Like A City On A Hill

Soli Deo Gloria

2011-12-31T00:42:00.001-08:00

I'm a lover but Im also a fighter. Im a missionary but Im also an artist. I have a heart of mercy and I also have a heart for Justice. I want to speak words of love but I also want to speak words of truth. I want to make people feel good but I also want to make people feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to think to grow to change to give to go to love to fight. I want to ache and bleed for a cause for a God who saved me who rescued me who deserves so much more than we give to Him.

This year I can feel it. I can feel a collision coming. I can feel the heaven's coming and more of my authentic heart's true cry, my authentic being will be allowed to sing, to dance, to create...quite literally ha. For several years I have felt like I have only been able to move in certain passions of my heart in certain places. I have laid down certain dreams with discomfort in order to lay down my life for a nation I have fallen passionately in love with.

Im so excited that next year God is beginning to open doors to me that I have only dreamed of. Allowing me to pick up certain creative parts of my self that I laid down.

His Timing is perfect, His ways are higher than ours. He is always good. In our discomfort, when we feel our hearts are breaking, Oh He is always waiting to release the desires of our hearts in His perfect timing.

My dream has always been to change the world through song. I get to take a glimpse into that this year and I'm beyond excited about it! Oh My Daddy is a Dream King. :-) He knows people in high places. He's extremely wealthy and very influential. He's already won every battle. He can even make miracles. I am quite blessed to call Him Father...and how I love to do so.

This year, 2011, has been so full. Full of hope, full of joys, full of challenges and sorrows at times, full of new beginnings, full of growth and progress, full of change, and certainly full of love. I have been so overwhelmed at the growth our ministry has gone through over the last 18 months. It still makes my head and heart spin sometimes. Im so thankful to those who allowed themselves to be moved by God's Spirit to bless us and to give and to pray and to visit!

My prayer remains that the body of Christ will be Moved deeply with compassion to action...that their hearts will be broken for the helpless abandoned and destitute, and revived with hope and tenacious faith that the same Spirit who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead and lives on the inside of us...can change lives and heal hearts and save souls...through our willing hands, feet, and hearts in action.

May God Bless you richly in every way in 2012!!!!!!!!!!******************

Here's a few Bono quotes that inspired me today. :) May they inspire you and challenge you in the new year to come.

The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.

All the best songs are co-written by God, y'know!

Well, the going rate for change is not cheap. Big ideas are expensive.

The fact is that this generation -- yours, my generation ... we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly.

Eight million people die every year for the price of going out with your friends to the movies and buying an ice cream. Literally for about $30 a head per year, you could save 8 million lives. Isn't that extraordinary? Preventable disease - not calamity, not famine, nothing like that. Preventable disease - just for the lack of medicines. That is cheap, that is a bargain.

Imagine if a third of the kids at your local primary school were AIDS orphans. That's a reality in Africa where the parents of 13 million children have been killed by AIDS.

Music can change the world because it can change people

At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.

I love this work I do. It's a privilege to serve the poor,....

AMEN.

God is near to the broken hearted.

2011-12-12T22:47:00.001-08:00

My heart broke for her once. We sat in this same living room a year ago when she told me her story. And now here we were again in the same room with another part of the story and I wept with her again as she asked me for my advice. She married a man she loved dearly...before she was born again. A few years into her marriage, she got saved and started attending church. Her husband didn't. A few years into her marriage, she found out he got a second wife. She was heartbroken just from the news but then she found out the woman was HIV pos. Her (now former) pastor advised her that she should stay with this man because God hates divorce. She became obsessive. Going to the clinic twice a month to check her status in torment and fear of infection. She told me that God eventually set her free from having to check and she just knew he would protect her. Then during that, the second wife bewitched her children. This means that she put curses on them to kill them but instead of death, they just got very sick. Her 5 year old bled from the mouth uncontrollably and no doctor could find any reason why. Her 9 year old boy was vomiting. Then the woman put witchcraft inside the car she was supposed to travel in. She was supposed to sit in a particular seat but instead her brother sat in the seat. He was killed in the car crash. The witchcraft remains were found. And still she stayed with him. He was verbally abusive but he was in her words "not a bad man". After all, he cared for and provided for her children. Without him, she didn't know how she would survive or how her children would survive. Then he started telling her that he wanted to take her children to live with "the other lady" in the village. She refused. He threatened her but eventually relented. I sobbed as I heard her story. I told her I could not be as strong as she was to stay in that marriage. I explained to her that such things don't happen often in my country...and to be honest with you, this is not the worst of the worst story I have heard by any stretch.

And she came to me again a few days ago. She told me that her husband wants to take her children for good to live with the other lady in the village where they have their farm. He told her that is she refused to let him go with their children, all of her children, that she would never see him again and she should never again ask her for money. Difficult decisions for her...but not too difficult. She told me...I came to you because I want you to advise me. She told me I know he is just doing this because he doesn't have money. She kept defending him saying again that he's not a bad man. I told her I understood her pain and it was evident by the tears that filled my eyes. I knew that...she loved the man despite all of that chaos. I knew her world as she knew it as flawed as it was ...was being ripped apart. I knew her heart was aching and bleeding and broken. I told her to be strong and not to let him take her children away. Her husband and "the other lady" are not born again. Her responsibility is to care for her children and raise them in the ways of Christ. I told her that God would provide for all of her needs as she trusted in Him, he would be faithful. I gave her a little bit of my personal money to help sustain her during the transition....

and my heart just hurt for her. I could see the pain in her eyes. Mostly pain from losing the man she loved as twisted as the story was...and also the pain and fear of losing her children...and then her entire world.

Her words still ring in my ears, and tears filled my eyes...."I've come to you so you can advise me." and I ask myself, who am I? Why am I here with these kinds of situations? Who am I to advise anyone what to do in something like this?

...and our hearts just ached together there. Sitting in my little sitting room with the children running in and out of the house during our conversations. What a strange and different world it is here. A world where women share their husbands and defend them. A world where men freely take other wives (though NOT in the born again churches!). A world where there is much pain and heartache and people forced to be so strong that it breaks your heart. My prayer is for healing for restoration of what God intended for these people in the Garden of Eden. Where he made them in His image, male and female...to be partners for two to become one. To love and serve each other. To hold each other's hands in tough times. Not to compete or make demands, but just to simply love with free and open hearts. May God heal hearts here that have been so wounded and battered. May He pour out restoration as His children lost and wild come home to Him, to know His love and truth that sets us so free to live to love to cherish and be cherished and to simply be who we were created to be.

