KABUJOGARA, UGANDA - DAY 2

Leaders at the hotel dinner break

With everything that happened on Sunday, I was totally unprepared for the wonders that awaited me on Monday.
 
To begin with: It was the first day of the Believers’ School of Ministry Spiritual Warfare Conference. Pastors and others had come from villages up in the hills and mountain areas, some on bikes, others on the backs of trucks with piles of people or junk or animals – or all three mixed together.   Amazingly, these members had only to pay the equivalent of 75 cents for their week of schooling, and that was for cost of the copy of the materials.  Food and housing were up for them to arrange, most of which was provided by the church families, none of whom had much either.  Without that extremely low cost, very few of them could have come. They came once a month for five days of classes and had to set aside shillings during those weeks at home to afford the materials.  The sacrifices these people made were incredible -- and I expect it's much the same today.

I was the teacher for the day and the main topic was Spiritual Mapping which I had been doing for several years; while there, I taught the basics.   Tim wanted me to give examples and practical guidelines.  I spoke from 11:00 to 1:30 and we broke for lunch.  At 2:45 I began again and went until 4:30. 

In the morning, they didn’t ask questions.  But after lunch, I was asked some good ones about what they should look for in their villages. [They must have talked to each other during lunch-time together while hanging out in the church yard.] With their questions, we talked a lot about dedicating houses and property to idols and how to break those oaths. This was very real to these people, because nearly every structure had been dedicated with the sacrifice of a chicken.  They hadn’t necessarily accepted as a special event, but for generations it was simply done.  Now, while growing in the Lord, they had become uncomfortable with this, truly realizing it was ungodly.  Tim and I and others were able to encourage them to turn away from that generational pattern.  

Pastors, Watchers, Thinkers, Sharers

Another aspect that was discussed at length was what they could expect when the curses are broken off the land and the principalities are exposed.  The example of Almolonga, Guatemala, fit into that question and was happily described to encourage them.  A few more questions were asked about their area of witchcraft and deliverance, but I let the leading pastors handle that.  However, overall, I really had a ball. 

 

Tim took these two photos from the back of the church and, obviously, pushed the button as I seemed to be choking myself when describing something about spiritual warfare.  Who knows what I was thinking, saying, when the photo was taken?  I don't.  But still laugh when I see the "teacher" picture of me.   What a hoot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I DID tell them, several times, that spiritual mapping is not something to do without authority or cover.  I encouraged these pastors to support and bless their “underground” studiers and provide intercessory support for them.  I also told them all that very few of them are called to be "mappers", because an army needs very few spies, but a wise general in a battle relies on his intelligence reports, and, spiritually, that is what mappers may provide. Somewhere in here we talked about how to determine the character of the tribal idolatry/principality, and not to be satisfied with just a general all-inclusive rebuke.  I used my visual of shotgun prayer vs. laser prayer.  I don’t know just how that got interpreted, but they seemed to understand.  We also discussed corporate repentance, forgiveness, and  remitting sins.  Quite a lot, actually. 

When we finished I was an exhilarated wet rag, if that’s possible.  Around 5, after ending, closing with a worship song or two,  I went back to the hotel for a l..o..n..g nap.

And spent the evening resting and looking over the balcony at the skies ... and feeling BLESSED!!

 

PSALM 29:3

THE VOICE OF THE LORD IS UPON THE WATERS: ...

THE LORD IS UPON MANY WATERS.

AND I REJOICE WHEN HE SPEAKS THROUGH OUR WORLD WATERS ...

 THROUGH OCEANS, RIVERS, LAKES, BROOKS, STREAMS ...  

I TRULY CAN, AND I DO, REJOICE OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!

UGANDA M&Ms

Phil was the teacher for Jay and Vicki Dangers kids at New Hope Uganda when Dave and I were there for our first visit back in late January, 1991.  Lots to adjust to in our visualness, believe me!  Loved it there, though.


