Day 4 in Uganda

"Dreams are tawdry when compared with the leading of God,
and not worthy of the aura of wonder we usually surround them with.
God only doeth wonders. He does nothing else.
His hand can work nothing less."
-Jim Elliot

I am loving life here in Uganda once again! The team has been having a great time sharing the gospel in the Tubur area, which is 40-ish minutes away from our hotel in Soroti. This city is full of "religion"...the names of God and Jesus are not strange to them. However, most people believe that salvation comes as a result of good behavior. They believe the Bible is true, so Ephesians 2:8-9 has been very freeing to many people! I guess they had just never read for themselves that eternal life is a free gift. Most people I have spoken with fall into this category, but Glen and I have both run into a weird cult that claims that Jesus was never crucified--please pray for those people to come to the crusade, I didn't have enough time to discuss their beliefs in detail with them and they were very stubborn!

Our family as well as Marcie & Oliver went to schools on the first day with an organization called Scripture Union. Our visits at these schools not only help spread the gospel, but also give credibility to the Scripture Union clubs that are already in place. I was nervous after one bad experience at schools, but this one was great! We went to a local primary school with an enrollment of around 600 children. They sang for us and I immediately had tears in my eyes! It was so loud and joyful. I am certain that is what heaven will sound like.

Vince & Laynce have been teaching about spiritual disciplines in the mornings at the church site in Tubur. They are some of my favorite teachers, so I've loved it! This morning we talked about the discipline of silence, which was very convicting.

For the first several nights we had no electricity which meant no hot water, NO LIGHTS AT ALL, and a lot of stumbling around. Lexi reminded us that that is how Africans live all the time in the villages, but it was still very hard to function normally, even with my new headlamp! The blackouts keep happening (I don't know why, this has never happened to me before in Africa this frequently) but it is almost funny at this point. With the return of everyone's luggage after 4 days of no clean clothes, I think we are all just punchy.

The Jarrett twins, Kennedy, and I were feeling a little under the weather today, so we came back to the hotel early but are resting up nicely. Natalie has a huge scrape on her shin from a fall down a muddy hill, so please pray for no infection. She stayed at the hotel today too with a bad migraine and stomach problems. Brent stayed home today too, and there may be a few others who are sick. I know Angie is doing a great job with prayer emails, so please keep up with those!

Thank you for all your prayers. More updates soon!