LIVING LARGE.

2011-10-12T11:24:00.001-07:00

I am so thankful for my crazy life! I am always on the move it seems, living out of suitcases and my car. Im so thankful for all the people I meet in different states and different denominations all serving Jesus in one way or another!

This year I was blessed to have a short sabattical time to pray and seek the face of God, eat, sleep, and listen to the sounds of the ocean. I was tucked away on an island just me and Jesus. It was heavenly...

But I am so thankful to be back at what I love! :)

During my time here, I have been enjoying talking to my kids in Africa on the phone, hearing their sweet voices, rushing to get a birthday present across the ocean in time, listening to their struggles and their laughter and joy! I have heard them sing songs and tell me that "you are a princess of God". :) They are such dear precious treasures in my life!

I have loved watching people's faces light up as they sign up to sponsor a child or get a new picture of their sponsored child or even shed tears listening to a story or telling me their heart to serve in Africa or some other nation.

I love hearing stories of ministries and individuals who are changing lives in their own hometowns and even around the world.

I love when someone else comes on board and gets as fired up as I am about getting our children sponsored and in schools! About creating relationships with children...

And these people.... they are doing something for someone. They are giving! But even more than that, their lives are enriched! They are richer fuller happier. There world is enlarged and their lives are enlarged and energized with Kingdom purpose!

2 Corinthians 6:11 from the message says it like this:
Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!

Wherever you are in this world, there is always someone and something that needs you! Find a way to carve out some time, or drink a few less lattes this month and use that money to bless someone. It might be an elderly person who is alone and lonely and in need of a friend. It might be someone in your own family who needs you! It might be that you feel led to sponsor a child in need. Or paint a picture for someone who needs healing or encouragement. Or write a song. Cook a meal. Open up your home to someone. Share your food. Give away some clothes. Fill up someone's gas tank.

For heaven's sake though, do something! Serve someone. Show God's LOVE to someone! Freely you have received, now freely give! When you make it a lifestyle, oh your life is so enriched and so much FUN!

We need to get out of our boxes, our small comfortable predictable and controlled fenced in lives. Let's sacrifice. Let's love someone. Let's do something we never thought we would do.

One of my favorite days in Uganda was when I found myself alone in the city. I have so many memories of God doing amazing things there, but this day I had no plan to do ministry. I just found myself alone in the city and hungry for lunch time. I got off the boda bike I was driven on and as soon as I stepped off, there were two little street kids covered in dirt, bugs crawling on them, and holes all through their "clothes" with no shoes asking me for money and holding their hands up to their mouths to tell me they were hungry. Most days I would have given them a snack if I had it in my purse or maybe a coin, but this day was different. Suddenly a picture of me eating with them flashed before my mind. So...I took them into the restaurant and bought them some chicken and fries and coke. Everyone around looked at me like I was crazy and kept asking if they were really with me. It took them around 20 minutes just to get the dirt off their hands in the bathroom where we were followed by security who thought they had just wondered in off the streets.

I didn't speak a word of their language and they didn't know any Luganda or English. But OH we had so much fun! WE laughed and played and filled our bellies. I know they were blessed.

BUT I WAS SO BLESSED. What a joy it was for me to be able to bless them. They were like a little prince and princess to me and I was in awe and SO privileged to be eating lunch WITH THEM!

If you are not giving, going, sharing, serving, I PROMISE you, you are missing out!!!!! You are missing out on one of heaven's greatest most fulfilling blessings! The joy of serving Jesus! You see when we reach out like that, God's Spirit is so there. We see Jesus in them because what we do to the least of these, we do to Jesus.

I always say the cure for depression is to go and love on someone! Go serve someone! Because it brings us SO MUCH JOY!!!

God commands us in His word to love the poor, to care for orphans, to help widows, to befriend the outcast, the prostitute, to visit the prisoner, feed the hungry, heal the sick and it's because He wants them to know His love and He wants us to be HIs vessels, His hands and feet. When anyone is doing what they were created for, they feel good, they feel fulfilled, they feel joyful!

Go Love Someone Today. Live Large. :)

Fall in love child sponsorship campaign!

2011-09-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

Visit our website to sign up. or learn more and sign up here: www.100more.blogspot.com

Supernatural Power for Healing.

2011-09-25T12:18:00.001-07:00

Born again Christians in Africa believe in the power of God to heal. We depend on His power to heal so that our children do not die of HIV/AIDS or Malaria or tumors. Without this power, we would be defenseless. We would be what we are without our beautiful Healer, victims. THankfully Jesus came to destroy the works of the Devil. He came to give us LIFE (healing, salvation, deliverance, complete and total wholeness and peace, nothing missing, nothing broken, prospering and full in every area of ...life) and LIFE abundantly and the Devil comes only to steal, kill, or destroy. Mttw 10:10 We believe that God wants to heal us 100% of the time. Sickness is not FROM God anymore than sin is. Sickness is a result of sin which led to a fallen world. Some people try to make a theology that God wants to teach you something through sickness so He gave you cancer to give you compassion for the sick. Sorry but this is NOT biblical.

Everything done to JOB was done by SATAN. Yes God allowed it but that was even before the CROSS!

We know that everything that happens in this world is allowed by God but not all things are FROM God. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

My theology?

GOD IS GOOD. THE DEVIL IS BAD. :) Keep it simple.

YES GOD CAN AND DOES USE SICKNESS. He can use anything for our GOOD. No matter what hand he is dealt, He always triumphs in victory. Incredible. Romans 8:28

BUT WE NEED God's healing power. There is a lion on the prowl seeking to destroy and kill. Without the power of God we are defenseless. The kingdom of darkness has power. BUT...we have a greater power. if we are willing to pay the price to access it. To cry out for it. To see healing and deliverance come through our hands and feet. To love people into life. The KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!

Read the scriptures on healing. Jesus BOUGHT it already past tense on the cross. The power is there. Available to us.

