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.
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