The Final Uganda Update From Kampala (originally published 2/20/07)

1. Praying for a little girl to come back to life at Mulago Hospital
2. Meeting Ryan Gosling (The Notebook) on a boat on the Nile River
3. Jean-Michael and I Slaughter a Goat for Jessie's Birthday
4. Africans with White Skin and the Breaking of the Fellowship
5. The enemy would like us dead… Please, pray for our protection!

1. Praying for a little girl to come back to life at Mulago Hospital

At Mulago Hospital in Kampala where we went weekly to evangelize our team witnessed the death of a 10-year old girl. Julianna prayed for the girl to come back to life but sadly she was gone. As Rachel comforted the girl's mother we found out through our translator that her husband had also died a few weeks beforehand. Apparently, the family had been involved in a land dispute that resulted in their family being bewitched. The mother relayed to us that it was evil spirits that had claimed her husband as well as her little girl. Oddly enough, that very same day the little girl had told her mother that she knew she was going to die and had asked to be taken back to the village so that her family wouldn't have to pay to have her body removed from the hospital. For me this is just more evidence of the tangible spiritual warfare that is happening all around us that most of us Westerners rarely ever get the chance to see.

2. Meeting Ryan Gosling (The Notebook) on a boat on the Nile River

As most of you know our team went on Safari for our debriefing time. We went to a game park called Murcheson Falls, about 7 hours drive away from the capital, which has the best assortment of animals in Uganda. Yeah, an elephant puffed out its ears and charged at our vehicle. Very cool!!! Got to film it!!!

On the way back to the camp we were waiting for our ferry to come and take us back across the Nile River. I glanced over and noticed some gentlemen that despite their cargo pants, worn shirts, and five o'clock shadows looked strangely out of place. They had the look of Hollywood people, which is hard to describe and it's really more of an aura than anything else. Abby Jaillet was sitting with me and we both were surreptitiously checking these guys out to see if we could recognize any of them. It came to us at the same moment, she goes, "Is that the guy from The Notebook?" and I'm like, "Yeah it is, that's Ryan Gosling!" No sooner had we made this discovery when our ferry docks and we all file onto the boat.

Once on board I grab Abby J. to take her over to talk with him. I was just thinking to myself, what would Dan Shannon do (my apologies for the inside joke), we 're all stuck on this boat and what do we have to lose anyway. Playing it cool, we go over to him and I elbow him, politely, and say, "So you guys shooting a film?" Classy introduction, I know. As it turns out the guy is really down-to-earth, as cliché as that may sound, and he is in Uganda working on a project about child soldiers in the North. He had just come from Gulu where our team had just been and so we talked about our experiences with the Acholi people. He told us about a little girl he met who had been set on fire by the LRA and was now being taken care of by a former LRA commander. "Redemption's happening," he says, and I go, "...Redemption, you don't say?!" YWAMers meeting up with celebrities in the middle of Africa, only God!

3. Jean-Michael and I Slaughter a Goat for Jessie's Birthday

When our team first arrived in Kampala we heard our African friends talk fondly of their love for goat meat and the African tradition of Goat Roasts. Since then Jean-Michael and I would speak daily about the idea of buying a goat, slaughtering it, having a feast and inviting over as many Ugandans as possible. All this talk became a reality when Jessie's birthday began approaching and we decided that this would be the perfect day to realize our dream. We purchased the goat and dubbed him Tumnus and he spent his last night tied up behind our apartment. The following day we sharpened our knives with the guys in the ministry who were more than happy to send Tumnus on a speedy trip into eternity. It was decided that Jean-Michael should cut the goat's throat while I would help to hold it down with our friends from the ministry, Norbert and George. Maleea was given the responsibility of filming the grim operation.

