Africa Africa...
Imagine with me for a second, going to school and working really hard to overcome the poverty your family lives in. Working hard in school so that you can do something with your life and finally getting a good job on a plantation. As you stand there washing your clothes maybe thinking about how you finally made it out of the poverty, you see rebels with guns come out of no where and your friends run. They surround you and kidnap you, putting you in a truck. Your life is gone. You have no one and are being taken deeper and deeper into the jungle. They force you to be a sex slave and take your humanity, your dignity, and your purity. They take everything, destroying you emotionally, physically, and spiritually. You are hopeless and wish you could die... you will die here and you know it, just as all the other women and children have in Joseph Kony's rebel camps. Now you are pregant and you know the last women who was pregant was buried alive. Then one day, two weeks before you are to give birth, your brother somehow by God's direction through dreams, finds you. And by God's grace, it's on the only day where there are not many rebels. You are free! You are free... but you aren't. Now you give birth to a baby that your family doesn't want, because it reminds them of the pain you went through. You try to forget the pain and all that was taken from you, but how can you? Would if this was your life? Would if this happened to you? As horrible as it is, this is a true story of a women named Angela. This really happened.
To say my heart has broken for Africa is an understatement. Africa has affected me and changed me in so many ways. I hear these stories and weep cause I know Jesus weeps too. People have been hurt so deeply and are emotionally so broken... but God longs to heal them. Jesus loves healing hearts and we have gotten to see him heal many. People can barely pay for rent, food, and clothes and their clothes fall off. Yet we get to go to their homes and they give us all they have. Family and friends die all the time. Police ask for bribes and there isn't something called justice. You walk through slums and stay with families, a place where sewage is pouring out when it rains. What do I do with all this? This poverty and all of these things affect me. It affects the way I eat, sleep, and all that I do. It affects me emotionally and spiritually. I know I will never be the same. I can't ever be the same. Why am I telling you all this? Because this is in my heart... my heart is changing... I am changing and there are so many things to say but i can't explain it in words. May you see the simple things around you. May you see the people sitting by you. May you realize that each and every thing you have and receive is a gift from your Father. He is pouring out over you! He is showing you things and longing to break your heart for what breaks his. He is longing for you to know His love and presence. He is longing to be with you in every moment! I have been blind... may you not be blind. May you see!
(Above are pictures of house churches that we went to)
We had an incredible ending time in Uganda... we spent a week at an orphanage with 126 kids and had a blessed time there, then we met up with a man named Martin, who has sacraficed so much for Jesus, and traveled with him through Uganda. We visited many house churches and encouraged them bringing messages to them. We stayed with several poor families and got to see people come to know Jesus and get healed. We then traveled to Kenya where we had an intense time starting out but again went to house churches encouraging them and gave a leadership seminar. We are now currently in Nairobi where we will spend a couple of days and then travel to the Maasai people! May your heart break for the things around you... and may you run into your Father's heart. Love and blessings!