I can not believe that I have been here almost two months! It has flown by. Last week the team and I made valentines day crafts for the street boys and it was a blast. I also went and did crafts with Josephine's girls. One of her girls gave birth to a baby boy early Valentine's day. The perfect gift of love! Another girl is due this coming week. I am so grateful for Josephine and her ministry to these teenaged girls. The boys in Bombo are all back in school. The three that are in secondary school started on Monday. The women of Hope House and I have been growing closer together and hopefully closer to God as we have been exploring true Biblical friendship. American and Ugandan culture does not line up 100% with what the Bible has to say about friendship and it has been eye-opening for all of us. There were no specific prayer requests this week because many of the women were at home with sick children or they were sick themselves. So pray for them to be strong and be healed.
On Wednesday, Uncle Eddy and Shawn Ferrell (he and his wife are working with API for 5 months) came to Hope House to help us move a very large cabinet. It is probably 12 feet long and about four feet high and divided into individual lockers. It is where we store beads and the women each have their own locker as well. Long story short...I have NEVER seen so many roaches in my life! The ladies that were there, Sarah(Shawn's wife) and I were screaming and stomping and laughing... it was awesome. We cleaned out all of the lockers and sprayed them with bug spray. We are painting this coming Saturday. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.
Next week, I am finishing the series on friendship and I am starting a series on the Bible truths from the MTS model of healing. I am then hoping, after that is finished, to have a small group with a few women. I am also praying that God will spark a fire for leadership in a few of the women, and they may become the next community leaders. Please pray for me about this next session. I have been praying about it and listening to God for about six months. That is the reason why I went to the conference and training in Mexico, to learn more. The years in the Peace Corps, years of schooling in multicultural education, being a children's Pastor, mission trips, trauma in my past, even my own children and becoming a widow are sort of like the perfect storm for this time. I am excited and and feel like it is the reason that I am here.
I firmly believe that every missionary should work themselves out of a job, NOT MINISTRY, just a job. What I am leading to is that I strongly feel that God is calling me to a different job within ministry. When I first came here I thought I would be ministering to the boys only. I lived with them and loved them for a year. Amanda and Abby were running the women's program. As they gave me that responsibility, I could hear God telling me, "this is where you should be." Me, the woman who was never THAT involved with women's ministries before. God has a great sense of humor! Here my heart found a home. My heart and my pull is for women. More specifically, sexually trafficked and exploited women. The field is OVERRIPE and the workers are few. So why do I feel that God has another job for me? Because the women that I have been working with have moved from a place of spiritual and sexual bondage to a place of safety and rest that only God can provide. Have they arrived? No! None of us has. But God has given them some rest and I strongly believe that He is preparing them, Ugandans, to be the light for other Ugandans. They can re-integrate into their communities and lead other women to that place of rest as well. Are there other prostituted women in the slum? Yes, but ultimately it will be Ugandans helping Ugandans that makes the difference. I am committed to continue to train lay and church leaders but I know God is calling me back to the States. If He wants me to return to Uganda for training purposes, I will go, but I also feel like he is calling me to the eye of the storm in Arizona and Mexico.
Sex trafficking is the number two illegal activity in Mexico and it is quickly approaching number one (one is currently drug trafficking). However, the difference in Mexico is that girls are kidnapped, brainwashed, and then sold to the highest bidder. They are sold and sold again until they are used up. The primary consumer of Mexican girls is American men. Who will be their voice? Who will wrap their arms around them when they find themselves dirty and alone in a foreign land? The same perfect storm that made it good for me in Uganda is working on my heart for these girls even in Arizona. I am not totally ready to leave Uganda, but the pull is great. I have been watching and listening. It was no accident that I went to Mexico for a healing conference of sex trafficked girls and it was no accident that I returned a short while later to help establish bonds with churches in Mexico. God is not a God of accidents or coincidences. God may have to use a 2X4 to get through to this hard head of mine but my ears and heart are hearing Him loud and clear. So when I return to Arizona in May it will be a step of faith into the next area of ministry, most likely in Phoenix with time in Mexico, and Lord willing training trips back to Africa.
You all have been my support and strength lifting the ministry here of API in prayer and we have all been blessed by you. God has used you to encourage so very many people here, people you may never know this side of heaven. But know that we have been a team, a precious team, and it was NO accident even if it was for only a year and a half. I love you all and I look forward to what God has for me and us all in the days to come as we anxiously wait for His return!
