Ministry Update

"As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?' Psalm 42:1-3

 I have been trying to write an update for over a month, but every time I sit down to put words and pictures together, I know something else exciting is coming in the next few days, and want to include that highlight in the update. I finally reached the point that two months of material is already turning into a book, and I need to get to it already.

January brought some exciting times for our students, as many were finally able to head back to class on their university campuses for the first time since the covid outbreak in 2020. Some of you know the feeling of taking a child off to college for the first time, and all of the emotions that come with that. We were able to experience that with students moving to Kampala for the first time 9 hours away, one starting medical school 15 hours from home,2 starting vocational boarding school across town, and another starting agricultural school 7 hours away. We helped them gather their needed supplies to set up life on their own, pay school fees, and help them make the anticipated moves.

Here is a picture from our time in Kampala with these special guys. We always try to touch base with them, check on their houses and schools, and provide some good food and fellowship while we are there.

With all of the transitions for the students, we went from 28 down to 8 students around within all three family mentor homes, and in our house we went from 10 every day down to 3. I told Marianne after dropping two guys off in Kampala and heading back to Arua, that it was similar to leaving a church. We were always so proud of the students and people we had grown to love, excited about the future for them and for us in our new adventure, but always a bit sad to be driving away for that last time. Breanna and Elizabeth really took the change hard, as they had 10 brothers that love to aggravate them every day. I am really glad that they enjoy spending time with them playing games, music, and watching movies. 

But with fewer students around, it really opened up more time for Marianne and I to be involved at Arise and some of the new ministries that we have been trying to get established.  One of those ministries is our food distribution to the community at the Arise Center. on the 15th of each month we are able to provide food to 60 plus families for a month. 

Sid and Breanna bagging up 7 kgs of beans per family!

They team at Arise has developed some amazing social workers from within the community that are always excited to help in anyway possible.

We also were able to be apart of our first vulnerable house build for one of our community members who faces some extremely difficult living conditions. Her name is Marianna, and she is an absolutely amazing soul. 

She takes care of her grandchildren, and many other kids from the community. But Marianna has been crippled since she was a two year old little girl. She is unable to use her legs, and crawls around on her hands and knees to move around her compound.  When we arrived at her home is was falling in and had begun to be unsafe to live.

Through our amazing team we were able to remove the crumbling structure, and create a new, safe living space for her and her family. see the total transformation in this small village. We were able to have a celebration service to turn over the house to her, and the excitement from her, her family, her community, and the leaders from the area was nothing short of a glimpse of heaven. We rented a tent, had a devotion and prayer, planted some trees, and provided a meal including roasting a goat. Here is a short video of her exiting her home for the very first time.

Marianne has had a busy few weeks as well. Taking pictures is a true gift that she has been able to use in so many ways. Also, she has always had a desire to help people who have had a difficult path in life. in January and February she got to participate and lead in three different trauma training courses hosted at a local church and the Arise Center. She literally lights up when she talks about the training, but even more so when she gets to put it into practice with the amazing people in our lives. 

As she focused her time on training, I was getting to focus on some trainings as well. We have a ministry called Foundations of Hope that is designed to equip and disciple pastors and local church leaders. The training often takes place in the refugee camps in Uganda in which more than 1 million people live.  The design is to train the leaders, and they then reproduce it in their local churches to make disciples. It is an intense 3 full days of studying the Word together. I loved talking about servant leadership with these amazing men and women. 

The lead pastor is also a friend of HVG, and has quickly become a dear friend to me. I have had the honor to now preach twice in the past month.  Its always so exciting to see our students worship in their native language with people from their country and region. 

At the end of our last update, I listed a few prayer requests. Thank you for praying. We were able to receive our work permit in Kampala.

  Despite all of the shifting parts recently, it has been a truly glorious time in the Lord, as His mercies are new every morning. Taking time to reflect on all that He has done, and continues to do daily never ceases to amaze me. I spent some time praying for our sponsors this week, and the depth of the Gospels reach blew my mind.  We have supporting churches from North Alabama near our home all the way to the coast. Churches from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Colorado that we have never even attended, and only know one single person that believes in what the Lord is doing.  We have friends we met in seminary that give from Louisiana, Alaska,  Michigan, Texas, and New York. We have numerous people we have met through ministry that support us from all of the surrounding states including Tennessee. We even have one friend we met while in Uganda the first time that supports us from Wisconsin.  I share that with you so that you may see how big of an impact your gifts are making for the Kingdom. The journey we are on, is one we are so glad we get to share with you. If you have questions about how you or your church can partner with us, please feel free to reach out to me. Thanks so much for your prayers. I hope to share with you soon.