In His Gracious Grip

Affluence Masks Spiritual Realities

We arrived at our home at about 5 PM today (Wednesday I think) after about 30 hours of travel through 8 time zones. Both Judy and I got 3 or 4 hours of sleep in route home, so we are looking forward to going to bed early tonight.

This will be a short post because of that, but we wanted to share our overarching response to the trip. Without the affluence of America, the spiritual realities in Uganda are much more visible. One one hand, everyone knows who the witch doctors are and many seek their “healing power.” On the other hand, the joy of relationship with God through Jesus Christ is so rich and expressed openly and often. We experienced extended worship in song throughout our entire time in Uganda, in formal and informal settings. We are definitely going to miss that!

We will have much more to say in future posts about our time in Uganda, but we wanted to let you all know we are home in Minnesota.

Thanks for your prayer support. It was much needed and appreciated.

Wow!

We have been in Uganda for almost a week! It has been an amazing week, but not much time or opportunity to post. Thank you for your prayers over these last days! We have felt the Lord carrying and providing for us each day!

As we have toured many areas and projects, we have been overwhelmed by many sights, smells and sounds, but most of all we have been overwhelmed by the multitude of ways that our awesome God is at work in this place! He has moved and continues to move in the hearts of many people to care for the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of the downtrodden.

Some highlights include:

Worshipping in song in the midst of the African Children’s Choir school children.

Hearing stories of God moving in supernatural ways to provide a sanctuary for children born with HIV who live in a community oppressed by witchdoctors. We got to tour the existing faculty and see local workers hired to build the next phase under EMI’s direction.

Using local methods and materials modified to provide for seismic strength and to increase longevity. Building people and buildings to God’s glory!

Seeing an Ugandan construction crew on an EMI job site worship in song and hear the word preached during their weekly jobsite chapel.

Hearing the vision and seeing the first fruit of beautiful young men and women at the Amazama campus. As well as experiencing the Lord’s peace that is upon the people and place.

We are so thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to be here! Last night we started part two of our trip. We finished our time with EMI and are now visiting the ministry of Loving one by one. Please pray for us as we pray and process all that we have seen and heard about EMI. Please pray that the Lord will continue to give us eyes to see and ears to hear what is needed in these next days!

We are off!

We are about to get on our plane in Minneapolis headed to Amsterdam. Thank you to all of you who have helped us to get to this point. Some of you have counseled us, some have encouraged us, some have contributed financially, and many of you have prayed for us Thank you so much.

I am also thankful to Judy who has done the lions share ( I am thinking African already) of the preparations over the last few weeks and especially the last few days. We both have a peaceful heart as we begin this next step walking with the Lord. As I have prayed about this trip, God has said to me, “Come and see”. So we embark with great anticipation to see what he is up to in Uganda. Please continue to pray that we would see what we need to see, hear what we need to hear, and have hearts that are willing to follow. We are also asking God to cross our path with those whom he is drawing to Jesus and those who need to know his deep, deep love.

7 days to Uganda

One week from today we will be on the ground in Uganda on our vision trip. It has been over 6 months since Ben applied for the job on the EMI website. On the one hand it feels like a really long 6 months, but on the other hand we can hardly believe we will be there in 7 days.

Please go to the EMI Uganda Vision Trip tab to learn more about EMI and how you can you can help us on this trip and in discerning if Uganda is a place we can join God in the way he has made us.

Please subscribe to receive email notifications when we post updates. This will enable you to be praying toward our immediate needs. You can sign up using the Subscribe portion at the bottom of any page on our site (other than this one).

Pursuing the hearts of the next generation

Demographics tell us a lot about Uganda. 48% of Ugandans are age 0 to 14, and another 21% are 15-24 (CIA statistics). I am pretty sure I read someplace that 28% of the population is 15-25 years old, but I can’t find where I read that. So 69% of the population is 24 years old or younger, and maybe 76% of the population is 25 years old or younger. Think about that for a moment. A country with few skilled people to pass on those skills to the next generation. A country with few Christian elders to mentor the next generation, but also a country that is currently very open to the Gospel. What an opportunity!

Many Ugandans claim to be Christians but also follow more typical African beliefs that a man’s value is determined by the number of children he has. This has lead to polygamy being accepted, and a very sexually promiscuous society. This has contributed to the continued devastation from AIDS, a major reason for the lack of people over 25 years old.

Many people in there early 20’s have not yet settled in their hearts what they believe about God and eternity. That leaves 7 out of 10 Ugandans potentially still searching for truth. From what we have learned so far it looks like God is at work in Uganda pursuing the hearts of this next generation. There seems to be a hunger for the Gospel, discipleship and pastor training.

Judy and I have been exploring a couple of ways we might join Jesus in what He is up to in Uganda. We will be leaving for Uganda May 24th and returning June 5th. The purpose of our trip is to see if God is calling us there.

Please subscribe to receive email notifications when we post updates. You can sign up using the Subscribe portion at the bottom of any page on our site (except this one).

Technology is Great …

And so simple to use, right? Hopefully you can laugh with us until I get this figured out. When looking at the About Us page with some of our grown children yesterday we realized the picture of Judy and I is up-side-down when viewed on a smartphone. The tricky part is that the picture is right-side-up when looked at on a computer. Hmm …

In any case, please check out our EMI Uganda Vision Trip page to see what is next for us.

Hard to believe!

Six weeks from today we will arrive in Uganda, Africa to begin our vision trip! We are excited for this next step, as our good Shepherd continues to lead us in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. He has provided so much in these past weeks: spiritual strength to persevere in finishing application questions that required deep introspection; connections with a variety of old and new friends to encourage us along the way as well as bring us needed information about travel to Uganda; a timely travel consult appointment as well as an appointment to receive the required, but scarce yellow fever vaccination; as well as many spiritual swords from God’s word to cut through lies, temptations and discouragement that our enemy wants us to listen to!

As we look ahead to the next few months, we are asking the Lord for His provision in 2 specific areas: First, we have already experienced spiritual opposition to this next step forward in our discernment process. We know that a prayer support team is crucial right now! Some of you are already interceding for us. Thank you so much! In addition, the trip to Uganda is costly, so we are asking the Lord to provide financial supporters to come alongside us to help carry this load. As we are studying the book of Ephesians in Sunday school, we have been encouraged to see a picture of how our heavenly Father intended the body to function. We all have a part in God’s redemptive plan for His world! Would you please prayerfully consider if the Lord is asking you to be a part of our prayer and/or financial support team? Please go to our Uganda Vision Trip page for more details on how to support us financially. I know we will all be blessed as we see Him work out His purposes in our lives and in the world.

Please use the contact form or give us a call to let us know the Lord is leading you to be a part of our team.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

The apostle Paul starts most of his letters with this statement or something very similar. How many times have you read these verses and just flew by without pondering them? I know I have many times over many years. Is this just a “Hi, How are you today” cultural greeting or was Paul pronouncing a blessing on his readers? Would you be blessed if a friend said this to you? Could you bless a friend if you said this to them? I no longer zoom through these verses. I stop and drink in the grace and peace God offers to me. I invite you to do the same. Linger on these verses the next time they come up in your Bible reading. You will be blessed!