October 29 - Heading home

Today we got a new breakfast! After 2 weeks of eggs and toast, we got pancakes!  Everyone was so excited!  And that is all my journal says.  LOL  We had to say goodbye to the interns first, they were heading out for a short vacation to Jinja.  Lots of hugs and tears as we said farewell to this amazing group of ladies.  : (

We left at 11 to go to the airport, had some odd food as we waited.  The airport is where we first heard about Sandy, so there was some wondering if we'd make it home.  One of our team was from New Jersey, so we weren't sure if she would be able to make it or not.   The guys were still up for ministry and had opportunity to pray for this UN soldier from Ghana.  We had to say goodbye to 3 more of our team here who had later flights.

Finally boarded and flew to Ethiopia.  It seems that our last stop there landed us in the ghetto section of the airport, cuz where we were this time was really nice.  As we headed to our gate, we suddenly heard a familiar voice!  Chris O!!  His flight the day before had been cancelled because of the hurricane I guess, so he had been put on our flight.  That was fun running into him.  This was the long flight, so it was awesome that it wasn't full and a few of us had the chance to stretch out across 3 seats and get some rest.  We touched down in Rome for a re-fuel, so I can sort of say I've been there.  : )  Not quite the way I wanted though. There was an autistic kid a few rows back that kept vocalizing loudly, so that was hard, but I understand.  I had headphones to help me sleep.

Landed in Toronto finally and a number of us didn't get our bags.  A guy took our luggage tags and went and found most of them, so we headed on through the US Customs (in Canada?)  and got some "real food" - The final flight to San Fran and we were almost home.  Our ride was waiting for us, so we hopped the Bethel van and headed north.  We stopped in Vacaville and ate at In-n-Out.  I'm not a huge fan, but a real cheeseburger was wonderful after 2 weeks of Ugandan food!  I finished my double burger before the boys, but then they went back for seconds, and I did not.  They were sick after that.  : )  Here is a pic of the aftermath.  We fell asleep in the van after that, arrived at the church after 8 and went our separate ways.

It was a beautiful trip, sad to see it end, but I know it won't be my last.  I know without a doubt that God has built me for Uganda, everything makes sense there and it feels like home to me.  I will be back.  Thank you Papa for this amazing opportunity, what a precious gift You have given to me!

October 28, 2012 - Sunday

Sunday's crusade was a morning and evening session.  Chris preached again this morning, more to the church this time, not to the unsaved.  I remembered to bring my earplugs this time, so I was able to handle the noise much better.  After the meeting, a few of our team had to leave.  It got pretty sad from here on out.  This group has become such good friends, it's hard to start saying goodbye.  Chris and Stefanie had to head out to get back to Bethel for a conference, and Maggie, Karen, and Kristy left us as well, and then Ruby.  So before everyone left, we got team photos of our 3 smaller teams.  That was a lot of fun.

Team Richard / Sarah

Team Jacob / Juho

Team Michael / Charlie

What a fun group!!  So, with our fearless leader headed to the airport, someone else had to speak at the evening crusade meeting.  Richard led the meeting, and Jacob, Juho, and Brittany spoke.  They all did so awesome!!  Jacob was funny as he started yelling like Chris.  He shared his testimony and we just all had a lot of fun!  That's a cool thing about Jacob, he's all about having fun with Holy Spirit!  The crowd was loving it, joining him in jumping around and having a blast!  Poor Pastor Bob finally lost his voice and had to be replaced as translator in the middle of Juho's speech.  He was the best translator we had, so it was sad to see him have to step down.  After we finished we headed back to the Field of Dreams and just had a fun last night.  

October 27, 2012

Today we did Say No to Hunger again.  Last time they had combined two groups into one for the day, but this time we just had the one, a small group of about 10 kids.  Some of our team did a lesson on the armor of God for the kids, it was pretty funny.  The interns have been teaching this group things like - I am special, I am valuable...  It's neat to see them so eager to learn, and so excited to hear that they are worth so much to God, and to us.  This picture shows the makeshift armor.  It was funny, but you use what you can.  I personally liked the baseball bat sword.  :)  We fed the kids again and then headed out.

In the afternoon, half the team went back to Kampala for more street ministry, and I stayed back at the base and our group met with the teens again from last week.  We wanted to do a follow up and see how things were going since their experience with Holy Spirit last time.  A couple people from our team shared some thoughts, then we briefly took them into small groups to talk more.  The first girl who shared with us was very talkative and told us all sorts of awesome stories about her week!  She told us she used to be a problem kid (which was later confirmed by the interns who know her) and how now she is doing good and being nicer to everyone!  The finniest part was when she said, "I used to only be able to pray for 2 hours, now I can pray for 5!!"  We were blown away by that, not too many of us can even pray for 2 hours!  She was so thrilled with her new relationship to Holy Spirit, it was awesome to see her excitement and passion.  I think that girl could be a preacher!

Another Crusade night.  I went into this one with a dehydration style headache coming on, so I was pretty miserable with all the loudness.  This was the night of the biggest most tangible miracle we saw though.  A crippled girl crawled up on stage, she seemed to walk on her hands and feet, totally doubled over.  I looked and saw that her foot was twisted up and curled inward.  Chris prayed for her and told her to stand up and walk across the stage.  She did it!  She was staggering, but what do you expect for someone who has never walked upright?  I watched her feet and saw that twisted foot straighten out!!  That was crazy amazing!! The smile on her face was so big as she walked back and forth, back and forth!  The crowd was going wild, obviously they knew this girl, knew her handicap, and were seeing an awesome miracle!

