Starts with a spark...

It only takes a spark of “hope” to ignite a flame of passion. Today our team was blessed with a boat ride across Lake Victoria and then a boda boda ride (motorcycle) up to Bethany Village. Bethany Village is the orphanage started by African Renewal Ministries (ARMS-a ministry of Gaba Community Church).

This part of our trip is always a blessing to me as I’m reminded of what can happen when ministries put their egos and competitive natures aside, partner together, for the greater-good for the life of orphans and the glory of the Lord!

Seeing the smiles of the children running around during a class break, eating their morning poo shoo (porridge), laughing and playing tag, is such a blessed reminder of what “childhood” should be. It provides a vision of hope and possibilities for the ministry God has for Bweya Village/ Mercy orphanage.

After we finished our time at Bethany, we returned to the guest house for lunch and visited Wentz Medical Clinic, another ministry of ARMS. They provide such an amazing outreach to the community. It is there we delivered 27 mosquito nets for distribution. Dr Martin, the physician at Wentz, as well as an ekissa board member, will provide a net for a child as they present to the medical clinic and receive a diagnosis of Malaria. There was a Canadian nurse volunteering at Wentz for 2 weeks. She mentioned that all she had seen was individuals with Malaria. This nurse shared she has volunteered in several locations in Africa and that Uganda has by far the highest level of Malaria within all of Africa. 320 children die everyday in Uganda with Malaria. This is a serious diagnosis that is avoidable with the right prevention. Thank you to all who generously donated financially so that we could assist with this need.

Following our visit to Wentz, ekissa held its’ first Ugandan Board of Director’s meeting. I was excited about the enthusiasm from the board and am excited to see how God moves. He continues to do things far greater than I could ever hope or imagine. I’m so thankful His ways are not my ways, nor is thoughts, my thoughts because mine are incredibly limited.

Our team ended our day with attending an all night prayer/ praise service at Gaba Community Church, which began at 11pm. This is the most amazing experience…to see the freedom in which they worship! The North American church is missing something! We need to become more “active” in our worship as “worship” is actually an outward expression of who Christ is as well as an expression of appreciation for all He has done.

We are about to complete our time here in Uganda as we will have some time for shopping and a meeting on Saturday, and then worship on Sunday. Sunday evening following worship we will begin the long trek home. Please pray for continued stamina in health. One of our team members (Michelle) is actually not feeling very well this evening.

Thank you for your participation in ekissa and this mission trip. You have support us through your participation through prayers, finances, etc…, and we humbly appreciate your support.

Blessings!
Sarah

Blackout in Uganda...

Greetings Seekers,

Praise God! Our luggage arrived from Nairobi, but not until we had worn the same clothes for four days. And, Kathy's shirt reappeared. It's been a glorious day!

Now for the bad news....as we began to retire for the evening, we came home to luggage, but no electricity. Blackout in Uganda. The power came back on after 2 hours, but then it was time to eat dinner, and seeing as how we had no lunch, Michelle had to eat three plates of food before anyone could move from the table.

After dinner, as we pushed our chairs away from the table, removed Michelle's plate from her death grip, and… THE POWER WENT OUT AGAIN AND WE HADN'T SHOWERED YET!

Would you like to know what it is like to try and bath with a flashlight hanging from your teeth? We were that desperate. The good news in the calamity is that Jack's Mag light is back.

Just kidding...the power came back on after 10 minutes and we were able to bath in comfortable, lighted conditions. We smell grrrreeeeaaaatttttt now!

Now on to some serious stuff...while there may have been a blackout in Uganda, the light of Jesus is shining ever so brightly in his people here in this corner of the world.

Our day began with our first trip to Bweya Village. While driving, we prayed mightily in the name of Jesus against the enemy that was so present on the last trip. Pastor Peter, the head pastor of Gaba Community Church, gave us on Wednesday a great reminder of the Ugandan history of the spiritual warfare that consist of witchcraft, demon worship and the casting of spells. In fact, Pastor Peter reminded us that before Gaba planted its church in this community, and even after the planting, the head witch doctor in ALL of Africa resided a few feet from where we're staying.