If you are battling sickness in your own body or in the body of someone in your family, I encourage you to PRESS IN. Write out the scriptures of healing on notecards. Declare them over yourself or your loved one every day. Repent of sin and forgive those who have hurt you. If you have generational sin in your family, repent of it and break generational curses over yourself or your loved one. Then command the sickness to leave. You have the authority. Call on the elders and the body of Christ to anoint you with oil, lay hands on you or your loved one for healing. Don't stop praying and contending. When you have done all...stand...on the truth and trust in God who is...God.

Sometimes ...electricity is on but the lightbulb is not working. There is nothing wrong with the power source ...God. But somewhere there is a short in the circuit that causes the lightbulb to shine. God is not at fault. The power is there. Keep pressing in.

Let us access the breakthrough in the secret place so that when we are faced with sickness and disease we are filled with the glory and anointing of God that overflows and overcomes.

At Royal Hope Academy, we have seen children healed of HIV/AIDS verified by testing, I have witnessed a woman deaf and dumb for 20 years speak her first words of papa and mama, tumors disappearing overnight, and all sorts of healings through the power of Christ in us. We also see many who do not get healed and we continually cry out for His power to fall on us. Let us not rely on earthly wisdom of medicine (though it is needed and certainly we use it) but let us CRY OUT and contend for the anointing of God that is available to every one of His children. THERE IS ALWAYS MORE for us. We are called to love; His job is to heal.

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Mttw 10:8

Are these the actual words of JESUS??? Did He actually command us to do these supernatural things? YES! Are you? If not, are you going for it? Read, learn, pray, seek. Jeremiah 29:13

You will not see the sick healed unless you lay hands on them.

Jesus didn't even say PRAY for the sick. He said, heal the sick.

Watch this video for some testimonies and suggestions:::

Amanda & Ruth: A story of love between a child and her sponsor.

2011-09-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

What a great privilege and honor to be a guest blogger for Rebecca and share with you about sponsoring a child at My Father's House! Rebecca is such an amazing selfless, servant of the Lord and I am so thankful to call her my friend.

God laid it on my heart to sponsor a child in late 2009 when my church was going through the book of James. Sponsoring a child was one way I could live out James 1:27. I first sponsored a child through a large organization but after a few months I got word that she was no longer in the program. I didn't renew my sponsorship for another child b/c I really wanted to sponsor a child that I might actually be able to form a relationship with and possibly meet. I kind of thought of it as having a third niece. God knew this desire in my heart and He gave me the perfect child to sponsor September 2010.

I stumbled upon Rebecca’s blog and read about Ruth and her sisters. Their story broke my heart into pieces and I really wanted to sponsor Ruth because she was so young and innocent looking and I love the story of Ruth in the Bible. I actually even planned to name a child Ruth at some point. Their story was posted in July and it was September when I was reading the post but Ruth still needed a sponsor.

Over the next few months I learned more about My Father's House and I asked Rebecca if it was possible for me to come for a visit and she said yes! I was so excited to meet Ruth but little did I know she and her sisters would actually be living at My Father’s House by the time I arrived.

Visiting Ruth, her sisters, all the children in their homes and Royal Hope Academy was surreal. I was able to stay at My Father's House for a whole week. I loved learning even more about the ministry firsthand, getting to know the children and just sharing day to day life with them. The moment I met Ruth I cried and cried (and I am not a crier)! We hit it off instantly. I read books to her, carried her to bed when she fell asleep in the sitting room, buttoned and tied her school uniform on in the morning, served and ate meals with her, went to church and school with her, etc, etc.

It was so amazing to get to see what her day to day life was like and to see how my sponsorship was providing her a better life than she had before. It was like a dream to actually spend time with the little girl in my photos at home. She knew I was HER sponsor, too, and even got a little territorial of me at school, which I found kind of cute! The more we bonded the more I realized that there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for this sweet child. Ruth needs glasses? Done! Ruth needs new clothes? On it. Ruth wants to go to college? You got it! Now that I know her, my sponsorship feels more like a small form of adoption.

Leaving Ruth in Uganda was painful. I cried and cried and cried. Surprisingly Ruth cried, too and said she wanted to go to America which was out of character for her. My prayer is that one day she will get to come to America for a visit!

Sponsoring Ruth has changed both of our lives. In my pastor’s book, Radical, Platt says, “Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they aren’t real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes.” This is so true, even of children who are not orphans but have no one to provide and take care of them. Knowing her has changed me. It’s easy for me to turn down invitations to go out to eat with friends because I know that money I am saving is changing her life. It’s easy for me to remember to pray for the poor because I know the poor. I know their names, I’ve seen their faces and I’ve held them in my arms and slept in the room next to them.

Amanda’s plan was to birth a child at some point in the future and name her Ruth. God’s plan was to give me a 5 year old child by the name of Ruth that needed love NOW. His ways and timing is perfect. I’m so thankful that He has given me the wonderful opportunity of caring for HIS princess Ruthie! I am so thankful for Rebecca's selfless love and care she provides to all of these children. I am so thankful that these children are learning about Jesus at school and are being taught that they are His royal princes and princesses!

There are literally millions of children just like Ruth that are waiting for someone to stand up and say more than I want to go out to eat with friends I want to make a difference in the life of a child in need and give them the opportunity to hear about Jesus. $35 a month truly changes a child's life. Trust me, it does! Rebecca and I would like for 100 more children to receive sponsors by the end of the year. Can you help us help these precious children? If you have any questions about sponsoring a child at My Father's House you can email me at manda2839@aol.com. I would love to talk to you! Or go ahead and sign up through here.

If you aren’t familiar with Ruth's story read it here.

P.S. - Rebecca and I are praying about me leading a trip for sponsors in the Spring of 2013 so that other sponsors can experience meeting their sponsored child, too!

The Battlefield, The Missionfield.

2011-08-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they
descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ?-- I
speak as if insane-- I more so; in far more labors, in far more
imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of
death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three
times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was
shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have
been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from
robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles,
dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea,
dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship,
through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without
food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is
the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is
weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my
intense concern? 2 Cor. 11:22-29

The Battlefield...The Missionfield.

As Heidi Baker explains in her book Compelled by Love, the western church cannot comprehend being blessed while also being persecuted. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. In a recent time of persecution, her words were medicine to my soul.