Before we went through with the slaughtering JM and I gave a speech about how people in America don't fully appreciate the fact that animals are violently killed by someone somewhere so that they are able to have a burger at McDonald's. We made it clear that we were becoming men by taking part in the tradition of our forefather's who had to kill the food they provided for their families to eat. The words sounded hollow once the blood started flowing and we witnessed the goat's gruesome death. As a team we were all reading the book of Leviticus, which abruptly came to life in vivid color after this day. All I know is that if we were still required to kill an animal to atone for our sins we probably wouldn't sin as much, I'm just saying. That night the celebration was unbelievable, everyone showed up, later Pastor Martin told us that if more Western missionaries understood the profound impact that roasted meat has on the African psyche then the whole continent would be reached for the kingdom of God.

4. Africans with White Skin and the Breaking of the Fellowship

Abby C. and Katrina taught HIV/AIDS prevention and shared the gospel with a group of HIV+ young people at Mildmay, the finest outpatient HIV/AIDS treatment facility in Uganda. They both did admirably well even while being consistently interrupted by two older girls in the back row who boldly challenged them on every point. Afterward, Julianna went straight over to these girls and told them about how Jesus had rescued her from a life on the streets and restored her life. Up until the last week our team was in the streets spreading the Gospel and Jean-Michael went to preach in the bars with Amon, one of the young guys in the ministry. They went after drunkards and prostitutes with fire in their eyes and all-consuming love brimming in their hearts.

The end came too soon for our fellowship of nine and the night we said goodbye to our family at Makerere Community Church our hearts were wrecked. Our brothers and sisters told us that we had completely altered their perception of white people who come to Africa. They told us that we were the first whites they had ever met who had truly shown them love by treating them as equals, by living with them, eating meals with them, learning some of the local language and customs, praying with them from night until morning, and sharing our stories with them and then being interested to hear their stories. When I heard this I thanked God because our team had been adopted into a family, we had been grafted into the Body of Christ in Uganda. John 17 had come to life and we were experiencing true community. Our Father's goodness is beyond comprehension!

5. The enemy would like us dead… Please, pray for our protection!

The first team is back in Hawaii now and the extended team is all here. The battle is not over because our enemy, who masquerades as a lion (he's got nothing on Aslan, though), is still prowling around looking to steal, murder, and destroy. While Jessie and I were on the way to pick up Gina, Jack, and Tara, a few nights ago, our driver hit a guard that was crossing the road. We were only going about 30 to 40 kilometers an hour but seeing the way the man fell I was sure it was fast enough to kill him. We yelled at the driver to stop but he wouldn't stop. The Ugandans in the vehicle, including a member of MCC (Makerere Community Church) who was with us, said that the villagers would come out and stone us if they knew we were the ones who had hit the man. It was horrible and I felt sick in my gut like I knew the guy wasn't okay or he was dead. I still have no clue what happened to him.

Our friends at MCC confirmed that if we would have stopped to help then the people in the area would have come and robbed us, beaten us to death, and then burned the vehicle. Welcome to Uganda, eh?! John Bills e-mailed me the other day and agreed that the enemy is mad and he is brutally opposed to the work our extended team is going to be doing in Uganda. Please pray for our team's safety as we move early next week to the YWAM base in Jinja to begin preparing for the Global AIDS Conference. And pray for us that we would shine the bright lights of the kingdom of God into the darkest of nights in Uganda.

The Giant Uganda Report (originally published 2/03/07)

1. Talking About Abstinence On The Radio
2. Bombo Family Gets HIV Test
3. Tag-Team Preaching To A Youth Group
4. Waking The Dead In Gulu
5. Street Evangelizing & Praying For Muslims

1. Talking About Abstinence On The Radio

The church we're partnering with in Uganda, Makerere Community Church, has just launched a Christian radio station in the heart of Kampala. 106.1 University FM was established to reach out to college students to promote sexual abstinence and articulate the message of the Gospel. Our team members are the voice of the radio station and we have recorded multiple abstinence messages and testimonies that are played daily on the airwaves across the capital. The DJ was heard to exclaim that our "accents are perfect"!!!

