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Before we left for outreach we had pictured the bus ride to Kenya as being the biggest hurdle.  It was a stretch, but God never puts more on you than you can handle.  After getting to the base in Kenya we realized that the biggest hurdle hadn’t been the bus ride alone, but it had been the past three weeks in Uganda.  We had gone into some dark places.  2 Corinthians 10:3-4 says that, “though we walk in the flesh, we don’t war in the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds.”  Although we had gotten physical rest that was much needed, we had been through a spiritual battle.  It was as though our team was weak from battle.  We were drained spiritually and emotionally.  But God knew that.  He knew just what we needed.  It had seemed to us that our holiday was over and that resting time was over and it was time to jump back into battle.  But God is FAITHFUL!!! What we didn’t know was that He had brought us into our next place of rest… rest for our spirit. 

TO BE CONTINUED… TOO MANY STORIES…NOT ENOUGH INTERNET TIME…

Many of you know that Jessica has had a food allergy that prevents her from eating anything with gluten in it.  This includes all types of breads, cereals, crackers, and anything with flour in it.  It causes her to have severe lethargy, dizziness and headaches.  This has been a struggle for her for the past year and specifically during outreach because our food selection is sometimes unavoidable and it is hard for her to get the proper nutrition that she needs.  And just on a personal level she had been unable to eat those really enjoyable and tasty things. 

When we came to Kenya it really started to become a problem because so much of our diet came from bread.  One night Jessica really felt led to ask a staff member Rosemary to pray with her.  We were scheduled to have a team meeting when Jessica came in and asked for a huge handful of muesli.  She told us that she and Rosemary had had a great time of prayer and that she was believing in faith that she was healed!  We rejoiced with her and proclaimed healing in Jesus name.   She went to bed with no symptoms.

The next few days she slowly introduced gluten back into her diet with no negative effects!  It only took a day or two for her to completely silence the enemy’s lies that maybe the symptoms might reappear.  While visiting a church one afternoon Jessica and Cheryl were sitting together when Jessica felt that she should yell out “I AM HEALED!!!”  After a few moments of processing what that was going to look like she yelled it at the top of her lungs and began crying a giving praise to God!  Meanwhile one of the church members came over in bewilderment and Cheryl looked at him and proclaimed “SHE”S HEALED!” Afterwards Cheryl told her that she felt like Satan was whispering doubt into her ear, and when she yelled out  it was as if the power of her words drop kicked him across the fields and over the mountain. That was August 8^th and she hasn’t had one symptom since. 

WE WANT TO THANK GOD FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS, FOR TAKING THE STRIPES ACROSS HIS BACK THAT WE COULD BE HEALED.  HE COULD HAVE STOPPED THEM, BUT HE BORE OUR PAIN SO THAT WE WOULDN’T HAVE TO.  HE IS SUCH A GOOD GOD AND SO WORTHY TO BE PRAISED.  REJOICE WITH US AND GIVE HIME PRAISE TODAY FOR HIS AWESOME WONDERS!!!

God is so faithful!  Coming out of the ministry time in Uganda our team was in need of some restoration.  We had been going strong for 18 days and we had begun to feel the effects.  Everyone had recovered from the bout of sickness, but we needed some rest.  Thankfully we had a few days in the city of Kampala for a mid-outreach holiday.  We stayed at a guesthouse that had nice beds and our showers and toilets were in our rooms which was a luxury in itself.  The first thing we did was find a place to do our laundry since everything smelt like the fishiness of Lambu.  We also found an amazing restaurant where we were able to get a 3 course meal, including a steak filet, for 9,900 Ugandan Shilling which is equal to around 6 USD.  We got to use the internet, do a bit of craft market shopping, saw the new Batman movie and of course slept in.  The city was quite chaotic, somewhat like downtown New York without traffic lights.  We all got to experience riding on the motorcycle taxis called boda-bodas.  There are probably at least a thousand of them within the city and they zoom in and out of the “normal” traffic which isn’t normal at all.  At one point Bethany was on a boda that got rear ended by another taxi, this is a normal event being that traffic is in the most literal sense “bumper to bumper.”   With that said one thing we observed was that there wasn’t any road rage, this was hard to believe with the craziness that went on in the streets.  All in all it was a break that was needed before we made the long journey from Uganda to Kenya.

