Happenings

Sad news...

I know that I said that this Sunday I would take pictures so that you could get a feel of what our worship service looked like, but sadly there were several of us sick and Baby Girl was the only one who was able to go with daddy to service.

Here is what Kent had to say about the service in his last update.::

We had a much more Ugandan crowd in our Sunday morning gathering today...with all the short-termers gone back home. We had 25 people and 20 children attend. Two of the visitors received salvation this morning! We broke up into 4 small groups after Simon Peter gave a word on God's Love and it went great. They prayed for each other and said the "small groups was a good idea." We are having our first small group training this Wednesday evening! Be praying for revelation please.

Good News....
The "long term team" had a retreat this weekend.  They were able to debrief after the three week flurry of short term team activity. It was a good time from what I hear. 

Here is what Kent said about the retreat::

We had our first "long-term" team retreat this weekend. It was made up of all the translators who have been working with our short-term teams the past 3 weeks and our 2 summer interns...9 Ugandans and the 3 of us. We had a lunch last week to celebrate all that the Lord had done through our work and to see who wanted to continue working with us. We basically asked who could commit to the team/vision through August(university will start back up then) and all 9 said they were in! We left on Friday morning to go to a nearby "retreat center" and the action started before we even got out of town. As we were getting some batteries before we left, a man severely crippled on the left side of his body went walking/hobbling by. Two of the guys stopped him and began to talk and pray with him. Almost one hour later he walked away carrying his cane on his shoulder! He had lifted his left arm above his shoulder for the first time since 2007 and had opened his left hand since that time, although the hand would not stay open. His back seemed to literally straighten as we prayed over him. During all this a small crowd gathered. One of our guys shared the gospel and 2 men received salvation in Jesus! This was all because we needed to buy batteries! And because the Lord loves these people tremendously! So then we head off to our destination where we looked at some large scale strategy and weekly practicals we could begin doing this next week to disciple the new followers of Jesus. It was a lot for such a short period of time, but it was good. On Saturday afternoon as we were driving back to the main road we came upon a 9 yr old boy who walked like a 90 yr old man. His left knee was injured in a simple bike accident 2 days earlier. We stopped the van and started praying over his knee. he hopped on it a couple of times and then raced one of our summer interns to "the next tree." He literally ran just a few minutes after barely being able to walk! As we began to drive back home we all marveled at how the short retreat was sandwiched between 2 encounters with the Kingdom of Heaven. These 9 young folks are so excited to be part of this...and so am I.

Finally..

The girls and I said good by to Andrew, our summer intern last night.  We had he and Jay, the other intern, over for dinner and chocolate cake, per Andrew's request.  He will be headed to Haiti, to join up with a summer team that is there helping with relief work after the earthquake.  He will be GREATLY missed!! I am posting a link to his blog... is you have time you might enjoy reading about what God is doing here in Gulu from another set of eyes.  Andrew's blog

 We have said "good bye" to so many people over the last few weeks.... The college team, the elevate team, Laura (Ashley's sister), Andrew and soon we will have to say farewell to Ashley as well..... My heart is heavy.  Ashley has been here since we arrived... if you remember, we met her in the airport.  Fortunately she is from Dallas, and will be easy to visit when we are home on furlough... when ever that may be.

I have decided that I can't end on a sad note....

Last night I was explaining to Curly about Haiti and what is being done there, this is how our conversation went::

Me: Haiti has a terrible earthquake several months ago and our Church in Waco has been sending teams over to help the people there who have lost thier homes.

Curly: Really??  Are all the buildings gone??

Me: Most are I think...  Mr. Jay went to Haiti a few months ago.  One of the ways he helped was y pulling peoples teeth, and he's not even...

Curly: (interrupting) A tooth fairy.

Me: I was going to say dentist, but tooth fairy works.