sick o' so

So, i've been uber sick for the past week. But i'm finally starting to feel a little bit better. I don't have typhoid and i don't have malaria, because the doctor checked, but i still feel really sick and i will spare you the details!

other than that, things are going well, i've been doing a lot of teaching, i taught yesterday despite being sick and i spent most of a week teaching in a rural village on the border of kenya.

I did some leadership training and taught through the calling of moses in ex. 3-4. man, there are some great things there.

 I have started to feel some major culture shock and I could really use all the encouragement i can get! so, comment, email, all that stuff.  if you text message, i don't think it's expensive to text me, 011 256 752 488 089. so, i'd love to hear from you, news from home, what the weather's like, and all that stuff.

The weather here is turning into the stormy rainy season, very muddy, kinda cold (in africa! weird) but green and beautiful at the same time.

Praise God for all he is doing here.

I got a phone, you can call, but it might be expensive. so, be warned!

just dial 011 256 752 488 089. peace and love and thanks for the comments. see post below for more information.

update from piswa subcounty.

The past week and a half have been a blur. I’ve been extremely busy. Let’s see. I left Kampala a week ago Monday, and travelled to Kapchorwa. It was a long journey and filled with adventure. We stopped in Mbale and picked up some final supplies before continuing on to Kapchorwa. I arrived in the mountains to a small town. It was much smaller than I thought it would be. The weather is fair, sixties and seventies and there is a beautiful view. From the house I am staying at you can walk out on the porch and see down the mountain and onto the plains of eastern Uganda. That Tuesday and Wednesday I was “resting” and preparing for my first journey deep into the mountains to one of the rural villages. Thursday I picked up some last supplies (mainly toilet paper and drinking water, because there is no t.p. nor clean water) and we headed out. The trip took over an hour on rough roads with a 4wd. Vehicle. The trip was beautiful as we wound on a two track road through the mountains. We arrived at the house I was to stay at. The house was made of mud and had a metal roof. There was no power or running water, so it was a lot like camping. It was a great time. The people, though having very little, are so welcoming and receptive of the Gospel. They were wonderful and we shared in fellowship a lot. I also received a shock to find out that I was not the only muzungu (white person) in this rural village. There were two men from FHI (food for the hungry international) who were distributing blankets, tarps, and jerry cans with water purifying tablets. So, I got to speak with a few muzungus, which was interesting because it was something I had not done in quite a while (three weeks). Friday, the pastor of the church I was teaching at, and I helped FHI distribute the supplies to displaced people. We distributed over blankets, tarps, and jerry cans to over 500 families!!! These people had been displaced when the government came in and tore down their houses because they were living within a national forest. So, they are working on resettling these people, but until then, they are living in camps with poor sanitation, and no clean water. It was a heart breaking thing to see. These people had only the clothes on their backs and only some of them had shoes. The blankets were helpful because in the mountains it can get very cold at night, especially during the rainy season. So, after 5 hours of distributing things I went to the church and taught for an hour. Then we worshipped and the people responded well to the message. Saturday I woke up and fellowshipped with people in their homes. We also walked along a ridge to a waterfall and took pictures. It was a beautiful sight and everywhere you looked you could see the beauty of God’s creation. Then I taught again on Saturday, and we fellowshipped some more. Sunday I woke up early and we went to a school and I gave a brief message and then we went to church. The church service lasted for four hours!!! We prayed, sang, testified, sang, danced, sang and then I preached for an hour on prayer. It was a great service and I praise God for it. Then we visited for a while and went to dedicate a child. After that we fellowshipped again and finally Monday came. I taught at another small primary school and then rode on the back of a motorcycle all the way back to my home base here in Kapchorwa.

Just one interesting story. Ugandan people have a strange understanding of time. They are very lenient with it. If you tell someone to meet you at 11, they will probably show up at 12 or even 1. So, Sam(the pastor of the Mengae church, where I was) told me that I would be teaching at one o’clock on Saturday. We left the house and visited people until 12:45. Then we walked along the mountainside for half an hour to a place where we were probably an hour away from the church. Then we dallied around for fifteen minutes and finally started to make our way back to the church… at 1:30. Then we stopped at his home for thirty minutes and finally arrived at the church around three. For a one o’clock service… and the thing that surprised me was that we were the first people there!