One of our first get-together times for the whole family, including Phil and his daughter, was lunch time.  We were sharing about a number of different things we miss, and suddenly Phil said that he missed M&Ms more than anything and if he ever had a bag of them he would just put his face up, hold the bag over his mouth, and pour them down his throat.

Dave had a big smile.  He popped up from the table, went to our visitor cabin on the other side of the Dangers' front garden, and dug through our suitcases. 

We had brought a large number of eating bits -- candies, boxes of nut and fruit bars, and some small juice drinks -- with us from the States, both to give away to Ugandan kids  AND to live on if we didn't have more eatable food in Uganda or at airports.

Dave came back in about 5 minutes, walked up to the table, and handed Phil a medium-sized M&M bag with hundreds of those colorful chocolates in it.  Phil's eyes got big.  He grinned.  He grabbed.  And, just as he had indicated he would, he poured!!

What did we all do?  We laughed.  A few M&Ms bounced off his face and down his neck and hit the floor.  The laughing continued.

Did I understand then?  Not much.  But later?  Oh, yes!  When we were in Uganda in our '94 to '96 16-month stretch, and sometimes too far from anywhere to have much of anything, we sometimes would lay on our bed after church, with the warmed air flowing down from the tin roof, and ask each other, "If we were home, where would we be heading for a quick lunch?"  Well, it was usually Burger King or Taco Bell.

Dave and I had some nice talking and sharing times with Phil during those days there.  I'll never forget especially as we discussed the Bible. I happened to have with me one of my extra Reese Chronological Bibles, and I gave it to him.  He was a happy guy.

He was a gymnastic-oriented person. I sometimes saw him and a local Ugandan teacher running on the paths, rough roads.  He was an exerciser.  And a biker.  Now, the bikes we saw in Uganda back then were pretty tough to deal with; not nearly as simply and easily as ours were here. 

One day we were standing on the Dangers' house driveway.  Phil was teaching.  Then, he was riding back to his house on his daughter's bike [brought with them from California] that she had ridden to the classroom/school.  He had walked earlier.  As we learned later, when he had forgotten papers at his house, and needed them for the class, he had grabbed his daughter's bike, rushed home, grabbed the papers, and rushed back.

We couldn't NOT take the photos of him passing us. Are they  clear photos?  No.  But did it make us laugh then?  Yes.  And now?  Why not?  Grinning can be a good thing.
 ==========

About 3-1/2 years later we were the teachers.  Dave had started a year earlier with piano, music theory, and computers.  Several months later, when their present teacher had to return to Canada, we both taught, although Dave did a number more classes than I did.  I did a couple, but had mostly secretarial and other jobs.  

 Same school, same kids.  A blessing.

[Oh, and the homes, schools, an administration building, church, and so many other aspects there have just exploded in size and beauty.  Amazing gifts from God and His people.]

MARY MAGDALENE

SCENE 1

Desolate.     The word caught the edge of the wind and plummeted into her heart echoing, reverberating, until it encompassed and inundated every part of her soul.

Desolate.    She stared into the darkness, searching the recesses of her mind.  Then she remembered.  The prophet Isaiah had used that word to describe Babylon.

"It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation:... And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in the pleasant palaces...".

She shrugged.  "All those times I listened, to search, to wander through the dark narrow bends in memory."  She had hoped -- hoped desperately -- to discover a reason, one tiny reason, to live.

As she delved further, searched deeper, any glimmer of hope she had was extinguished.  Wilderness surrounded her.  A stark, empty, forlorn barrenness.

As the light of dawn broke and dispelled the darkness, she stood up from the rock where she sat, the decision made.  A gust of wind caught her red-brown hair and, as it swirled about her, she gloried in the freedom of her new course.  Since she had nothing to live for -- no one to live for -- she would stop living.  She did not know when or how, but she knew the day would come -- and come soon -- when she would end her life.  Momentarily, she recalled the Law, and knew that to kill herself was to murder and would separate her from the God of her Fathers; but Law, in her heart, had no hope -- and without hope there was no life.