2. Bombo Family Gets HIV Test

Last week Maleea, Abby Cramton, and Jean-Michael presented a teaching on HIV/AIDS and shared Christ with a group of about 50 villagers in Bombo: a tiny, desperately poor area that our team has been ministering in for the past month. This is the same village where we met Kaye, the young HIV+ boy whose family we have become profoundly affected by and committed to. Today we went back to the village to check on Kaye and his family and we transported Kaye, his siblings and his grandmother Margaret to the clinic so that they could all be tested for the virus. We were able to pay for all of this for the family with funds that Jessie raised through her church and friends and family back home. The test results revealed that, contrary to the grandmother's beliefs, Kaye is the only one in his family that is positive. At the clinic Margaret was vocally thanking God as she went from person to person and wrapped her arms around them tightly.

3. Tag-Team Preaching To A Youth Group

Beginning last week we started working with a youth group in Kampala. The first week Abby Cramton and Jean-Michael taught HIV/AIDS prevention and appealed to the young people to commit their lives to Christ and all that that entails. We made lots of friends and we were able to challenge, encourage and pray for the teenagers that we met. We went again last night and Maleea and Rachel preached a gripping sermon on holiness and shared their personal stories of sexual purity and the temptations that they dealt with in their respective dating relationships. The tag-team element worked brilliantly and the intensity only kept on escalating each time they would tap the other person Invisible Children in to add on to what they were saying. The conviction of the Holy Spirit was really strong in the room that night and I believe that many students' lives were changed.

4. Waking The Dead In Gulu

This past weekend our team realized a God-breathed dream when we traveled to the war ravaged northern district. For those who haven't seen Invisible Children, the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) has been abducting children and forcing them to serve in their bloody campaign against the current government of Uganda going on 20 years now. A large number of the population have abandoned their ancestral homes and relocated to the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps for fear of the rebels. During our stay we worked in one of the camps doing HIV/AIDS education and calling the people to salvation.

In the first group that we spoke to everyone in attendance followed Rachel and dropped down on their knees in the dirt and raised their hands to invite Jesus into their hearts. Crowded together in a claustrophobic hut six HIV+ widows shared with us their heartbreaking stories of contracting AIDS through their husbands and then being left alone to care for their children who are also infected with the virus. By the time our girls finished sharing what the Lord had put on their hearts all of the widows in the room were born again. Each of our girls embraced the women and wept over them as they prayed for God to extend mercy and heal these women.

At the start of the weekend Rachel and I met a young businessman named Morris that we preached to until we ran out of verses. He couldn't deny that what we told him was true and he was on the brink of accepting Christ but in the end he decided he would only accept Christ when he felt inspired to do so. Arghhh! We were somewhat deflated as we walked back to our hostel but then we recalled John Bills encouragement that the ones that plant and water the seed are just as vital as the ones who harvest.

Furthermore, the team performed dramas, did prevention education, and shared personal stories before a small church. We met with a formerly abducted child soldier and listened to the account of his experiences with the rebels. If you can't come to Africa to see and hear about the situation with child soldiers you should go out and see Blood Diamond. This movie gives an alarming picture of what is happening in Africa right now. At the government hospital we presented the gospel message in the outdoor HIV/AIDS wing and we counseled and prayed with people who were there to get tested. Right before leaving Gulu we visited the offices of Invisible Children and let the staff know how much we were all affected by the documentary. On the way out of town we passed out fruit to some baboons that had assembled to wish us a fond farewell.

