April 21st- Lingira and Kytonga Village

We went to Lingira village in the morning to do door to door. We met up with one of the students at the secondary school named Chris, who is professor’s step son, and then took off to Lingira. We reached the YWAM base in the village and met up with David, the leader of the YWAM base and also Pastor Fred. We decided to split up into 2 teams. Ben, Chris and David were team 1 and Justin, Fred and I were team 2. We started on one end of the village while the other group started elsewhere. We first talked to 3 men, one of which was hiding behind his door. One of them received Christ. We went from house to house. The next one was 2 women and one of them was really sick. We are pretty sure she had HIV. She had some sores and was super drained. We prayed with them. We went to a house with 2 teenagers sitting outside and a group of little kids. He was 19 and she was 16. They had their radio on and were giggling. We tried talking to them and they kept turning their radio on and Pastor Fred basically told them not to be rude. They listened for a bit and she got really somber and serious. The boy was still laughing and carrying on. Finally she decided to receive Christ and he rejected. I began to then tell them about my own life and you can’t just live care free and think you’re untouchable! Then the Lord began to work on that boy’s heart. He got really serious and you could tell he was thinking deeply. He never decided but it will be good for him to now wrestle with it. One to the next place, two more ladies accepted Christ. On the way to the next house Justin decided to do his ‘looks like I’m pulling my finger off’ illusion for a couple of the kids. They freaked out! They screamed and took off running, grabbing any kid they could that was nearby. We went to the next house and talked to two young men, one of them choose Jesus. When we walked out of that house there was a group of like 20 kids waiting for Justin. The leader of the little gang held up her hand and tried pulling her finger off. So Justin did his little trick again and they freaked out! Laughing and carrying on and grabbing adults now and telling them. Then Justin showed them how he did it. I teased saying, “Great, now they think you’re a muzungu witch doctor!” We finished our time at the house of a young couple who are actually already born again and they are friends of SHIM! Their little baby girl is named after Madame Joy. Stephen, the husband and dad, dreams of being a pastor but explained he has some past strings that discourage him from going forward. We prayed with them and then headed to June’s house for lunch. Fish, payapa, and rice. SOOOO GOOD! 

We went to Kytonga after we got back to SHIM. We invited Chris to come along with us and Mama O also came along. I so love that village. My heart is always so excited to go see those people. So I was fired up to bring Ben and Justin and go door to door. We reached there and Ben’s boy that he had recruited just the other day, Reggie, was there. So Ben got him to come into the prayer meeting. So we decided we would just do door to door ministry since a lot of the members of the prayer meeting were out in their gardens. We split up into 2 groups. Mama O, Phillip, Justin and I were one group. Ben, Chris, Reggie, and Rose (one of the prayer meeting women in the village) were in the other group. Now this is hilarious because Chris is the leader of the Christian kids at the school and Reggie runs the opposition. Now they are stuck together. So funny. We could see storm clouds off in the distance as we stepped into the first house. We sat down at a table with a couple of women and a man cooking fish over a charcoal stove. The main girl we were talking to was very resistant but asked a lot of questions. It was really good but soon they started walking away and as the last girl left the room a man came rushing up to the building. “I came to hear about the gospel! Will you tell me?!” We ushered him in and he sat down. He spoke very good English so it was easier to talk to him. He was the vice chairman of the village and since the chairman was the witch doctor that got eaten by a croc, he is pretty much the leader now. We shared with him and he said, “For me, I want to follow Jesus, but there is one thing that is stopping me. I have one piece of luggage. I have 3 wives so how can I follow Jesus? How do I handle that?” At this point… I’m stumped. Wasn’t expecting to answer a question like that. Things they don’t teach you how to answer at Bible college. Haha. So I just looked at Justin and the answer he gave was really good. He said, “I think that you made those commitments to take care of those families and you should keep to that. Now, I would say you shouldn’t take anymore wives but you should keep the ones you have. I think God would want you to continue to care for them and your children.” My jaw hit the floor because I can imagine saying that in the church in America and the absolute disgust that would have followed. We were pretty sure he had probably been told that in order to follow Jesus he had to get rid of 2 wives and pick one. He was so happy to know he could continue to take care of them. When we left that building, we could see the storm was going to hit. The wind was blowing up but we decided we wanted to keep going and I’m so glad we did. So Phillip took us to the next house structure and stopped. Mama O and him were discussing something and a woman was setting up a bench outside the door. Mama O said, “Can you enter a bar?” Justin and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders and said we sure can. We went in to find a couple of benches filled with a handful of guys. There was a clay pot on the ground filled with the local brew which is made from millet with the filter tubes coming out of it that the guys drink from. As we sat down, one by one, they started putting their tubes down almost in shame, except for the one guy hiding in the corner still sucking down his brew while looking over his shoulder. Haha. Justin began to just share the message of Jesus with them and they were listening. One man, who is Olivah’s husband, was asking a lot of questions. He seemed to be receiving the message. It began to absolutely pour outside. Crazy storm. Then I saw Olivah outside the door running to her house from being in the garden and I popped my head out of the door of the bar and she about fell over with laughter because she didn’t expect to see me in there. She eventually joined us and another man came in to find shelter from the rain and to have some beer and stumbled upon missionaries preaching the gospel. This new guy that sat down started being really mouthy; asking all kinds of questions and being argumentative. Mama O just took over and starting laying into the guys. She later told us what she was saying, “Will you lose your soul over this drink?!” That was the base of it. Mama O then turned to me and said, “I think we should leave because this guy is causing trouble and just arguing.” But then she engaged them again and talked for a bit longer then she pointed at the guys and said, “ok, this guy is ready to receive Christ.” I said oh well, which guy and she pointed at the one who was arguing with her. So we left the bar and took him back to Pastor Phillip’s house. Mama O and Phillip talked with him and he accepted Jesus. He then began to explain why he was so resistant. A while back there had been a child that was bitten by a snake and he knew of an herb that would heal the boy. The boy’s parents were born again and refused any herbals to heal the boy because of the strong connections to witchcraft so they just prayed and prayed and the boy died. We said we were sorry that happened and that herbs aren’t bad but when someone gets them from the witchdoctor they are because of the rituals involved. It was so encouraging for the group of believers there in Kytonga because they had been praying for that guy to get saved. Justin, Mama O and I were on cloud 9 as we walked back to SHIM with the sun setting. Mama O began to share how that afternoon had affected her. She had been despairing over having her visa rejected to go to Australia to see her son and new grandson. She felt like she didn’t want to do ministry and felt hopeless, but spending time with Ben and Justin and doing ministry encouraged her in the faith and she had a breakthrough to get past those things. Seeing someone commit to Christ brought a beautiful smile to her face again and she realized that not all is lost. You could tell her joy had been restored. 

I am so in love with that village of Kytonga. I have even started joking that I’m going to build my house down there in the village and live there. I even called my mom that night and cried for a good while about how sad I was to be leaving in a couple weeks. I could just go there every day and worship with them. I get excited to go there and feel awesome when I leave. I was telling my mom that it is starting to sink in that this is my life of traveling and preaching the gospel. You get attached to people and then you have to move on. It’s hard. But God began to show me the much larger picture and helped elevate me to see beyond my life here and to think more eternally. Yes, it’s sad to leave but yet I will see them again one day in heaven so no worries! And then on the other hand it instills a sense of urgency to preach the gospel because this life is just a blink compared to forever.