My daily life feels a little something like this passage from 2 Corinthians if I'm very honest. You may not completely see it in your two week visit to Uganda, but there is an edge here that requires the grace and Spirit of the Living God. I am daily desperate for His Presence to sustain me. I often feel like the needs around me tempt my eyes to look away from Him and sometimes I do fail and look the need rather than the Provider. I struggle not to do anything in my own strength because apart from Him we can do nothing. The life I live though is so blessed. There is a blessing for the heart for the soul in living in daily dependence on our Creator, our Maker, our Father. We don't know how we are going to put all these children through school but we trust. We don't know how we are going to care for the mother I've befriended who has 10 children and two malnourished twin babies but we trust. Or the woman with HIV/AIDS who is barely surviving and her son is acting rebellious. Or the children who have experienced things their innocence should not comprehend. Or how to get the kids at school who show up with open wounds because their guardian is beating them up... into a safe loving home because we are busting at the seams. In the middle of that, we often get hit by witchcraft. Though we believe the wall of fire of God's Presence built through prayer around our ministry protects us from such evil things. In the midst of the needs around us, we get hit with persecution. The enemy does not like when children who are possessed, abused, abandoned, orphaned, and neglected are snatched out of His hands and placed in the hands of Almighty God. They are being healed in their hearts and bodies, nourished back to life, running into the salvation of Christ, coming into the beautiful spirit of adoption of the Father, and being filled with the Holy Spirit! They are being loved. Come on. It really doesn't get better than that. :) My joy. Though it is not for free. There is indeed a cost. A cost I have willingly paid and will continue. Muslims have come to my house and threaten to beat me up. I have been betrayed by dear friends more than once. I have clothed and fed and housed children only to have their parent turn on me and tell everyone in the village evil lies about me...including my own children. They have planned to deport me. We get robbed sometimes. I have lost children in many ways. I have been in fear for the safety of my friends and on and on it goes. Praise God I have never actually been beaten up physically but emotionally and spiritually, it's a raging battlefield. My saving grace? The secret place. The place where I can take off my armor and rest. The place where I can receive healing for my heart, my soul. Where His Living Waters flow over my heart and refresh me and revive me.

Still Im thankful for all I've experienced and come through. I have learned a language and a culture. I have fallen in love with a nation and people. I have seen hard hearts of stone become filled with love hearts of flesh. I have seen hundreds of children come to Christ and be transformed. And the cost I am paying is certainly nothing compared to the real persecuted church who are in daily fear for their lives, beaten, who are tortured, rejected by their families, and killed.

If following Jesus isn't costing you something though, you're not following close enough. I think especially in the western church we think God is there to bless us and to make our lives better, easier, richer, fuller. That's true. But the definition of that is upside down in the Kingdom. In fact everything is upside down in the Kingdom compared to the philosophy of this world.

Lose your life that you may find it. Give and you shall receive. Die to live.

We should all ask ourselves which we live by. Are we seeking the world's treasures? Are we seeking the pleasures of this world? Are we after making our own little worlds so perfect and comfortable or in pursuit of the American dream? There is SO MUCH MORE for us than these small lives. When we die to ourselves and our selfish ambitions and needs, we discover a world of beauty in the midst of suffering, peace in the midst of the storm, WILD EXTRAVAGANT AND EXCITING PROVISION haha, in the midst of Africa, rivers in deserts, healing in the middle of HIV!!!!, demons leaving children from their classrooms (uh huh), and SO MUCH MORE! There is always SO MUCH MORE. If we are willing to let go, to give up what he asks us to give up, to go where he asks us to go, to say and do as He leads us. No we are not robots. We are living co creators with the Living King of the Universe, who happens to be our Father!

Die to live, Lose to Gain. Try it and see... But it is not for free. The Kingdom of God...well it is for free...but it will cost us EVERYTHING.

SO I SAY YES LORD. YES LORD. TO ALL YOUR PLANS. TO ALL YOU HAVE. TO ALL YOU ASK ME TO LAY DOWN. TO ALL YOU ASK ME TO PICK UP. HAVE YOUR WAY IN MY HEART AND IN THIS MINISTRY LORD. WE ARE READY TO SEE A NATION COME TO YOU FATHER.

"...That the Lamb may receive the reward for His suffering..."

Giveaway!!!!!

2011-08-04T04:18:00.000-07:00

We are so excited to announce a sweet giveaway from My Father's House! Has anyone heard of David Platt? He is an author/pastor we love who is inspiring a movement....a RADICAL movement through the American church. Folks are selling their houses, moving overseas, bringing orphans into their families, buying vans for ministries (someone was inspired to buy our van after reading his book!), and so much more!!! We think everyone should hear what Dr. David Platt has to say about things like preaching the actual word of God, serving the poor, having church without a building (what?), church budgets (beware), spreading the gospel to unreached people groups, and loving orphans!

If you love David Platt and these books or know someone who does, or maybe you're hearing about him for the first time through our blog, we know your life will be more RADICAL after you read his books.

SO...

We have managed to get David to SIGN his book Radical!!!

But that's not all. He also signed his NEW BOOK...Radical Together!

So we are giving these two books away this month to one blessed person!

To enter in the drawing:
1. Sponsor a child through My Father's House to receive education and the love of Christ. Sign up HERE. (this will get you 5 ENTRIES). We will enter everyone who signs up to sponsor a child between now and August 25th until the giveaway is finished.

2. Sponsor a child through My Father's House and get one of your friends to sponsor a child. 10 entries for you! 5 entries for your friend! :) Leave a comment on this blog post with your first and last name to let us know you encouraged your friend to sponsor!

Follow this link to learn more about sponsorship!

3. Spread the word. We want to advocate for our children and bring awareness to their needs. We believe education, healthy meals, medical care, clothing, and more are basic human needs and every child should have them. Help us spread the word about our work by doing at least 2 of the following:

* Subscribing to our blog and leave us a comment.
* Put a link to our blog or facebook page on Twitter. www.facebook.com/myfathershouseuganda
* Put a link to our blog or Facebook page on your facebook status.
* Send an email out to at least 20 friends with a link to our blog, facebook, or website.

After you have done at least 2 of these, leave a comment on this blog post with your first and last name and let us know which 2 you did! Each one will get you one entry though, so if you do all 4 we will give you 4 entries!

