Life Training, Church & Change

Last week we hosted Journey of a Life Giver training.  
I have visited and toured Life International in Michigan several times.  On one of those visits I learned they had a team in Uganda who have been trained and now train others.  After years of hoping we finally were able to have the training!  

This training looks at Biblical worldview, sacredness of human life, being a life-giver, God's design for family, Biblical sexuality, human reproduction, abortion methods, after abortion, and repentance, forgiveness and healing.  For many people it was the first time to talk about these issues and to hear God's truth on them.  They were so appreciative and asked for more.

Out of the 58 people who came there were at least eight districts from Uganda (some came from 2 hours away) and 10 different denominations represented.  We were so thankful for unity and new friends.

The team came with four teachers from Entebbe and Mbale.

Teaching on the development of a baby.

A powerful time of repentance, forgiveness and healing...

I am always so impressed how real people are and unashamed when they are touched by God, repent and worship.

Giving certificates at the end of the training.

We enjoyed getting to know the teaching team.  We love when Ugandans teach Ugandans. 
They were very encouraged to see the effect we had on the community. 
What a blessing to serve the Lord together.

I was totally exhausted after the Life training.  It was so good but heavy too.  There were women really hurting, trauma people have been through, the reality of abortion here, and the need for more Biblical teaching on life and marriage was evident.  But, 58 people are now trained and going back to their homes, communities and churches to share and make a difference! 

We had so many people testifying that this training has helped them. Here is what some of them said:
- One said that he will now value life and give life with his words.
-I didn't know that abortion was murder until now.
-Abortion is ramped in our village.  We need to speak as a church.
-Our hands are guilty.
-We are full of sorrow.
-If the Lord provides I want to open my home to adopt children who are orphans or unwanted like I was. 
-Leaders in each district are calling me telling me the people who came are very excited about this teaching.  That means God has begun something.

Many of the FIC teachers also told Josh he needs to rewrite the manual to make it simple for them to teach.  Earlier in the week friends told us after hearing Josh teach that he makes it so simple.  It is true.  Josh's gift is making God's Word easy to understand.
 

The training became a family affair.  Emalai worked in the kitchen the whole time and loved every minute of it.  Winnie was one of the cooks (our neighbor) and she calls Emalai her daughter.  Grace went to most of the training and Lydia did when she wasn't watching Makai.  It was nice to be able to attend the training myself - thanks for your help kids! 

Makai helped too!

Sunday we had baptisms again.

And of course Makai went swimming afterwards!

Everyone watching Makai.

Then Makai got his hands on the microphone and sang for everyone.

(Makai was seriously fun Sunday.  He went to the to the bathroom and he hears the church say halleluiah and from inside the latrine Makai says, "Amen".)

It was a goodbye Sunday for another missionary family - Emalai's good friends!
There are smiles in the this photo but it was a heavy, sad day.  Emalai has been crying for weeks.
Sunday the girls just kept holding each other crying.  Goodbyes are hard.

So hard, so precious...

We thank God for special friends.

My heart is full as we had a busy couple weeks with visitors, training, time with our friends before the goodbyes, Grace graduated (at least finished) high school, and we are packing to leave for FIC conference in England.  Too much for me.  I want to do each thing well, process and enjoy each thing.  We have weeks of not much and then it all hits at once.  Oh well such is life.  We will be gone for two weeks to England with travel time.  Grace will fly to the States from England to spend the summer in Michigan.  We are all feeling mixed emotions.  So good and so hard.  This is a first for her.  We thank God He provided a car to use and two jobs!  Pray for us as we travel and attend the FIC conference in England.  

I'll tell you all about it when we get back!

A Week to Remember & Believe

 

Every year we can the kids and I like to make Passion Week a special week in school.
This year each of us took a day to prepare a devotion, song, craft or anything they thought would be meaningful for Easter week.  I love seeing how each of our personalities come out and we learn from each other.  It helps all of us to remember and believe.

On Good Friday we decided to celebrate a Passover meal and read Jesus' last supper.
We did this years ago as a family and Emalai really wanted to do it again. 
She still remembers from 5 years ago!  You don't forget meaningful things.

What a family!

Easter Sunday!

Youth choir

Josh did a beautiful job leading us in communion.

Dedication of children.
This is a beautiful thing especially when new believers dedicate their children to the Lord.
We had 24 dedications on Easter.  I have conflict with it every time.  There are more people I don't see in church, mothers but no fathers, and almost all of them not married...are the parents believers?  I hope the leaders deal with more of this than I understand, but I question how do we do this?!  What is right?  What would Jesus want His people to do?  Is He glorified?

We also rejoice that one man came back to Jesus on Easter Sunday!
And the girls and I decided as part of our devotions this week to visit and invite to church a couple unsaved friends.  We were thrilled they joined us on Easter and the welcomed them with a lot of love.  The families of these friends were so thankful we invited their parents and that they came.

What a lot to celebrate!

And baptisms!
Makai was so cute looking on.  He was quite troubled at one point when his friends were baptized.

