Week to 2 in the Pearl of Africa

It is almost the end of week two in Uganda and the Lord has been teaching us so much.

We have been surprised to find that Uganda already has a strong praying church (we love their fervency in prayer), but the Lord is using this fact strategically in raising up a day and night house of prayer in this place. Additionally, Uganda’s geographical position next to several needy nations (most of them Muslim) makes missions potential enormous. Partnering with Jesse and Rachelle’s vision has been awesome!

The team has been fully embracing the adventure of Ugandan life: the girls wearing long skirts every day, using the squatty potty instead of a toilet, eating rice and beans, the power going off almost every evening …. the Lord has been teaching us to live simply as well as having a thankful heart at all times and valuing relationship more than time.

The joy we see in the Ugandans has especially gripped our hearts. There is almost no worship song where the Ugandans do not sing loudly and passionately, clapping their hands and dancing. It is very contagious!

First Outreach to Bukedia

For our first weekend in Uganda, the team split in two. Some of us went to Bukedia for outreach and others stayed at the house of prayer doing hours of prayer and worship as well as visiting an orphanage.

Carly, Casey, Linda, Kate, Nichole and I (Belen) went to Bukedia. We were engaged in preaching at local churches and the prison, hut to hut evangelism and sharing the gospel with Muslims at a crusade. By the end of the weekend, we had visited 7 local churches, 1 prison and 40 huts. 65 people were saved and connected to local churches for follow up. Praise God!

Some highlights we will not forget:

-       The joy and loud cheers of the local people and especially the children, every time they received us.

-       The respect given to elders in this culture is evident. Women and children kneel to say hello as a show of respect.

-       Showering while standing on a rock surrounded by grass walls and sticks, open to the African sky.

-          Sleeping in mud huts on thin mattresses.

-          Receiving gifts from our hosts: g-nuts and a chicken.

-          Men holding hands as a demonstration of love and friendship.

Interesting facts:

-          Carly preached the gospel to three Muslims and then baptized them in water during hut to hut evangelism.

-          A lizard crawled on Kate, Linda and Belen’s arms and legs, waking them up in the middle of the night.

-          John Thurlow is already famous in Africa as we sang “Strong Love” during the crusade (they loved it).

-          We all preached a sermon and/or shared our testimony at the local churches or the crusade.

Trip to Lampang Prison & Creative Access Country

Sawat di ka.

 The Thailand team is leaving for two trips this weekend and next week. We're leaving for Lampang province tomorrow to visit a prison of 1000 people. Our team will be ministering to 300 people. We're staying for one night in Lampang and then we'll be heading to "A Creative Access Country" in South East Asia to prayer walk key locations and visit youth groups and churches.  Please lift us up in prayer. Will update you all when we return! 

Pra Chao Rephon- God bless you!

A Dream...a Year Ago..

Just this past Saturday (10/8), the team went to the Revival House of Prayer in Chiang Mai to join Jazzy, the Thai founder of it. During the prayer meeting we were intrigued to hear a woman fervently thanking God for sending the team. It must be us, we thought, but we wondered why she was so thankful 


Afterwards we met her, Sunny, and she told us an incredible story! One year ago she was a missionary in India and had a dream that she says was the most vivid and real dream she has ever had, and she hardly dreams. In the dream she was in a land that was so dry, and she was crying out to God. Then a team of ten came, and she said they carried God’s presence powerfully, and brought revival with them. She could feel the presence of God in her dream more powerfully than she has ever felt, and she was crying. The next day she had a dream of a flood coming up to mountains. For the past year she has been asking God, “Where is the team of ten??” She got discouraged and was tempted to forget about it, but God told her to treasure it. At that time she had no inclination she would be in Thailand now, but because of visa problems she ended up here. Her friend Summer was in the dream too; neither did they have any idea Summer would be here in Thailand too. When she arrived in Thailand she felt so dry, like she was going to die. Then she heard there was a team coming to Thailand. She met us and was ecstatic to tell us God had finally sent us as the fulfillment of both dreams (we arrived right after a historic flood in Thailand).


While at ACTS George Verwer told us a story of God giving a Masai man a dream of a white man who would come and bring the truth 90 years before a certain missionary came to fulfill the dream by sharing the Gospel with the man. The Lord has also put us in others’ dreams as He has prepared Thailand to receive us!! 


We are contending for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our team and Thailand. Our desire and prayer is that the Book of ACTS would be seen in greater measure through our team. Would you join us in believing for this?