WAIT... Then wait until August 25th when we will do the big giveaway and announce the winner! We know you or a friend will be greatly inspired by these books and we want your life to be inspired to be more ...RADICAL. and look a little more normal for a Christian! You know what we mean... :)

We will mail them to your doorstep after that and then you will experience the life changing words of Radical and Radical Together!

New Beginnings:Sign up to Sponsor!

2011-06-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

My Father's House Missions International

I am so excited to announce a huge transition in our ministry and a new beginning! For the past year and a half we have been operating under an existing non profit as a branch of their ministry. This year we have formed our own non profit corporation and are excited to begin operating independently! We have formed a new board, done a lot of paperwork, have a great sponsorship team, and are now on our way! We are really excited about our sponsorship team and their hearts for orphan care. They are an existing orphan care group from Jackson TN, a group of passionate moms with hearts for adoption. They are ready to begin forming real relationships between sponsors and their children or teachers in Uganda. They have a passion to manage it well and make sure correspondence is done properly and with integrity! I am so excited to see what these women are going to do! They have so many great ideas.

We are finishing up our new website design where everyone who has a heart to sponsor or donate can sign up or just to find our more information and learn about what we are doing in Uganda.

In the meantime, I wanted to give folks an opportunity to go ahead and sign up for sponsorships or to simply donate through my blog. You can currently give through a paypal account or with a credit card.

FROM OUR WEBSITE

CHILD SPONSORSHIP
For $35 per month* you can change the life of a child from poverty and hopelessness to full of dreams and the provision they long for. Child sponsors often become important roles in our children’s lives in a fulfilling and encouraging relationship. It means so much to them to know they have someone who is praying for them and believing God for their destinies and futures. Many of them do not have a father or a mother and develop significant relationships with their sponsors. Some sponsors may even choose to visit their child to further that relationship.

As a child sponsor, you will be providing a child with:
`Quality Christian Education
`School Uniforms including Sportswear
`School Shoes
`Book Bag and School Supplies
`Medical Care
`Two nutritious meals every school day
`Christian Discipleship
`Bible Teaching
`Opportunities for Art and Music Education
`Counseling when needed

Children in our homes are provided with all of this and much more including individual birthday parties, social activities, family outings, dental care, clothing, shoes, daily vitamins, etc. These children are assigned two sponsors to help cover the costs of their basic needs.

My Father’s House Sponsorship Team is committed to providing you with:

A photo and background information on your sponsored child
An info sheet about sponsorship
At least once per year correspondence in the form of either a letter or drawing from your child with an update on your child’s progress
A quarterly e-newsletter with updates on the progress of our school and sponsorship programs.

TEACHER SPONSORSHIP
Our teacher sponsorship program is also a great way to have a friendship with someone from across the world. When you sponsor a teacher, you will receive a photo with that teacher’s name and background information as well as what age group they are teaching in school. For $50 per month, you can sponsor a teacher with a portion of their salary for the month. In addition, we encourage you to pray for your teacher, write encouraging letters to him/her, and send them a photo of you or your family. We believe this program will be such an encouragement to our staff, and they will be delighted to have a friend from across the ocean. This program is also in support of our children because without teachers, children cannot be educated.

After you sign up for a child or teacher sponsorship, you will receive a file with information on your matched child or teacher. You will also be able to write to and receive letters and photos from your child. Sign up here for a child or teacher sponsorship:

Click here to make a one-time donation!

Also if you prefer to give through a paper check donation, you can send it to the following address:
My Father's House Intl
PO Box 12222, Jackson, TN 38308

Thank you and may God bless your generosity!

*We are currently a registered non profit corporation with 501c3 status pending and expect that your donation will be a tax deductible gift by the end of this year. If there is an unusual delay, the gift will be tax deductible next year! Thank you! :)

Visiting Orphans.

2011-06-15T05:34:00.000-07:00

I have currently traveled back to the United States for a very short two week trip. Our ministry is currently in transition as we are spreading our wings to fly as our own non profit organization. As I have travelled back, I'm so aware of all the relationships that have been formed in the name of serving the beautiful children of Africa. God continues to amaze me in His provision and the way He unites His body all over the world to see His Kingdom Come and to share with His own how much He loves them.

While there are many people who have poured countless hours of time, energy, and skill into making our work successful...I just wanted to share about one organization that is partnering with our work and to honor them.

Last year, our ministry went through a leadership change and a very intense and difficult transition which led me to be healed from blindness so to speak to the wiles of Africa. Following this, we were left with very little. We were literallly running on faith as our bank accounts were very depleted not to mention our energy accounts as well. We were left tired and weary and needed God's refreshment and encouragement to continue.

At the time, I had also left about 700 pounds of provisional supplies for our school and children in America due to a change in a plan for a team to bring them over. Well God had His own plan. Literally through His Holy Spirit, he led a young executive director of an missions organization to us. Amanda had dreams, heard songs, had prophetic words, and finally found us through a small display of jewelry and brochures. She told me that she felt like she was supposed to work with us in Uganda sending groups to visit us. Her organization called Visiting Orphans sent us their first team that July and brought over the remainder of the supplies for us! God is so faithful.

Over the past year, Visiting Orphans has sent us several missions teams. God has knit hearts together through the individuals who have come to visit us and has grown our support tremendously. A year ago we barely had plates and forks in our house and we ate a LOT of beans and rice. We had no furniture. While we still eat a LOT of beans and rice ;) God has tremendously blessed us in mighty ways. Showing off just how faithful He is and how He can be glorified with any hand we are dealt. If we will just hold on, trust and believe...even in the dark moments where we can't see, we can still see the light shining piercing through. That was a very difficult season of life, stretching our faith, doubt trying to creep in and telling us to close down and leave Uganda...but we stood firm on God's word and promise. And I am so glad that we did. :)

Through Visiting Orphans, many of our children have been sponsored, we have added board members, and faithful partners who have like hearts. I am so thankful for this incredible organization and what they do. They are literally touching the lives of children all over the world. Children who are forgotten, hidden, invisible, and in desperate need of knowing they are lovable and that they are loved not only by God but also by His body, His hands, feet, and heart as she dances across the nations singing of His goodness and faithfulness to His very own. and not only are they touching the lives of children, but they are being the answer to prayer for countless care takers on their knees on behalf of the children they care for, believing God for His provision, crying out for His help....He is sending them out to bring His JOY, His Light, His beautiful encouragement, and His answer to their cries.

