Grace is sufficient for God’s power to be made perfect in our weakness but obedience

At the beginning of each week, before we start seminars or series of teachings, we all pray and hear from God what he wants us to teach, which teaching opportunities he wants us to take and share in ect. Then we all come back together and share what God spoke to us. This week, we heard that we were not suppose to minister in a church (that we had plans with), but we were to continue to pour into the boys here around our house, the women’s vocational school, and a village a few hours away.

BOYS: Forgiveness 

We prayed and asked God what to teach the boys and we all came to a unanimous answer when we came back together that we were suppose to teach how to study the bible using the book of Philemon. Yes, Philemon is a book in the bible, and if you look hard you can find it some place in the New Testament just after Titus and before Hebrews. Its there, I promise! When you read it, you may think, what is so life changing and powerful about this book? But each verse in the bible is God breathe, profitable for teaching…and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). Each verse is living and active sharper than any two edged sword. It penetrates to the heart (Heb 4:12). We taught this series over 4 days time and on Friday, we finished. The last day is learning how to apply scriptures to our lives; we take what we have learned, and do what the scriptures says (James 1:22-25). The message God gave us all to give to the boys was forgiveness and reconciliation. So on the day we teach application, after teaching the practical part, we always have a bit of a “sermon”. Friday night we had a great ministry time after teaching about forgiveness. God was really working in the hearts of the boys. We asked them to write their hurts and wrongs done to them on a piece of paper and give it over to God by burning it in the fire. As they did this and we prayed for them, bondage broke off them and they just began to weep and weep as God ministered to their spirit.

One boy asked that we talk with him because he can’t do this alone. So me and two other girls stepped outside with him. We talked with him for about an hour trying to get him to let go of his hurt and allow God to come and minister to him. He finally spoke and said that nine years ago, when the war was going on (when he was about 8) his uncle organized people to come and kill his parents. He watched as they hacked them to pieces in their hut and then had to stay there all night with them so he would not be killed as well. He then had to hide in the bush for two years to save his life. He has so much hurt, trauma, and unforgiveness toward his uncle (which is understandable). (He and his other brothers still have to live with his uncle today). This is the situation that God wanted to give him freedom in. By the end of talking to him, he finally made the decision to let go of his hurt and hatred toward his uncle and let God begin healing his heart. We all proclaimed freedom so loud that all the neighbors heard and of course after all this ministry time, we had a great celebration of what God has done.

WOMEN’S VOCATIONAL SCHOOL: Treasure of Truth

For the women, God gave me a clear word and a vision to speak about the bible. Not teach FROM the bible, but about the bible. He showed me how they are poor but have a great treasure in their hands that could change their way of life. They however don’t realize the value that it has and discard it as trash. After God told me this, I went to talk to my leader and she brought up the same thing God told me. She felt we were suppose to teach them the value of the bible. So it was confirmed. God told her the exact same thing as he told me (without previously discussing it before). So day 1 I taught on the Canon (how the books of the bible were written and put in the bible). This whole time through Day 1 and just before we taught on Day 2 we were not understanding fully why were were teaching these things. We could be teaching from the bible and giving them a good truth nugget to chew on. But we are teaching women who can’t even read, about the canon. Most Americans don’t know anything about the canon. But we remained faithful to what God told us knowing that he commanded to teach on this. So as we walked to the ministry, we were praying that God would show us and be faithful to speak through us. So day 2 another woman taught on the persecutions people went through to protect, translate, and put the bible in the hands of the people today. Before she taught, we saw more confirmation from God that we were teaching the right thing. The vision that I had days before, I saw actually happen in the class room before we taught. We both felt a powerful confirmation from God and heard him speak to us about what was on his heart.  We left that day very passionate about the message God gave us to share. Day 3 we taught on the value of the bible. This was a convicting message that was on God’s heart for us to give. It was the conviction that they have a treasure in their hands and they consider it rubbish. I won’t go into detail about this message but God really spoke. We walked to the ministry that morning and I said, “You know, I know what God put on my heart to share, and I have jotted them down a bit, but I really don’t know what I am going to say today.” We had no idea what the day was going to look like but I was faithful to be God’s mouth piece and we prayed the whole way as we walked there. As I spoke, I didn’t even look at my notes, I just shared (but at the end of the message looked at them and I had shared everything God had given me just out of order. I KNOW God was speaking through me and people were very convicted. God ministered to their spirits as well and it was a sobering, but great time. They were not only convicted, but repented, and were empowered to fix the problem they saw in their hearts. I encouraged them that even though they can not read, there are so many people around them that can that they can ask them to read to them and together have bible readings. If they don’t have a bible, there are so many people around them that do have bibles that they can borrow. So at the end of these teachings as well, we saw God’s faithfulness to command a message to be taught, give us every word we were suppose to share, to confirm 3 times that we were clearly on the right path. And then God was faithful to let his word penetrate into their hearts.

