Also thank you so much for praying for my time in Nebbi! It was great to be back with the Pastors in Nebbi and to fellowship with them! They truly are men and women who love Jesus and seek to spread the Good News to the people of Uganda! Jesus really helped all of us in our training and we could sense His presence guiding us! So thank you for covering us in prayer!
Friday, June 20, 2008
He has done GREAT things!
Also thank you so much for praying for my time in Nebbi! It was great to be back with the Pastors in Nebbi and to fellowship with them! They truly are men and women who love Jesus and seek to spread the Good News to the people of Uganda! Jesus really helped all of us in our training and we could sense His presence guiding us! So thank you for covering us in prayer!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Back in Arua
The weeks back have been full as since a few days after my return we have hosted a team of nine and then this last week we had some more visitors from America. An additional blessing is that my brother, John, was the leader of the first team so it was a blessing once again to serve with him here in Arua. John and his team have spent the last week in Kampala serving and are flying back to America tonight. Please be in prayer for their safety as they travel. Also on the team with my brother were Erica Rinehimer’s brother and sister. It really was like have a family reunion here in Arua! We are so thankful for the time that we had with our families and with the visitors from America! Jesus used them in so many ways to impact His kingdom so thank you for praying for them!
A main part of my ministry here in Arua is children’s ministry. Four days a week I am involved with kid’s clubs in three different areas. Two days a week I work with the children from Uganda Christian University (UCU), singing songs, telling bible stories, dramas, memory verse, and games. A lot of the children at UCU are the same children I worked with last year when I was here so it is fun to watch them grow both physically and spiritually. The other two days of kid’s club I work with children in our neighborhood. Saturday morning is especially one of my favorite days as we have kid’s club in our front yard. We have a great time and it really is amazing how it has opened doors with our neighbors. Please continue to pray for all the children’s little hearts that they would come to know the love of Christ in a personal way!
Another ministry I have been involved with is a weekly bible study with Ugandan girls. I have loved being able to live life with these girls and enjoy our time together each week. The first week I attended I shared with them my testimony and how Jesus had changed my life. Pamela, the young lady on the right, in the picture after some conversation prayed to accept Christ as her personal Lord and Savior! PRAISE JESUS!!! She came back the next week so excited to tell me how Jesus had helped her forgive someone who had hurt her and that the bitterness was gone! Please pray for Pamela and for the other girls as they continue to grow in their relationships with Jesus Christ!!
Many of you have also asked about Dr. Stella who is one of the Minister’s of Agriculture here in Arua. I worked very closely with Dr. Stella when I was here last year and she has become one of my closest Ugandan friends. She is doing very well and just six weeks ago delivered beautiful baby Grace. I have been able to meet with her once a week for bible study. Please continue to pray for Dr. Stella and baby Grace!
Another upcoming event is this weekend we will be traveling down to Nebbi for another Pastor’s Training session. I am so excited to be with the pastor’s once again!! They are wonderful men who are full of the fruits of the spirit! John, Billy, and I will be teaching this weekend and we are always so grateful for your prayers! This last weekend Billy, Joanna, and I had the priviledge of training with John Oneck one head pastor from Sudan. It went amazing and we could feel the Holy Spirit presence with us the whole weekend! Jesus really is moving here in Northern Uganda and in Sudan and we are so thankful for all of you who are carrying us and these places in your hearts and prayers!
Friday, December 14, 2007
Handing Over
Gulu Report Part 3
“Invisible because they roam distant battlefields, away from public scrutiny. Invisible because no records are kept of their numbers or age. Invisible because their own armies deny they exist.” ~ “Invisible Children Rough Cut Video”
Then at the end of an already emotional day we found ourselves sitting in on a play therapy session lead by the organization “HEALS” (Health, Education, Art, Literacy, and Sports). “HEALS” is an organization started by a Ugandan woman named Jolly (who is also the Country Coordinator for “Invisible Children”) who is passionate about helping her people prosper despite the war around them. HEALS is devoted to helping children heal the scars and emotional wounds caused by the war in Northern Uganda. This healing takes place by teaching them life skills as well as giving them opportunities to have fun together, also called play therapy. Some of the classes that are offered are photography, sports, dancing (both hip hop and traditional), literacy, music, etc. We happened to attend on Wednesday which is the day they practice traditional dances. It was amazing to see the demeanor of the children change when they started dancing. Their faces were full of joy and laughter! It was as if for a few moments they were just children -not former child soldiers, not orphans, not the rape victim, but just children. Please continue to pray for Jolly and the volunteers at both “HEALS” and “Invisible Children” as they counsel and work with these children everyday. Also, please continue to pray for us as WGM Uganda to b sensitive to God’s leading and the prospects of in the future maybe having training centers in Gulu.