Here are a few photos from Visiting Orphans days with us. Visit their website to sign up for a trip in one of 13 countries and go tell the Fatherless...they have a Father! This is the gospel (good news) for them. They are not alone. Jesus died for them to make a way to His Father. If they are worth that, they are worth our time, money, and certainly our love.

The light belongs in the darkness.

2011-06-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

Blackness. You can't see where you are going or what you are going to bump into. Everyone is talking and it's in another language and everyone is just trying to find their way to some sort of light. A candle, a headlamp, a cell phone, a charged laptop. My hand hits the wall and I trace it walking slowly until I find the entrance to the door. I stumble around the things on the floor inching my feet around slowly hoping not to fall, then blindly scan the bed with my hands in hopes of finding a headlamp. Children are in the other room and can't see. A child comes in. Aunty Becky. She comes with a candle and the small light fills the whole room...and it's enough. It's enough to enable me to find an even brighter light. It's enough to give me peace of mind. It's enough to bring comfort and know that the darkness is only for a short time. The power goes out often enough but it always comes back on again...at least with electricity.

Blackness. She's demonized they told me. 8 years old. P3 Class. The same classroom that kept getting hit with witchcraft during our holidays when people broke into the classroom and smeared bodily fluids all over the walls and chalkboard and left dead things behind. Night dancers they are called. Demonized people who roam at night in dark practices. I was not afraid at all. Honestly I was just...hurt. I took it personally that here we are giving our lives away serving your children of your nation and you attack us spiritually. Sometimes its hard to remember that we do not battle against flesh and blood and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Of course now we have our watchman who stands guard with prayers and a bow and arrow. Don't mess with us. But no one ever said it would be easy and I never guessed it would be.

What's her name? Hilda. I didn't know her. I only knew of another girl named Hilda and it wasn't her. We're going to pray for her they told me. The teachers. Full of faith and anointing. They have been a team that has carried me at times. We've been through a lot of thick and thin together and here we go again...to SHINE in the darkness.

Blackness. It doesn't take much to destroy it. Only a tiny light can work. Even a spark can start a flame until we're all burning and glowing in love. That's how love begins...just a spark that turns into an unquenchable flame as Song of Songs tell us, stronger than death, more jealous than the grave. Are we willing to go there? To the blackness? Do we burn with love for those who need Him? Those trapped in the night. Are we willing to walk in the light? To keep our lamps burning and full of oil? to shine?

I found them in our office crying a beautiful song of worship in a perfect African language with harmonies and I just broke. Tears filled my eyes. It had been a hard week. I didn't think I could really manage to minister to anyone at the time. In those places we just have to remind ourselves of our righteousness, of His authority and His blood and His sacrifice that gives us the power. In our weakness, He is strong. I released some of whatever had been in my heart, just weariness and heaviness and the teachers laid hands on me. Dusk was approaching so we set out to find her. To go into the night.

The path was a little bit unclear. Back into the village. Across a tiny bridge that made me a little insecure but I managed it. It was dark. It was heavy to be honest...and I was a little...nervous. Courage is always doing it afraid though. That one I have learned. We removed our shoes and stepped into the house. There she was with an ice cold plastic smile that wouldn't move. I had to look away when she looked at me. She salivated constantly and held a rag up to her mouth to soak it up. She had refused to eat all food and her body was thin. Her eyes were pitch black. and there they were.... witchcraft ties. Little ties all around her ankles and wrists. At first glance you might think they were just some sort of jewelry or decoration but I knew. I asked the teachers ...aren't these witchcraft ties? They said yes of course. The family members were all unbelievers. The satanic witchcraft shrine was just behind her house. A tiny brick one room building with only a very small entrance you have to crawl through to get inside. Inside you are hidden in the darkness. There were big spears around the shrine used in rituals. I was told they give them to children to put around their beds for protection. Sick. I wanted the auntie who was caring for her to repent of this witchcraft but she didn't know any better. We asked her if we could remove them and pray for her. We knew it was family generation cursing and due to the occult. The girl had lost her mind, had frequent convulsions, and no medical diagnosis. A month ago she was in the top 10 in her class, bright, cheery eyed, and full of life her teacher told me. I was a little bit afraid of her somehow. I didn't really want to look at her but I knew under the darkness was a precious daughter of God. A little girl just trapped in the war we are all in. A little girl who had just been hit by the darkness. So here we were to shine.

We prayed and prayed. We first repented on behalf of her family and all the witchcraft. We then broke all the covenants and curses over this girl and from her family line. I was bent over praying and felt like my face weighed 100 pounds. There was just a heaviness, a battle. We called on the blood of Jesus and proclaimed light and love and salvation over this girl and her home.

I just held her afterwards wanting to show her love. She was very happy to see me. I love being a person so many children are happy to see. I had left my house around 4. By the time we had finished it was almost seven. I couldn't believe the time had gone so fast.

The next day we took her to the best medical clinic I know just to make sure there was nothing they could diagnose. They had nothing. They said she was normal and maybe we should see a psychiatrist.

That night I took her out to eat. I gave her ice cream and chicken and SHE ATE. She had stopped salivating as well. I knew something was happening. We took her home and told her auntie to send her to school on Monday because she had just been keeping her at home locked in the darkness. Time for the light to shine. She went to school and had a wonderful day. I didnt get to the school to see her that day so I decided to visit her in the evening. Of course I went with ice cream. I had grown to love this little girl and just wanted to keep showing her love. With no agenda to convert her and her family...but just to make them feel loved. There is so much more freedom in that place I'm learning. Just GO AND MAKE PEOPLE FEEL LOVED. Just GO AND LOVE. In doing so you preach a radical gospel that loves witches and prostitutes and every other person we demonize. So simple. Why do we complicate it? Its much more fun and easy anyway...plus I'm convinced love draws people into the Kingdom. Win win.