I wish I could share everything that God is doing and all the details, but they are too great. It humbles me to see how much God is working here and how he is using me and my team for his good work. He uses us when we submit ourselves to him, lay down our rights, and obey him. We step out in faith to obey what he says even though we are so weak and feel inadequate. But when we step out in faith, he meets us with his Holy Spirit that qualifies us and makes us adequate and his power is made perfect in our weakness through his grace (2 Chr 12:9). And through that, he does a great work in these people through us.

NEXT WEEK:

Determining what we are going to do this next week has been very complicated and we feel like we were just the ball in a tennis match but we have decided to leave Gulu and go to Kampala Wednesday morning. From there, we will do a seminar in a church and after that, we have NO IDEA. God has told us to step out in faith not knowing where we will be.

ANSWERED PRAYERS:

• Health in the team has improved. Everybody seems to be feeling better. Even the one with Malaria said he is feeling better today.
• As far a spiritual attacks, I think everybody has been receiving strength from God and our spirits have been raised. The circumstances still remain but it does not effect our ministry or spirits
• I myself no longer feel apathetic and I think the whole team is feeling recharged and ready to finish the remainder of ministry time strong (2 weeks left).
• As you can see, God has answered the prayer for him to stir in the hearts of the people we have been ministering. God is doing a great work.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• We really really need to continue to hear God’s voice in directing us where we should go. We have had a complicated issue arise that I may discuss in my next letter (but don’t have time or space to discuss now). Please pray for wisdom, discernment, and direction as to what we should do with our finances, where we should go after going to Kampala, and how to resolve this issue, and what we should do for ministry the remainder of our time, and if we should join with the second outreach team for the remainder of the time.
• Continue to pray for grace for us all and for God to refresh us all, and that we would have the strength to walk with God blindly but in faith where ever he is taking us. 

Ups and Downs

THIS WEEK IN SEMINARS:

This week has been characterized by some ups and downs. This week we had two seminars so we split our team up so that two went and taught bible overview in the evening at one church, and another team member and I went to another church in the morning. We taught at the same church that we had ministered at the previous Sunday. (This church is partnered with the ministry that has the women’s vocational school.) We prayed and decided to teach them 4 steps in how to study the bible. We did this by teaching through the book of 2 Timothy.

The first day was jumbled because of miscommunication and at the last minute, the teaching had to be condensed from three hours to one hour. By the end of the teaching, it was clear the people did not seem to hear or understand a word of it (which many factors played into that that were out of our control). It was initially discouraging but we kept hope. The second day, I taught the first two steps. It was the toughest class I ever had. They didn’t seem to grasp any concept no matter how simple I made it or how many ways I attempted to explain or teach it. By the end of the teaching, I was so discouraged that these ladies couldn’t learn (which I knew was a lie). I had begun to lose hope that they would understand anything. The whole experience was frustrating and discouraging but we continued to pray that God would be their teacher and give us the grace and and patience to teach. The next day, they really began to think for themselves and grasp the steps and understand the book more. The fourth day, I taught again. I was still so scared and tired. By this point, we had been ministering for two weeks straight without a day off, waking up at 6:30 and ministering, teaching, or preparing until about 10 pm (not good for an introvert). I was tired, weary, did not have much hope, and I didn’t feel prepared for the teaching. I felt attacked by the enemy who was wearing down my confidence. I prayed knowing that God would give me grace and strength to give the teaching and speak through me if I stepped out in obedience to him. I was actually crying just before I gave my teaching and was even trying to push back my tears as I began; but as I began to teach, God gave me strength. My spirits lifted and I felt God teaching through me and helping me. I began to teach very lively and even have good humor and peace as I taught. God was faithful to me as I was faithful and obedient to him. By the end of the teaching, I really began to see that the ladies really grasped the concepts as well as the teaching that we brought to them through the book.