I have been so blessed with my time here and want to praise God for all he has been doing with my mission. If I could, I would ask that you continue to pray for me and also, this week, pray for the displaced people in Mengae village who are struggling to survive. Pray that the government resettles them and that they can be strong and patient as they wait. Pray also that they hear the Gospel and let it change their lives.

Praise God.

sure... i guess

lately I've been thinking about what my future holds. Not just my immediate future, but further on. I've been thinking about a lot of things. I've been very pensive. or, to say it another way, i've been caught up in thought. I've been remembering the joy of the kingdom. I've been devoting myself to remembering Christ in all times. I have been looking at the world around me and thinking about what Jesus said when he came into the world. Last sunday I went to a fellowship meeting for people from Kapchorwa who live in Kampala. It was interesting. They were talking about all sorts of things that were real issues for them. I digress, back to what jesus said in the beginning of his ministry.luke 4.18-19 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Well, i read a book once that told me that this was the key to Jesus ministry on earth. That this laid a pattern for the sermon on the mount, and for his ministry. I think that the more i think about it, Isaiah has proclaimed what Jesus would be doing. Jesus came and was anointed with the spirit. He proclaimed such great news to the poor. News that they can inherit the kingdom. News that they shall see God. Blessed are they! Freedom for the prisoners, release for the captives. Jesus came and freed me from a life of sin and has given me a life of worship. a life where i can enjoy the things he has given and remember him on all occasions. This idea of remembering Christ at all times has, of recent, become very important to me. I've been working on a sermon of luke 22. It is the last supper. I've seen some amazing parallels between the passover and israel's deliverance and communion and our deliverance. God instituded the passover before he delivered them, and by the blood of the lamb he saved them from death... Sound familiar? Jesus is at the end of his ministry and he says that when we take communion, we should remember him. It was the same for Israel, when they ate the passover, they were called to remember God. But, how many times did God say they didn't remember how he brought them out of Egypt? God was calling Israel to remember how he had delivered them, but not just once a year during passover, but all the time. If they had only done that, they would have saved themselves a lot of grief. Hmmm, how does this apply to me. Maybe Christ, during his last supper, the new passover, is calling us to remember him during communion, but also calling us to live lives that are in remembrance of him. I believe that if we lived our lives in constant remembrance of Christ, his ministry on Earth, including his restoration of sight to the blind, freedom for the captives and strength for the weak, if we remembered his Death, and his resurrection, how he was our passover lamb and we are saved by his blood, if we remembered all of those things, if we lived like it was a present reality, and truly thought on those things and truly remembered them. If we did that, it would make a different in our lives and how we live. Sinning would be hard if we were living in remembrance of Christ. If we were living a life of remembrance, we would be more inclined to model our behavior after him. 

So, this has been a reality check for me.

I hope that maybe you've felt something in all of this too!

loads of love.

luke

So, last thursday I went with one of my host's to the place where she works. It is an organization called tiger's club team. It is an organization that offers a place for street children to come and get a meal, to play some football (soccer) and to take some basic education classes. It was a heart wrenching experience. I was there for aprox. 5 hours and I saw so many things that would break one's heart. There were children who were eager just to get some sort of education, so they would sit in class hoping to learn, hoping to have a future. Every thursday there is a big lunch gathering for all the children. These are children who don't know when they will get their next meal, these are children who have not been properly fed in weeks/months/years. This thurday there were 178 children. 178 children who are living on the streets, 178 children who don't have a home, who don't have good clothes, who don't have enough food for today, This is just the number of kids who come on thurday, the actual number is much greater. These children are in need of prayer. I ask that you pray for these kids. I had the opportunity to minister to a few of them and I walked out feeling more blessed than when I came in. I got to hear some of their stories. Some of their hopes for the future. This organization is great. They offer to give the children a future, by taking them to school, by training them for jobs that will provide for them.

please pray for them. and pray for the organisation.

I'm doing great.

thanks.

I'm having a great time here and enjoying the experiences.