Update

Picture

The picture is of the tiger and african wolf that live with us in our compound. They like to play with each other and flaunt their male suppiriortiy around. 

Soccer

I met with all of the Pastor Sam and all of the soccer coaches today. They have had leagues in the past and as a result things are progressing very well. There are already teams formed before we arived so all we have had to do is organize things. There are 8 teams of 10-14 year olds and 6 teams of 14-17 year olds.

Some of the things that came up at our meeting are as follows. 

• Children will be playing immediatly after school and they have not eaten since breakfast. They would like it if there could be a way to feed the playing teams a small meal. In the past they charged 3000 shillings for each player but this was very hard for many to come up with. 
• There needs to be some way to pay for balls. We need creative ideas that do not involve charging the players lots of money
• At the end of the season there will be a tournament. 
• We would like to have a prize for the top scorrer of the league like some cleats or a nice soccer ball. Also winning team gets a ball
•  At the end of the season they will form an all star team to play against Kapelebyong.
• Saturday we will be conducting a refferee and coach training day. Mike will be doing the teaching. I will be providing money to pay for lunch.
• Pastor Sam is going to bible college the second week of August and Mike will take over as the leader of the soccer league.
• Caitlin did some basic first aid training with the coaches to care for open wounds. 
• The first game will be next wednesday.

Farming Training

The Decipler Joseph approached me today with a great idea. There are groups of people all over Kapelebyong and the surrounding area. Joseph wants to gather one person from each of the 40+ goups to come and meet in Oditel. He will train them to use the gardening techniques that Luka and Adam taught the people here. We will be expecting 120 people to meet here on Tuesday. The idea is that they will go back to where they live and train everyone around them. I will be paying to provide lunch for all of them. Joseph will organize a follow up process a few weeks later so that we can ensure that everyone is doing there part in training those around them. I am very excited about this because on Sunday as I was praying I felt very strongly that there would be some community project that would grow and expand to help everyone in Oditel and the surrounding areas. 

Nursery

Back during our first trip when Wil and a few others met with the leadership team for the church here in Oditel Wil asked a question that has sparked a forest fire. He asked them something along the lines of "why is the school system so bad?" Pastor Emanuel, Pastor Sam, Pastor Andrew, and the rest of the leadership at The Center (The church in Oditel) very seriously considered this question after we left. Over that 6 month period they have come up with a solution. They have started a private nursery school (3-6 year olds, very similar to pre-school) all on there own without any of our help. They have a curriculum that was bought from a company in Soroti and currently in the second term of their existance. Much needs to be done to help build up this vision. They would like to start a private christian primary and secondary schools as well, within the next 10 years. When we walked through I counted 30 or so children who are currently attending this. They sang us the ABC's and were able to point at pictures and tell us what was in the picture in both the native language as well as english. We also went and spoke with the government run primary school headmaster. He loved the idea of the nursery school and highly recommended that the church move forward with the plans they have for it. The headmaster informed us that in other areas of Uganda where there are nursery school in place the children are so much smarter and much more likely to continue on with school. Currently this nursery school is just in the hands of the leaders of this one church. I strongly encouraged these leaders that they needed to get all of the surrounding churches in the area involved in this project as well as seek the advice of the headmaster. They liked the idea and would like on member from each church to form a school board. This project has great potential and I really think we need to look into how we can help.

Prayer

We desperatly need your prayers for our team. There have been several times when I have been praying and I was lead to pray for protection of our team from evil spirits. One night Jaynie had a demon enter her dreams and she excersised it out of her dream.... Last night we started praying and I felt that something was not right. The more we prayed the worse the feeling got. I strongly felt that something very bad was on in the horizon. Pray for our team and any attacks the enemy is planning to throw our way... Tonigt we were praying and I saw a vision of huge stacks of firewood all over Oditel. Each was covered in gasoline and the Mission 6 team was walking around with lighters, igniting fires all over Oditel. Pray that we do set fires in the hearts and spirits of everyone we interact with. 

Amelia

Amelia (A teacher from California who teaches in Kapelebyong) has been a tremendous blessing to our team. She speaks teso as well as very good Ugandan english. She has helped in many of our meetings to ensure that everyone is understanding each other. She is a lot of fun and we are all happy that she is in our lives.

Carepoint

Work has begun on the carepoint. Every day all 260 orphans in Oditel
are fed at 1pm. We are building a kitchen were this will happen in the
future. Ground breaking happened yesturday. Also we are putting in a
solar powered water storage system. Work began on that today as they
set in cement around the newly dug well.

Dinner

I witnessed a cat climb a tree to catch a lizard and eat it. This is Africa

Chief

This morning I was one of 5 people who preached in church. Yes that's

right 5 people preached, and that was a short service. Two days ago I

was searching through the bible looking for something to speak about.