October 26, 2012 - Crusade

In the morning we went out into the local village with our list of needy individuals again.  We had a little 7 yr old boy named Joshua as a guide this time.  He took us to the home of an elderly woman who was caring for her grandsons.  We were taking a mosquito net to her.  She told us her hands hurt all the time, and her knuckles were all swollen, so we were guessing it was arthritis.  Lori asked me to pray for her, and I did.  Some others prayed as well, and as the time passed, she said her hands were getting better!  Richard gave her the gospel story, she had not heard about Jesus, only His name before.  She liked what he was telling her, but she said she was afraid to make the choice because others in the village might hurt her.  (the Muslim neighbors)  Her two grandsons were there too, listening, and they decided to give their lives to Jesus.  (See before and after pictures)  

Later that day, the Crusade began.  They started worship around 3 or 4 I think, we could hear it back at our place.  We showed up around 6 in time for Chris O to preach.  We walked in through the crowd like a pack of celebrities, it's a very strange feeling - all eyes on us, kids rushing in to grab our hands and be the ones to walk us in...  We got up on the stage and took our seats behind the worship dancers.  I love African worship so much!!  It's so filled with joy!  I was kinda bummed we only got to be there for a couple songs.  Chris preaches like an African preacher, screaming the whole time.  Add the translator working at the same intensity, it's comical, but I don't handle the loudness too well.  Chris preached an awesome gospel message and many people came forward to get saved at the end!  

October 25, 2012 - Kampala

Today we headed into Kampala to do street ministry.  That's another new one for me.  It's a super crowded city, a little overwhelming to the senses.  I was on a team with Michael and Judy and Paul came along as our translator.  We didn't get very far before Paul spotted someone he knew and we stopped.  Michael started talking to the people sitting there on the street corner and we ended up just praying for a bunch of them right there.  One man got his back healed and that was a lot of fun to see the huge smile on his face when it happened.  The weird thing about praying for healing here is that the people often just walk off after the prayer without saying anything.  When you ask, they just say they're fine now.  I wonder if they're just being nice, or if they are so used to the supernatural here that it isn't a big deal.  It's strange.  But at least there are those that get really excited, so it's easy to tell that it really did happen.  :)

Walking back to the bus, Jennie and Jordan and I went into a restaurant to get a soda.  Jennie asked at the counter for a bottle of Coke.  A lady led us down a dark hallway, it felt like we were being taken to a back alley or something weird.  Finally she motioned toward a door.  Jordan went over and opened it to find a squatty potty!!  We were laughing so hard, and when the lady caught on that she had misheard, she was laughing too.  We got our sodas and headed back out to the group.

We had dropped half our team off at a hospital, so we went to pick them up.  We parked at a car wash while we waited for them to come out.  The team jumped off the bus and just started talking to people.  At least a couple ended up getting saved and at least one was healed!!   This guy (left) got his knee healed and he just started jumping up and down and shouting "Jesus healed me!" and telling everyone around.  It was really fun!  Then after he settled down, Richard told him the gospel and he gave his life to Christ.

October 24, 2012

This trip has been so incredible!  So much is happening in my heart that I'm not sharing on this blog.  He is teaching me so much about His love, not just for these Ugandan people, but for me.  It's been an awesome growing trip!  Today's journal entry starts off with my awe at this amazing group of people who God brought together for this mission trip.  Very few of us knew anyone else, we just all signed up and were chosen to go.    I have never been a part of such a group.  I am writing about this because the assembly of this team was a miracle too, not just all the healings we saw.  We've all been in groups of people before, and it is inevitable that there is at least one that you can't stand.  That was not true here.

We were 30+ people and every time we came together for a meal, there was no high school lunchroom style table choosing.  We were all commenting on it.  We could each just set our stuff down at any table and it was great, it didn't matter who we sat with.  The only answer to how this was possible is that God was our focus.  It says in Galatians 5:16 - "walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."  I have never seen that verse so clearly as I did with this group.  Every bit of our time was following the Holy Spirit, so there was no sin present among us.  We all chose to love one another and look out for one another.  If anyone was down, there was a whole team of people to come around and lift them up.  It was like being in Heaven I think.  A Kingdom community of people is the best place to be!  So much freedom and safety to just be who we are.

Today we hosted a Pastor's Conference at the compound.  That meant I didn't have much to do until later in the day.  We did prophetic booths again that day.  I had gotten a word from 2 different people prior to this that I would give out of what I knew, the Word.  So I brought my Kindle to the booth and God helped me to find verses to give to the pastors that came to our booth.  It was interesting because only one of the verses I got was a familiar one.  The rest were totally random.  The first one I read to a man made him cry, so I would say God was really speaking to me because that verse didn't seem all that profound to me, but the pastor sure got something from it.  ;)

This picture is Pastor Bob - I thought he was the most adorable man ever!  Such a huge smile all the time, so much joy!!

Oct 23, 2012

Tuesday - This week started out easier.  We are hosting a pastor's conference here at Field of Dreams.  We split up into 2 groups to go to either a school or a clinic in shifts while Chris and some of his leaders were speaking to the pastors.  I chose the school of course.  This time we took the kids to the big field down the street and played some games with them.  Duck duck goose with that big a group, and not speaking the language turned out to be pretty funny.  We just ended up with a lot of kids running in a circle, being chased by mzungus.

I watched a group of teachers sitting on a termite hill suddenly jump up all at once and run away from the hill.  I wandered over to them to see what the commotion was all about.  This is what I found.
I walked over and picked it up, which isn't something I'd normally do.  That really freaked them out!  One man asked me, "aren't they poisonous?"  to which I responded, "I don't know."  : )  Check out the brave mzungu!  LOL  I don't know why they're so scared of lizards.