How often have I said this aloud, sang this as worship, or repeated it in my head? Too many to count. Yet the Lord has shown me a depth to the word "rejoice" like I've never known before. Thus far in my life, I have found it relatively easy to rejoice. Life has brought some struggle, but never like this past year (and I'm not even Ugandan living in the pit of poverty). I am convicted daily of "rejoicing" no matter what. No matter how sick, tired, frustrated, fed-up, hungry, confused, irritated, nauseous, weak, or suffocated I can be; He commands my Spirit to rejoice!
Oh how grateful I am that He is the One to bring the rejoicing! I cannot on my own rejoice. The rejoicing is His, by Him, for Him and through Him. Lord help me rejoice! I need you to rejoice!
Here are a few tangible items to rejoice over in the past year...good and bad, all for the Glory of God.
- 6 project trips
- 12 more projects in the office
- 20 mission organizations assisted
- countless men & women, children discipled, supervised or mentored
- 17 interns discipled professionally and spiritually from ? countries
- 7, 700 km traveled throughout Uganda to serve
- 35 men & women baptized from EMI construction sites
- and the immeasurable lives effected that will only be recognized on the day of Christ’s revelation
- made 12 visits to Aggies Baby Home, holding abandoned babies left in toilets or ditches to die
- taught over 300 middle schooler and high schooler to sew, making skirts and bags
- hosted 12 “Marriage as Ministry” groups in our home, discipling young and old marriages…and being discipled
This is my therapeutic post. This is my Ebenezer. This is my remembrance of what the Lord has brought us through. This is so I never forget, the good and the bad. This is so I can praise Him in the best and worst of times. This is for when the kids grow up and ask what it was like to live life in Africa, because they were too young to remember the details (and for me when I’m too old to remember them as well). This is what has been hard, draining, exhausting, almost debilitating at times. This is the day to day.
( *estimated, but not exaggerated)
- killed 2.5 million* ants
- killed 14 millipedes
- killed 1 centipede
- killed 4 snakes
- killed 550* mosquitoes
- killed 100* spiders
- killed 30* geckos
- killed 6 other bigger lizards
- killed just a few snails
- experienced Yeti having a seizure
- witnessed 1 “mob justice” - the beating of someone to death
- hit 1 semi truck while driving
- hit 1 mutatu (taxi) while driving
- hit 5 bodas (motorcycle taxi) while driving
- hit 1 wheelbarrow while driving
- hit 1 man while driving, he was ok
- piled 11 people in our 7 seat car
- saw 4 people get run over by other cars
- drove into a deep whole, then had to have 4 men lift our car out of it
- drove our motorcycle into ditch
- had 3 neighbors’ dogs poisoned and died
- 60 days* of listening to our next door neighbors beat their puppies, training for guard dogs
- 100 days* of listening to the village below slaughter a cow, goat or pig
- 52 days of listening to praise and worship from the church down the road, from a megaphone!
- had 3 attempts by thieves to break into our compound
- experienced gun fire between police and thieves just outside our compound wall
- 6 times running off people in the 2nd story of the unfinished house next door taking photos of our house, plotting to break in
- spent over 300 days* breathing in smoke from burning trash
- spent over 250 days* with one of us experiencing diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, headache
- 2 of us tested positive and treated for Bilharzia
- All of us are dehydrated daily
- dislocated 1 rib
- broke 1 finger
- 5 trips to the doctor for parasite testing (this is an all-day event)
- eaten over 60 kilos of beans
- experienced 100 days or nights without power and/or water
- 2 marriage proposals (to Jo) from Ugandan men
- 10 offers to buy my daughters
- 2 occasions of the car not starting while in downtown Kampala
- drove our car 3 km while three fan belts were completely shredded
- watched Julia throw up in the cockpit of a MAF plane, at the craft market, and in the parking lot of dentist office
- watch Allison completely pass out in doctors office
- was only successful in having Julia poop in a cup to check for parasites, Bradley and Allison just couldn’t make it happen
- tested 3 times for malaria, PTL all 3 were negative, despite the spiked fever and shakes
- our guard, just since we’ve known him…in a boda accident that killed the driver, robbed twice, dad’s leg cut off, has stomach ulcers, had malaria, son possessed by demon; but beyond that he was shot in the leg when he was 14 by the LRA, left to die in the bush, rescued at 16 yrs, reunited with his mother who thought he was dead…and his story goes on and on and on
- our first house help…is an orphan, raised by Compassion International, while working for us got pregnant with twin girls and miscarried them at 5 months
- our second house help… was ironing a few years ago, had a seizure, and burned herself holding the iron on her neck and arm the entire time