By the end, they said these things to me in class:

“Before, I didn’t know how to study the bible. I didn’t understand the bible. I just waited for the pastor to tell me what it says. But now, I have the knowledge to study it for myself. Now I can go and teach others what I know. I am going to start with my family. I am going to begin having bible study with my family and teach them these steps as well as study the books in the bible.”

Another woman said:

“For me, I have not learned how to read. But I have crammed all this knowledge in my head so I am going to teach my children these steps so they can study with me. They can read and together we can study the bible for ourselves now there is nothing stopping me from understanding what the bible says.”

It was so rewarding to see that they understood how to study the bible for themselves and realize that it is not such a mystery or locked to them. They now have a weapon in their hands that they know how to use.

PREACHING

I also preached on Sunday. This was a huge step for me because that was what I feared greatest. Preaching here is much different from teaching. Preaching here (in presentation) looks like those faith healers or prosperity gospel people. They get so excited they sweat and spit a lot. They shout “Amen! Hallelujah! Praise God! God is Good, Oh, King of glory!” That kind of thing. I didn’t want to preach because I am so timid and shy, not loud, or expressive like that. But I knew that God was calling me to it this week so I was obedient to it and did my best to get really really excited (minus the spitting).

THIS NEXT WEEK WE HAVE 3 SEMINARS:

• Two people will go to a village Wed-Fri and teach church leaders
• We will continue our teachings with the boys here and teach them inductive bible study method through a book of the bible.
• We will continue to teach in the women’s vocational school Wed-Fri. We have taught them how to study the bible and use the weapon that they have but God has put it on our hearts to teach them the value and treasure of the bible. With this, we are going to teach them church history/canonicity of the bible or how they got the bible, what it went through to get into their hands, and it’s power today to transform.

ANSWERED PRAYERS:

The power is back on!!! We are so excited about this. It is still Africa, so it seems to be turned off city wide more than it is turned on, but it is actually working at our house when the government chooses to give it to us.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• Pray against weariness/apathy:

To be honest, this last week was really hard for me spiritually. I know that it was tiring because we hadn’t had a day off to rest, but I think I am being attacked spiritually as well. The enemy has been attacking my confidence in God and myself. Teaching is a very vulnerable place to be because it is so far out of my comfort zone that I have to force myself to go. When I am attacked there in that place, any insult, or lie can go very deep. I keep standing up to fight against these attacks but when I do, and seem to overcome, another one seems to come in from another angle. I am finding myself growing apathetic and weary. It has been a very long year and coming here, I didn’t feel I had the strength to teach at all. God has carried me a long way, but I need prayer to have the strength to continue to overcome. I know that God will not leave me hanging but will continue to carry me the rest of the way (4 more weeks). But I would really appreciate your prayers in this.

• Pray for health: Everybody on the team is feeling sick. One with a relapse of malaria, one has lost their voice completely, one with dizziness and fatigue, and then the other two are sick as well.
• Pray for our team, there has been a lot of spiritual attacks as well. Pray that we will have the strength to finish and continue to fight against these attacks.
• Pray for these next seminars that God would continue to stir in the hearts of the people and continue to build on this foundation we have been laying

GOD DOES NOT CALL THE QUALIFIED, HE QUALIFIES THE CALLED

We came to Gulu a week earlier than we planned because previous plans in another town fell through. We were not sure what God had planned or why he changed our plans. However, as the week began to unfold, we realized God had bigger plans to work in the hearts of the people here when we had no plans at all. As we began the week here, we all prayed about what to do, and we all received the same word from God on what to do, so we did it.