The following excerpt is from a journal I wrote about my time watching a play therapy session at HEALS.
I sit and look around and my heart cannot take it all in. All these kids – looking much like the kids back home – yet they come from two different worlds. I try to imagine what all these precious boys and girls have been through, what all they have done, what’s been done to them – but I cannot. I think of James (my little brother) who is about the same age as these boys – it hits a little to close to home. My whole body quivers as I try to think about their lives. The images of their life that flash through my mind are too much. I know everyone in this room has been affected by the war – some were child soldiers forced to kill, others still are orphans left all alone by the LRA, some of whom had witnessed the death of close friends and families, seen their villages burned to the ground, and then I come to the girls…abducted, forced to be wives at young ages and raped countless times. I want to cry, I want to leave, but I want stay.
As I look around the room at their faces and think of their stories I feel so helpless! In fact ever since arriving in Gulu I have felt helpless. What could I possibly give to make things better? Everything in me wants to “fix” the situation – it’s just not that easy. To be honest in my heart it seems so trite just to say we “just need to give them Jesus.” (I am sorry that was just a real honest moment of how I felt) These people are dying from lack of food, dying from lack of medical care, and living with hurts so deep I do not even begin to know where to start to help, but then if we just tell them about Jesus it will all be okay. My heart was wrestling with this issue as I sat in the midst of all these children listening to the teacher talk with them in a counseling session about how they need to take pride in who they are as Acholi people and as Ugandans. As a prayed in that room I felt as if Jesus was saying, “Jeannie just rest and take pride in who you are in me – you are My Child.” It was at that moment I got it – truly the only thing to offer is Christ! It was not about who I am as Jeannie being able to help these people because alone as Jeannie I have nothing to give. The only thing (and the best thing) I have to offer is Christ living and working through me. He reminded me how He is a Father to the fatherless, Help for the helpless, and Hope for the hopeless.
Truly these people do need so much physically and even as I type this people are dying today from lack of physical needs, but without Christ they are lost forever! That fact stirs up everything in me! To have seen how much these people are suffering here on earth and then to think that their eternity would be suffering too – a life and death without Christ is more horrible to think about then all that they have been through here on earth. What He is asking me, what He is asking you, a generation of believers, is will we be willing to live out our lives in such a way that we are completely surrendered to His will and His purposes. So that through our surrendered lives His Love can be seen in our actions and heard in our words to touch the lost and hurting people of the world. So that it will be His Love seen through our giving them food, His Love felt as we hug them, His Love seen through our smiles, His Love heard through our prayers… Although my heart continues to break everyday for the Acholi people and the people of northern Uganda I can trust in the fact that He will bring about His purposes, deliverance, and salvation for the Acholi people and for the people groups around the world who have never heard of Him.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Gulu Report Part 2
All day long the people literally sit in these IDP camps unable to go to work, farm, or even go to school. So they sit and wait and wait and wait. They are not just sitting because they want to, but since moving to the IDP camps they have been unable to leave so they have lost their jobs, lost the land to farm, and with no job for income they are unable to send their children to school. The idleness of the people has caused major problems within the camps. Many have turned to alcohol to escape the reality in which they live. There is also a large amount of sexual activity among the youth and adults within the camps. Suicide is unfortunately also on the rise within. Some would say that for them it is better to die then to continue to live like they are living with the effects of the war all around them. I cannot imagine!
The attitudes and behavior of the children in these camps are also unlike anything I have ever seen. Not only are they some of the saddest kids I have seen (although a large number of them were all smiles when we arrived), but they are some of the most violent kids I have ever been around. Then again, violence is what they know. Their whole life they have been living in the middle of a war zone with children being abducted and taught to kill, soldiers surrounding their camps at night with guns to protect them, and some nights the only lullaby they heard was the firing of guns in the distance – this is their world. At one point I had to stop a four year old from through big rocks at his friend who had made him made. This was only one of several violent outbursts in the kids that we witnessed just in the short time we were in the camps.
More and more as I process our time in Gulu I keep going back to the reality that the only hope, love, and peace we have in this world is in Christ. He and He alone is the difference between being “alive” and being a “dead man walking” in the midst of the wars that surrounds us either literally like in northern Uganda or figuratively in our hearts in our “safe” little America. As we are in the middle of the holiday season I am reminded of what the angel said to the shepherds that first Christmas night, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Luke 2:10 What the world needs now more than anything is an army of people who are “alive” who are willing to “walk among the dead” and bring the message of hope, love and peace to people both next door and across the world who are in desperate need of the Good News of Christ.