Sunday, March 2, 2014

Glorious Redemption


Sometimes the hardest part of writing is knowing where to start. I’ve tried to start writing this post for a few days now and getting past the first word seems to be a struggle, but today is a new day! In the past few weeks, we’ve had a wild fire on the property, we’ve found green mambas and vipers, I got sick, and I was electrocuted.  There’s never a dull moment around here. The wild fire was caused by a small field fire that ended up blowing way out of control due to the wind and lack of rain lately. Several men worked so hard beating it out with branches and trying to keep it from getting to the house. It came close, but praise the Lord it was put out in time.  A lot of the jungle surrounding us is burnt to a crisp, which now enables us to walk through and see what was hidden beneath all of the overgrowth. The boys went on one of their exploring expeditions and came back with 3 dead Green Mambas, and 3 dead Rhinoceros Pit Vipers- so many creatures have turned up since the fire. It’s amazing to see what kind of things were hidden in the jungle right outside of my window. Me being sick wasn’t too exciting, and it was short lived, so I was glad about that. Not sure what it was from, but it was probably due to something in the food. And lastly, Emma reminded me this morning, “Remember the other night when you were shocked and your whole body shook and your hair stood up on your head? That was funny.” I will admit that after the fact, it was pretty funny. Some days the house is run on a generator and weird power surges can occur. It wasn’t anything worth mentioning really, but I thought you might get a laugh out of the mental image Emma painted of my “shocking” experience.
On a more serious note, after a month of living here, I finally feel like I am getting to know the people of the village pretty well. I struggled for a few weeks because I was itching to be a part of ministry and things outside of homeschooling the kids. I want to get to know these people and do life with them, but when it comes to knowing how to do that, I had no clue where to start. I was constantly asking the Lord to give me wisdom and guide my every step- I was desperate for Him to show me how to connect with these people. Slowly, through so many different things, the Lord has crossed my paths with many people and has opened a door for me to start two different Bible studies. One will be with a group of teenage girls that are wanting someone to teach them. At one point someone did a Bible study with them, but these girls haven’t had anyone to teach them for quite a while and are hungry for the Word! I talked to about 16 of them on Sunday, and will be going out into the village this week to let more girls know. This particular Bible study will start on Saturday! The second is with a lady that I met about 2 weeks ago. She had typhoid fever and I went with someone to visit with her.  The Lord kept laying her on my heart, and I finally asked a few people about her. The more I kept asking, the more I found out that this lady is not a believer but she is really interested in learning more about Scripture. Just like with the girls, someone started a Bible study with her, but just for a short time. I went on Sunday to talk to her, and she was so excited about getting started! You can see that she has such a soft heart, and I’m praying that the Lord will do such a great work in her heart and bring her to a saving knowledge of Christ!! Bible study with Mama Simbwa will start on Thursday at her house, and I couldn’t be more excited! I’m praying that God will use this lady to drastically change this village. Mama Simbwa actually makes and supplies most of this village and the surrounding villages with alcohol. Alcohol is such an issue here, and has ruined so many lives.  How incredible is it that God would start with the provider of the alcohol!  
God is redeeming the people of this village in the most incredible way, and is claiming these people as His own. Historically, Kubamitwe (the village I live in) was known as a place of execution for all of Uganda. The word Kubamitwe literally means to beat the head. The name of a neighboring village, Natunsay, means I have given myself over. As prisoners innocent and guilty would march in chains to Kubamitwe, once they reached Natunsay they knew their life was over. God has taken the very place of death and transformed it into the place where everlasting life is being found. Death did not have the final say, and satan did not have victory over this place. Christ has won, He is redeeming His people, and He has conquered death! What a glorious display of redemption in this place of execution.

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