June 23rd and 24th

Sat June 23

Ramona Terri and Susan presented about intimacy with the Lord, joy and abiding in the secret place in Psalm 91. They were so open and were almost pulling the information out of the three ladies. There is more to understanding how hungry these people are than the lack of natural food. The word about what is taught here is that the gospel is preached over and over to believers. Deeper teaching that puts down roots may be hard to find in some circles. So these ladies were very hungry to have other women speak to them about how to live this Christian life with joy and success. We believe that the Holy Spirit brough fresh revelation to these women. At the same time, the majority of the team ministered to the children. They had a strong sense that the children needed to be pulled into an attitude of sharing. So they sat on the grass and had numerous lessons on sharing and the power of giving to one another - instead of just taking. The team ministered Sat. night in song and testimony. Four adults and 5 children gave their heart to the Lord. One of them was a woman passing by from the market on foot. She stopped to hear the message and wanted prayer at the end. She had such kind eyes, but confessed, " I love God but have never had a relationship with Jesus" and now she wanted one. We prayed a beautiful prayer together. At dinner last night, we had a heart to heart talk. We are so grieved that these two wonderful ministries have trouble even getting enough good food to feed the kids with a balanced diet. We had a talk earilier in the day with Pastor Simon and drew out a plan for step two in the project of ministering to his family of 20 orphans. So at dinner, we raised an offering of $2000 to buy beans and rice. Wow, I forgot to tell you, on Friday we scored a big hit for Mary and Joseph's ministry as we connected a pediatric doctor we met on the plane from Amsterdam with Mary. She took us all to Feed the Children, Larry Jone's ministry and scored 72 bags of rice each about 120 pounds.


Sunday June 24

This morning we ministered in Pastor Simons church. The people loved our African choir since learning two songs in preparation for the trip. The celebration was exciting and the gratitude for our time with them these last four days was very genuine. We ate dinner together, took many pictures, gave away many hugs and we walked to the van. We had to do that each day because the road is too bad to travel upon with a full load of people. As we walked this rual lane that looked like a Hummer test track, I thought of the geographical contrast between these two places of ministry. Extreams seem to be the standard diet for our team. Tonight we have ended 9 days of ministry. We are exhausted, excited, grateful, tearful, joyful, moved with compassion and missing home. We are well, we are protected and we are in unity. What a gift. Tomorrow we host a critical meeting with Pastors Simon and Terry, Mary and Joseph and two pastors with group homes from Uganda and Tanzania. The team will shop. Blessings.