i am fully supported, praise the lord!! i want to thank each and everyone of my supporters from the bottom of my heart. this has been an amazing journey that has completely turned my life upside down. each and everyone of you has made this possible and i cannot thank you enough. you have changed my life and i will always be thankful for you.
people have donated anywhere from $3000 to $5.
close friends and family have donated.
complete strangers have donated (please email me!!).
people have donated and not even given their name (please email me!!).
people have donated once.
people have donated numerous times.
people have donated every month.
no matter who you are or how much you gave, i am so thankful for you. again, this life changing experience wouldn't have been possible without you.
as you may or may not know, a few months ago brandy chaffer and i were selected to be squad leaders. our world race experience has changed a bit but i am so grateful for this opportunity.
instead of being on one team and staying in one location for a month, we travel from team to team to help them out in anyway possible...it's been awesome...and hard! it has brought me to a whole new dependency on the lord!! i can't tell you how many times i've prayed something like this: "lord, i cannot do this on my own, please help me...i cannot do it without you." the amazing part is seeing him answer those prayers and feeling him help me through situations i know i couldn't have made through on my own.
this month brandy and i had the opportunity to visit teams in lira and gulu, uganda. i visited villages, played with kids, went to AIDS/HIV support groups, preached in a prison, visited home groups, attended open air crusades, prayed over people in a
hospital, taught on leadership, helped run the "daycare" of the church
(aka: played games for an hour until we ran out of ideas so colby and i
decided to lead them in physical exercise, they loved it!).
this month brandy and i will be back in uganda...visiting pader and lira. i am looking forward to the month and looking forward to serving in anyway possible!! please pray for safe travels, team/squad unity, further dependency on the lord and for people to GO FOR IT!
thank you again for ALL of you who supported me...i am so grateful for this experience that each and everyone of you made possible.
i spent the last 18 days or so in northern uganda...splitting the time between teams in lira and gulu. i sat down this afternoon to try and put it all into words. i tried to describe the pain and suffering the men and women of these communities have endured. but more importantly, i tried to describe the faith that these people have through ALL of it. i struggled to paint the appropriate picture but my friend, halley power, did an incredible job...so below is her latest blog titled "children of war." thank you halley!!
When
I was twelve years old, my main concern was surviving middle school. My
mind was focused on things like impressing my crush, having my own
phone line,and
getting my first kiss. I think back to those years and remember how
awkward I was. Life was tough on all of us at that age, right? So I
thought.
In my last blog, I introduced you to Nancy. Now I'd like to share her story with you.
When
Nancy was twelve, her concept of struggle was totally different than
mine. In 2003, she was abducted from her home at night, along with 9
other siblings and cousins.
The rebels targeted her home after being informed of two things. First
of all, a teacher (her father-Santo-also introduced in my last blog)
lived there, which to them
meant he worked for the government. Second, they were informed that
there would be many children there. The rebels came to the house around
11:30 that night.
They threatened the bomb the entire house if they weren't allowed in,
so the mother opened the door. Santo had left that very day to stay at
the university, so he wasn't
at home. If the rebels had come one day earlier or later, he would have
been killed. Everyone was tied together and taken away. Nancy said she
was crying hysterically,
but they threatened to kill anyone who cried. The rebels took all of
the belongings from the house and dragged the children into the night.
The mother was dropped
off and allowed to return home because she had Robin (a small baby at
the time). Out of the ten children taken from the home that continued
with the rebels, the
youngest was six. The commander told them that they wanted Santo to
pursue them so that he could be killed. The kids were smeared with a
black vasaline-type substance
so that they could be identified by other rebels in the event of an
escape. This marker meant they would be killed on site. They then began
their walk to Sudan.
Andrew
is Nancy's brother. I've also gotten very close to him. He has a large
part in this story, as well. Andrew was ten when the rebels came. The
ten children were separated
into different groups. Andrew was with some of the other children, but
not Nancy. Andrew had a special job. He was basically one of the
commander's personal
slave. He carried his equipment, gun, and food. They were given very
little (if anything) to eat most of the time. Typically, two cups of
beans was split between
his group of twenty other abductees. The rebels had no regard for human
life. If they came across a river that needed to be crossed, someone
would be pushed
in to gage the depth, which usually resulted in drowning. They were
frequently beaten by canes for being "lazy". They were walking to Sudan
to train to become soldiers. Yes, I do mean walking to Sudan. At one point, Andrew said he was too tired to keep going. His feet, ankles, and legs were swollen greatly. Running
on barely any food, he had enough. He sat down and refused to keep
walking. Keep in mind he is ten years old at this time. The commanders
threaten to kill him
if he doesn't continue. He tells them that they'll just have to kill
him because he can't do it anymore. An older abductee (around thirty)
had a similar response with exhaustion.