5. Street Evangelizing & Praying For Muslims

The team has been going out to evangelize in the markets, salons, bus stops, stores, and anywhere else that people gather in the downtown area. Juliana's method was to go from salon to salon talking about Jesus to every girl cutting hair as well as the people getting a haircut. She led at least eight people to Christ this way. In the hospitals Jean-Michael has been determinedly praying for a man from an Islamic family background week after week. The man's wife, a devoted Muslim, would laugh in his face every time he came to pray and she would say if your God can heal my husband then I will believe in Him. Another time we came for a hospital visit the man's brother was there. Jean-Michael informed the man that his Ugandan name was Muwanguzi and that he was there to pray for the sick. The man replied that the name Muwanguzi means "Conqueror" and that on that day Jean-Michael was living according to his namesake. He told Jean-Michael, "Today you have conquered because I am a Muslim and you are a Christian and I will allow you to pray for my brother".

We are falling in love with the people here more and more every day! And so we continue to press on in the work that the Lord has for us in Uganda. We love and miss you all!!!

News From The Pearl of Africa (originally published 1/15/07)

1. Africans Coming To Christ in the Hospital Wards
2. Meeting Villagers Dying of AIDS
3. Photography, Filming, and Dramas

1. Africans Coming to Christ in the Hospital Wards

We've been visiting the wards of the Mulago Hospital in Kampala where we have been given free access to approach the beds of any patients and share the gospel and pray for them. We were accompanied by our friends from MCC who acted as our translators as most of the patients only spoke the local dialect of Luganda. Each one of us on the team encouraged the believers there and shared the Good News of Jesus with Muslims, Catholics, and people of other faiths who are afflicted with HIV/AIDS and other diseases and illnesses. We all have testimonies from these visits but one of the best examples is Katrina's story of leading someone to Christ for the second time in her life. Once we entered the ward Katrina made a beeline for the bed of an elderly woman whom she engaged in conversation for the better part of an hour. When they reached the topic of faith the old woman told her that she was Catholic. This didn't deter Katrina who told the woman that when we enter into a relationship with Christ we are reborn. The old woman was incredulous and countered that she was too old to be born again so Katrina proceeded to tell her the story of Nicodemus who had raised this same issue with Jesus. After listening to this story the old woman said that she would love to be Born Again and committed her life to Christ right there on her hospital bed.

2. Meeting Villagers Dying of AIDS

Our team traveled to the village of Bombo earlier this week and we spent time visiting their Health Clinic which has doctors but no medicine. This impoverished village is characteristic of the majority of Africa: the place is remote and whenever there is an emergency the ambulances never show up. We visited with two middle-age sisters who are little by little dying of AIDS who described the suffering of their day-to-day living as they wait for the end. The older sister unceremoniously opened her shirt to show us a long infected gash across her midsection where she had had her appendix removed years before; the wound had never fully healed. Juliana was given a little broken piece of God's heart for these two sisters and asked if she could share with the women about how God had changed her life. As mascara streamed down her face she told her story of inviting Jesus to come and live inside of her and how He had utterly healed and restored her life.

While the women politely listened to Juliana my focus was pulled to a small boy and a woman who had inconspicuously approached our group and sat down off to my right side. The boy appeared to be about four or five but the woman he was with explained through Anne, one of our Ugandan ministry partners that, unbelievably, he is actually nine years old. She revealed that Kaye and his two siblings had contracted HIV from their parents who passed away and now she is looking after Kaye and his siblings together with four other children who are also HIV positive. All I could do was smile at Kaye and squeeze his hand as I gazed steadily at his sweet face spotted with lesions. Jessie came over to where we were sitting and as she held this frail boy on her lap she was undone and cried softly. I just kept tickling him and attempted to conceal the tears welling in my eyes behind a warm grin. We're never really prepared to know how to respond when coming face-to-face with a child who doesn't have long for this earth. Jessie and I were both shattered as we considered the fate of this boy and his remaining family. After Anne led the boy's caretaker to the Lord the three of us laid hands on Kaye and asked God to heal him. We're hoping to see Kaye again.

