Team in North coming home tomorrow

Hi all! The EYO (Emmanuel Youth Outreach) team will be returning to New Hope tomorrow. Their time has been enjoyable and profitable for God's Kingdom! The response of the rescued kids has been encouraging. The New Hope kids have maintained good attitudes despite very hard physical labor, drenching rain and long hours! They said they wish they could stay longer! Some of these rescued children the team has been working with may be some of our first children for New Hope's site in the North in Kumi/Kobwin!



Today is Friday and Geoff left at 5 a.m. to start the LONG journey home on public transportation. He needed to leave today so that he can join me and 25 others to travel starting tomorrow a.m. at 3 to the "introduction" ceremony for Mulu Jospeph and Lucy who are marrying next Saturday. He has motorbikes, buses and taxis to travel on and I pray he is home safely in time to spend some moments with the children before we have to sleep in prep for our long day on Saturday. One of the students here for the childcare and family institute program this term will be with the children while we are gone Saturday. Please pray for the kids to "hang on" one more day before they get to be with Daddy again! They have been troopers this week and they have a little more to go before the rewards of "rough housing with Daddy" out in the yard.



Talk to you again soon . . .

Mary

Persecution in India's state of Orissa

Please pray diligently for Christians in the state of Orissa, India. An extremely significant Hindu leader, Swami Lakshmanananda was killed in recent days and Christians are now being severely persecuted in backlash. Churches are being burned, some pastors have been killed, nuns are being raped and Christians have fled their homes to avoid beatings and killings. This is a very serious situation and the Christians there need prayers for strength (both spiritual and physical), wisdom, courage, and FAITH and TRUST in God. I doubt this has been much in the western news, but even if it has been, I came across a blog that details some of the things that have been happening -- "christianpersecutionindia.blogspot.com" As you lift up our team in the North of Uganda, please pray for the Christians in Orissa!

A quick update on the north--they are busy building houses. they are tired, but doing well. the rescued children are beginning to respond to the ministry of our team. One of ours who speaks the rescued children's local language is meeting with three young girls. Please pray for her to speak God's wisdom to them. Continue to pray for health as some are physically ill and at least one other has reported to being fearful.

Thanks for your prayer support!!!!
Mary

random pics of recent days . . .

Hey!!! What color is YOUR tongue!!???




Joyce and Toby jumping into the "pool" (nothing more than an oversized hot tub) at the Red Chilli where we took Joyce for a couple of days to celebrate her birthday this month.

1)Anya Brown and Acacia after their "end of term" program that the kids put on for all the parents.

God is GOOD!

Hello again all! Here's an update from Geoff and the team in the North. . .
Thank you all for praying for the New Hope team and for those they are ministering to this week. Reports are that they are all enjoying the time there. Geoff says the people are very poor, but friendly. The rescued children are hard hit with spiritual drought and burdened with fear, so he asks that we pray for them to be delivered from the paralyzing fear they have come to know as "normal." The land itself is also experiencing drought, so the team prayed for rain and it began raining almost immediately!!!!! It has rained so hard that most of the tents are soaked, but the New Hope kids are still filled with energy and joy as they serve. Geoff happily shares that his tent is still dry! Toby, Acacia and Kevin were excited to hear that as they have prayed everyday for "Daddy to not get sick!" and they feel Daddy's dry tent is God's direct answer to that prayer!

The team walked 16 km to build a house yesterday! They are tired, but fulfilled. They have 5 more days there so keep praying! One of the leaders was sick with malaria, but is now doing better and two of our kids are now ill. Pray for the health of the group, please.

Geoff asks that we continue praying for him to have God's wisdom on what to say/share and when to speak. Jonnes, our longtime leader who has served with the Dangers here for 20 years, arrived there safely yesterday. We have one more of the youth leaders who will be traveling on Wednesday to meet the team so pray for his safe travel.

On the home front, all is well. Thanks to all of you who have emailed me to let me know of your support in prayer! I am feeling it! Things are moving along smoothly and I am finally catching up a little on my sleep. It was so busy before the team left that I hadn't slept much. It's busy here, as usual, but things are flowing nicely and God's sends many encouragers my way through emails, notes and personal visits here to the house. I have been able to walk each morning with Vicki Dangers and that has been a deep source of blessing.