Without thought, they killed him with a machete. Andrew guesses they
let him live because he was the coveted luggage carrier. He finally got
up and continued
walking.
Both Nancy and
Andrew have a similar escape story, even though they happened two
months apart. Government troops ambushed the rebels. Planes flew
overhead and
dropped bombs. Soldiers on the ground fired guns. The commander that
Andrew was tied to was shot in the chest. They both fell to the ground.
Andrew grabbed
the knife from the rebel's waistbelt and cut himself free. He crawled
on the ground until he escaped the gun fire. A soldier eventually found
him and took him to
safety. In the chaos of the battle Nancy encountered, she ran as fast
as she could into the bush. She ran and ran until she finally found
help.
Andrew was gone
for one year and one month. He was the first to return home. Nancy was
gone for one year and three months. Out of the ten that were taken,
only six
survived. Their sister was killed by a government bomb during an
attack. Casualties was not a concern. Three cousins died as well, but
I'm not sure of the details. Andrew
thinks he was the only person to survive the day he escaped. He said,
"God protected me...because I was tied to the commander who was shot, I
fell on the ground. The bullets went above me. God must have a special plan for my life". Wow.
If you've seen
the movie Blood Diamond, you remember the scene where the African
father finds his young son who was abducted and turned into a child
soldier. The
son doesn't recognize his father. I always thought this part was
dramatized in the movie. Who could forget their own father? Andrew
could. He didn't remember people.
He didn't remember how to have normal conversations. He was used to
only following commands. War was all he knew. It took time, but he was rehabilitated and is doing wonderful. He's so intelligent and mature for his age.
Nancy is doing
well also. She is nineteen and just passed the exams to continue her
education. She wants to be a doctor. She sings in the youth worship
group and has
been at church almost every day since we've been here. I'm really going
to miss my friend. Santo, Nancy, Andrew, and the rest of the family
have been so hospitable. We spent time at their home again this week and it was amazing, just like last time (refer to previous blog).
These are faces
of Northern Uganda. This nation has been plagued with the longest
running war of Africa's history. And it's been personal. Every single
person we've encountered
was affected. It's their story. And there are so many. These stories
are no longer just stories. Nancy and Andrew are representations of the
mllions of people
that have endured through this conflict. They've all been through so
much, but they have hope. They have joy. Last night there was worship
time at the church. The
last song they sang was one I'd heard before...but never in this light.
"Sing for joy to God our strength." I've been in services in which we
sang this song. For these
people, it has so much more meaning. God has been their strength. And
he is their joy. In the midst of the tragedies they've faced, they
latched onto the hope of Christ. They glow with joy. Glow. And it's contagious. They give me hope.
If we call to him he will answer us
If we run to him he will run to us
If we lift our hands he will lift us up
Come now praise his name, all you saints of God
Sing for joy to God our strength
Sing for joy to God our strength
Draw near to him, he is here with us
Give him your love, he's in love with us
He will heal our hearts, he will cleanse our hands
If we rend our hearts, he will heal our land.
over the last few days i have felt so miniscule in comparison to the worlds problems, i've felt like i can't make a difference...i can't do this alone. i came to africa as a naive american thinking that i would make an impact here, thinking i could help people. to be honest, never in my life have i felt so helpless. i want to give people anything they ask for but i fall so short of being capable.
the power of my prayer doesn't fall short though, as people ask for money, for food, for clothing, i offer prayer. honestly, its hard to just pray...it's hard to see the impact of prayer with my eyes...but i know that my prayer and the kingdom of god is stronger and more powerful then anything that i can offer on this earth...
"the lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god. and the peace of god, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in christ jesus." phillipians 4:5-7
a few of us had the unique opportunity to attend an AIDS/HIV group at church yesterday. as i walked into the room many of the women looked at me hesitantly, i felt as if they didn't know how i would treat them. i don't know if it's true but i think it's safe to say that they are the outcasts of society because of their disease. i introduced myself, shook each of their hands and sat with them. while we waited for the meeting to start we smiled and laughed with each other as they tried to teach me their native language (which is pretty laughable) and as they tried to get me to eat some sesame seed/sugar ball.
after i was able to escape the sesame seed/sugar ball (barely) i started talking to a woman sitting in front of me named lucy. lucy is a 43 year old widow who has AIDS. she and her family survived the genocide inflicted on the people of northern uganda over the last 20 years but all seven of them have been diagnosed with AIDS. she began to tear up as she told me how her husband recently died from AIDS. she continued by telling me that she cannot afford to feed their five children and equally as important to her, how she cannot afford to educate them.
lucy told me that the only hope she has is from jesus and the daily church services she attends. she told me that she lives five miles away from the church...and that she walks to and from church everyday because she feels loved and accepted there. she told me that she prays daily for jesus' love and that he will provide for her family...i tear up and ask if i can pray for her...and she graciously accepts my invitation.