Moving on, we arrived in Bweya to find the bridge washed out. We were forced to find an alternate route. Finally arriving at Mercy orphanage, we found it to be rather sparse with children. There were 3 sick children, one of which appears to be days away from death clearly due to starvation. Much to our surprise, we learned that a Catholic Mission team made a visit and decided to sponsor most of the children for one year of schooling. This is a HUGE praise. However, in talking with the children, we learned that none of them had eaten that day and many of them had not eaten the entire week.

After spending some time with the children, the group left to shop at the open market for food. We bought rice, beans, oil, sugar, salt, onions, cabbage, tomatoes and made rice and beans topped with cabbage, onion, tomato stew that we made and served. The truth we now struggle with is, while they ate today, we don’t know when they’ll eat again. Walking away from this situation is very hard and we know that God cares, without a doubt God cares.

While we were leaving, one of the Mercy boys handed us four pieces of paper. These torn pieces of paper contained the following prayer requests, verbatim:
To be honest and faithful & Christian foundation,
Orphanage funds
Friends to stand with us,
Medicine,
Enough daily food,
God to open closed doors for us

Please join us in praying for these children.

We love you, we miss you, and may God bless you.

Michelle, Kathy and Sarah

Content?

It's not the end of day one but I've got some down time and thought I'd post. We had a slow beginning to our day which has been nice for most as our bodies are trying to adjust to the time change.

At mid-morning we had a roundtable conversation regarding the vision of Bweya Village. Those gathered at the table were Dr. Martin from the Wentz Medical Clinic, Pastor Peter, the Senior Pastor of Gaba Community Church, Les Neely and Scott Beidler with Upward Sports, Michelle Speas and Kathy Brehm of Cornerstone Christian Church, David Sebanna, a "Bridge" student and myself. We had an awesome time of sharing.

One of the main focuses was regarding the purchase of land for the new church plant in Bweya Village. Land has been located and it looks like we need to raise about $35,000 pretty quickly. (All donations humbly accepted!! :-) )

Our meeting ran into the afternoon so our "unannounced" visit to Mercy was put off until tomorrow. We will rise and shine early tomorrow, go purchase food and mosquito nets and then go directly to the orphanage.

If I can be completely honest, I'm a little fearful of what we may find when we arrive. Michelle thinks the place will be empty with the children wandering the village. I anticipate many will be wandering, but I also anticipate a more worse degree of starvation than Sept as well as some in the bed sick...hopefully no deaths. With starvation and malaria the reality here, and with the level of neglect, I pray God will grant me the necessary grace to take in it. This reality is what ekissa is all about...seeking justice for the injustice and sharing the Good News of a Father to the "fatherless".

Following our meeting today, the group took a walking tour of the slums of Ggaba. Hopefully this helps prepare the group for what they'll encounter tomorrow in Bweya.
As we entered the slums we were greeted happily with smiling faces of the children. As expected, they approached us yelling "mzungu! muzungu!" Such big smiles and happy cries to the mzungu! I dare say I would respond like such if I had to endure their way of life. I believe the writer Paul challenges us regarding a state of being "content". Yikes! Were are you measuring???

Well, just wanted to post that all is well. We still have yet to receive any of our luggage! Thank goodness I packed 2 days worth of clothes in my carryon! :-) A word for the May team!!

Chuck, David and Patrick send their greetings! They say they love you and miss you greatly.

Stay tuned and thank you for your prayers! Specifically pray the price of the land can be lowered. The land is key in order for us to move forward with what God has for Bweya. We will see the plot tomorrow. Pray for stamina for the team tomorrow. It will be a busy day as we go to Mercy and see the plot of land, we will also visit Mary Smith at the Primary Boarding school just outside of Bweya. Pray the supplies will arrive with our luggage! At last check, our luggage was in Nairobi!?!??!?!?

We are so blessed as a people. It feels good to be back here!
We love you all!
Sarah (for the gang)

"Packed Flight?"