The sun's rays caught the crest of a wave that danced toward her.  She moved back from the water instinctively, realizing even in this freedom of death, the reality of life -- wet robes would be uncomfortable, cold, and heavy as she walked home.

"Mary"

A man came toward her.  She saw the boldness in his eyes and the cocky smirk that played the corners of his mouth.  He was a large man, broad shouldered and big muscled with dark curly hair and beard.  Normally, she would have played with him ... teased him.  But not this morning.  The seductive gestures, coy looks, and bawdy words that came so naturally to her were gone.  Free from life, free from a future, she also was free from the demands of her past.

Without a word, with hardly a glance toward him, Mary slowly turned, pulled her cloak tightly about her, and walked away.

=====================

In 1978 to 1982, I was Bible-teaching men every Tuesday noontime at an Omaha downtown skidrow missions location.  One day in the Fall of 1980 when I arrived, one of the older cowboy fellows, Frankie, looked frustrated.  He told me that across the street a woman had jumped from a window about 7 stories up and had landed on a roof a story above the street and died of suicide.  Basically, he said, "Why would anyone do that?  And why would a woman ever make that choice?"  His life hadn't been perfect, believe me, and he'd been through a lot with his alcohol and farm and ranch battles with men.  I was so surprised that he didn't know "reality".  I'd thought of suicide often from the age of 12 ... because I was so tired of fighting for making it through a day.  I'd changed my mind about suicide after I had come to the Lord when nearly 21, but occasionally still struggled with that until I was 29.  I tried to get Frankie to understand that the suicide was a challenge to avoid sometimes and that the Lord could bring victory to us through growing in Him, through more and more of His people entering our hearts.

Later, as I was driving home, I wanted to somehow write a story that would help Frankie understand.  Before I pulled into my driveway, I had already thought of Mary Magdalene.  Within a couple of weeks, I wrote 9 scenes.  Four years later, for Lenten services in 1984, I wrote the Mary Magdalene monologue, which I have performed many times over the years.  I have been "her" in many ways ... my early behavior, struggles, frustration, grief for life, desire for death and NOW the joy of having a loving Father, and kind Savior and Brother, and, through those caring Ones, filled with deliverance and healing.

Leading to Resurrection Sunday I will be sharing the next 7 scenes, and ending immediately thereafter with the Ascension scene... can't put it off for those 40 days!  Joyfulness can be a good thing!

TO KABUJOGERA, UGANDA... Part 1

Kabujogara -- one of my favorite views from the hotel.

  

Now that is lovely.  BUT...

Want to see a funny picture of me?

2nd Day, teaching at Kabogugara

Over the next 3 or 4 post days, I will be sharing this long, but interesting,  blessing, intensive, story.  This first post day is necessary so people will understand how, and why, and where I was in that part of the world.

Tim Way was a pastor teaching pastors in Uganda about the various spiritual warfare issues.  Dave and I had known Tim and Jill since we first lived in Uganda in the Fall, '94.  In fact, after the first month, they were "forced" to let us live with them for a couple months until we found a safe house. 

Tim and Jill and Becka and Dave and I, just as we moved to our Katalemwa district Kampala house, November, 1994.

We truly fell in love with them and have loved them ever since. Since our return from Uganda in April, '96, we have rarely seen them again, going all the different directions now. 

In mid-November, 2003, I arrived in Uganda for the Soroti event the Lord had laid on me.  Tim and Jill lived there again and Tim and I had emailed a bit earlier when I was still in Omaha and discussed the opportunity to be involved with one of his pastor-training conferences.  I was pretty excited about that ... not only the conference, but spending time with the Ways for a few days in their new location.  They now lived in Masaka, Uganda, about 80 miles a bit SW of Kampala, along the west side of Lake Victoria.

I was picked up by them while staying at Ne w Hope Uganda orphanage with my dear family and friends.  Tim and Jill, when picking me up, also took my daughter and granddaughter, Adhe and Stella.

