To Gulu

Hi friends!

Tomorrow our team of 14 will join 200 Uganda university students for a week of service, discipleship, and general mayhem in Gulu, a region in northern Uganda where Watoto, the church we are working with, has established a children's village where orphans live with adoptive mothers and up to seven other children in a home. This is sort of the culmination of the past few weeks' services projects and acquainting with Watoto's mission and involvement in Uganda (and now South Africa as well, with hopes to expand to South Sudan by the end of the year, and potential future projects in Ghana and various other African nations. In fact, if you haven't checked out Watoto's website yet, I'd encourage you to do so; this is truly an incredible ministry that is bringing the love of Christ to Uganda in tangible and invisible ways).

On Sunday after church (when our team served as the choir for 2 services of 800 and 1300 congregants after only having learned the songs--some in English and some in Luganda--during a 20 minute rehearsal the night before... Yet we did it for an audience of One!) we visited Ssubi, one of Watoto's children's villages. After eating a meal in one of Mama Irene and her children, I took a walk with the two youngest girls, Miriam and Violet, who showed me the swingset and wrangled my hair into three impressive braids. As we walked over to watch a game of basketball between the bazungu (foreigners) and some of Ssubi's best basketball talent, I asked a simple question, the response to which I want to share with you: "What does it mean to be a Christian?" There are two parts, they told me: to obey God and share Jesus with people.

So I've been striving to frame my time in Uganda this way, because in these two simple commands I see a parallel with what Jesus affirms as the two greatest commandments in Matthew 22: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.... And love your neighbor as yourself." What better love can we show God than to obey Him as He requires in 1 Samuel 15:22-23 ("Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.")? And how do we better love our neighbors than by sharing with them Jesus, both as we tell of the salvation and hope we have in Him and become His hands and feet in service to our neighbors? Lord, only let us fulfill these two commands as daily we are conformed to the likeness of Christ.

I'll leave you with that for now, as well as many thanks for your faithful and loving support of me and the team! Be greatly blessed.

Love,
Jessikua*

*I've found that I've picked up (or maybe resurrected) quite a strong "African" accent, which has lead to the team calling me "Jessikua," I mixture of the name my parents gave me and the name my host family in Ghana gave me, Akua, which means "girl who was born on Wednesday." But don't worry... It doesn't show itself when I'm speaking with bazungu.