Kap khun ka! (Thank you)

Overnight prayer meeting, and Imani Radio Station

This morning our team is leaving for Turkana on a ministry trip for one week. Turkana is an arid area, located right on the equator, inhabited by a tribe called "Turkana" :) From what I know there are many Christian converts among the Turkana, but I am not sure if there is any syncretism - it seems as though there may be. We'll find out when we get there I suppose! :) haha

I want to highlight some of last week's important events.

On Friday night, our team was invited to minister at an overnight prayer meeting to about 100 people - this was our first chance to preach. We arrived at the prayer meeting at 9pm, and at around 10pm three of our team members, Thalia, Shannon, and Nathalie, shared a testimony in front of the assembled intercessors. Each testimony was powerful. Thalia testified about how God made her fall in love with the house of prayer; Shannon shared about how God made the love of the Father real to him (everybody cried, or wanted to cry); and Nathalie shared about how Jesus Christ is the only thing that has satisfied and sustained her heart. All three testimonies could have had an altar call - they were anointed. After those three, I preached a sermon out of Mark 14 (Garden of Gethsemane) on friendship with Jesus in intercession. After my sermon, Cory led worship on acoustic, Nathalie sang along, Shannon played drums, Tyler played bass, and one of our Kenyan friends, Tony, played keys. It was an anointed prophetic worship time. Cory and Nathalie had a spirit of prophecy on them. A catchy chorus that the whole congregation loves came out during that time that goes like this: "I wanna be your friend, faithful to the end; I wanna be the one, who weeps in the garden." I've been singing it since then:) So good.

On Saturday the team split up. Nathalie and I went to Imani Radio Station, and the rest of the team went to a youth conference. I'll share about what happened at the Imani since I wasn't there at the youth conference. Basically we were interviewed on a popular Saturday morning program that targets young people specifically; this program is where they mostly play the cool, contemporary Christian music as opposed to the boring, old people stuff:) hahaha. Anyhow, we were asked some questions, in front of an audience of 1.5 - 2 million listeners, about who we are and why we are doing what we're doing in Kenya. Nathalie and I both felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit on our words; we spoke with clarity and boldness about the worth of Christ, and the necessary convergence of prayer, worship, and missions. Our radio hosts were obviously taken aback by the content of our words, and the confidence with which we spoke. One of the questions went something like this, "Wow, that's deep. You mentioned three things: prayer, missions, and worship. How do these things go together?" This was the most beautiful question that he could of asked! I responded to his questions with three verses: Mt. 9:36-38, Mt. 28:19, Rev. 7:9-10. In summary, I said that we are praying for the harvest, for the purpose of missions, unto eternal, international worship. It was awesome. Nathalie and I were feeling the presence of the Lord as we were talking to maybe a couple million young people. We were also able to share some of what we think is the prophetic destiny of Kenya - that Kenya would be a light that penetrates the unevangelized darkness of North Africa with the Gospel. It was such an awesome opportunity.

At Church yesterday morning, the radio host came up to me and said that since we shared, people have been sending in text messages and phone calls talking about "Nathalie and Mike" (everybody in Kenya calls me Mike, even though I introduce myself as Michael) and how much they loved it when we shared. So in a couple of weeks when we get to share on Imani Radio again, hopefully we'll read text messages saying, "God is calling me to the 10/40 window to preach the Gospel." Amen!

Thank you for all of your prayers and support. Be praying for us this week. As I mentioned earlier, we'll be in Turkana for one week, and we want God to overcome these people with the power of His Holy Spirit, and leave a lasting impact. We want to see them awakened in radical devotion to Christ.

So far in Thailand...

Sawat di Ka again!

It has only been 5 days since we’ve been here in Chiang Mai and yet so much has happened already. So far our stomachs have been adjusting to the food and water here, except for the first few stomach aches.

Thailand is beautiful, just how we pictured it. Green..There is so much life here…

 Who needs an alarm clock when you can wake up to the rooster crowing and the monkey screeching at different times during the night and morning. Gotta love it.  : )

 Highlights of this week:

We visited the Mitreejit Christian School, where we got to love on 300 children with our songs, testimony, packages and hugs! The kids were super adorable, full of innocence and joy. We fell in love with them and seriously wanted to take them all home with us.     

•   Translated Let it Rain & Come Lord Jesus Come into Thai, with the help of one of the EHC workers.