We reached Makasa Friday night. Tim and I spent a LOT of time on Saturday talking about spiritual mapping.  I filled him in with as much information as I could give him.  He had already put together a good outline for the Bible school that he consolidated from some of C. Peter Wagner and Cindy Jacobs books. What he didn’t have was personal experience and some of the details I’d learned over the years through prayer walking and studying in a variety of locations.  And his order wasn’t that I had to do anything exactly as he would approve of ahead of time; I could share what I learned and what I had seen, both in the U.S. and Uganda.  
 
Sunday morning, about 8 o'clock, we left for Kabujogere.  Besides the 8 of us and all the bags for the 3 days, including some food items, we took one of the pastors from Masaka who was bro-in-law to the pastor there. Israel was NOT small, BTW.  He was going to interpret for us.  He also needed to stop at the outside marketplace downtown to buy a bag of live grasshoppers to give away for people to eat.  [NOT one of my favorite things to ever see!]  So now, 9 of us in a small car. I, in the front seat with Tim, had my granddaughter Stella on my lap for the trip, which took about 4 hrs.  The other 6 were on the one small back seat.

On the way, though, we passed through a small national park and some antelope/gazelle-type animals suddenly bounded across the highway in front of us.  We loved it and laughed.. as Tim hit the brakes, of course.  Why it was an exciting, wonderful experience on That Side and why it is so distressing to have deer do the same thing on This Side is a bit of a mind bender.

We got to the church at 11:30 and they took us to the pastor’s house for tea before going in to the service, which had been in place for at least an hour. The pastor, Robert, had already given a message and while we had tea and bread, the congregation was worshiping.  No one was in a hurry – they were so blessed to have “visitors” to come and speak to them.

Now, regarding the pastor’s house.  It was probably 15 x 15; mud walls and floor (with a piece of linoleum to dress it up a bit).  The living room/dining room/parlor was probably 8 x 15.  As with most of these homes, the cooking was done outside.  By the way, even though he is stationed in Kabujogera, this pastor oversees 70 churches, riding his bicycle or walking through the district to make his rounds.

About 12:15 we went out the door and to the church a few feet away.  The church was about 25 x 20 with mud walls and a sheet metal roof.  The dais sloped enough, side to side, that it was a bit of a challenge to keep balanced while standing.  In this small room, 80 to 100 people were seated on hard, backless, and uneven benches.  (I hope nobody ever makes the mistake of asking me to be on a building committee – unless every piece of useable space is gone and the church is being utilized several days a week for services.)  Of course, we were treated like royalty.  Two choirs sang for us – songs in English, Swahili and their local Ugandan tribal language. 

After their greetings to us, we were invited to give our sermons for the day.  First, Jill sang “Mercy is Falling” and shared for about 20 minutes.  Then I was introduced.  I spoke for nearly 30 minutes on my latest soap box, a short personal family story I had written called “Everybody has a Limp.”  They loved it.  It seemed to translate across the culture very well. 

Tim took off from my sermon tossing in some connections, and spoke for another 1/2 hour.  Including Jill's lovely singing, our sharing took us to about 1-1/2 hours -- and all this time the people were hanging on our every word.

When the service was over and we were back at the Pastor’s house for lunch, I realized it was 3:00.  And it hadn’t felt like that at all.  I was really glad I hadn’t worn a watch – I didn’t want to even hit a “time watching” mind set.

Lunch was HUGE.  The usual matooke (a type of boiled and mashed banana, – my personal UNfavorite), rice, sauce/soup, meat, bread.

After lunch, about 4, we went a block distant to the Volcano Arcade Hotel.  A room cost 7,000 Ush/night – that translates to about $4.00.  We got what we paid for.  My room was clean.  No power.  The bathing room was at the end of the outside corridor and jerry cans of water were provided -– in the evening they brought hot water up, but I left that for the kids.  [The latrine was a LONG way outside on the other side of the hotel; another whole personal story I couldn't tell you.]

View off the balcony towards the West

The pastor’s wife and helpers carried everything from the church home to our hotel for dinner.  Even though a block doesn’t sound like a long distance here, this was over rocky, rutted, and uneven uphill paths. And they brought all of this:  rice, matooke, meat, bananas, cassava, all the glass dishes they had, utensils, the trays with mugs and drinking water, and all the tea thermoses.

