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Trip 16, Update 7, Good News

The Stream of Hope Home is beginning it’s 3rd year at the property purchased near Biasi, Uganda.  The community has seem amazing things happen, buildings going up, children given hope, church revivals, community service, and fresh water supplied.  These are all passive illustrations of the love of Jesus working in practical ways.  On this trip, the team has made active evangelism efforts into the community to tell people the “Good News”.  Their words have credibility due to the ministry’s loving actions.  Here are a few updates from Ed and Greg at SOH…….

Greg and the rest of the team did a nightly walking evangelism tour of the local families.  The area is rural and very depressed but they all heard of the Eternal Salvation which is only through Christ Jesus.  One woman was so grateful that she gave the team 3 live laying chickens.  Can you imagine being so grateful for the Gospel message of Salvation that you would give up part of your food source?  When I saw the chickens and heard the story I couldn’t help but think of the Widows’ Offering in Mark 12:43 – Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. (44) They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on”.  (The chickens will provide eggs for the kids)

Wednesday night we played the Jesus video (in the Lugandan language) which chronicles the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Because of the outreach into the community, I counted over 150 people in attendance.  When the movie came to the part where Jesus was resurrected, the entire audience went wild with clapping and hollering.  After my initial astonishment, I teared’ up as I realized that they got it.
Ed

….on our witnessing yesterday we met a man that was dying and he believed he had been cursed by demons.  As he lay there naked in his own urine, we layed hands on him and prayed the demons away (Paul was not along so I had to lead the prayer, way out of my comfort zone).  I will go back to see the man today.  …..pray for this man.  He is dying and needs peace and a savior.
Greg

 

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Edinasi, Greg, Jon, and Nathan with one of the “gift” chickens.

Trip 16, Update 6, SOH Home

 

The team has been at the Stream of Hope Home this week and have been doing well.  Ed and Geri will be traveling back to the US tomorrow and Sandi back to Kenya for a few more weeks.  Nightly community walks and evangelism visits lead to a standing room only crowd to see the Jesus Film in Lugandan last night, shown in the SOH dining hall.  Greg reported that one woman was so happy that they visited and spoke to her about Jesus that she gave them 3 chickens for egg laying.  Please pray for travel mercy and for the community to be open.

Here are some photos of the open air shelter, new basketball court, and kids.

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46 Precious Ugandan Children…

We met this brave new mercy ministry…an orphanage that Greg, Moses, and I visited and served in Uganda.  Through friendships that God put together over the years, I was introduced to Pastor Isa and the Stream of Hope for the African Child (SOHAC) ministry in a small town about 75 miles north of Jinja, Uganda called Nawantale.  It was a brutal trip to get there from Kitale, nearly 10 hours total by vehicle plus a border crossing.

Pastor Isabirye Paulous and his team started a church and children’s home because of the needs in this community for spreading the Gospel and for children to be defended.  Traditional worship and belief in the spirit world is common.  An undefended child is at risk for exploitation in many ways.  The church building is a simple structure with open sides and grass roof but full of joyful worship.  It is the only church in the village center.  We spent a great Sunday giving messages and in worship with them.

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Stream of Hope worship

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Moses and I with the team at SOHAC Ministry

Rented house for the orphans

The kids and few caretakers are existing in a very cramped and basic way.  They can get clean water at a community well 1/2 mile away but all the children wake at 3:00am to stand in line at the hand pump so they can get water for the day, before walking over 3 miles to school.

Village hand pump

Village hand pump

Stagnant water many use for washing

Cooking and facilities need improving.

Kitchen facility

Kitchen facility

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Sleeping quarters are safe but too cramped and on an unfinished floor with no mosquito nets.

20 boys sleep in this room

20 boys sleep in this room

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SOHAC funding is inadequate and they are just surviving.  We brought them medicine to treat the children for intestinal worms and diarrhea, we left some mattresses and mosquito nets, we bought a 2 week supply of food, we performed field dentistry and removed many teeth, and we purchased school books and supplies so the kids could go to school.  They were so excited to go to school that they did not sleep.

Administering de-worming medicine

Administering de-worming medicine

School supplies so the kids can attend school

2 weeks of food and supplies

2 weeks of food and supplies

Field dentistry to relieve pain

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Pray with us for the guidance and provisions for SOHAC Ministry, for the health and well-being of the kids, for God to be honored in all things, for the lost of Nawantale to see Jesus in the flesh through this work and wish to know Him, and for us to know how God wants us to proceed as Mission Servants Ministry to serve this mission.

Unengaged People Group … the Kenyan Teso

This is a neat story of some work for the Gospel made possible by God connecting a lot of different people…….I love seeing how God works.

A friend of mine, Randy, was investigating the ethnicity and language data available on the people in western Kenya, near the LSH orphanage and he noticed a people group named that Teso that existed along the Ugandan / Kenyan border, southwest of Kitale, the region where the LSH orphanage is.  On the Ugandan side, they are well engaged with the gospel, have a complete Bible and many churches. The data shows that the Tesos of Kenya are only marginally engaged with the gospel.  It seemed ideal that the Ugandan Teso could be helped and encouraged to evangelize their Kenyan relatives.

