Noah's 6th birthday

Noah decided to have his 6th birthday party at home this year, instead of the usual pool party at White Castle.

The advantage was that we could include more of the YWAM base kids.

The disadvantage was that it meant more work!


But lots of friends helped out and we all had a great time.

Louise (L) and Kenzie (R)
help paint faces --->

<--- Moses, Noah, (Joshua), and Otim a.k.a. "Spiderman, Tiger, (Vampire) and Curious George"

Junior and Noah --->

<--- The kids

"Happy Birthday to Noah..." --->

<--- Blowing out the candles...

...and blowing them out again
when they relight themselves --->

<--- Praying for Noah

Hip hip.... --->

<--- ...Hooray!!!

Pastor Sam brought his gift to Noah at night...
Noah named the sheep 'Rocky' --->

Seeing God's heart for the deaf like never before

After 13 years in Uganda, I'm experiencing a whole new world for the first time...the world of the deaf.

This may sound strange to those of you who know me because you will know that my husband is deaf, as is his older sister. However, with the help of hearing aids, we live a pretty normal life, albeit a bit louder than most.

But this year, for the first time ever, our YWAM base is running the annual Discipleship Training School with 4 deaf students. No hearing aids. No talking a bit louder. Deaf as in 'no communication apart from sign language', which I don't know.

<--- Adam and Helen Fielder are the impetus behind this new experience. They joined YWAM Arua last year and started up the Deaf Connections ministry. Both of them will be interpreting on the school.

Yesterday I was leaving my house on the way to pick up my kids from school, and I came across the DTS staff and students doing a tour of the base. I stopped to introduce myself and greet everyone, and had my first experience of needing to be translated for into sign language. Instead of spelling out V-I-K-K-I, Helen, who was interpreting at the time, told one of the students to give me a sign name. The female student studied me for a few seconds, then made a sweeping motion with 2 fingers down the bridge of her nose and off the tip up into the air. It reminded me of being little and people saying I have a 'ski-jump' nose.

Then, of course, nosey me (no pun intended) I wanted to know everyone else's sign names, so the deaf and hearing alike signed their names, all of which highlighted some unique feature on the face or head. One guy pulled on his ears, making me think of Dumbo (except his ears weren't exceptionally large or funny-shaped...not sure why they chose that sign for him). Another lady ran her thumb across her forehead because she has a kind of line across there (not sure if it's a wrinkle or a long scar...will have to examine it up close later).

It makes sense to identify someone by a special characteristic they have, but I could see how it could be awkward if the feature chosen is something the person is ashamed of or embarrassed to have pointed out. Guess you have to have or develop a thick skin, but maybe it helps that they can't hear the rude comments or the mocking laughter.

They can see it, though.

I wonder how they feel. I wonder what they think. I wonder why I'm just now wondering this while all along I've been married to a mostly deaf guy for 10 years.

Maybe because the deaf in Uganda are, in Adam's words, an 'unreached people group.' They tend to be shunned by society. They are marginalized. Hearing aids are available in Kampala...for a very hefty fee, far beyond the average Ugandans financial capability. So none of them have hearing aids.

For some reason these students are affecting my life differently than John's hearing impairment ever did. I'm the first teacher on the DTS, and I'm asking myself,

"How does their deafness affect my teaching style?
How will they take notes? They can't listen and write at the same time.
Will they just absorb it all and remember it somehow?
How will they participate in small group discussions?
How will they pair up with others for 'getting to know you exercises', or for prayer?
How will they bond with the other students if they can't communicate?"

So many questions...no answers yet. I'm trying to figure out how to adapt my teaching style so they don't miss out. Thankfully both Adam and Helen are secondary school teachers, so I'm sure they'll be able to give me some pointers on how to teach inclusively.

Helen signing with a deaf boy --->

I'm on a steep learning curve, and without a doubt, so are the students. One of them wanted to go back as soon as his father dropped him off. But he's still here, and I know God is going to bless that guy.

I have a sense of expectation and excitement...I believe God is going to show up Bigger and Better than I've known Him up 'til now...and we're all going to receive new insights and revelation into the nature and character of God as we walk this journey together over the next months. What a privilege to be serving here at such a time as this.

Thanks, Abba.

Following God to our promised land

I'm really not getting paid by Beth Moore or LifeWay to promote her Bible Studies, but once again I find the content speaking into my life exactly where I am today.

A friend who I met when I had just recommitted my life to Christ recently blessed my husband and I with 2 copies of the Believing God workbook, and the set of audio cds with the weekly sermon. I just started Week 1 and am already touched by the way God is speaking into my life.



