Celebrate Life

I am packed and ready to head out to our district camp grounds in Indianapolis. Tonight starts our weekend Celebrate Life retreat. This is the first time we have done celebrate life as a weekend retreat and I'm pretty excited about it!

I am the speaker for tonight's service and I'm pretty pumped up for it! It is always exciting talking to a group of teenagers and sharing what God has placed in your heart. I'm talking about Jacob and Esau tonight. I'll be sharing how Esau traded all that God had created to be for a momentary craving for soup! I think we all have many moments just about every day where we can sell out the person God has created us to be for a momentary craving that never fulfills and leaves us hungry for more.

I have a quote on the wall in my office that says, "I have created you for so much more! Why do settle?"

It's my prayer that I refuse to buy into lies and momentary cravings and instead pursue passionately the life and the person that God has created me to be.

Love, Joy & Peace!

President Obama Hama

I met a woman today who volunteers at a local elementary school. She works with kindergartners and 2nd grade students and she told me a story about a 5 year old boy that she was helping. The little boy asked her,

“Have you heard of President Obama Hama?”

She said, “I think I know who you are talking about.”

The boy said, “Have you heard of President Hilary?”

She said, “I think I know who you are talking about.”

The boy said, “Did you know they don’t like each other? I heard them say that on the news last night.”

She said, “That’s not very nice! You can say I don’t like something you do, or I don’t like something you said but you should never say “I don’t like you.”

The boy said, “I know! I can’t watch the news anymore. I get too depressed.”

The wisdom of a 5 year old!

I agree with him. When I see the news, when I see how things really are, when I see how much evil is in the world I tend to get rather depressed. I tend to feel a little hopeless.

But I am convinced that we have great reason to hope. I am convinced that Jesus Christ is the solution for the world. That the way of forgiveness, love and peace will ultimately triumph over the world of evil, hate and violence. I am convinced that the way of Jesus is the best way to live.

Pics & Vids

Pictures Are Here!

I've been home for about 20 hours now and I can finaly upload some pictures and Videos for you today.

I had hoped to have a few more posts while I was gone but I hope you enjoyed what I was able to post!

I'm in a bit of a return culture shock now that I'm home. It was a little odd going to wal-mart and the grocery store, I think about 12 villages could fit inside of one!

We arrived home on Thursday night at about 9:30 p.m. it was a long trip. I think we spent about 23 hours traveling. I was pretty tired! When we were in Detroit the flight was overbooked so that asked for 7 volunteers to spend the night and fly out in the morning. I was volunteer number 6 and for my sacrifice I was offered a free nights hotel, free dinner and a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the US including Alaska!

So I was pretty fired up about the free flight and a good nights sleep at the Hilton. I said goodbye to our team and waited for my ride to the hotel...when suddenly I heard my name paged over the intercom. I went to the counter and they informed me that there were two empty seats on the plane and I had to board! So I lost it all!

But anyway, here are some video's and pictures, I'll post some more tomorrow too!

Worship On Sunday Morning at the Church in Kitchumboora:

The Church of the Nazarene at Kitchumboora:

My Boy, I don't know his name. This is the kid I hung out with all week:

Hanging out with Dennis and his family at their home:

Some of the kid's at church on Sunday: Daniel:

The Nile River

Today began the relaxing part of our trip!

We were unable to attend a local church this morning because of confusion of service times, so we had church together in the front yard of the hotel. We sang a song together, Don preached, and John Kraft prayed. It was interesting that we came to build a building for a church that was worshiping under a tree and today we were the ones worshiping under a tree!

After Church we loaded up our vehicles and headed to Murchison Falls Park. It is a large game reserve on the Nile river. It is the largest game reserve in Uganda. It took us two hours to drive on the bumpy dirt roads roads! But once we arrived they greeted us in the lobby with cold towls to wash the dust from the roads off of our faces, and a cold glass of passion fruit juice!

The hotel is amazing! The name of the hotel is the Paraa Safari Lodge. If you google it they have a web site. Apparently The Queen stayed here before as well as Ernest Hemingway. All of the wood in our room is Mahogany. The whole place has an Africa explorer feel to it. We have a balcony in our room that overlooks the Nile river. I just had tea on the roof and you can hear the hippopotoms in the river below! It is amazing! There are more stars in the sky than I have ever seen before.