after praying for lucy, anna asked me to pray for a 10 year old boy named vincent. vincent was wearing a reggie white jersey and wouldn't make eye contact with me or smile...you could tell that he was hurting, emotionally and physically...i asked him if i could pray for him and he said yes. he closed his eyes, lifted his hands in front of his face and put the palms of his hands together while i prayed (you know, like old school put your hands together while praying)...it was the most precious thing i've ever seen,
child
like
faith.
afterwards, anna told us that vincent has AIDS and that he is in an immense amount of pain as he slowly dies.
so as i feel so insignificant here, i lean on the love of jesus and the power of my prayer. i know that through all of this suffering and pain that he loves every single one of his children. i cannot explain why this suffering takes place but i know with all of my heart that jesus loves each and everyone of his children and that i am here to love them too.
'blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ, the father of mercies and god of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by god."2 corinthians 1:3-4
we may not be able to stop the pain in the world, cure AIDS, feed the starving or even make a suffering child smile but we can love, pray and be a friend to the outcasts...in the words of former TNL pastor dave terpstra, "you can't do everything but you can do something." (you should listen to his sermon "how god ruined my life") what will you do?
africa is amazing but the people are even more amazing, seriously. i'm currently serving in lira, uganda with team journey. the team is working with victory outreach ministries doing a variety of things such as: working on the farm, preaching (at the church and over the radio to 1.5 million people), helping run a four day youth conference, teaching sunday school, playing soccer, doing door to door evangelism, doing prison ministry, praying for people at the hospital and loving on people diagnosed with AIDS/HIV.
in the last eight days i have had several experiences that i know would make great blogs. unfortunately, i feel like if i tried to put them into words i wouldn't do justice to just how amazing the experiences have been.
one example that rocked my world was on the ugandan bus from kampala to lira. every so often, the bus would pull over in a village and locals would sprint to the bus trying to sell water, meat, bananas, and candy to the people on the bus. i remember a young girl standing in the back with a look of suffering and pain on her face. i just looked at her face and wondered what she had been through in her life...and i wondered if she had encountered the love of god. she glanced at me, i smiled and reached out my hand to her. the suffering on her face was replaced with a huge smile, she reached out and took my hand...and we just held hands, we didn't even say anything. i don't even know her name, how old she was, or anything about her but this girl changed my life...it was an encounter with the love of god, for both of us.
"beloved, let us love one another, for love is from god, and whoever loves has been born of god and knows god. anyone who does not love does not know god, because god is love."
1 john 7-8
we ate lunch yesterday with our local contact, pastor johnson, and he started describing the last 20 years of his life...and how the lords resistance army was fighting to take over uganda, especially in lira. one of the things that he explained was how the "soldiers" of the lords resistance army would kidnap children and then force them to kill the remainder of their family...and at times they would force the children to cut the bodies up (search "invisible children" for more). he described the hell that the people endured during this time but ended his description with something like, "but we praise god for answering our prayers and ending this suffering."
really? through all the suffering, death and despair he ends by praising jesus. truly amazing.
i wish i could describe the pure joy and happiness of the people as they worship the lord and as they cry out to jesus. the suffering they have endured is nothing compared to what i could even imagine yet they are so joyous and want nothing more then jesus. they have truly given their life to serve jesus, it's an inspiration.
please continue to pray for our squad as we spend the next three months in africa. pray that our hearts continue to break for the people here, pray that we have real encounters with jesus, pray that everything that we do is to glorify jesus, pray for safety and health and most of all pray for blessings for the african people!!!
as most of you know, the squad is on a technology fast. sans a daily check of my email for some squad stuff, i haven't been on facebook, checked football scores or listened to my ipod. as i sit here and type it seems like it shouldn't be a big deal but it's been huge.
i'm in a town in west turkey with team olur (it's amazing here, a HUGE shout out to the team hosting us here, they are amazing!). we've had some great work to do this last week but at the same time there has been a lot of downtime. instead of us all retreating to the comfort that electronics provide; we've read, played games and discussed everything from how to greet someone with a holy kiss to whether or not god is good.
and in this downtime i've been learning a ton...i've been forced to think...i've been forced to listen to god about the uncomfortable things he wants me to change. for the last 25 years, i lived the "american dream" and lived in comfort:
i graduated college
i bought a house
i bought the brand new cars
i've had the beautiful girlfriend
i've had the undercover narcotics job
i've been on the SWAT team
i was living to glorify myself, i was comfortable...i was searching for something to make me happy and couldn't find it, i was living in the dark and i refused to deal with the real issues.
god saved me when i needed it the most, when there was no hope...when i had hit rock bottom. he didn't show up, he was there all along, waiting patiently for me to turn it over to him.
and a couple months later he called me on the world race and asked me to abandon everything, especially my comfort. he's been here for me but it's a two way street, i have to be willing to listen and to live in the discomfort...and in the discomfort he will bring me to greater levels, to things beyond my imagination.
it's time for me to live uncomfortably.
it's time for me to stop and listen.
it's time for me to serve jesus and serve others.
it's time for me to glorify his name.
