compiled by Paula Hemphill TOMORROW our team of world changers hops on a plane to cross the world. They will meet the beautiful people of Uganda and they will come back different. We are honored to know them and to pray for them as they embark on this epic adventure. Watch the facebook page for daily prayers brought to you by fellow CAs for this amazing group! Team UGA, oh how we adore you! We are with you and we have you in our prayers daily.
The seeds we plant often come up as a harvest somewhere else! So I encourage all to just listen and watch for God's lead and then obey! Even when it doesn’t seem to make sense or is out of your comfort zone! I love the adventure/mystery of planting and then waiting to see where God is going to bring it all up! The key is to just keep planting planting planting though. Then the harvest is HIS and it’s just an honor to be a part of it! What are you most looking forward to? I am so excited to see with my OWN eyes how World Vision/sponsorship makes such a difference! Particularly I can’t wait to see World Visions Christian witness where they serve ! I am most excited to gather stories that I can come back and share with churches and families here! It excites me to think of how many more children will be sponsored because of what God allows me to see and experience on this trip. How can we pray for you? I would love specific prayer for protection from any viruses or illnesses while I travel. Also, please pray for my young family and my momma's heart.
What excites you most about going and seeing the work in Uganda? I'm really excited to learn about World Vision's "Channels of Hope" program, which is branch of their Christian witness in Uganda. (You can read about it here. Channels of Hope is described as "more than just training or education. It is life transformation. Training is designed to move the heart, inform the mind and motivate a sustained and effective response to significant issues." This is the program that was instrumental in the ebola crisis in West Africa where World Vision communities were spared as a result! I'm also really excited to visit this community where I'll be sponsoring a child! How can we pray for you? Please pray that my heart is wide open and that I'm able to see each person through God's eyes and with his heart. Pray that I will be able to process this experience fully and return with a God-given ability to share these stories and connect others to children through sponsorship. Also, prayers are appreciated for my family while I'm away, too. Please pray they all stay safe and healthy while I'm gone! Thank you!
Amidst the many photographs that have inspired me over the years, none has haunted yet motivated me more than the 1993 photo by Kevin Carter of a starving Sudanese girl, curled up on the ground, with a vulture behind her…..waiting. Carter had been resting in the bush after a day of photographing the famine. He heard whimpering nearby and saw an emaciated toddler who had collapsed on her way to a feeding center. Photographers had been warned not to touch Sudanese people because of disease. Therefore, rather than helping, he watched and photographed her for 20 minutes. He then scared the vulture away, watched as the girl continued toward the feeding center, then went back into the bush and wept to God. When the New York Times published the photo, readers wanted to know what had happened to the child. They also harshly criticized Carter for not helping her. The photograph quickly became a case study in the debate of when photographers should intervene. Carter won a Pulitzer for his photograph, but regret haunted him. Tragically, at the age of 33, he took his own life, leaving behind a note that read, "I'm really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist." I do not want to live with Carter’s regret. Maybe that little girl and vulture are not in my actual presence; however, just because I cannot see the poverty first-hand with my eyes or hear the whimpering first-hand with my ears does not mean it does not exist. Suffering of that kind is real. The knowledge that such suffering exists is enough to make me responsible for taking action to stop it, just as much as if that little girl were curled up at my feet right now. What excites you most about going and seeing the work in Uganda? For the past nine years, we have sponsored two children in Uganda, and more than any other African nation, I have long felt a connection to the country. However, the greatest excitement for me is being able to see World Vision’s Christian Witness work there. I love that World Vision works in the most marginalized places, even where sharing the gospel is prohibited. However, in my three trips to the field (all in nations where the gospel can be shared), the focus of our experience was not on Christian Witness. When I have talked to potential sponsors about World Vision’s sharing of the Gospel, I have been basing it solely on the “book knowledge” that I have learned at conferences. I am REALLY looking forward to the privilege of seeing the Christian Witness work first-hand so I may those stories and knowledge back home to share! How can we pray for you? Pray that I do not get home sick for my family and that I can thoroughly focus and be present on the trip.
Then I am one of the people who Rich Stearns mentions jokingly, "Oh here comes Dee... She is going to ask me to sponsor a child." Fortunately some of them did-- especially my friends at Bible Study! I read... "Pray ye therefore to the Lord of the Harvest ... He will engineer circumstances and trust you out!" It is up to me to ....GO... Following our Faithful and Good Shepherd!! What excites you most about visiting Uganda? I think this country was chosen because of its Christian witness... I am so looking forward to seeing more of this aspect of WV's ministry and coming home with God stories. How can we pray for you? SEEING God's Hand is my prayer request! Returning home with a heart that is broken and full of passion to keep on keeping on faithfully after our Good Shepherd.
