I had mixed feelings as we prepared to leave for Uganda. The need in Uganda is huge and during our trip in our previous year it had all been a bit overwhelming. In the 30 years Uganda has struggled through may hardships. Those who have suffered the most have been women and children. My close friend Pastor Macho still vividly remembers having to run into the bush to escape gun fire because of all the the fighting. Along with recent wars HIV/AIDS has caused a huge amount of devastation in Uganda. It was first discovered in Uganda and since then thousands of kids have lost there parents, and have often been left to raise there younger brothers and sisters.The drive to the boarder was not very exciting. Typically as always we were crammed into a vehicle with no room at all. In Canada we would call it a 7 passenger van but in Africa it is a 14 passenger van. I tried to sleep on the road but failed. I wasn’t busting with energy because the night before I had only managed to get a few hrs of sleep.
Uganda requires us to purchase visa’s so we had to find “the place” to buy our visa’s. After we finished at the border we pressed on to Mbale where we would meet up with Pastor Macho and then head on to the place where we would be hosting the conference. Pastor Macho had a wonderful lunch prepared for us and after downing some awesome banana's and chapatis we headed to Sirouko. Again I tried to get some sleep but failed. We arrived in Sirouko to find that pastors were already waiting for us to start the conference. The original plan was to wait until the next day but they were so anxious for us to start teaching them we decided to start a day early. We were expecting around 60 pastors and leaders at the conference but it turned out to be a lot more. Our heart was to really try and build fellowship into the conference as a key aspect so we planned on feeding all the pastors as we feel sharing meals together is a brilliant way to build fellowship. In the end we had over 150 people for three days. We didn’t have the budget for so many people but we decided to stretch and feed as many as we could. There was a group of wonderful ladies who cooked for everyone. They cooked huge pots of rice and beans. It was more then a small miracle that everyone was feed. I couldn’t believe it but even on the last day there was enough food for everyone. There is always enough! Some of the pastors couldn’t afford accommodation so we also payed for 30 pastors to stay in town, we didn’t have a budget for that either but it seemed that the little we had was enough for everything. I am still not sure how it all worked out. Jesus you are awesome!
The first morning of the conference I still felt a bit rough I was only able to get a few hrs of sleep and was forced to be absolutely dependent on the Lord for his help. The whole week was an incredible testimony of God grace. He helped us in so many ways and the Holy Spirit moved in so many ways. Whenever we gave space He would be moving powerfully upon hearts in the room. As I write this I start to feel a lot of emotion come up as I realize how much the Holy Spirit helped us. We really couldn’t have done it with out him. He was faithful to minister to every heart and to use us to encourage as we taught about being an Acts church. We are desperate to be authentic christians who live and follow the commands of Jesus, who know what it is to be a church, to love and care for each other. We really started to see this happen as we fellowshiped with these pastors. One night as I sat and talking with a pastor I was filled with such a love for him as I spoke together with him and shared my heart for prayer with him. He listened to me with so much respect and love. I knew that the Holy Spirit was in all of it.On the second day of the conference I got to witness something special. Pastor Macho came to me at lunch time and asked me if I wanted to go into the hospitable with our team and pray for sick people that evening. I wanted to say no because we were getting run off our feet with the meetings and preparing for the next day but I told him yes anyways because that seemed like the right thing to do. By the time it came to leave to go to the Hospitable I was done. I knew I had nothing to give I couldn’t even pretend to have anything. In that moment I knew so clearly that if anything happened it was the Holy Spirit, it is always the Holy Spirt but at that time it has never been clearer how weak I was. The first room we were taken into was a room with two small kids with really high fevers they had malaria. I felt there heads and they were burning up. So we placed our hands on them and started to pray. I didn’t feel anything but desperation. At first when nothing happened I found myself begging the Holy Spirit to do something. I just kept checking and re-checking there heads to see if the fever was going down. After five mins something started to change I could tell that the fever was going down. I checked it a few more times and it was really obvious I was sure that the fever was leaving them. I got Andy to check as well and he confirmed it. On top of that the kids mom said she wanted to give her life to Jesus so we got to pray with her and she started a new life! How amazing is God love! By the time we left the fever had left both of the kids completely.
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