WFW - helping them to hear

"How, then can they call on the one they have not believed in?
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"
Romans 10:14

This Easter we had the perfect opportunity to tell people of different religious faiths about Jesus and why He died for us. Sharing the Good News can be intimidating at times, but if we don't do it, how will others get the chance to believe in our wonderful Saviour? He chose us to tell the world about His love for us...let's take courage and pray for more opportunities to lead others into His arms.

To see the photos and read more of the Easter weekend story, just scroll down to "Easter Roller Coaster" post.

For more Word Filled Wednesday, head over to Amydeane's at the 160 Acre Woods!

Easter roller coaster

Easter weekend was a bit of a roller coaster this year.

Everything started well on Saturday when all the kids from the base and various friends and visitors came to our house to decorate eggs...

Jimmy, Junior and Deborah get started

Noah designs with crayon before coloring

Aidan and Joanna dye their eggs AND their fingers

We colored about 150 eggs, then had fun playing the Wii and running around the house.



Mid-afternoon we realized we hadn't seen Noah for awhile, so we looked around and eventually found him in his bed, fast asleep but with a fever. So I gave him some Ibuprofen when he woke up and he seemed to perk up.

Sunday morning dawned a bit windy and cool, but we didn't think too much about it. Noah slept on John's lap throughout the whole church service, and then I realized he was burning up again, so we took him straight to a lab to get a malaria test. The results were '0 to 1', which we didn't really understand, but after talking to a doctor friend, we decided to go ahead and start Noah on the malaria treatment.

Back at home, John and I quickly hid the kids' Easter baskets, making Noah's really easy to find. I didn't get any photos of Noah because he was too sick to do much...John ended up carrying him to get his basket and then putting him back on the sofa to rest. Poor little guy!

Noah's easter basket

Kezi and Aidan had fun finding their baskets...

We hid Aidan's in the tree

and put Kezi's next to the water tank...

She had so much stuff it wouldn't fit into the basket...

...but she was determined to carry it all for the photo!

They enjoyed all the goodies inside, including Lego sets sent from Granny and Grandpa in England,



and adorable baby doll clothes made by Granny. They were a perfect fit for Kezi's dolls.



Meanwhile, the sky was darkening and just after lunch a serious tropical storm hit. The rain came fast and furious, and I thought, "Good, let it rain now and then dry up in time for our Easter program at the base." Sometimes these African showers are hard and heavy for 20-30 minutes, then they stop suddenly, the sun comes out, and everything starts up again from where it left off.

Not this one. The heavy storm passed eventually, but the rain continued slightly less ferociously, and by 2:30 we knew we'd have to cancel our egg hunt. I was seriously bummed, but there was no way we could scramble around on that muddy, sodden ground. Reluctantly we sent out the word that the programme was cancelled.

At the same time, I was thankful that we could stay home and concentrate on taking care of Noah who was alternately shivering..."I'm freezing, Mommy!"...and trying to take off all his clothes 'cause he was too hot. It was good for all of us that we could stay home and look after him.

Just after the rain, though, a large crowd turned up at the base, ready for the programme! Some of our staff told them to come back at 10 the next morning. So the programme was back on!

I believe God was at work with the rain storm, not only because of Noah's sickness, but also because several of my Hindu friends would not have been able to attend if it had been Sunday afternoon as planned. Since it was rescheduled for Monday morning, however, Laksmi and Meena, and Meena's kids were able to come, which was a big blessing for me.



We started the program with a couple visiting from England, Nick and Claire Bradshaw, who sang a lovely song about Jesus being alive.



Then we had the opportunity to explain the story of Easter with our friends and acquaintances from town, many of whom have never heard the story of why Jesus died and the hope we have since He rose again. We used the Resurrection eggs to tell the Gospel story to a crowd of about 50 visitors.



And then we had the big hunt!

We divided the group into 'littles'...

and 'bigs'



and off they went to find the eggs hidden around our base.






















Afterwards we shared snacks of popcorn, peanuts, chocolate eggs, and of course...the hard-boiled Easter eggs.
















Thankfully, Noah was doing much better by then, and although he didn't participate in the egg hunt, he did perk up enough to go swimming later in the afternoon with Nick and Claire's family.



The animal lover in him came to the fore when he realized many of the flying ants that come out after big rains were falling into the pool and drowning. So 'Ant-Saver Noah' spent the rest of the time rescuing the drowning ants.































































From rainstorms and cancellations, to reschedules and successful programmes; from being quite sick one day to saving ants the next, it has been a weekend of lo's and hi's.

Just like it was for the disciples, who watched their Saviour die one day, and three days later, to walk with Him and talk with Him and know that He was risen! What a miracle...what a promise! Things aren't always as gloomy as they seem, and we have hope because no matter what disappointment, what tragedy, what failure...Jesus already won the victory, and one day there will only be hi's, hi's and more hi's. Praise the Lord...He is alive!