The premise of the Bible study is not just Believing God in terms of Faith as a noun, as in,

"Yes, I have faith in God. I believe in Him."

but having present-active-participle-verb type belief, as in,

"I continually believe God as a daily way of life, in every situation,
because I know He is Who He says He is,
and He can do what He says He can do."

Part of this morning's reading was Hebrews 11, and certain verses stood out to me in a new light:

v8-10 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country;
he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
For he was looking forward to the city with foundations,
whose architect and builder is God.

v 13-16 All these people were still living by faith when they died.
They did not receive the things promised;
they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.
And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
If they had been thinking of the country they had left,
they would have had opportunity to return.
Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God,
for he has prepared a city for them.

I think these verses struck me afresh because I had just been talking yesterday with one of the CDTS students, Cheryl Cook from Canada (check out her blog!), about the early days of YWAM Arua. I had never been to Arua before God called us here; John had only passed through once. The others who helped pioneer the base had never been here.

Yet God told us to come...so we did.

For two and a half years we lived in a grass-thatched hut with no indoor-plumbing or mod cons. Not exactly a tent, but not far from it.

It was hard, that's true, but we never thought of returning to the countries we'd left behind...we knew God had called us here...this was our 'promised land' and our inheritance.

And our eyes have been fixed on that heavenly country...the one where there is no more sorrow, no more pain, no more ghecko droppings landing on our pillows.

We have made our home literally as strangers in a foreign country, and we will remain here until God says to move on. His plan is perfect, and although there are physical discomforts, the spiritual blessings are innumerable. We can endure all things through Christ who strengthens us.

I want to be counted among the number of whom 'God is not ashamed to be called their God.' I don't want God to be ashamed of me...I want Him to be glorified and lifted high in my life, and when I get to that heavenly city He has prepared for me, I want to enter it with joy and hear my Father say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Yes, the road will be hard. Yes, there will be pain. But please, Lord, help me to appropriate your Grace which is sufficient for every situation. You are worthy, Father.

50th celebration report and photos

The report I wrote for YWAM's 50th anniversary celebrations has been posted to the official 50th website: www.ywam50.com

Follow this link to see the report for East Africa, but check out the others, too! It's so cool to see how the different regions around the world are celebrating this Jubilee.

YWAM's 50th Jubilee celebration Eastern Africa

After months and months of work leading up to the BIG EVENT...YWAM's 50th anniversary jubilee celebrations for Eastern Africa have come and gone, and I'm now in the recovery process.

Since last September we've been gathering stories and photos of God's faithfulness to YWAMers in Africa, and finally this March, the Jubilee magazine was finished.

36 pages of nothing but stories of the miracles and blessings of the Lord to and through YWAMers all across Africa.

How often do you get to read a magazine like that?



More weeks were spent gathering the historical
data of YWAM Eastern Africa....like where it began (Mombasa) and when (1978), and how it spread across Eastern Africa from there.

Elli and Rachel spent hours painting this artistic visual of the timeline, with Mombasa base in the center, and out of it flowing the vines with the bases that came later and the fruit of those bases (YWAM schools and ministries) written on clusters of grapes.


In the meantime I was doing my best to keep communication flowing throughout the region with email updates and general information.

Finally I came to Jinja a week before the celebrations began to help get all of the communication things in place. God blessed me with a wonderful comm team representing nearly every nation in the region: Ash from Tanzania, Ruth and Samy...Indians serving in Ethiopia, Judith...a Canadian on her DTS outreach from Rwanda, and me, Charles and Tom serving in Uganda.


<-- Our 50th comm team having an afternoon out at Bujagali falls, on the Nile River.


Our comm team worked together so well it felt like we'd been a team for years.

We made food vouchers and name tags and welcome packs. We did all the photography and videography of the event. We ran all of the audio/visual systems with the projector, sound system and computers. And we did all of the communication with Loren and Darlene Cunningham's team, plus the regional bases. So we were very very busy both before and during the event.

But through it all, God was SOOOOOOO faithful!

• None of our comm team fell sick
• None of the equipment got broken or failed to work
• All of the communications were done smoothly and efficiently
• And we actually had a lot of fun!
  

It was absolutely amazing!

And now here I am back in Kampala...John has dropped me off and headed to Arua with the kids and the team from Yei.

I'm still reeling a bit from the last 2 very hectic weeks, but I've had a few cups of coffee and the hot water heater is on, so after this I'm going for a long, hot soak in the bath, and I'm sure I'll be back in good form later today.

I'll also be uploading a report of the 50th celebrations and some photos on www.ywam50.com
later today, so be sure to go check that out!