So I went with two of my girls who are some of her closest friends at school, Jesca and Maureen. She was delighted, full of light, joy, peace. Her eyes were shining. I was in awe. The teachers tell me she is back. She is fine. She is at peace. Her right mind is with her. The mind of Christ as we had prayed. The light came back on for her. A sweet precious little princess who had been hit as a victim of the war, but our Savior....our Beautiful Hero rescued her. That's who He is. That's what He does. But we are His body and His bride. We have to be His hands and feet and heart.

and there are a million more Hildas out there, trapped in the blackness. Unable to see. Just trying to trace the wall with their hands in hope of finding a light. But we are the light. We are the candles. Jesus Christ within us the HOPE of Glory...He is shining. The Holy Spirit is imprisoned in unbelieving believers and He wants out.

I think of all the young children trapped in witchcraft, even the adults who sacrifice their own babies here in Uganda in the name of getting money and power, the sex trade, child soldiers,suicidal teenagers, drug addicts, prisoners ...heck even just lonely depressed disappointed people. We all experience the darkness to a degree. Some more than others... So I just want to call on you. You who know Christ. You who have been set free from sin and sickness. You have seen the light. You who ARE the light of the world. Please go and shine! Step out in faith. Say a prayer. Start a mission to rescue the captives. Feed a homeless person. Do something. Love somebody. Catch on fire in His love, Run to the darkness and burn there... and if you're depressed or stuck in a little darkness yourself, I'm convinced that getting caught up in shining your light and sharing His love is probably the best cure!

That little Hilda was my Jesus. That little girl just stuck in the darkness was Jesus in disguise. He was inside there. What we do to the little least of these, those treasures hidden in darkness, we do unto Christ.

LOVE. It is our greatest weapon against the power of darkness. It is an unquenchable raging furious flame that burns in me and it burns in you. It dismantles every wicked thing. It takes down every power and principality with its simplicity. LOVE. GOD IS LOVE, and we are His hands and feet.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. ---John 1:5

I invite you to join me in prayer for Hilda and her family and the nation of Uganda where Christ is bursting to shine forth His light!

***In no way do I want to give glory to any works of the Devil, I only write any details to show you the reality of this world and the darker side so that the light and glory of God and all He sets us free from through His love may be displayed. Thanks for reading. :)

Mary & Hilda.

2011-05-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

What if God fulfilled every promise immediately? Would the fulfillment be as sweet? Looking back over the past few years, I don't think that it would. Every promise and hope has a waiting season. A time to press in through prayer, to wait patiently in hope, to believe God and struggle with our own unbelief, to stand on His word and His promise, and to learn TRUST. Yesterday I saw a promise fulfilled....and today I'm believing God for yet another promise*.

Meet Mary.
Mary is a strong joyful beautiful African woman. Mary's story is like many other african women. She is unique in the fact that she is still married to her pastor husband and lives with him. Many african women are separated from their husbands or have lost them to war or disease. When I first met Mary, I found her living in a tiny room the size of an american bathroom. Just enough space to put one small twin bed with a curtain beside it. This is bad enough for just one person or one couple to live in...but then we have to add in Mary's 8 children. All of them shared this tiny room practically sleeping on top of each other. If that wasn't bad enough, there was a river of sewage that flowed right in front of their door. I personally remember this sewage because I fell in it one time. If I fell in it, Im sure her children have many times as well. Surrounding her home was unspeakable poverty and filth. Even worse, is that they were at the very bottom of a steep hill slum community where they were in constant threat of floods and their children drowning. She recently told me stories of how her neighbors houses were collapsing during the rain and their children injured. When I walked in the room where Mary was with her family, I found a string tied from each wall filled with beautiful colored beads she makes out of magazine paper. She rolls the paper into tiny beads, puts a sealant on them, and strings them into vibrant bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and purses. Mary struggled along with this business in hopes of making a few extra shillings to help feed her family. She would take her beads to the market and she might sell one or two in a day. The beads are incredible. Gorgeous, vibrant, creative, resourceful, even good for the environment since they are made from mostly recycled materials. I knew when I first saw these beads in 2007 there would be a market for them in America, especially if people knew they were going to support these women and their families. Thanks to our partnership with Mary, she has just MOVED UP! I purchase beads from the women at least once every month and went to buy beads from her last week and when we tried to confirm that she was home, we had to hunt her down in her new place!! When I walked into her home, my eyes watered with joy. I held back the tears and just praised God for His goodness and faithfulness. Mary is God's daughter and her family are all his children. They are not just unknowns across the world in Africa who no one sees or cares about. They are real people with unspeakable joy in the midst of despair. Mary and her family are now living in dignity. I believe every year the quality of her life and her children's lives will improve because of this business. If you would like to support Mary and her family and the other women we work with and serve, you can jump to our website and make a purchase or there are several women in Nashville who are selling them directly as well. It's amazing that when we make wise purchases, we can give someone a gift....and truly impact and change the life of someone in need and show them God's faithfulness. I have waited for about two years to see this story happen. To see Mary and her family move out all on their own without any words of encouragement from me. I was just a partner of hers, but I am so proud of her as she did it all on her own with God's help. The waiting was worth it. The work was worth it. The many nights of jewelry parties and lugging big suitcases around with me sharing the stories of these women and trying to get the word out on their behalf was all worth it and we'll keep going...to see the lives of more women and children transformed. We praise God for a promise fulfilled.

A photo of some of the necklaces:

Watch a video of how the beads are made HERE and meet Mary and Molly, two of the women we work with and support in their work! I always joke with them that they are famous in America! ;)

Also please email me if you would like to schedule a jewelry party during the Fall when I will be coming to the states. I will come and speak and set everything up for the purchases.

*It usually takes me a few days to write a blog as I only get 10 minutes here and there so I started this one several days ago...at the time I was believing God for another promise to be fulfilled in the story of a little girl named Hilda and wanted to ask for prayer on her behalf. Too much has happened with the story to write it all here...so that is for my next blog! God's grace, mercy, compassion, healing, and deliverance. He is LOVE.

Our World...