I am very thankful for the many baptisms that took place on Easter.  It is always beautiful.
I did find it a bit thrown together though and that troubles me a little.  We strongly want and believe in the local church leaders to lead this church, so what is our place to help them.  The church leaders have said kids should be 13 years old or older to be baptized but some there were little ones this time.  It makes me wonder why, who changed it.  Are they really do the teaching before baptism?  What is taught?  We need to keep praying for strong, mature, and wise leaders for God's church to lead by God's truth.  Nevertheless, I praise God today for baptism - a sign that we are God's.

When baptisms were done Makai went for a swim!
He loved it and so did the kids watching him.

Our family and neighbors also watched Site & Sound's Jesus.  It is an amazing production and very meaningful.  I am touched every time by the love of Jesus, His grace and power.  A few years ago we watched Jesus and the scene where He goes to free the demon processed man made me bawl.  Jesus goes to rescue the one, He calls him by his name and true identity and calls him to return to Him and be free.  Beautiful.  It was at that time that we were praying for our loved one to be touched by Jesus.  Now three years later, as we watched Jesus again it was our loved one who was bawling at the same scene knowing she was the one.  Oh thank you Savior!!!  What an Easter.  He still lives, still loves and still is setting people free!

Amazing South Africa - Part Two

Back to the Cape Town airport to fly back to Joburg.
Makai loved putting his backpack through the scanner so much that he snuck back through for another go around.

Makai met the pilots.

Then we had a six hour drive to the Drakensburg Mountains.
It was a beautiful drive with vast farm land.  It looked like Michigan part of the time with corn growing and cows grazing. 

Although SA is a beautiful, modern country it still has shanty town.  Always a wrestling.

It's fun meeting new people!  This was our taxi driver, Vincent. 
We really enjoyed getting to know him and appreciated him.

Cathedral Peak is where we stayed in the Drakensburg Mountains.
It was beautiful and peaceful!  We had two days as a family there before the retreat started.

Oh my word, the food!  Three wonderful buffets a day plus two tea times. 
That's more than anyone can do!  But it was very nice and a treat for sure.

It was nice and cool in the mountains - a treat for us!  I think it was in the high 60's most of the time but it the sun came out it quickly became hot.  We got rain about every day too.

The hotel had a lot of fun things to do and was very family friendly, but the hikes are of course the main attraction.  We took a hike every morning.  Some were an hour and some several hours.  Some were easy and some were a hard upward climb.  Lydia, Luka and Josh loved it.  Josh and Lydia even did the Cathedral 4 which gave them a certificate and medal.

Our hike to Doreen Falls.

It is really hard to hike with a 3 year old who is too little to walk it all and too big to be in a backpack comfortably.  Emalai didn't love all the hiking either so thankfully Grace or I could stay back and enjoy the other things at the hotel together.

Josh swam in the cold waterfall - fun!

We were surrounded by beauty and it was hard to capture and take it all in.

It was nice to cool off after a hike at the pool.
Emalai and Makai love swimming!

Their natural pool.

I think Luka and Grace's favorite thing they did was 4 wheeling.
The whole trip in SA Luka wanted to golfing, go 4 wheeling, cage diving with sharks, surfing, go to a football match...he has expensive taste and we had to keep telling him no because we couldn't afford it there.  But he finally got to do one of them and of course he loved it!

Josh and Luka also tried fly fishing for the first time.
An awesome setting but no fish.  They decided fly fishing wasn't their thing.
(And Josh got a hook in his finger!  It was one of those bad moments!)

Our hike to the rock paintings.
Grace did a report in school about the Drakensberg and she was all about seeing the rock art.
Honestly, it was a bit disappointing but we did see them.  I think we enjoyed the eland we saw on the way there better. 

We tried rock climbing.  Lydia made it look easy and climbed right up!

Emalai struggled at first but the second day she made it to the top!

Makai was so cute trying.  When he got about this high he wanted to come down.

Everyday there were different kinds of deer at the hotel.

Horse rides

Makai loved it!  He was so brave and did it by himself!

Lydia, Grace and Luka went tail riding one day.

Enjoying the view...

Grace and I did a hike to more rock paintings.  Way up there!
(I think the climb about killed Grace's lungs and my legs.  We are not use to mountains!)

Back to Doreen Falls.
I swam this time!  When else do I get to swim in a waterfall?!

Rainy hike to Baboon Rock

Hike to Mushroom Rock

We had a four day retreat with our partner organization, Resonate.

It was a true retreat and we appreciated to time to get to know everyone and have fun together.
One afternoon we learned to basket weave together.  Harder than you think.

This is what Emalai and I made with a lot of help from the teachers.

Our kids loved meeting and making new missionary friends on the retreat.

The teens really connected which made it very hard to say goodbye a few days later.

The whole group

Those serving in Uganda

Forever missionary friends the Ribbens

View from the chapel where we had worship.

All too soon we were back in the airport.  All good things have to come to an end. 
We had one last treat before saying goodbye to SA - for now.

We had a wonderful trip to SA!!!  We feel spoiled, blessed, refreshed and amazed at our Good God!  He is the giver of all good gifts.  I am grateful that I could share this experience with my family.