A Call to Discern, Contend for & be Sanctified by Truth

I have experienced life as a foreigner in varying degrees over the majority of my life, probably beginning on my first short term missions trip (to Uganda) 22 years ago (yes, 22 years…yikes!). I don’t recall feeling so much a foreigner on that trip, but I was changed, and became a distinct “foreigner” upon my return to Canada. I think it was then that I began to learn how to die to myself and began to desire to live out James 1:27 (in it’s entirety – I yearned to live out true religion by taking care of orphans and widows AND by remaining unpolluted by the secular world) *note: I am far from perfect, and simultaneously began a fight against sin, as once convicted of something, once one knows the good that they should do and they do not do it, they then sin… the struggle against the flesh is real, but with every victory, as sin is put to death and as I choose to live life in the Spirit, I am learning more and more how to live a life separate from the world.     ...

(Warning, this is a "political post": but, we believe without a doubt that it is God who sets up and takes down kings, and ultimately they SERVE Him - God IS the KING over all kings and HE is on His Throne. Uganda needs PRAYER, above all. This is not a post against Museveni, but about democracy , and for the people!) Samuel wrote a beautiful post about his country, and the need for peaceful change, that I wanted to share. It is in response to the recent unrest and protests over the proposed Constitutional change, allowing for President Yoweri Museveni to continue as President, even in his old age. He has already changed the Constitution, to allow himself to "serve" as President for more than two terms. He has been in power since he was sworn in, after (during) a war on Obote, as the  new president. Museveni promised a return to democracy at his inauguration on January 29, 1986:  "The people of Africa, the people of Uganda, are entitled to a dem...

I just came across this old post from September 2010, and was reminded again of the need to be patient and diligent; to not give up! I could never have imagined the waiting and trials and testing of our faith that we would still have to walk through over the next 7 years - to date. And, I know that there will still be waiting, and testing and trials to come! There have been times, when I DO want to give up, but we know that God has called us to execute this vision, and we refuse to give up! He is with us in the waiting, and has been sovereign over it all -looking back, we now know some of the reasons why we had to go through some of the trials, and the waiting. We HOPE, that in 2018, we will finally be able to move to the village, where we have been sharing the Gospel and discipling people, and that we will be more effective there. AND, that we will finally be able to do staff training, and bring in our first orphaned children. We will not give up! I just read this encourage...

1 Ingoratok: People from Ngora From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. Acts 17:26 MY FAMILY COMES FROM WHAT is now the District of Ngora, in Uganda, East Africa. And before that, as history tells it, my people were traveling for generations. My ancestors originally came from the Mediterranean, which perhaps is why even today our language has some similarities with the romance languages of the Mediterranean. Words such as emesa which means “table” in my mother tongue of Ateso, is very similar to the Spanish translation mesa, to name but one of many examples. From the Mediterranean, we travelled down through Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and then down through Uganda and Kenya. We arrived in Uganda around 1600 AD. As we travelled, we left settlers along the way, including the present-day Kalenjin, Maasai and Jie peoples of Kenya, the Kuuku of Sout...