We took a 3 hour boat ride up the Nile today to Murchison Falls. It is a 100 foot waterfall near the start of the Nile. We traveled along the shore the whole way up and encountered all sorts of animals. We saw hippos everywhere! We also saw several Elephants and their babies, Crocs, warthogs, a Giant King Fish and some gazzel and plenaty of baboons! I couldn't describe to you how amazing it is to be that close to a giant animal like an Elephant or Hippo.

We could not get very close to the falls but even at the distance we were at you could feel the power of them! The entire Nile river has to pass through a very tiny gap and it comes crashing down!

Tomorrow we have brekafast at 6:30 and then we will head out into the park for a Safari of our own! I will be riding on the top of one of our vans for most of the day!

As I wrap up tonight I want to put a few sections from a journal I have been keeping.

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this so if you are post some comments!

Love, Joy & Peace



"I had a lot of fun with the kids today. None of them could speak English but we still communicated and we still had lots of fun! I taught the kids some very cool things today, like how to make glasses with their hands and that thing where you twist your hands around your middle fingers. They couldn't do the finger thing but they had the glasses down. A whole village of kids was walking around with their hands flipped on their faces like glasses!"

"There is one boy I played with most of the day but I don't know his name. He has a huge smile and is really cute. He wears the same shirt everyday and it has all sorts of different animals. We can't talk to eachother so we just hang out together and smile and laugh!"

"The women went to the Pastors house today to see his wifes garden. While they were there several of the woman asked about me. They wanted to know how many wives I had!"

"Kathy and I went and walked all around the town of Masindi toady. It was amazing! As we walked past all of the shops we dodged cars, trucks, bikes, and motorcycles all while walking on the left sid of the road with people laughing and point everywhere! Everywhere we went little kids would get very excited and yell "Wazungu!" which is a white person. We must have been a site to see, two white Americans in a sea of Ugandans."

Thats all for now! I'm off to sit by the river Nile. It hard work serving Jesus!

Uganda Part 2

Hello again everyone!

I found time and a ride back into town to post again. We just finished the construction of the church today. In the past 6 days we built all of the trusses, hung them, and hung the metal sheets for the roof. It has been hot, especially hanging on the roof of a metal building.

Today while some of the guys were finishing up their work I was able to go with a teenage boy I met here to visit his home. We walked about 1/4 mile up the road and turned down a long lane leading to his mud hut. Once we arrive there about 20 members of his family came running out to greet us. His mom was mad that he didn't tell here he was bringing friends over! (Not to different from home!) The had goats, chickens, ducks, and a couple of pigs running around. It was awesome! They gave me two pineapple and a papaya.

We then walked back to the church in time for the dedication of the new building. We presented a soccer ball to the youth of the church and they were very excited about it! They all agreed that in the front of the church they would build a soccer field for God! IT was great! Then the pastor of the church thanked us for coming and for giving our time. Then pastor Don prayed a prayer of dedication for the building. Many people were crying as they knew this would be the last time that we would see each other. After the dedication prayer we all sang the doxology together.

We passed out candy and beanie babies to all of the kids as they left the church. They were pretty fired up about receiving one. (See there is still a use for all of those beanie babies you have laying around!) We said goodbye to our friends and drove home. They gave us so much today. We had a box full of pineapple, papaya, jackfruit, sugar cane, banana's and passion fruit!

Tomorrow we leave Masindi for the game park. We will take a boat cruise down the Nile!

One more quick story and I need to Run.

Those of you who know my grandfather have probably heard his story about a cat drinking gas. Well yesterday I had to lead devotions at the church and I was looking for a story to tell and I told Grandpa's cat story. The people fell off their benches laughing! I thought grandpa would appreciate that! Maybe he has a future as a comedian in Uganda?

I need to run! I hope you are still reading! Thanks for praying for us!

Love, Joy & Peace,

Uganda

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't been able to write anything in the past few days. I'm in Masindi Uganda at an Internet Cafe. I don't have much time so I'll be quick.

These past few days have been amazing.

We are working on a church here. IN the past 3 days we have built all of the rafters, hung them, and tomorrow we will begin hanging the metal for the roof. I'm the youngest on the trip so everytime something has to be done high up I get sent up. So it's been fun trying to balance on the tip of the rafters in the hot sun of the Equator. I'm impressed with all the work everyone was able to do in just a few short days.

Our hotel is very nice, the food is good, and we almost always have hot water and electricity! Today in the middle of his shower the water just shut off on Don!

We worshiped here on Sunday morning and it was one of the most amazing worship services I have been a part of. The Ugandans shared testimonies and songs, and so did we. There was such passion and intensity in their worship. .

