Fruitful week in Uganda

It's Thursday afternoon in Kampala. It's been an unbelievably productive and revealing week, but Harold and Tripp and I are dragging a bit. Our minds are in pure overload. I'm not sure we can absorb anything else as we get ready to come home tomorrow night.

We've visited with at least a dozen ministry sites this week, with numerous in-depth, multi-hour, intensive conversations at several sites. We've met with attorneys and CEOs and pastors and house parents and children who were raised in villages for orphans. We've looked at land and talked to land agents. We collected several pounds of business cards. We've asked hundreds of questions. We've heard dozens of stories, both encouraging and cautionary. We've met some wonderful people in the sites we had planned to visit, and have been referred to other wonderful people along the way. We've also met some people that clearly would not mesh with FCM's calling. God has opened and closed many doors for us throughout the week. We decided earlier today that we have seen and heard more in one week than we ever could have imagined on "Africa time".

Oh, and we found a really, really good Mexican restaurant last night. Imagine this...a woman named Yam, from New York City, owns and runs a first-class Tex-Mex restaurant in the middle of Kampala, Uganda. Go figure. Also, go and eat there if you are ever in Kampala. I think the name was Lotus Mexicana. They even had real sweet tea! I'm pretty sure we'll all drink sweet tea at the banquet tables in heaven.

They say variety is the spice of life - and if this is true, then our Mexican meal last night was a good description of our week. We've seen an extremely broad spectrum of ministries.

At one end of the spectrum we met a couple (from the U.S.) who pours their lives into 10 Ugandan children, being their literal "for life" adoptive parents. They do this in the most beautiful home and gardens I've ever seen on 4 acres of land on top of a hill overlooking Lake Victoria. They raise these children to know that they belong to their true Father, and that their earthly parents are merely a reflection of the One who loves them perfectly. They also have adopted children they raised from Ukraine, as well as their own biological children, who are all helping to raise these Ugandan children in one of the most unique family environments I've ever seen. Their calling is to invest their entire lives into a small number of children who will grow up to be kingdom children, not Ugandans or Americans. This ministry, called The Father's House, is the deepest practical and spiritual investment imaginable in a very small group of kids.

On the other end of the spectrum we saw a ministry that cares for and educates 515 orphans on about 100 acres of rocky land outside Kampala. This ministry has built dormitories for the kids, with 515 kids in three cramped dorms - with kids sleeping on triple-decker bunk beds. These kids are loved and educated and given clothing and a dry place to sleep every night, but they have no electriciy, and they only eat beans and corn mash every day for every meal. The ministry struggles to afford even water for this large number of kids.

In between those two extremes we saw many others, including Watoto (which we talked about in the first blog entry). We had a chance to meet with their CEO yesterday and ask questions for over an hour. He answered every question, and has offered to provide anything we need, including blueprints for their buildings and their training materials. It was obvious that they were not territorial or possessive or controlling of the ministry, although their standards were very high at the three Watoto ministry sites we visited. At this time it seems that our hearts are being pulled somewhere between Watoto and The Father's House.

We met for lunch with a group of young people today who were leading a ministry founded by a 19 year old American girl 6 years ago. She's 25 today and still leading the ministry. She shared very candidly their journey of learning hard lessons and provided some of the clearest insight for us in how to walk alongside the Ugandan people in a way that was mutually beneficial to both us and them. They were so helpful and had an amazing amount of God-given wisdom for people their age. In her story I had a glimpse of the unwavering heart for God and people that I pray develops in my own daugthers (I have three, 7 year and under), but I can only imagine how hard it was for her parents to hear their 19 year old daughter come home from her first trip to Africa and say, "God has called me to pour my life into Uganda...".

We also met with legal counsel and learned that it will take at least six months to set up the non-profit in Uganda, which is necessary before land can be purchased. That's probably a good thing, since there are many things to pray about and research and consider before purchasing and developing a property. Good property is not cheap or plentiful here. The properties we saw today strongly reinforced this truth: God will have to lead us to the right place at the right time. And He will.