Getting ready for Easter...

Whoo hoo hoo! We are in chocolate heaven!

Over the last week we've had 4 teams arrive at our YWAM base from various corners of the world...Lausanne (Switz), Colorado Springs (USA), Coventry (UK) and Capetown (South Africa).

Here is the combined bounty of the Easter chocolate and goodies they brought...


We'll be hosting an Easter egg hunt at our base on Sunday afternoon that will hopefully attract lots of friends from around Arua, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu or who knows what else. A couple on the team from Coventry will sing a song, and we'll be doing the gospel presentation using the Resurrection eggs. Then we'll hunt for approximately 150 hard-boiled and decorated eggs!

After that, we'll have some snacks and hand out the mounds of chocolate eggs, bunnies and other Easter goodies that the teams brought. I can't wait! It's gonna be so fun, and hopefully some people will feel the touch of Jesus as we minister His love and the hope we have since He died and rose again!

Please pray for that program and for those who join us.

To follow the various activities of the teams, check out our updates on the YWAM Arua blog.

Aching, breaking, remaking my heart

I have a heart condition... I struggle to love.

Achk!! And she's a missionary?!

It's true...my heart is deceitful above all else. Wicked. Nothing good in it. (Jer 17:9)

I used to think I was loving, but I've known my love is conditional. If I'm honest, I have to admit that my love is fickle, springing from expectation and performance, inconsistent and easily withdrawn.

And God, in His faithfulness, is showing me how unloving my heart really is.

Yikes...this is not a pleasant ride.

As I was starting to get depressed about the state of my heart, Beth Moore pointed me towards a verse that lifted my spirit immediately...

"God is greater than our hearts." (1John3:20)

Hallelujah! There is hope after all! God is greater than my self-seeking heart! He CAN turn this heart of stone into a heart of flesh! That's Good News, indeed!

But how does it work?

I believe all the truths and the promises in the Bible...I believe God pours His divine love into me through His Holy Spirit, but somewhere that agape love gets stuck and doesn't seem to come out, at least for certain people.

I believe the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in me, but then why is it so hard to love in that sacrificial, lay-down-my-life kind of way? And why do I have to grit my teeth sometimes to be cordial to one particular person that seems to push every button I have? If this is the iron sharpening iron thing, fine...but shouldn't I be reaching a smoothness eventually where that agape love overcomes my selfish heart and all of a sudden I realize I actually DO love this person? Or is it a continual choice to love, rather than sense of love?





Love is so important to God, that without it, everything else is meaningless. (1 Cor 13:1-3) The prison ministry...a waste of time without love. The Alpha courses...same. My very presence here as a missionary...I might as well go home if I don't have His love giving meaning to what I say, do, think and live out.





So you see how this issue is important to me? If I don't have God's agape love, working in me and through me to others, I am wasting my time out here and a lot of people's money, and so I am desperate for that heart transplant. I don't want my life to be a series of meaningless efforts to do God's will...I want it to be full of the life-transforming power of agape, so that the people I minister to will see that there really IS hope because they will feel the touch of Love Himself. Somehow, when they look at me, they won't see me, but will see their Heavenly Father reaching out to them saying,

"Come, my beloved. I love you so much that I sent my own Son to die for you and rise again to bring you back to me. Come...I love you!"

Oh Father, that You would shine through the cracks in this weak jar of clay, transforming me even as You redeem the world around me. Let Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on this earth, in my life, in my heart, as it is in Heaven. Because You are worthy.

WFW - Prayer bowls

Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar.
He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints,
on the golden altar before the throne.
The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints,
went up before God from the angel's hand.
Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar,
and hurled it on the earth;
and there came peals of thunder, rumblings ,
flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
Revelation 8: 3-5

Dave Schmelzer, in his book Not the Religious Type, brings up the concept of prayer bowls as found in the Book of Revelation. He describes the picture of a bowl filled with incense and the prayers of the saints (you and me) which, when full, is hurled on to the earth, and dramatic things happen.

Hurled...dramatic

Then Dave poses some questions and ideas...

"What if each thing we pray for has its own bowl in heaven, as it were?
And what if each prayer we pray on that subject finds its way into that bowl?
And when the bowl is full - shazam! - our prayer is answered.
And what if the bowls all have different sizes?
So let's say I have a head cold and you pray for me and I actually do feel better afterward.
On this theory, that's one size bowl, and your prayers filled it.
Let's say, conversely, that we pray for peace in the Middle East.
Can we agree that that's a bowl of a different size?
But the key thing here is that peace in the Middle East does have a bowl -
however vast, it's still finite.
So hypothetically, if we got millions and millions of people to pray about that every day,
perhaps even that bowl is fillable."