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for me...your prayers were answered, and we give all the glory to the King of Kings!

Give up so you won't give in

Do you ever feel worn out? Do you ever feel exhausted or profoundly discouraged?

Dan 7:25 says, "He will speak against the Most High and oppress His saints."

Beth Moore quotes the definition of oppress which "literally means 'to wear away' or 'to wear out', as one would wear out a garment."

She goes on to say, "One of satan's most effective schemes is simply to wear God's people out."

I can see that. I can feel that.

BUT, Beth goes on to remind us that we have the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit within us that can never be worn out! That same power raised Jesus from the dead! What incomparably great power we have!!

But do we recognize it? Do we draw on it? Or do we keep operating out of our own strength and end up ready to throw in the towel?

I'm trying more intentionally every day to say, "Dad, I can't do it alone! Thank you for your Holy Spirit...fill me again today that I may be led by your Spirit, and bear the Fruit of your Spirit."

I know satan wants to oppress us until we give in and give up, but if we give up our lives to the Lord and allow His strength to work in us, we won't ever give in to the lies of the enemy.

When it all just seems too much...

I wasn't sure whether to write this post or not until I received an email from a friend sharing her concerns about coming back to Arua for another short-term stay. It was her statement, "I feel like God wants us to come back to Arua, but I'm not sure if I want to go" that made me think...Yeah, I need to write this.

You see, it's not just my friend who is torn between wanting to come back, and not wanting to because she knows the challenges she and her family will face... after 13 years here, I also still face that same battle.

The most recent time was just last weekend. I'd spent 2 glorious weeks in Chiang Mai, Thailand, enjoying airconditioned hotel rooms, hot showers, pothole free roads, Starbucks coffees and hi-speed internet. I came home anxious to see my family, but this time the transition back was so much more difficult.

On the bus ride up to Arua (7 hours in the baking afternoon heat), all I could see was the rubbish that littered the road, the huge plumes of diesel smoke from the battered lorry ahead of us, the rusted tin roofs, the dirt-stained buildings, the dilapidation, the poverty...

I've seen it all before. I live in the midst of it. But this time it affected me deeply...not with a new burden to bring change, but with a new desire to run away.

The next few days I tried to get back into the swing of things, but unbeknownst to me, I was in the first stages of malaria. I thought the body aches and lack of energy were just due to the long journey, and I tried to keep going, but by Tuesday I was shaking with fever and later that day discovered I had malaria.

That day and the next, all I could think about was how fed up I am with Africa. I ranted and raved about the corruption, the disease, the filth, the underdevelopment. I told John, "These are no rose-colored glasses...I'm wearing mud-colored bifocals and the view from this side is hopeless."

I just wanted to get out. I'd had enough. Why am I here? I kept asking God. Haven't I 'roughed it' enough?

I could see no good thing in my ministry here. What had I really done to make any difference? The kids on the other side of the fence are still walking around naked with snotty noses and nothing I'm ever gonna do will change that.

I was really in the pit of despair.

Then God spoke to me once again through Beth Moore (I just love that woman!). She was teaching on Daniel 6 - in the lion's den, and she focused on v. 10 where Daniel learned about the decree prohibiting prayer to any god apart from the king. His response was to go back to his upper room, get down on his knees, and pray, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

Beth pointed out that Daniel had developed a holy habit of prayer that became his default response to any emergency.

She said we all have default responses to emergencies: we can become critical...blaming everything and everyone; we can react in anger...raging against everything and everyone. She mentioned several others but my mind had latched onto those two and I thought, "That's just what I have done. For some reason coming home this time has triggered a default pattern in me to criticize and blame everything around me for how miserable I feel."

Beth went on to point out that Daniel didn't just pray, "Lord help me help me help me!" but he gave thanks to his God. Beth took us to Phil 4:6-7 and reminded us that we aren't supposed to be anxious, but to pray about everything, and do it with thanksgiving! And doing that will guard our hearts and minds!!

Boy did my heart and mind need some guarding. I had to pause the sermon right then and get down on my knees and say sorry to my Daddy for my attitude, my criticism, my lack of thanksgiving. Something in me broke and I just cried in my Father's arms, and soon I could see all the wonderful things He has blessed me with. And I began to name them, and thank Him for them, and soon that peace He promised came and blessed my soul.

I know it's not all about me, but it's easy to make it seem that way. However, I want to reset my default settings so that, instead of ranting and raving and generally hating my circumstances, I automatically drop to my knees and begin praising my God, thanking Him for His wonderful works and glorifying His name.

Because you know what? No matter my circumstances...He is worthy to be praised.