3. Photography, Filming, and Dramas

At the Uganda Jesus Village our team has been painting and cleaning a new wing for the Gulu orphans to move into. While half the team paints the others teach the children worship songs and tell them Bible stories. For Primetime, the weekly campus gathering, Jean-Michael and Katrina were the MCs along with our fearless African guide and cultural relations expert Daniel. Abby Jaillet gave spoke on the topic of sexual abstinence and shared out of her own experience. The whole team performed a Passion skit to a Jars of Clay song which was a big hit with the university crowd. This week we will begin working with an HIV/AIDS care facility in Kampala that is one of the best in the nation. We are also going to be teaching HIV/AIDS prevention in Bombo beginning tomorrow. Furthermore, our team is taking pictures and filming to support a photography exhibit of a local Christian artist with a focus on bringing awareness to the plight of street children affected by HIV/AIDS. There are many more exciting things that God is brewing for our team and we will continue to keep you abreast of our plans. Please continue interceding for our team!

Second Uganda Update (originally published 1/05/07)

1. African Name Giving Ceremony
2. Witch Doctor Comes To Christ
3. Jean-Michael Preaches With Pastor Ssempa
4. The Best New Years Eve Ever!!!
5. Working with Invisible Children

1. African Name Giving Ceremony

Our team has been absorbed into Makerere Community Church (MCC), a vibrant community of college students in Kampala. We live at the MCC ministries Global Center with their interns, all in their 20's, who are now our family. We're cooking together, eating meals together (Jessie and Maleea both serve up some mean African cuisine), fasting together, hand-washing our clothes together, getting our hair braided together (Juliana was the first one from our team), praying together, and it looks a lot like Acts Chapter 4. We had a ceremony last week where they gave us each African names. My Ugandan name is Komagum, which means fortunate. Each week we're doing Prime Time @ the Pool, an outreach to Makerere University with a focus on evangelism and HIV/AIDS prevention that includes dramas, dancing, preaching, and personal testimonies. Tomorrow night for our team's unveiling we will be performing a dance and an AIDS drama. We are already assisting with the Primetimer, a Christian newspaper on abstinence, HIV/AIDS, and Christianity that is distributed on the university campuses of Kampala. We are editing, writing articles, and poems that will be included in next month's edition.

2. Witch Doctor Comes To Christ

Last week our team got a wake up call to the tangible reality of spiritual warfare in Africa. We were at our first all-night prayer gathering and a young man named Charles, a sorcerer/witch doctor, showed up. Around 3 a.m. Pastor Martin was anointing everyone with oil and praying for them and when he got to Charles things began to happen that most of us had only seen before in films. Abby Cramton and Rachel and I were the diehards from our team still awake. We interceded fervently for the next few hours and it wasn't until 7 a.m. that this young man was free of all of the spirits that were inside of him. Pastor Ssempa then led the young man in a prayer to commit his life to Christ.

3. Jean-Michael Preaches With Pastor Ssempa

Jean-Michael has been easily assimilated into the Ugandan culture. He is picking up the local language and customs with relish and this past Sunday he was invited by Pastor Martin Ssempa to preach the Word alongside him, it was mostly in English. Our team performed one of the dramas in our repertoire and the people just sat there transfixed by it. The students are all incredibly comfortable in front of a crowd and we have really talented performers on our team. After the service the students jumped right in to prayer ministry and aggressively confronted the enemy that had many people bound in witchcraft and the occult. Abby Jaillet got on the ground next to one of the women that was being delivered and began to boldly proclaim scriptures that speak of God's authority. And to think that last month in Makapala the girls were afraid of going to the bathroom in the dark. With all these victories I cautioned the team to remember the words of Jesus in Luke 10:20: "Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." On that day we didn't get back from church until after 5 p.m. Our team came to the conclusion that this was the longest church service in the history of the world but the hours had just flown by.

