Dear friends, 

 

Good evening from Entebbe, Uganda! We are sitting in our Hope for Joy mission house after a long and truly wonderful day here with Hope for Joy and the Nkumba church and school. But, before I get ahead of myself… 

 

Eight of us are on this team and we arrived late last night after a long 24hours+ of travel. Truly, traveling could not have gone better—planes were early, there was no drama, all our bags got here. But, when you leave the church at 11 am on a Saturday and get to Uganda after midnight on Sunday (note there’s a time difference to account for in there)… it makes for a long couple of days. We were greeted with hugs from Jumba Cyprian, the head of Hope for Joy and a friend of some of us at the Vineyard (ask Steve and Anne Huffman to share their story with you of how they met Jumba).. As well as Pastor John, the pastor of the Nkumba Church. They brought us to a lovely guesthouse. It’s a little tight with all of us here—let me share that, as African lodgings go, this one is pretty awesome! They even had dinner ready for us at 1am last night! 

 

This morning we got up a little later than normal. It was a gorgeous morning in Entebbe, and it was nice to ease into the day. After a delicious breakfast (prepared by Grace and Becky who are our wonderful cooks at the house), we headed out to the Nkumba primary school where we were met by Pastor John’s wife, Esther, who is the director at the school, as well as Michael who is the headmaster. They gave us a tour—we got to see and greet the 100s of students who are here. We got to ask lots of questions and see the bathrooms that our Vineyard Church was able to cover the cost of from our Next Gen “Outside the Walls” funding. They are a HUGE improvement and much appreciated by the school and the church. it’s so fun to see our offerings “in action” if you know what i mean! 

 

Here’s something cool—it has been two months here in Entebbe without rain. Jumba shared that with us yesterday on our way here to the house, and you can see it - red dust is everywhere! Well, today, we got rained out for a couple hours! Late morning, the sky got grey, the thunder began, and the rain poured! It lasted for a couple hours—we waited in the church while it was happening, and it was such an answer to the prayers they’ve been praying! Esther said that when rain comes with the visitors, it is a sign of blessing so we are happy for that and happy that this place got some much needed rain! 

 

We returned to the guest house for lunch, then went back to tour the secondary school. But first—we had a presentation by the children in the primary school. They greeted us this afternoon with some words of encouragement and a dance! (Dan Yoder just said, I’ve never been in a place where I felt so welcomed and honored to be here). 

 

After that, we toured the secondary school and got to meet some of the students and teachers. Some shared their hopes for their future, and I’m confident we’ll hear more of that in the coming days. At the end of the afternoon, we were guests at the secondary school chapel. Not sure what I was expecting, but it was CHURCH! There was worship, a fiery message from Pastor Frank, and Mike Davis (from our team) shared a few words of encouragement with the students from Philippians 4. 

 

A moment during that chapel for me was when Pastor Frank invited people up for prayer. One young gal accepted Christ. He asked for students with witchcraft in their home to come up for prayer and probably a dozen people came up for prayer (and the Holy Spirit was active for sure!) And then Pastor Frank asked if anyone who was affected by poverty would come up for prayer and - I’m not kidding - almost the whole room of students came up. I don’t have words to describe how that felt. Heartbreaking. Overwhelmed. Abbie described it as “reality setting in.” 

My prayer today and now is that Jehovah Jireh, our provider, would live and move through this group of pastors, teachers, students and community. It was a powerful afternoon, and our team was greatly affected by it (and it’s only day one!)

 

Tonight, we will debrief together and then sort out all the items we brought like school supplies, crafts, games, and other needed things that will help the ministry here. 

 

We’re doing some home visits tomorrow morning to pray and evangelize so we appreciate your prayers ahead of time! 

 

Thanks and God bless, 

 

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