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!