4. The Best New Years Eve Ever!!!

We all agreed that this New Years Eve was the best we have ever had! We celebrated with another all-night prayer meeting where we lit off illegal (at least in America) Chinese fireworks. And we joined over a hundred African youth in abandoned worship before the Lord around a bonfire of pornographic newspapers that the church was burning as a symbol of their commitment to sexual purity in Uganda. The dancing migrated into the prayer center which is essentially a large wooden shack where we caused the floorboards to shake as we moved to the reggae music, which is very popular in Uganda. We were reminded of the dance parties we used to have at Makapala but I'm pretty sure the Africans have more endurance. That night was just a small taste of the event that awaits us in eternity.

5. Working With Invisible Children

We spent our first morning visiting Uganda Jesus Village, which is a children's home in Kampala that was set up to take care of the most desperate of the children from Gulu who have been displaced by the war. More than 90% of these children have lost both of their parents to AIDS, other diseases, and the war. The children's home was only able to take 51 orphans from a refugee camp covering only 1 square kilometer in dimension that is, unbelievably, home to over 60,000 people. As a way to tell their stories and raise awareness of the atrocities still occurring in the North these children have formed the Gulu Children's Choir. They sang their songs, danced their tribal dances, and finished by sharing their testimonies. Our hearts were ripped. But the bright side is here are children who were once doomed and now they are being fed, and clothed and instructed in the ways of God and Jesus is healing them. We are going to be fixing up a new wing of the home, performing our dramas, and doing VBS crafts and Bible stories (thanks to Katrina) with the children from Gulu twice a week.

More news will be coming soon! Pray that God opens the doors for us to go into the hospitals and do home visits with those suffering from HIV/AIDS. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support!

Greetings from Uganda (originally published 12/26/06)

We arrived in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, on Christmas morning. Our team lost two of our bags in transit so like a family would do we have been sharing clothes and other things. The whole process of reporting the missing bags took more than an hour of standing in line in the stifling heat at the Entebbe airport. Not fun! Especially when most of our team had only slept a few hours in the past two days of air travel. Once outside two of our girls almost got arrested for chasing monkeys on the airport premises. We're still not sure that it's illegal to chase monkeys and it seems that the police officer was just out to try and get some money from us.

We went straight to Makerere Community Church where our contact Martin Ssempa is the pastor. The service was halfway over by the time we got there and yet we still didn't leave until 2 pm. Ugandans sure know how to worship!!! After church some of the young leaders from the church took us to lunch. Praise God because no one on our team has had any physical complications from the food!

We made it to our hostel at 4 pm and we were so exhausted that we only spent 5 minutes opening presents and then we crashed until 7 am this morning. Today we are moving to the Makerere Community Church ministry center where we will be staying for the rest of our time in Kampala. The cost of living at the ministry center is very inexpensive and we have a kitchen there where we can cook our own meals. So far it looks like our ministry will be on teaching HIV/AIDS prevention at Makerere University, leading Bible studies with students, evangelizing on campus, doing home visits with those who have HIV/AIDS, and serving the church outreaches using our gifts in drama, media, filmmaking, writing, speaking, etc.

Please pray that our missing bags will get here tomorrow. Pray that God will use to minister and love on the people of Uganda in the name of Jesus. We love and miss you all and wish everyone a Happy Boxing Day!

We leave for Uganda tonight! (originally published 12/22/06)

And we're off! We leave tonight to go to Uganda for six months!!! I'm a little freaked out but overall super excited to get there and get to work! We are going to be working for two months in Kampala with Pastor Martin Ssempa. I pulled this information off of www.purposedriven.com: "Martin and Tracey Ssempa are the pioneers of Makerere Community Church, a faith-based organization specifically working in AIDS prevention with university students. Since 1988, the Ssempa's have effectively used community drama, school rallies, radio, and television as means of communicating behavioral change to youth in Uganda. They run a youth drop-in center called 'The White House' and a weekly campus rally – 'PrimeTime @ the Pool' – serving more than 4,000 college students every week." Martin will also be taking us into hospitals as well as rural villages to minister to orphans and others suffering from HIV/AIDS. Please keep our team in your prayers that God would direct our every step and that He would use us mightily to build His kingdom!