The visit also reinforced that there will need to be a lot of American presence as the children's village is built and begun. Perhaps some of you who are reading this blog will have the privilege of one day sharing in the adventure of being part of a ministry team that rotates into Africa to help facilitate care for these helpless children.

The needs here are endless, about the size of the ocean. Even our best life-long efforts will only be a drop in the bucket. But consider this. In God's eternal view (the only one that really matters), every drop is precious. Every child is precious...even the littlest things matter, if they flow from His Life. "Even a cup of cold water given to a child" matters.... We may not see it that way naturally, but ask the Lord to show us what He sees. If we learn to see with the eyes of a heart that is intimately connected to Him, then we begin to see a completely different reality. A world where large and loud and impressive are sometimes much less valuable than quiet hugs or a simple cup of cold water given in His name to one child. Or five or fifty children hugged and given water every day until they are adults.

The only work that matters is the work that flows from the Spirit of God. Everything else, no matter how impressive, is wood, hay and stubble in God's eyes. Right?

When God is the source of our life and ministry, then what we do is eternally valuable - no matter how large or how small it looks to us. We are realizing that whether we care for 20 or 100 or 2500 kids is not the question before us. The question is, "What does the Father want? What is He inviting us to join Him in doing?" And we can only know the answer to that as we know and listen to Him. So we are wanting to trust Him to show us His direction for this village - all of us who He has given a desire to be part of this. And we are more clear than ever that this village will have to happen in His time, and in His way.

Do you know what that truth does? It lets us rest in Him. It relieves us of the pressure of figuring it all out.

I was a paratrooper in the Army many years ago. When we would get in the plane we always had a jumpmaster who was in charge. He would pay attention to what was ahead and know exactly when it was time for us to jump. As soldiers with parachutes inside the plane we had no idea where we were, or what was below us. We would train and prepare and work hard to get ready for our mission, and once on the plane we would sometimes fly for hours. Then when it was near time to jump we would line up and hook up and move toward the door. The door would open and then we would...continue to wait. Our eyes and ears were only on the jumpmaster as we waited to go. If we jumped on our own time, early or late, we would not land in the target zone, and might instead land in a lake or a highway or worse. We would also miss fulfilling the mission for which we had prepared.

When, finally, we were over the jump zone the jumpmaster would yell "Go" and the lights above the door would turn from red to green - and we would go piling out the door, jumping out into the pitch black night, totally dependent on the jump master to get us over the right landing zone. We literally had no idea where we were or how to get there. All we did was jump when it was time, and then take care not to land on a fence or in a tree.

I think that's a glimpse of where we are in this journey towards a children's village in which God will rescue and nurture and heal helpless, precious little children who presently live without hope. We're in the plane, ready and willing to jump, but we don't yet know where or when. Only God knows, so we're going to keep our eyes and ears on Him as we continue to wait and to work on the little things.

When He finally says "Jump!" then we'll know it's time to begin this work. And just like jumping from the plane it will be simultaneously exciting and scary for those involved...and only He knows where we will land...and we will have no choice but to trust Him in that, just like I had to trust the jumpmaster.

If you are one of Abba's children, I hope you know that He is so pleased and delighted with you today. Yes, there are changes He wants to bring about in you. Yes, there are places He still wants to touch and heal within you. Yes, there are thorns and struggles and sin patterns that He wants to use as opportunities for freedom and victory in your life. Yes, there are hurtful, sinful things you do or think or say along the way that He doesn't like. But He likes you. No, really. He does! Today you are exactly where He knew you would be in your journey, and you are totally acceptable to Him today. You were totally acceptable the moment Christ covered you with His blood and filled you with His life. You don't have to hide from Him, or work frantically to be acceptable to Him. Rest in His love, and ask Him to continue to open your heart to living in the realities of the truth and grace and freedom we have already been given in Christ. That's the abundant life He desires for all of us, and offers to each one of us. You are so loved by the perfect Father. Rest in that today.

Grace and peace to you,

Allen