Questions were asked of Pastor Moses and The Lord’s Ministries (TLM) group that we work with in Kenya about this apparent opening for the Gospel and it was investigated.  Pastor Moses’ associate Pastor Ben visited the border town of Malaba and he met Pastor Godfrey of the Portable Bible Center (PBC).  Pastor Godfrey is a Ugandan Teso who moved across the border to Malaba and established the PBC in Malaba with a mission to train Pastors to reach the Kenyan Teso people.

We met Pastor Godfrey and several students of the PBC during our recent mission trip as we were traveling from Kenya to Uganda.  There are fledgling churches among them established in the past few years of effort.  They are a determined and passionate group.  Pastor Ben, from Kitale, Kenya has been led to adopt the Teso as his mission.  He will work to encourage and help them.  I hope that we can help in some way, possibly providing digital audio media and printed tools through Pastor Ben to help the PBC reach the unreached Kenyan Teso.

“…….I established  there are many  people  who have  a  zeal  for  the   gospel.  This was from  the way I  was received  and  found   out  from  a number  of   Pastors  around.    In   conclusion   brother,  there   is  a   great   task   ahead.    God   bless  you,          Brother Ben – Kenya TESO MISSIONARY”

From Wikipedia….In Uganda, the Teso live mainly in Teso sub-region, i.e., the districts of Amuria, Soroti, Kumi, Katakwi, Ngora District, Serere District, Pallisa, Bukedea and Kaberamaido, as well as Tororo District and Busia District. They number about 3.2 million (9.6% of Uganda’s population). Until 1959, they were the second largest ethnic group in Uganda.  As of 2002 they were the fifth largest.[2]  The Teso in Kenya, numbering about 279,000, live mainly in Busia District, Teso District.[3]  Teso traditions relate that they originated somewhere in what is now Ethiopia and migrated south West over a period of centuries.[4] They were part of a larger group of Nilotic peoples who migrated from Sudan in several waves.  A splinter of this group later formed a branch called the “Karamojong Cluster” or Ateker.  The Ateker further split into several groups, including Jie, Turkana, Karamojong and Teso.[5]  The Teso established themselves in present-day north-eastern Uganda, and in the mid-18th century some began to move farther south. During the course of this latter migration, conflicts ensued with other ethnic groups in the region, leading to the split of Teso territory into a northern and southern part. In 1902, part of eastern Uganda was transferred to western Kenya – leading to further separation of Teso.[4]

Please pray with us for Pastor Godfrey, Pastor Ben, and the Teso people.

Men from the Teso

Men from the Teso at the PBC

Showing the Jesus film as an example of media technology available in Ateso language.

Showing the Jesus film as an example of media technology available in Ateso language.

Greg and Pastor Moses giving a message to the Teso Pastor Trainees

Greg and Pastor Moses giving a message to the Teso Pastor Trainees

Orphanology…and other thoughts

I just finished reading a book called ‘Orphanology’ by Tony Merida and Rick Morton, a biography on George Müller, Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans, and some of the many Bible references towards orphans.  I enjoyed it all and was encouraged in what we do through Mission Servants at The Lord’s Servants Home.  Although ‘Orphanology’ is a book slanted towards adoption as the best option for an orphan because of the connection to family, a bond with parents, and a sense of having a home, it recognizes that in many countries, adoptions are not possible.  It is true that orphanages in many places are mere institutions and do not provide a sense of family, bonding with a parent, and a home.  At the Lord’s Servants home, we have full-time and on-site caretakers, a family atmosphere, and priorities to care a child into an adulthood that has an education, life options, self-worth, knowledge of how to love others, and knowledge that God loves them….just like most of us were blessed with in our families.  We will have 60 children at the LSH soon.  I marvel that George Müller had these same goals and had 2,000 orphans while pioneering the orphanage institution in 19th century England.

Merida and Morton state that orphans live under the banner “Rejected, Unwanted, and Optional” and without someone showing them love, will grow up feeling “worthless, hopeless, and unloveable”.   The world is full of evil people who will use a child that feels that way about themselves.  “God has called us to be a defender of the defenseless because that is who He is.  We are returning worship to God when we show His character to the world by what we do…”

James writes in 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accept as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  God takes notice because orphans are among the least powerful and most vulnerable people on earth.  I read many references to there being around 150 million orphans worldwide.  I realize through the Bible that there is more than that, billions in fact.  Before we were “adopted” into God’s family by God’s effort and God’s plan of salvation through Grace through Jesus, we were lost, vulnerable, and hopeless.  It is Jesus that put the value on us by what He paid, and made us His Family with full rights to His inheritance.  It will change a person that realizes they were an orphan and was adopted.  It did me!

I also feel there is great value in a “Godly Family Orphanage” for several other reasons… First, these children are part of their society and it’s future.  I pray that we prepare them to be part of the solution to the problems in their society because solutions must come from within.  Second, a “Mercy Ministry” like an orphanage is a hands-on way to show the love of Christ working in a tangible way and it makes the words of evangelism come alive to those watching what is happening.  Lastly, each group of children is an “unreached People Group” and will remain unable to comprehend the kind of love God has for us if living a live without somebody showing them love and giving them value and hope.

Thank you for joining us in prayer, efforts, and in worshipping God by joining him in loving and defending the defenseless.

I love the 'honesty" in a child's face...

I love the ‘honesty” in a child’s face…