God has been so good to us! The people are amazing. I love to hear them laugh, and sing. I told one team member you kind of just want to hold the kids down and tickle them all! She said the would probably be really afraid of the crazy white man holding them down!
I have had a fun time playing with the kids and teenagers here. Today I had a group of about 15 kids following me around everywhere I went. They were cracking up laughing because I was afraid of a lizard!

ON Saturday I am going to visit the house of one of the teenagers named Dennis. I have to walk a 1/2 mile to get there! We have talke alot the past few days. I have a video of him singing a song that I will have to post when I get back.

Well I'm running out of time so I need to run. I should be able to post again tomorrow or Monday! Keep Praying for us!

Love, Joy & Peace

Amsterdam

We're sitting in Amsterdam now. The time at home is 3:30 A.M. and its 9:30 A.M. here.

Everyone is having a great time so far and we haven't had any problems at all. I have never traveled so quickly through security at an airport! Things are going great.

A lot of our group is getting pretty tired...ok all of our group! and it's really starting to show on their faces! But I still think they are all beautiful!

Our entire team if finally together here. Kathy and the Shorbes met us in Detroit and the other couple (I don't know their names!) just now met us here in Amsterdam at our gate.

The flight to Amsterdam went faster than expected we had a strong tail wind and ended up arriving an hour earloy. The phrase "hurry up and wait" keeps coming to my mind along with the lyrics to a Jerry Garcia song "Sitting here in Limbo".

I've really enjoyed the mix of people here. On the plane today the man in front of me had his new born son and 5 year old daughter and they were traveling to Kuwait to see his mom. Behind me was an Indian family, and next to me was a woman from Laos and in front of her a man from Kenya. I really enjoy being around such a diverse group of people. There were some interesting smells as well!

We will be waiting here for about 3 hours and then we head off to Entebbe, which is another 8 hour flight! We will spend the night at our hotel in Entebbe and then we are off to Masindi in the morning, which I think is about a 5-6 hour drive.

This is all still a bit surreal. When we landed here it was a fun realization that 7 years ago I was in the exact same place and I never really thought that I would ever be here again. It's crazy where life takes you. I was telling someone the other day how increadible my life has been. I have had such a blessed and privelaged life to go to all the places I have been to and to see all the things I have seen. Before I left I said that this was about it on my list of places I would like to see but now after browsing airling magazines I'm thinking about Kuwait, Greece, and Korea! And I'm not even in Africa yet!

On the plane I watched the movie "The assination of Jessie James: by the Coward Robert Ford" it was pretty much amazing and I can't wait to watch it on a normal t.v. when I get home. You should check it out. It's really long...

Well I'm off to wait in line at security to board our plane to Entebbe. I'm really excited to touch down and finally be in Africa. I can't wait! I'm really excited and looking forward to having my whole world changed these next 2 weeks. I'm anticipating what God is going to do in my life here. I don't have a clue what it is but it is my hope that when I return home I will be a different person!

A friend of mine in North Vernon has been telling me the past few week, "I can't wait for you to come back your are going to be so different!" I hope so!

Keep praying for us! I only have a few minutes left so I need to post this! Hopefully you will here some more from me tomorrow!

Love, Joy & Peace!

Off to Uganda

So I'm leaving for Uganda in about 47 hours and wanted to get some information on here for everybody to follow along with me on my journey. I don't know how often I will be able to post on here while I am in Ugand but I know we will have a few days throughout the two weeks where I will be able to throw something on here real quick.

In the next two days I'm going to put up some thoughts out of my journal that I've been keeping as I prepair for this trip. But for now here are some quick details about what will be happening:

We leave Thursday February 7 out of Cincinnatie to Detroit. We have a 2 hour layover in Detriot then we have a long flight to Amsterdam. After a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam we fly off to Entebbe Uganda. We arive in Entebbe at 9:00 P.M. their time. We will have to get thorugh Immigration and then spend the night in our hotel in Entebbe.

The next morning we have a 5 hour ride to Masindi Uganda. Misindi is the town we will be working in. Our goal is to build a church for the people of Masindi. We have 6 days to do the whole building!

Here is a link to the hotel we will be staying in at Masindi http://www.hotelvictorybijja.com/

Some time during the trip we will be visiting Murchison Falls National Park for a three day safari. You can check that out at: http://www.uwa.or.ug/murchison.html

Here is a rough map of where Masindi is located: (the bottom left)

I hope you read along the next few weeks!