BOYS BIBLE STUDY
First, I should tell you that in Gulu, we stay in a house and in our house about 8 teenage boys live with us. They lost their parents in the genocide and some are even former soldiers. These boys have gone through so much hardships, but i have never seen a group so hungry for God. Before and after school, they are in our house talking about God, and asking questions about the bible. Because of their hunger, we decided to have bible study every night and disciple them. This week we traced God's plan of redemption from creation and the fall, to Jesus' crucifixion and second coming. The last night, we talked of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Second coming. At the end, we gave the invitation to pray with anybody who would like to receive the Holy Spirit or commit their lives to God. Nine out of Ten people in the bible study came forward because of deep conviction. It brings me to tears because of how their hunger for God blesses me. When I learned that we were "baptizing in the Holy Spirit" I was nervous. I didn't know we were doing that that night. I was thinking, "I don't know how to do this"and I felt very inadequate to "baptize somebody in the Holy Spirit". So, I just began to pray. It was the most pathetic prayer something like, "God... I pray for... What is your name?... God i pray for Feona that your Holy Spirit would come upon her". God quickly taught me that it is not about me but God will do through me when I am obedient. I felt unqualified and inadequate but i learned that God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called. When I began to pray my seemingly insignificant pathetic prayer, God began to move on her and broke bondage off of her. This woman became a christian just the day before. She told one of my team members while she was doing laundry, that she wanted to be born again. When asked why, she said, "I just love Jesus so much". She was very convicted and realized she needed to give her life to God. So God ministered to her, not because I am great at praying and "calling down fire", but because I was obedient and God chose to use me to work. All of these boys were ministered to by God and it was very encouraging to see God restore, and renew these boys that are so passionate for God. 


WOMEN'S VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

Second, we have been teaching in a womans vocational school. The first day, we did bible overview of the plan of redemption. The second day, I taught on the nature and character of God and the third day, a team member taught on their identity in God. At the end of our 3 day teaching, these women were so convicted and ministered to of their value and worth even though they have gone through so much because of the war as well. These women were spiritually oppressed and when we prayed for them, this oppression broke in such a tangible and obvious way. 


I don't tell you these stories in pride that it was anything that we did except obey God. None of us feel adequate or qualified, but we know that God qualifies the called. We learn every day as we teach and preach that it is not about us, and our teaching skills but God's power to take our words (that we speak in obedience) and take them to penetrate people's hearts. 


PREACHING

After teaching in the women's vocational school, we were invited to the church to teach the bible class before preaching (like sunday school). I decided to teach first. I had God put a message on my heart and it was clear it was from God so i prepared and taught on what it means to be adopted by God. The same passage God put on my heart, he put on another team member's heart to preach. As i was obedient to share my half, the other person brought the other half of the message that God wanted to bring to these people. Again, we saw God move in the hearts of the people and a deep conviction fell on some, and others were overwhelmed with God's love and mercy.




It is clear that God is moving in these people and he canceled our previous plans in another town for a reason. I have learned that God's plans are bigger than my plans and it doesn't matter how qualified I feel to do his work it is the fact that I am obedient to God and live by his Spirit.

Next Week
Next week, we at least have two seminars. These will be 3 hours long for 4 days. We also would like to continue our bible studies with the boys. We will break up into two teams to juggle this so I will be continuing to teach where the women's vocational school is and where we went to church and taught. We will teach how to study the bible and teach it using the book of 2 Timothy. I am excited for what God has planned for this week.

Answered Prayers
The team member who had malaria recovered very quickly and even had mild symptoms. This we praise God for because it can be a serious and terrible sickness.

Prayer Requests

• Our power is still not turned on which makes life a bit more complicated. 
• Pray for these upcoming seminars, for unity in the team, for strength to serve, and God would continue to stir in the hearts of the people.

Pader

Pader was so amazing. First, thing I have to tell you is we traveled with 28 people on a 9 passenger taxi that was falling apart. It took 5.5 hours to travel there because the roads were so washed out and muddy. Many times I thought the car was going to get stuck or fall apart. When we got to Pader, we had a late lunch at about 5:30 pm. But sense dinner was also normally at  6:30, we had 2 feasts back to back. We ate as much as we could eat and then had to eat another HUGE meal. We were in pain by the end. It is cultural to finish ALL the food put before you but they cook for about 15 people when we only have 5 people. (We were in this situation many times with back to back meals and had to stuff our selves with a 6 course meal every meal.