I was clueless as to what to do. I came across the good Samaritan and

instantly knew that I needed to speak on that. Well back to church

this morning. I was the second one to preach. I was introduced as The

Chief of the mzungus (white people) The first spoke on Isaiah 6 "Hear

I am send me". which fit perfectly with the Good Samaritan message. I

encouraged them to love their enemies and those they don't get along

with. The people received it very well and expressed their happiness

for us being in Uganda.

It hasn't rained in 3 weeks and many of the plants in the garden
planted by Luke and Adam. Please pray for rain and that it comes this
week.

Tonight we had a lot of fun taking pictures, here are a few.

Caitlin got her revenge

Photos

When it rains in Africa it really comes down, I took this photo right
outside of where we are staying in Soroti.

The cat is Cat-Lin's new best friend, we named it shim because we don't know if it's a boy or a girl and don't care to look.

Brian

God Bless The Rains

Good afternoon from Africa--It's just after 2pm here in Uganda!

Our dear friend Orone David came for a morning visit after our late breakfast and warned us that it looked like rain. As we did our morning group prayers, it began to thunder and the room got darker and darker . . .

Soon, it began to POUR rain on the TCON house in Soroti. I tried to convince the others to dance in the rain, until we ran outside on the porch and realized the rain was freezing cold. We all stood on the porch in awe as the yard quickly flooded and the unrelenting rain came down in sheets.

The meaning of the rain is not lost on any of us. It's a reminder of all the faithful prayers of our River family for rain in Kapelebyong (which is in the Amuria region, just 38 km north of here.) This region suffered two whole years of drought, meaning no crops grew, meaning no food was available if you didn't have money to buy it, meaning many (too many) died of starvation. This starvation was the reason Pastor Wil chose Kapelebyong for The River to adopt--the week before his first visit, 6 people had died.

We have been faithfully praying for rain for the past 6 months, as the rainy season began in March, we all waited to see what would happen. When Joseph emailed Wil to tell him rain was falling in Kapelebyong, Wil checked the radar over Uganda and there was one large swirling rain cloud that was scheduled to hover directly over Kapelebyong for days on end. David just this morning told us Kapelebyong has gotten the "adequate" amount of rain, not too little, not too much . . . Perfect rain.

How many times did I sob when it rained in Kalamazoo this year? Especially when we got word of the constant rain in Kapelebyong . . . One day as it stormed when I was in Walmart, I stopped in the middle of the kitchen supply aisle and cried and praised God as I imagined the life-giving rain in my precious village.

And now, I'm IN Uganda, just miles away from Kapelebyong, as the rain pours down, and I'm fighting the tears again. What a gift, what a marvelous God that has heard our prayers and been faithful to His children in Kalamazoo AND Kapelebyong. What a blessing for us to witness His gift of rain on our second day in Africa!!

The rain IS a blessing, not just for the people in Uganda, but also on us as God's children here to do His work. The bible makes references to God's blessings pouring down like rain, and we as a team have claimed two verses, ever since January when it "randomly" rained on the day we were commissioned at church.

The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to BLESS ALL THE WORK OF YOUR HANDS. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. Deuteronomy 28:12

Yet [God] has not left Himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.. Acts 14:17

I also found another verse this morning that fills my heart with joy and comfort when I think of the abundant rains in Kapelebyong.

Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit. Joel 2:23-29

What amazing promises for ALL of us as God's people.!!!!!!!!! Take a minute today and thank God for His faithfulness, love, provision, Spirit, promises, grace, mercy . . . For ALL He is!! He is the SAME yesterday, today, and forever. He loves each of us with the same passion with which He loves His children in Kapelebyong.

I will end now, as my heart is seemingly about to burst and I need to go spend some time with God.

Thanks for your continued prayers--we can feel them covering us and protecting us and are so thankful for each of our prayer warriors at home.

Much love to you all!!

Jaynie Fawley

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Just another Friday morning

Its Friday morning here and I probably got like 4 or 5 hours of sleep last night, I must still be suffering from jet lag. We will be hanging out in Soroti until Saturday morning when we we head to Kapelebyong. So far this has been a really fun trip filled with very clear visions and prophetic words regarding other team members, and tons of well needed laughter with and at each others expense. Taking it easy today will turn out to be very nice, hopefully we can get out and climb Soroti rock.

Yesterday Joseph told us that one of us would need to preach on Sunday in KP and when he asked who would do it everyone immediately pointed at me. Seeing as one of the major goals is we are trying to accomplish is building community perhaps I will speak on something about loving others. 

So there have been many funny things that have happened and I will try and share those things with you every time I post something. Lets call it the Quote of The Day, I know super original isn't it. You may not find it funny but the 6 of us likely think it's hilarious. 

Quote of The Day: (those who know Joseph, the Childrens Hopechest rep in Uganda will enjoy this)

Joseph: Does anyone have any gum?

Deb: I have some...

Joseph: Thank you, can I have the rest of the pack?

Deb: Sure

Joseph: Does anyone want some of my gum?

Posted by Brian