Wrapping up in Mubende!!

Hi! :)

Been a little while since my last post soooo here we go!!

Time here in Uganda is quickly coming to an end!! This past Sunday we finished all of our crusades!! So bittersweet... traveling to villages around Mubende for crusades have been our main ministry while in Uganda. They have been so fun and so amazing and we have really seen God move in powerful ways!! Very sad to be closing this part of our time here but very very excited for what’s to come!!! Since Sunday, we have been laying pretty low. Haven’t left the house a whole lot... and if we do it’s for yogurt, mango juice, and banana chips! One thing our team has been focusing on in this week is the sabbath and how important it is!! We really don’t know how to rest and it has been very cool learning what sabbath really looks like.

The rest of outreach is going to be pretty busy!! We’re moving around quite a bit. First, we go to Arua. We are there for about a week and we are going to be at a refugee camp!! We are joining with the two other Uganda YWAM teams and the Kenya team is also coming! Very excited to hear what the Lord has been doing for these teams also!! After the refugee camp, we are going back to Mityana (our first location) for a couple days! After that we are staying in Kampala for our debrief! VERY excited for that because Kampala is the capital and is surprisingly very Americanized!! :)

Although we still have about 3 weeks left, I have already started reflecting on my time here and all that God is teaching me. I can easily say that the last 2 ish months have been the most challenging months of my life. Both spiritually and mentally! In Kona, I was like a sponge. Constantly absorbing everything around me and everything that I was learning. Living in Hawaii surrounded by the best of friends and being in an atmosphere like YWAM was a dream! Always worshipping, praying, and learning so much about Jesus! To be completely honest with all of you, Africa has been a real challenge for me. I am pushed out of my comfort zone every day. Living with 13 people has also been a very big challenge:) My team has definitely had their ups and downs and I have never had to practice patience as much as I have here!

I want to be real with you all in this post. I LOVE Africa and I LOVE Uganda. And I am so sad every day thinking about leaving these people and this beautiful country. But I have never been so challenged in my life. Africa is very spiritually intense. The enemy tries to attack us as individuals and as a team every single day. The enemy has been trying to bring me down SO much! I have seen so much pain, and so much hurt while being here and it breaks my heart. I am constantly getting confusion and unbelief thrown at me and my faith has been really tested! While reflecting on the last couple months I was reminded of all of the trials that the Israelites went through in the wilderness. They were learning how to put their trust in God and figure out their true identity. I think that that is one big thing God is teaching me while in Uganda. I am learning more and more about my identity and how to be content with just being a daughter. With all of these attacks from the enemy that we all face on a day to day basis, it is so important to know our identity. I have been trying to read Ephesians as much as possible. As a team, we spent a full week meditating on just chapter 1 and it totally transformed what I thought it looks like to be a son or daughter of God. In Ephesians 1 it says God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing. This means that in Christ we have all the benefits of knowing God- being chosen for salvation, being adopted as his children, forgiveness, the gifts of the Spirit, and the hope of living forever with Christ! And when we have a relationship with Him, we can enjoy these blessings now! Heavenly realm means that these blessings are ETERNAL! Not temporal.

Like I said, these past 2 months have been so challenging. My spirit and my flesh are being stretched daily. I have been learning how to bring my anger and my frustrations to Jesus and there is so much peace and grace to be received when you run to God with your feelings and emotions. James 1:2-3 says “consider it pure joy, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James doesn’t say IF you face trials, but WHEN you face them. He assumes that we will have trials and that it is possible to gain something from them. The point is not to pretend to be happy when we face pain, but to have a positive outlook. James tells us to turn our hardships into times of learning. Tough times can teach us perseverance!!

This is just a little of what I’ve been learning, especially the last week or so!! As always, I pray that as I continue on my own walk with Jesus and as I learn more, you are able to feel encouraged and get something out of these blog posts! God is so good!!!! The more I am being stretched, the more I am learning about the character of God, and the more I am falling in love. Yes these last couple months have been challenging but they have also been the most rewarding months of my life. You will never EVER regret running after Jesus. He will always meet you and He will always feed the hungry! :)

I am not sure what the WiFi situation will be like the next 3 weeks, I will do my best to send out another update before I leave Uganda. But if not, I will talk to you all when I’m back in Kona. :)

thanks for reading!!!!!!

talk soon

-jam