I've seen a lot of answered prayer in my life, some that I would consider pretty 'big', but I also have unanswered prayers in my prayer journal, waiting for the day when something big happens on earth and the miraculous comes to pass.

Could it be that the prayer bowls for certain unsaved friends aren't filled yet?

Or is there more to it than the size of a bowl and the number of prayers?

What do you think?

For more Word-filled Wednesday pics and scriptures, head over to Amydeanne's 160 Acre Woods.

A bit of a moan and a self-pep talk

It's another one of those days... I feel myself slipping into a melancholic state, and I'm trying desperately not to give in to it.

John's been in Sudan since last Monday, so I've been doing double-duty as a parent, and trying to keep up with all the communications and decision-making that he would normally do. None of this is new to me, so that shouldn't be a big deal.

But I also have to keep my programs running, and this week we had 2 special events in the prison ministry that aren't in my normal weekly routine. One was to collect Simon, a prisoner we have been working closely with, from the prison gate when he was released on Tuesday and take him home. The other was to visit the women's prison and introduce ourselves and the Alpha Course. We hope to start the course there with them next Thursday.

So life is a little busier than usual...that's fine. I can cope.

But then throw into the mix a farewell party for some friends who are leaving Arua.


Katie (on the right) and I (center) have become very close in the last couple of months...it's one of those friendships where you recognize a spiritual twin. We've shared deeply and prayed hard, and seen God working miracles in our lives.

And now she's leaving.

She's planning and praying about coming back longer term in September with her family, but it's not a guarantee.

I struggle with this coming and going business. Next to having to leave behind parents and siblings and extended relatives and miss out on all the milestones of family life, the second hardest part of missions isn't the pit latrines or malaria or dial-up internet...it's having to say 'good-bye' again and again to yet another friend who shared life for a season

and then was gone.

I've just been getting to know Susana (above with me and Katie), my little Spanish prayer partner, and now she's also about to leave.





And Rianne (on my left), a sweet Canadian girl that I trained with and ran the MTN 10k with, only has one more week here.









Yes, there's always e-mail, and both of these ladies plan to come back, but it's still a grieving process when they go, not knowing for sure what plans God has for them,

because His, after all, are the ones that count.

So I've been feeling a bit down in the dumps,

and then my little girl gets sick.

Vomiting, diarhea, the whole nine yards. She's in a lot of pain, but there's not much I can do for her. Seems like a stomach bug is going around because many people are complaining of the same thing, so I dose her up with pain reliever, make her mint tea, and keep rushing her to the bathroom whenever she starts doubling up in cramps. She's only 3, so there's a lot of whining and crying going on, which grates on my nerves at the best of times, but now feels like sharp claws scraping away at the very tiny amount of patience I have left. I know she's sick, so I give her grace, but it's still killing me. I look at the clock...

'only 2 hours 18 minutes 'til bedtime.'

Then my stomach starts getting crampy. It hasn't developed into the full-blown sickness, yet, and I'm praying it won't, because then we'd be in a right mess. My kids need me to be healthy more than ever right now.

I'm not all that surprised with the sequence of events, though...seems like we regularly face challenging situations when John goes away, especially when his trip is highly sensitive. And because I'm kind of used to it, it's easier to fall back on God and say, "Here we go again, Dad! Just tell me what you want me to do...

I'm trusting you for another victory."

This morning my pastor was talking about Joshua leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, and he was reminding us of God's promise to Joshua, that He would give him every place where he set his foot. Although the victory was certain for Joshua,

he still had to fight against the enemies living in Canaan.

Right now, I'm looking at all the amazing things God is doing in the prison ministry, and I know He has given us victory, but we still have to fight the battles. I still have to find strength in the Lord, even when my husband's gone, and my friends are leaving and my children are sick. Because no matter what the circumstances, I am not alone. God will never leave me nor forsake me, whether I'm in the heat of battle,

or munching on grapes and honey.

He is with me wherever I go.

WFW - The wrong kind of altars

I got a chill when I saw this photo. It was taken about 3 weeks ago during a scouting trip by some of our team members. They had gone to visit the Lugot people of southern Sudan, and what they found was truly heart-breaking.

Our team came across several altars like this one, and smaller ones built right outside of witchdoctors' huts. When you see the state of the lives of these people, you witness first hand the devastation of life without God. They have set up for themselves high places and sacred stones on every high hill and under every spreading tree. They don't know the one true God and how much He loves them.

We are praying about how to go and tell them.


For the whole story, see The tragic reality of the Lugot of Sudan.

For more Word-filled Wednesday, head over to the 160-Acre Woods.