Well, I just recently got back home from spending 15 months in Africa. Needless to say... it has been quite an adjustment! But God is as always- so faithful! I have been stretched so much in this time, and I am so thankful for everything that he has done to "create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me" although, I know I am very far from ending on this journey that He has me on, I am grateful to say that I believe am a long way from where I was when it started!
God had touched my heart when I was fourteen years old with a documentary on the war and child soldiers in Northern Uganda. It was about at that time that he ripped my heart out of my chest and placed it in Uganda. And from that day forward I began to pray and to seek the Lord for the best way to do this. Despite begging my parents to allow me to drop out of high school and move to Uganda (thanks to their wisdom and discernment that I was lacking at the moment) I finished school, and joined a missions organization known as Youth With a Mission. I headed up to Montana shortly after high school to do a Discipleship Training School, where I spent the first three months learning more about who God is, and who I am in Christ, and then I headed out to Thailand and Malaysia for ministry for the next two months. Uganda had always been on my heart...but after the Lord had sent me to Mexico, China, Thailand, and Malaysia, I began to see that His heart (and His plans for me) are bigger than I had ever imagined. Though at the moment I only have a glimpse of what I feel is in store for me...I know that God will continue to show me what is needed in his faithful timing!
After this school and coming home for a short time, I was asked to co-lead a short term missions team to Uganda! I couldn't believe it! God is TRULY a Father that knows how to give us the desires of our heart when they are aligned with what He has for us! So I took the team to Uganda, and ended up staying by myself in Gulu for about a month (with the Lord's direction) before embarking down to South Africa to do another Bible School with YWAM. During my time in Gulu, I met a man named Jimmy Onen who was working hard to teach children in their village African music and dance, and then with their performances he was paying for their school fees. We began to put our heads together and to share ideas of what we could do and where God was leading the ministry. In the ten months that I was away in South Africa the Lord really continued to show his faithfulness and mercy to the people and the ministry in Gulu, Uganda. Jimmy and I had prayed and really felt that the Lord had given us a passion to start a ministry of "Soldiers of Christ" and to really use what the enemy had intended for evil and use it for good. The Lord has now grown "Soldiers of Christ" in Uganda and allowed us to be able to sponsor 131 children's school fees, as well as begin a vocational school of 70 women, training them in English, Bible, and tailoring. We have even been so blessed as to start a nursery school for 27 preschoolers! We are hoping to eventually take the school on our grounds through all primary levels. If you would like to help support our ministry or would like to come out to Uganda, please let me know! I would love to get you connected with the incredible things that are happening!
I am planning (Lord willing) to be returning to Uganda in about June/July of next year for a few months with a team from all of the mysterious places the Lord has provided from so that Jimmy and others from our ministry can have the opportunity to go and do a Discipleship Training School.
Please pray with us as we continue to strive with God to see His Kingdom come and his will be done and to give a voice to those that were silenced for too long.
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