God knows what we need when we need it and how much we can take way more than we do.  The team all agrees that God let us be in Lambu a certain amount of time, and just when we thought that we would be stuck there forever… our taxi showed up.  Then we all were so happy to be on holiday, but everything we owned smelled like fish.  God provided a laundry place where we could leave our clothes and have them washed for nearly nothing.  Bam! – Clean clothes!  Thank you Jesus!  So we knew that God would be faithful in bringing us to our next destination.  We also knew that it was going to take 14 hrs on a bus to get there…  The bus that was suppose to leave at 1 o’clock to take us to Kenya had a mechanical problem, so another bus was sent around 2 to pick us up.  This bus was a bit less in quality.  It was only suppose to take us about 3 hrs to reach the Keya border but we had to stop twice due to the bus running out of gas and a minor part malfunction. We arrived at the border at 7.  A bigger bus was supposed to be waiting for us when we got there, but it wasn’t so we all piled back into the small cold bus and proceeded on.  We were often stopped and woken up randomly by large men with large guns asking to see our passports.  Everyone was about to give up on the bigger nicer bus when around midnight we pulled over and found the bigger nicer bus waiting for us!  Thank you Jesus!  Just in time!  After a crazy bumpy night we arrived in Nairobi at 8 am, four hours later than scheduled.  There is a phrase we have learned since being in Africa for over a month… TIA (This Is Africa)… and we love it!

After leaving Pastor Timothy’s we met up with our next contact.   Brent and Virginia Earwicker are a young couple in their 20’s who have been working with the islands of Lake Victoria for the past 2 years. We were able to stay at their house one night in Entebbe before heading out to the islands the next morning. Out first stop on the lake was Busse Island where we set up tents at Osanidde orphanage. There are 160 children at the orphanage and every one of them is amazing. These children get up every morning at 5:30am to do their own chapel service of worship and prayer. It was such an encouragement seeing these kids so full of God’s love. From there we would travel during the day out to other surrounding islands to preach and teach. We also were able to preach Sundays at the churches on Busse Island as well.

After a week spent at Osanidde we packed up and spent a day and night traveling to another main island called Lambu. Our experience at Lambu was much different than the week before. After hours and hours of ferries and sardine style packed taxis we arrived to the place we would be staying. It’s hard to describe what we found but here it goes… millions of minnow sized silverfish where caught every morning and then scattered on nets all along the shore. The smell was probable one of the most unpleasant smells you could think of and it was everywhere. Our ministry at Lambu was so diverse. We did door to door evangelism, shared with many schools, had church conferences and we also had 3 open air evangelism nights. Over all we were able to share the Word of God with so many people while we were there. Also while we were there we had a bit of sickness. It must have been something in the food because in one day all but one of our teammates were throwing up or having major stomach issues. Despite being in the worst place possible to be sick the team pulled through in a couple of days.

The people of Uganda are so eager and willing to receive salvation. Just with one on one evangelism about 20 people committed their lives to Jesus Christ, and many more came to know Him during the open air nights as well as at the schools. We found that there is such a great need for discipleship.

Our experience in Uganda has been so beneficial. We were able to see Western missionaries in the field and work alongside them and their ministry. We were stretched in our views of how we approach evangelism and one on one witnessing. And we learned to persevere and overcome some really tough situations. God has been so faithful to our team, anytime we have stepped out; He has been there to meet us more than halfway. We are definitely learning to trust in Him and to not lean on our own understanding.

We apologize for the lack of pictures. The computers we have access to are to the best and when the plug anything into them it makes it almost impossible to use. So below are a few links to some pics that were able to be uploaded.

We love you all and thank you so much for your prayer and support! Much love and many blessings! - The Africa Team

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