"Through him we have also obtained access by faithinto this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that sufferingproduces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, andhope does not put us to shame, because God's lovehas been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
as i sit here at our month four debrief in istanbul, turkey there is a lot on my mind. i'm not really sure what to share, what to write or how to put it all into words but my friend holland cox gave me a couple of topics and the one that has stuck with me is perseverance.
the definition of perseverance is "steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success." so as i look back on the last four months, i cannot help but realize that it's been difficult and i've tried my best to stay steadfast. but as i sit here i wonder what is it that i'm trying to achieve? what is success? to be completely honest, i don't know. i just know that there is more out there, i know that god is calling me to do more, he is calling me to greatness. he is calling me to put him first, others second and myself last...in everything single thing i do.
so as we are nearing the end of our debrief, our squad is facing some hurt and confusion. to be honest, i fit into that description and i am feeling emotions that i've never felt before. i'm four months into this and have seven to go..i know that i cannot get through this race (and more importantly, through life) without jesus. i am learning
that i have to depend on him with every single thing that i do, everything.
i want to depend on jesus for every single thing that i do. in order to be dependent i have to pray without ceasing, i have to deal with the emotions that i've never dealt with, i must abandon the things that make me comfortable and i have to surrender everything to him...everything.
part of what he's calling me to surrender right now is electronics, it's apparent that i've held on to electronics as a source of comfortability. whether it's my ipod, fantasy football, jason bourne, facebook or google it's holding me back from greatness...it's holding me back from success.
so our squad is doing a two week electronics ban. do i think something this small will change my life? i don't know...but i am praying that it does and i expect god to move in big ways! do i expect to come together at the end of this month a different squad, yes. do i expect it to be difficult, yes. do i expect that it'll make me uncomfortable, yes.
but most of all, do i expect to persevere? yes, because i know that there is more out there and i know god is calling me to success.
When
Nancy was twelve, her concept of struggle was totally different than
mine. In 2003, she was abducted from her home at night, along with 9
other siblings and cousins.
The rebels targeted her home after being informed of two things. First
of all, a teacher (her father-Santo-also introduced in my last blog)
lived there, which to them
meant he worked for the government. Second, they were informed that
there would be many children there. The rebels came to the house around
11:30 that night.
They threatened the bomb the entire house if they weren't allowed in,
so the mother opened the door. Santo had left that very day to stay at
the university, so he wasn't
at home. If the rebels had come one day earlier or later, he would have
been killed. Everyone was tied together and taken away. Nancy said she
was crying hysterically,
but they threatened to kill anyone who cried. The rebels took all of
the belongings from the house and dragged the children into the night.
The mother was dropped
off and allowed to return home because she had Robin (a small baby at
the time). Out of the ten children taken from the home that continued
with the rebels, the
youngest was six. The commander told them that they wanted Santo to
pursue them so that he could be killed. The kids were smeared with a
black vasaline-type substance
so that they could be identified by other rebels in the event of an
escape. This marker meant they would be killed on site. They then began
their walk to Sudan.
Andrew
is Nancy's brother. I've also gotten very close to him. He has a large
part in this story, as well. Andrew was ten when the rebels came. The
ten children were separated
into different groups. Andrew was with some of the other children, but
not Nancy. Andrew had a special job. He was basically one of the
commander's personal
slave. He carried his equipment, gun, and food. They were given very
little (if anything) to eat most of the time. Typically, two cups of
beans was split between
his group of twenty other abductees. The rebels had no regard for human
life. If they came across a river that needed to be crossed, someone
would be pushed
in to gage the depth, which usually resulted in drowning. They were
frequently beaten by canes for being "lazy". They were walking to Sudan
to train to become soldiers. Yes, I do mean walking to Sudan. At one point, Andrew said he was too tired to keep going. His feet, ankles, and legs were swollen greatly. Running
on barely any food, he had enough. He sat down and refused to keep
walking. Keep in mind he is ten years old at this time. The commanders
threaten to kill him
if he doesn't continue. He tells them that they'll just have to kill
him because he can't do it anymore. An older abductee (around thirty)
had a similar response with exhaustion.
Without thought, they killed him with a machete. Andrew guesses they
let him live because he was the coveted luggage carrier. He finally got
up and continued
walking.
th four debrief in istanbul, turkey there is a lot on my mind. i'm not really sure what to share, what to write or how to put it all into words but my friend