp".  They started yesterday.  Drop off was from 7:30am - 9am.  I realize that many working parents need the early drop off time but since "camp" activities did not actually start till 9am I dropped my boys off a little before that time.  When my hubby went to pick them up yesterday evening Matthew broke down.  It is an understatement to say that he had a very bad day.  Apparently this "camp" really is just summer day care with a different name.  From what we gathered after talking to him it was organized chaos with very little "camp" activities at all.  There were lots of multi-age kids who were disrespectful to authority, downright mean to their peers, me-centered, blasphemers, and cursers.  My boys were troubled by what they saw.

 It is really hard to discern how much of this world we should let our kids experience.  On one hand, there is the "you don't want to shelter your kids too much" idea that says they need to learn how to live and deal in the real world.  I get that.  I do want my kids to live and operate in this world but not so they can be successful here.  I want them to live and operate here so they can be successful there, in heaven.  I am not raising my kids to be pagans like the majority of the community I live in.  I am raising them to be Christians, to be followers of Christ, and frankly I am happy that when they hear a child drop the name of Jesus Christ as a explicative that it is offensive to them.  I am thankful that they identify disrespect of an adult and it bothers them to see it and see it NOT being corrected.  I am thankful that they see me-centered attitudes as offensive and are troubled when they see all the smallest kids getting pushed around and bullied out of a chance at the pool table.  I am thankful that hearing children use the "f" word still bothers them. 

I do not want my kids to become successful pagans.  I want them to become successful Christians.  There is a difference.  I don't want them to measure their success by the world's standard.  I don't want them running after the pagan gods of money, popularity, and worldly success.  God says, "Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and their children forever!"  Deuteronomy 5:29  I pray my kids would have a heart that loves the things God loves and hates the things God hates.  I pray that so that it "might be well with them."  I want them to realize the difference between right and wrong and choose to do right.  I know they will fail many times as I have myself.  Ultimately, though, I don't want sons and daughters who can blend into the pagan culture we live in successfully.  I want sons and daughters who will stand for God and live set-apart lives.

Dinner

Went to the Virginia Homeschool Conference this past weekend and got to browse the Bread Beckers booth.  I started milling wheat and baking my own bread awhile ago and slowly and gradually have tried to add to my recipe collection of healthy meals.  I have found the "healthy eating" thing a little hard to navigate and unfortunately nutrition was something I did not learn when I was young!  I grew up on spaghetti-o's and white bread pb&j!  I have been learning and changing things as I go.  My goal is to make one positive change per month and stick to it!  So, while at the Bread Beckers booth I picked up some hulled millet.  This is a grain I have never eaten before and so my June change it to add millet to our diet and learn some recipes that use millet.  Tonight we are having a new salad.  Hope the family likes it!

http://recipeland.com/recipe_photos/zoom_vote/2542?iframe