Meet Michelle Lazaro! Could you share about how you earned the trip/God's faithfulness in your ministry in the last year? I was so very blessed in sharing sponsorship. I was really on fire after Rwanda and the photos that I developed and the ones on my phone (and videos) were such a great tool. I shared with all my friends and family (who do and don't sponsor yet) about my trip. I got a bout 10 sponsorships that way. I then shared with my Life Group at church and all 4 people who were in attendance that Sunday became refugee responders. Our LG was reading, "The Hole in Our Gospel." How great is that!!! Then there is a 2-day pastor's conference in Pasadena that I do every year and I got about 11 sponsorships there and a church event. The church event was wonderful, at a small Spanish-speaking church, where the Pastor really encouraged his congregation to sponsor and told them, right before I went up to present my PPT with photos from Rwanda, that he'd be sponsoring. It was low attendance that weekend due to a retreat, but nearly every family sponsored. I think that was about 12 sponsorships. PTL!!!! What excites you most about going and seeing the work in Uganda? I love seeing WV's work in person. I am excited because I know that it will be touched by the Holy Spirit when I'm in Uganda, and my husband feels that it gives me and WV "street cred" meaning that I know that these programs are real and that they are working, and I have the pictures and videos to prove it. I am excited because Rwanda was so amazing, and I know that God has such great learning in store for us in UGA. My heart was broken and encouraged all at the same time. How can we pray for you while you're in country? A prayer for my family to be reassured and not worried while I'm gone. A prayer for smooth and on-time restful flights, and a prayer for my health in country and upon returning. After I returned from Rwanda, a few days later I got so sick with a flu/cold that I was sick for 3 weeks and could not take work off since I have missed 7 days of work. I'm a teacher and missing work is nearly impossible.
What excites you most about going and seeing the work in Uganda? When I first moved to Austin, TX I presented WV to my church and asked them to become a ministry partner. When they decided to partner with WV, they chose Uganda as the place where we wanted to focus our quarterly mission gifts for clean water and we would also focus sponsorships in Uganda. I was very moved as I already knew a lot about this fragile nation, corrupt rulers and some of the atrocities that these people have faced, including child soldiers and child sacrifice. I felt encouraged that the people in my community would step up to help our brothers and sisters with their challenges. Now I will have the opportunity to see the work that is taking place in Uganda and be able to report back and encourage the sponsors with the good work that is taking place so that they will know that WV is a good steward of the fund that we contribute. How can we pray for you while you're in country? Each time we are on a Vision Trip, we are going to see the things that break the heart of God, and these things are not easy. But we also will look at them through our own eyes with our own world view, which can sometimes blind us to what the Lord is really trying to show us. For example, will we see a child soldier as an evil person for what he as done, or will we see him as a victim whose childhood was stolen and he did what he needed to do to survive? How will we see the witch doctor who sacrifices children? Will we see him as an evil man in this society or a man who the Lord wants to redeem? It is true that WV goes into the hardest places in the world and so do the Vision Trips. I would ask you to pray for our entire team for the following:
I want to thank you for taking time to pray for us as individuals and as a team. My prayer is for you to be on a VT in the near future so that you can experience the wonders of God working in the hardest places. Meet Melodee Miller! Share about how you earned the trip/God's faithfulness in your ministry in the last year? Most of the sponsorship connections over the year were done one on one with friends and family. The only time I had more than one at a time was when I hosted the Global 6k at my church. 9 people sponsored that weekend! That was exciting! But really, God has been faithful to just bring people with open hearts into my every day conversations. During the last week of September I had 5 separate people sponsor at different times. I was blown away! God really is incredible! What excites you most about going and seeing the work in Uganda? I’m excited about attending a church service there and getting to worship with believers in another part of the world! Even more though, I’m just excited for whatever God has to show me and teach me while I’m in Uganda. There’s no way I could have been prepared for what God did in me while I was in Rwanda last year. I know God has something incredible in Uganda that I am completely clueless about and I can’t wait to experience it! How can we pray for you for while you're in country? Pray that my heart, and everyone’s hearts on the entire team, will be open and sensitive to what God has to teach us. Also pray we’ll be united in Spirit and for our safety while traveling and in country.
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