I want to get this posted since last night I wrote and when I went to post, the internet wouldn't stay on long enough for it to complete. Once I get the text posted, Ill try to get some pictures downloaded for you. No pics from the north yet, just random pics from around here!
Thanks again for your prayers!
Mary

Forgiveness

Hey, the internet has been going haywire . . . right in the middle of typing a blog it will cut out, so let me try to finish here quickly with some of the info I had wanted to include in the other post. . . I had a GREAT Bible study on Sunday with the girls I have been meeting with since Oct.2006!!! They have asked to study forgiveness and we are really going deep. It is exciting to be discipling/mentoring these young girls in an area that many who have been Christians for years have not even dared to study indepth. I see them grasping the extreme importance of the truth of forgiveness and it is so energizing to imagine the freedom they will have in their walk with God if they can remain free of unforgiveness and bitterness--not the mention the physical health!!! If any of you are interested in studying this area for yourself, I recommend two books, "The Bait of Satan," and "Total Forgiveness." Both are still in print and both are invaluable to a Christian who wants to go deeper in true relationship with others and God.
The team ministering with Geoff has also asked that we pray for the rescued children that they will be able to forgive their attackers/abductors. Without forgiveness, these children will continue to be tormented by fear and unable to be truly free even though Kony and his rebels are no longer active in their area. Our leaders at New Hope have been working in recent years to be instruments and catalysts for forgiveness among the different areas in Uganda where activity of tribal conflict and war have ravaged the lives of many. Please continue to lift up those of our number who are actively working towards reconciliation and forgiveness--they are ambassadors of Christ's life-giving message and for healing in this nation. Pray especially this week as the team is in the North, but please also continue your prayers as ongoing reconciliation activities are taking place throughout Uganda.
Until next time . . . Mary

Geoff is in the North

The bottom pic is of Kevin carrying packages from the administration office! The kids love it when we receive things from people back home. And I love seeing the pure joy on their faces!!!! Just thought I'd share a big smile with you . . . The top pic shows another frequent source of joy for me!! Now that Toby reads (about anything he can get his hands on!) the other two just love to hear him read to them. And we love that all of them enjoy learning together!!!

It's late, but I just thought I would try my hand at this blog business again . . . it's been a long time since I've shared anything in this space. The kids have just gotten into bed--well, they oughtta be, it's 10:20 p.m. Time just seemed to race away from us tonight. It was a busy day for me with laundry. I tend to wait too long until I have a huge pile of stuff and it takes me hours. The kids' business of the day was to play, play, play. They rode bikes, fetched water, helped wash the van, played at David family, played at the Dangers' house, played with their leap pads and took almost every book out of the bookshelf to read. (Thankfully they put them all away before bed time.) Kevin decided he would eat a termite today. The neighbor was catching and eating them and his rational was that he had never tried them, so WHY NOT? He announced to me that "they have no guts." Which I think loosely translated means, "they have no taste." He was eating it while it was still alive--when I tried my first (and ONLY) termite it was cooked, but still, it had no taste. OK, enough on that bit of disgusting fare.

Earlier in the day we had devotions on Kings David and Solomon, and then later in the day on the dangers of lying. (Kevin is sometimes too keen to conceal the truth and this is a topic we've returned to more than once.)

I guess all in all as I look back at the day I see that we did a good job of keeping ourselves busy while Daddy was away. He left this a.m. (at 4!) with approx 40 others piled in a lorrie covered with a tarp. They traveled to the North for a week of ministry to the "invisible children." The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony terrorized the people in the north for years. At night they would raid the villages, killing, kidnapping and forcefully "recruiting" for their forces. Often children were made to kill others on the spot--sometimes their own parents. Those who were not captured would flee their villages each night (as this is when the raids were carried out) and would sleep in locked IDP (internally displaced peoples) camps. Hence, the name "invisible children" was taken up as they disappeared in the night to the camps.

Geoff and a few other leaders with the young people from New Hope are sleeping in an IDP camp this week. They arrived just before 7 p.m. and began immediately to set up camp. They will do some building, along with spiritually ministering to the people in the area. Please pray for them as they are there among those who have been so spiritually battered. "Internally Displaced" is an appropriate term in two ways: physically, of course, they have been uprooted from their villages and the way of life they once knew; and spiritually they are tormented by the things they've seen and done. Please pray for the deliverance of those beautiful creations of God who have been forced to participate in such atrocities against other creations of God. They don't fit into society anymore: their relatives don't know how to handle them and the schools often don't want them because they are too "violent". Our young people from New Hope have been through much heartache, but their experiences are so different than those to whom they will be ministering this week. Pray for the spirit of God to minister to them and to give them wisdom as they are in the North.

It will be a busy week for all of us. I plan on keeping up our regular schedule of school, devotions, bread baking, staff fellowship and Sunday afternoon Bible study with the girls while Geoff is away. So far, so good. Pray that the children maintain a peace and a joy despite Daddy being gone. Toby and Acacia cried for awhile tonight over missing Daddy and then Toby began to remember other people he misses. It's difficult for missionary kids to assimilate all the emotions that come with the constant stream of people in and out of their lives. "Hello" and "Good-Bye" are frequently used words around here. Especially now that it is summertime in the West. We have one team after another of people flooding through and the kids get attached to people who are only here a few weeks and then are gone--sometimes never to return.

As I hear news from Geoff and the team, I will attempt to update here. Thanks for listening!

Mary