MINISTRY

Now about the ministry. We had a 5 day seminar. 4 days we taught the inductive method and on the 5^th day we taught bible over view. The inductive method teaches them how to study the bible and bible overview shows God’s plan for redemption from creation to Jesus’ second coming. We taught the method through the book of Jonah and the last day (day to teach application) we taught how they should forgive. The Assyrians (people of Nineveh) did very similar things to the Israelites that the LRA has done to them so they could identify well with Jonah. So we challenged them to forgive the LRA for torturing their land and people. It was a very powerful service that even brought me (who rarely cries) to tears because I was seeing God move in these people’s lives. We learned more about what the LRA had done (even in that very town). They would cook children’s parents alive and make them watch. They are never aloud to look away or cry. Then they would force them to eat their flesh. It is really disturbing what these people have been through and hearing their stories but God is doing a greater work there and it is evident.

When I was working so closely with this church, I felt like I was living in the Acts church of the bible. Christianity there is relatively new to Northern Uganda so those who are “born again” are so passionate for God. They don’t have a traditional church to follow their example from, they just have the church in Acts to model their new churches after. It is so refreshing and encouraging to see.

HUT-TO-HUT EVANGELISM

In the morning everyday we would go do hut to hut evangelism. Evangelism here is very straight forward, we invite ourselves in, say, “I am here to tell you about Jesus, have you heard of him.” And the ones I had talked to said, “I have heard of Jesus but I don’t know anything about him”. Then we share, and they usually are eager to accept the free gift of salvation. One morning, we went out, we came to a hut and began speaking to a lady, she said that she needed prayer for some family issues and she had a lot of confusion as well. We shared Jesus with her and she decided to give her life to God. Then at the end (and after praying for her), a younger man came in, we tried to talk to him also about God but he was clear he did not want us Christians there and he did not want us talking to him about God. Our time was up so after some chatting we left. Later that day, we talked with the other girl who had gone out for evangelism. She told us how she spoke to a young man who needed prayer for his mother who was a drunk and mistreated the family. She told him about Jesus but he at first did not want anything to do with it. He was a Mormon and did not believe in heaven, hell, or anything spiritual. Eventually, he got saved too after a long conversation. As we talked with this girl, we found out it was the same guy that we had talked to in the hut who came later. So we saw how God was pursuing him (his name is Chris). And his mother who he was worried about and needed prayer for, was the lady who me an another girl had talked to and gave her life to Christ. So this family God saved on the same day, but in such a divine way. When we did the bible overview seminar, nobody showed up but then Chris came, and we decided to start and do it just for him and preach our hearts out. Unfortunately, he left early and did not hear the whole message. Pray for him that God continues to pursue him.

HEALING

One other thing that was really cool was a healing. On the first day of evangelism, we met this little 6 girl who was on a mat outside. She was drooling all over herself and did not have the strength almost even to sit up or keep her eyes open. She was SO sick. One of the Ugandan team members prayed for her and later that evening, we saw the little girl running and playing and all better again. It was really such a blessing to see because we know it was a God Story.

PADER GIRLS ACADEMY

One thing that really broke my heart was the Pader girls academy. It is a school with hundreds of young girls (even 12 years) who had been raped by the LRA and now have 1-5 children because of it. They give them education and they have services to pray. The thing that was sad was they don’t have any kind of discipleship for the girls. If you asked them, “What is salvation or eternal life” they would not be able to tell you. This is a very common problem in all of Africa. I had the honor to go to church service with about 300 of these girls. There was one girl introduced to the group who had been in the bush for 11 years with the LRA and just returned and came to the school 2 days ago. This school broke my heart because even though they don’t know much about God, they love God and Jesus and when you hear them pray, it sound like they are doing battle against the powers of hell. And when you look at their faces, when they worship, you can tell they really have a love for God. It broke my heart that they don’t have discipleship.

We had planned to go to Lira for a week but those connections fell through so we are back in Gulu. We are still praying about what to do this week sense we did not have anything planned for this week in Gulu. However, we will pray about what to do and make sure we keep busy.

ANSWERED PRAYERS

My teachings went really well which I know was the power of God. I became known in the town as the Professor. I was getting affirmed the entire time I stayed there. I know it was God because I was so unprepared, so tired, and actually in tears just before teaching.

PRAY REQUESTS

• One of our team members has gotten Malaria so pray he recovers quickly.
• Pray for the electricity to be turned on at our house. There is some wire that is down or some unknown reason why the power is not on AT ALL. Pray that gets fixed, the electricity company does not want to come out to fix it and we don’t have money to hire an electrician.
• If you would like to donate to our team, it is never too late, we are on a very tight budget so those from Uganda could go on out reach. Every little bit of money would help us.