I missed dinner that night as my stomach was grumbling at me a bit, partly from the bouncing it took on the roads from Masaka.  Oh, well... would have loved bits and pieces to eat, but was heading for sleep instead.

So THAT was only the background that led to this event and the Sunday service.

With everything that happened on that day, I was totally unprepared for the wonders that awaited me on Monday....

FIRST RESPONDERS -- SAD AFTERNOON

At 2:30 today we began a prayer and encouraging and blessing service outside of a social hall where a young man had been murdered near midnight of Friday.  He was dancing with friends.  Jacquez, 21, had just been accepted at the Marines and was leaving next Thursday morning.  Suddenly, someone came inside and began shooting, no one aimed at, but bullets hit 4 of them.  A 14-year old girl is in critical condition, 2 men showed up at the local hospital with less-than-serious condition.  But Jacquez died nearly immediately on the dance floor.

The First Responders time was filled with people from his family, his friends, and our ministry-caring people.  One of our main spiritually intense ladies, Teela, was called at 1:30 AM by Jacquez's aunt to tell her.

Teela spoke loudly and prayerfully at the FR time.  And she introduced the parents and others.


 
His dad spoke for a few minutes about him and about the family and the fatherhood and the caring.  

 

He said Jacquez was not in drugs, not a dealer, and not in a gang.  That dads need to put 200% in raising their boys.

Jacquez's mom didn't speak.  Sounded like her throat was hurting.  But we were asked to lay a prayer shawl on her.  She was hugged by a niece.  Touched by ladies surrounding her.  I was blessed to help place the shawl.  Couldn't NOT not take a picture.  

Had a wonderful time hugging her later as I was leaving and told her I would be sharing their story in our town, our nation, and around the world.  She was rejoicing, thanking me.

It was a very large group of people.

One blessing?  It wasn't nearly as cold as recently so we could breathe together.  Another?  Three police officers came.  We almost always have officers nearby in a car, but this time these men got out of the cars to stand with us, to show true heart-filled caring for the families.  It was a blessing for me to be able to thank them and touch them gratefully.  

ANOTHER?  Prayer topics are passed around by the leader, certain individuals asked to pray, fairly short prayer-times, not going on forever and ever.  After a few, the next one was for all the kids that were there, that they be placed in the center to be prayed over. I saw him glancing around and then, the leader, Dave, said, "Joanne." So, I laid my hands on a young girl next to me, my heart so heavy, I nearly crying, and I prayed for a minute that they would be covered with the Lord's protection, that they would grow in Him and that His light would help them be in the right place, right time.  I don't remember exactly what I said, but some of that; my emotions were pretty intense, to say the least. 

Was only there for an hour, but my heart is still filled with this event.  We prayed in front of the door where the murder had occurred.  AND this happened right across the street from an elementary school.  Lots has happened in that area many times in these past years; I'm not happy this happened, but I AM happy it didn't happen during the day and when kids were going to see it or hear the screaming, sorrowing.

[AND, just a moment ago, as I was finishing this, a bit of "us" were shown on the news.  They showed dad holding his photo up and talking and then our leader speaking of our purpose to be there ... to always let the families, friends, and neighbors know that we -- F.R. -- are with them and  they are not alone.]

So, now, going to spend a couple hours snuggling on the couch with my hubby watching one of our comedy movies.

Need it.

Need you.

PSALM 98:8

LET THE RIVERS CLAP THEIR HANDS;

TOGETHER LET THE HILLS SING FOR JOY

HAVE SO MANY PHOTOS FROM SO MANY PLACES.  RIVERS, MOUNTAINS, STREAMS, HILLS, TREES, FLOWERS, OCEANS, ROCKS, 

AND EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD REVEAL HIS CREATION.

AND IT'S GLORIOUS WHEN THEY EXPRESS APPRECIATION.

ALL OF THEM, ALL OF US.