• partnered up one of the churches in Chiang Mai to start a prayer furnace. In just 1 day, the number of Thai people have equaled to our team. We used the harp & bowl model and it worked! We are so stirred by the Thai people and their heart for prayer. They pray with so much passion and desperation.

• Visited a temple in downtown Chiang Mai. Please pray for the Thai people to forsake their gods, that they may have a revelation of Jesus.

• Visited a church in the Tailua Tribe that was planted 31 years ago. We prayed over the pastor, his wife, their church and the villages in the region. With a population of 10,000 people, the church only has 40 members. We prayed for breakthrough and worshiped Jesus, exalting Him over the region. 

• Passed out EHC packages, prayed for healing, and shared the Gospel to two villages by going home to home. Seeing the people read through the packages about Jesus as we passed every home was definitely breathtaking!
  

• Visited a youth group in Chiang Mai and prayed over many to have grace to stand for Jesus just like Daniel and his friends.

Prayer Request:

-Juvenile Prison Ministry
-EHC Christ Groups

Great Discoveries: Corn flavored chips, corn filled hot pockets and corn soy milk! -Amy

Pra Chao Rephon! God bless you!

Thailand Team

Team Uganda Update

This is Truman here.

Our team has successfully landed in Uganda and it has taken us a few days to settle in. Since arriving we have participated in setting up a new prayer room in the midst of Tororo, Uganda. The building is actually an old barn-like facility. We moved sound equipment inside, set up chairs, cleaned up, scraped and painted the walls, and filled the place with worship and intercession. Our desire is to establish this gathering place of day and night prayer to Jesus so that more people in Tororo may come and pray.

On Thursday afternoon (10/6) we had a time of prayer for two young men (23 and 21) who have graduated from the two year "Youth Ablaze" Missions Base discipleship school founded by Jesse and Rachelle Digges. They shared the vision God has placed in their hearts to travel long-term to a region further East in Africa to reach specific unreached tribes with the gospel of Jesus Christ. They spoke from Prov. 25:25, "Like cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a distant land." They said, "We should not be afraid to preach the good news to those who may reject it and persecute us. They do not know what they need. We are driven by love to take this drink to those who are perishing."

As we began praying for these two young men in our new prayer room, a great thunderstorm came. Rain pounded violently against the tin roof to such a decibel level that all we could do was shout with wonder and excitement at the exclamation point of God's majestic power. This is what God is doing with the youth of Africa. He is setting apart many like He did with Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13. He is raising up faithful witnesses of the truth who will burn and shine the light of Christ in the darkest places (specifically North Africa). May these ones be shot out as arrows to boldly speak the words of Him who whose voice is like the sound of many waters, who will thunder from the heavens on that Day.

Currently, our team is split up on a special 3-day outreach with Jesse Digges and the 2nd year "Youth Ablaze" students. On Friday morning (10/7), my co-leader and five of our team left with the students for the bush to do a 'crusade' of public preaching and door to door evangelism. I've already heard report that over 20 people have turned to Jesus. Let's pray that the Lord will gather those who need to hear His word and that the power/grace/gifts of the Holy Spirit would rest on the team in greater measure. They return Sunday.

Looking at the next week, there is another outreach opportunity with the 1st year "Youth Ablaze" students. Peter and myself will join them in a 5-day outreach to an intensely remote and nearly unreached area of Kenya. From what I know, this will be a rare opportunity to share the gospel with a tribal people who 'wear animal skins as clothes' and hold to an animistic belief system. We leave Monday.

Join us in prayer that the worth of Jesus would be seen and understood by believers and unbelievers alike so that the incense of worship and prayer would ascend day and night in Africa.

Love,
Truman

Base Com Established

Today Team Kenya arrived to K after a 7-hours today. We where able to check out the grounds and meet the wonderful staff that is working here. The prayer Room is legit and we are supper excited to be meeting with local pastors and intercessors over the next couple of days. We will be discussing vision and practical of the prayer room and what it will look like for the house of prayer here in Kenya. The team here is phenomenal. Even after dinner tonight we are bonding so well. There is so much life and joy here amongst the people. The Lord has been so faithful to us as we where able purchase some instruments for the team here. We plane to work with and train at least 3 full time musicians for the house of prayer in the time that we have here. Thank you Jesus for such an opportunity to bless and be apart  of the body of christ in Kenya.

Ps 32. Dwell in the land do what is good and feast upon his faithfulness.