It’s Monday, 2:10 pm and we’ve just taken off from the Charlotte/ Douglass International airport. Our flight was delayed for about 90 minutes. As we were sitting at the end of the airport, just about to begin the forward throttle down the runway, I looked out to see the airplane which took off just ahead of us. It was a cloudy day, so in an instant as that plane lifted from the runway, it was snuffed out of sight into the clouds.

I sat buckled in my seat, about to take off, thinking…”Isn’t that a picture of life!” As that thought went through my head, I wondered if the plane was a “packed flight” and I wondered about its’ destination.

I looked around the plane I sat in…the seat beside me was empty. The seat to my right and back one isle…3 seats empty. One seat in front of me, empty! I couldn’t believe all the empty seats around me.

My plane took off shortly following. As we ascended, a question passed through my thoughts; “When my life is snuffed out, I wondering how many people I’ll be taking with me?” I wonder if my flight will be a “booked flight” or if there will be empty seats all around me. Those empty seats representing missed opportunities of sharing the gospel. A sense of sadness pricked my heart for a moment.

As we were racing down the runway, with the clouds somewhat blanketing the city of Charlotte, visibility was fairly poor. I could faintly see part of the skyline. As our plane rose into the sky, visibility worsened. However in moments we were above the clouds. There was a bright sunshine accompanying the gigantic fluffy white clouds and crisp blue sky. Wow! What a view…beauty only God could have created.

Sometimes life can present as a dreary, raining day with poor visibility. But upon the wings of Christ we can rise above that and the view is breath-taking.

Life is short like the ascent of that plane into the clouds. One minute it’s there and in a blink it’s gone! What are you doing to ensure others board the plane for “take off”? Just who will you take to heaven to enjoy that view of eternity?

Oh God…my heart overflows with thanksgiving for the ministry of ekissa you’ve birthed and called me to. I feel so inadequate and unworthy to have this “front row seat” to experience what you’re doing in the lives of the people in Uganda. I pray you will take my feeble hands and feet, multiply my efforts, working through me and in spite of me, to bring your people to an understanding and acceptance of who you are…Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen!

Feb 2010 Trip

Wow! I can’t believe all that God has done since returning from Uganda in October 2009…only 4 months ago. Now, in less than a year, I’m leaving on my 3rd trip to Uganda having been led of the Lord to begin “ekissa”, (which means “mercy” in the language of Luganda) a nonprofit that serves the orphans solely of Uganda, East Africa. You can get more of the background of this ministry at www.ekissa.com .

This particular trip to Uganda is a pivotal trip in the ministry of ekissa. This is a team of 5 which will travel together for one week. Members of this team are comprised of myself, 2 members of Cornerstone Christian Church and 2 individuals from “Upward”, a Christian sports program that shares the Gospel of Christ to children through the venue of sports. The thought behind “Upwards” involvement is to partner together in order to offer the children of Bweya Village (outside of Kampala Uganda) an opportunity to be introduced the Gospel through establishing an “Upwards” sports program there in the local village of Bweya.

ekissa will be returning in May for the purpose of a church plant in Bweya. Gaba Community Church (GCC), an indigenous church, has agreed to partner with ekissa to begin a holistic approach to ministry in Bweya Village. The new church will be named “Bweya Community Church”. This church plant is paramount to the ministry that God desires for Bweya village.

The new Bweya Community Church will be the hub of all outreach for Bweya. It is ekissa’s desire that Upward’s would partner with us to bring about a sports program to be facilitated through Bweya Community Church.

Please pray for discernment as we travel, that I am able to share with the team, the vision Christ has given me for the village of Bweya. Please pray for safety, stamina and health. Today, two days before travel, I’m dealing with a sinus infection. The enemy wants to divert my attention and he can do that through illness!

“So, put on God’s armor now…you will be able to resist the enemy’s attacks; and…you will still hold your ground.” Ephesians 6:13

My prayer is that God will be fully glorified through everything that takes place regardless of the end results or “partnerships”. My desire is that we can move completely out of the way for all to see Jesus!

Please continue to visit this new blog as we hope to chronicle our trip. Pray for the “world-wide web” or as the Ugandan’s refer to it, “the world-wide wait”, to cooperate. On our last trip we struggled greatly with the use of technology.

Blessings,
Sarah