Celebrations – Easter and Birthday

Easter is quite well celebrated here on the equator with the only white stuff being a lily blooming in our front yard—it surprised us with a beautiful bloom on Good Friday and then another splendid display Easter morning! After a wonderful celebrative Resurrection Sunday service at our church focused on 1 Corinthians 15:58, Ruth and I plus a friend accepted an invitation from fellow church mates to join their family for the Easter meal. How precious to be welcomed into a Christian Ugandan home, chat freely (in English) with each family member/guest as they arrived, and eventually (around 3 PM) to feast on matooke (mashed green banana), rice, grilled chicken and beef ribs, and a green bitter spinach type vegetable, plus the green and cabbage salads we brought to add to the meal. Darkness had fallen by the time we got home and soon, our friend/colleague, Beth, and her crew of 3 others arrived for a brief visit and Easter greetings. It as a wonderful celebration of our Lord’s resurrection.

Easter Monday (a public holiday here), Beth arrived with her 14-year old daughter Lisa, a daughter of another relative 12-year old Mercy, and her sister’s 1½ year old daughter Sinza (which means Worship in Luganda). All three girls are adopted abandoned babies who are so full of personality and life. While Ruth baked 6 dozen banana muffins with Mercy…and Lisa when Sinza wasn’t demanding her attention, Beth, a former Secondary teacher, gave helpful insights regarding the Honesty Module which we hope to begin publishing next month. We both realized how tired we were after having two teenage girls and a toddler in our home...but it was fun! 

Tuesday found us leaving home before 7 AM and headed to Scripture Union with 60 banana muffins and 2 crates of soft drinks…my chosen way to celebrate my birthday. It was my turn to lead devotions from 8 – 9 AM centered around Psalm 40, followed by our brought in snack. And with that, the most rousing rendition of Happy Birthday from more than two dozen voices, a guitar, and 3 African drums, plus a precious time of being prayed for by our co-workers. Once everything was cleaned up, the weekly meeting of the ten VOICE volunteers began with Martha, the VOICE Operations Assistant, leading. We stayed for the prayer and testimony time, and then left to head to the next celebration--Chinese food birthday lunch with World Venture colleagues. I was crowned queen of the lunch…with a pink tiara! Once the table was somewhat cleared, out came a birthday cake that our neighbor had baked…with candles but the lovely breeze didn’t allow them to be lit.  So thankful to God for His kindness and mercy in bringing me to this new year. Thanks to all the dozens of friends who have sent greetings from around the globe. After celebrating Easter Sunday and Monday followed by a birthday, can it get any better? 

Seemingly...a Perfect Fit

Moral Purity...so misunderstood and misrepresented by the world. In the Philippines we tackled that value only on the high school level. Here in Uganda, all of our consultants urged that it be taught on all three levels, including Lower Primary (kindergarten - grade 3). The emphasis for these younger children would continue to be that of lifting up God's excellent plan--abstinence outside of marriage and faithfulness within marriage. But it would also need to help children who are vulnerable for being abused and those who are already being exploited, primarily by family members that they trust. Not an easy assignment for any writer, especially since it will be taught in school classrooms.

Our first writer who worked on it last December had her heart in the right place, but lacked the experience that comes with age...and university studies gobbled up more time than she anticipated. Humanly speaking, we had no one else to turn to. We prayed and sought the Lord together. During our first staff meeting with our "new" VOICE Operations Assistant, Martha, the matter came up for prayer. Martha immediately offered to consider her contacts and search for someone who would do this. Her first contact declined due to lack of time, but her second contact said she would welcome the opportunity to help in that way. A meeting was set and a couple days later we met Noeline. Currently she is in a ministry helping unemployed but self-motivated young people find employment, many of them actually beginning their own small business--amazing story in itself. But previously she worked for several years with children at risk, including many who had suffered or were suffering exploitation. The more we talked, the more I was convinced that God had prepared her for this assignment. So, she's working on it and feels it can be completed in two weeks' time! Maybe we're counting our chickens before they hatch, but it's been a huge encouragement for us to see God answering this prayer. He is able!

Pray and Play

Today both of us disconnected from the computer and VOICE Africa work and gathered with fellow WorldVenture missionaries for their quarterly time of prayer and fellowship. Our first hour together centered on God’s promises—a wonderful time of pondering, praying, and praising Him through spontaneous hymns/choruses for His faithfulness to keep His promises. Then we moved into a time of intercession for personal, family, and ministry concerns among us. From there we “lifted up our eyes” to our region and world.  I came away with a reminder of how dependent we are on our great God and that our work IS prayer.  We are kept here by those who partner with us in prayer, asking God to open doors and turn hearts toward Him.  (Thanks to each of you on our prayer team!) 

We closed our morning of prayer by doing something so common in North America but until very recently, unheard of here--“ordering in” pizza (on-line via computer) and having it delivered to our door. You would have laughed at all of our expressions of amazement that it worked, they found us (addresses are not as simple here!), the pizza was still warm and it arrived only 25 minutes later than we requested…not bad for African time! We then “kicked back” and shared a hilarious game of Pictionary.  Praise God for a total break from the usual routines to spend time with our colleagues and missionary family in praying and playing.

A VOICE Africa Friend is Promoted!

Although we deeply appreciate our partnership with Scripture Union Uganda (SUU), our contacts with a number of the staff and especially the Board has been limited.

Kedrace during the VOICE Africa Launch, Nov. 22, 2014
where she served as the guest speaker.

It seems that God is answering that desire of our hearts. This past Sunday was SUU’s AGM (Annual General Meeting), an all-day event which begins with a Worship Service and proceeds to business and reports and ends with the election of new members of the Board and leadership Board positions. The event is held at nearby Mengo Secondary School, walking distance from the SUU Headquarters. We attended with a volunteer, Olivia, and besides sitting in on some of the meeting, did some promotion of VOICE Africa and the June 6, 2015 planned Training. Scripture Union Uganda's  2014 ministry report states that 620 schools were included in SUU ministry during 2014 with a total of 136,448 students reached and 50,144 professions of faith! Amazing and praise be to our God! Another plus was meeting some of the spouses and children of the SUU staff. But, the greatest highlight was meeting up again with Kedrace, our speaker from the November 2014 VOICE Africa Launch, and to witness her being elected to the Board (as the only female member)…and then made Chairperson of the Board of Scripture Union. We congratulated Kedrace following the meeting and rejoiced in God’s sovereignty and appointments. She and the Board have many heavy matters to deal with, including lagging financial support, but we sense that God has her there also to help integrate VOICE in a deeper way into the SUU ministries! Our God works in amazing ways!