2011-05-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

So it has been MONTHS since I have blogged. With all the activity and progress of the last 5 months, I haven't had a lot of time to be introspective or at least not enough to be introspective and then share it. ;)

The past months have been a whirl of activity and expansion. We moved and built a new school, kitchen, and bathrooms for Royal Hope. We have had several missions teams come and serve with us and love on our children. We furnished our home with a dining table, couches, and a fridge (I think we said over 1000 prayers for these things between us all). We bought a ministry van. We hired a new auntie whom we adore and is aptly named Charity. We took in more children into our home...and I've come to an understanding that I'm actually a Foster Mom to 17 (I think were at 17 now) amazing african children. Whew...deep breath. We've seen God heal, deliver, restore broken relationships, bring many children to salvation, and most importantly...we've watched as children come to know and understand that they are loved.

Every week has been filled with exciting times which I'm hoping to go back and blog about ...from birthdays to our amazing Passover meal to incredible times of worship with our now close to 400 royals at Royal Hope to sweet moments with my kids at home, road trips, mission teams that have enlarged our family, my first mother's day (wow), and all the rest in between. We have also faced many challenges as we experienced gunfire just outside of our compound gate for several days as war and riots broke out across Uganda*** and our school was twice attacked with blatant withcraft (which I'll spare the details). Many days we are hard pressed on every side but the joy of our salvation and the joy that is set before us...keeps us going.

I'm honored and blessed to be doing what I do and living where I live and serving my amazing kids. Thank you to all who are making it possible!

We are planning a PRINCESS RETREAT for my 7 older girls ages 11-14...(they are beyond excited about it.) My initial motivation in doing this was to spend time and have fun with them, pour truth into them, and to show them that there is possibility for them in the world outside of our village. My plan is to take them to a guesthouse where they can have yummy food and stay in a place where they will just feel special and very blessed. There were many screams of joy and dancing when I told them about it. :) If you'd like to contribute towards this, please do so through our website. Blessings!

Here's a video of what I woke up to one morning. The girls woke up earlier than me and took their bedsheets and made them into "model" dresses. This was between 7 and 8 am on a Saturday. Enjoy! ;-)

***Please continue to pray for the PEACE of Uganda as there are continued threats of riots due to political issues between the president and his opposition parties!

A lost sheep rescued: Moses Meshac Salvation.

2011-01-04T02:10:00.000-08:00

There were ninety and nine that safely lay 
In the shelter of the fold.
 But one was out on the hills away,
 Far off from the gates of gold.
 Away on the mountains wild and bare.
Away from the tender Shepherd’s care. 
Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.
(Parable of the Lost Sheep)

Our Good Shepherd, Our Savior, Our Father, will go out of his way to rescue one who is “away from the tender Shepherd’s care”. I have seen this by having encountered the life of a very small baby. A baby who used to have no name besides Junior, and who has now been found, rescued, and renamed Moses Meshac Salvation.

We recently did an outreach to Katanga slums in the heart of one of the poorest areas in Kampala in hopes of bringing joy and Christmas to the poor. We discovered this family of 23 children living all together in a small room with a grandmother and her elderly brother taking care of them (For details on the outreach see my last post!). We asked to pray for the sick and we were given a tiny baby whose body appeared less developed than his face and smile with four tiny teeth. His scalp was pealing and his skin was sagging at the top of his arms and legs and his belly was bloated. We were told he had a hernia and never got medication for it. We prayed for that but looking at his tiny frame, I thought maybe he was an AIDS baby because he looked a lot like some of the babies I had seen in an AIDS house in Kenya. I whispered to my friend, “this baby needs a doctor”. We asked if we could take the baby overnight, bathe him, give him the baby clothes I had stashed in a suitcase, and take him to the Dr., but they refused. We asked if we could come back on Monday and go with the oldest daughter to a doctor and we would bring him back that very day. They agreed. We tried finding out more information about him. How did he get there? Did he have another name? His story…his mother had brought him to stay with this elderly woman. She said she needed him to stay ther for about 1 month while she was working. During this time she would come to visit him, but one day she just didn’t show up and never came back. Noone knew her name or where she stayed. That just always called her Mommy Junior. No one had any idea about who or where the father was either. Alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. Sick. A perfect case for Jesus.

I was happy to be sharing this experience with my friend Katie, who left her American life and family to spend Christmas with us in Africa. She had collected tons of clothes and a few extravagant gifts (like a new iphone 3GS to help me with communications!) to give to us. She had also had her entire basketball team adopt one of each of our kids for Christmas. It was a delight. Reflecting back on this, I’m not sure if Katie hadn’t come if we would have ever really made it to Katanga slums….more on that later. Here's Katie when we first found Junior!

That Monday, we rented a car for about $40, bought a bag of rice for about $45 which would last this family about 3 weeks, and met the Jaja and children again with a handful of baby clothes and newborn diapers. I was delighted to see them all again. I think they were honestly surprised that we came back. We took the baby and the oldest girl living in the house, around age 17 and went to the clinic. I desperately wanted to see the British Doctor, shout out to Dr Stockley!, that I have grown to know and trust. He can look at you and diagnose you. But…he was full that day. We tested Junior for AIDS, hemoglobin, malaria, and Hepatitis which all came back negative! Relief. Here's Junior on the doctor's bed...He was not very happy. (We paid about $40 for the tests and appointment.) But the doctor told us he was malnourished. When I asked what to give him, he told me formula. Where can I buy it? I don’t know was his answer. Maybe take him and give him to a ministry here. But We couldn’t give him away. The Jaja would not allow. I was feeling anxious by this point. I don’t like being told there’s not really a solution that I know of. So…I went downstairs and waited for Dr Stockley to finish typing on his computer. I knew he would walk right past where I was stalking, I mean standing, and then I could grab him. Sure enough. He told me to take him to Annie and the baby house across the street. The baby house ran a series of tests and measurements and came back with the diagnosis: SEVERELY MALNOURISHED. Picture of Junior getting measured: Annie explained over the phone to me that if the baby stayed where he is, he will die 100%. Even if we start him on refeeding and treatment, there is a chance that he will still die. The process of refeeding triggers their immune system to reactivate and often times they get very sick and often times…die. She went through the process of refeeding and we decided together that the wise thing was for the baby to stay at the baby house for a couple of weeks until he makes it past the worst part of the refeeding. Then he could come and stay with us until he gets fat and healthy. Then we could make a decision about where he should go from there. I agreed!

A few days later I visited (let me now call him, Moses Meshac) again! I found him sleeping and as the caretaker straightened out his blanket, he woke up and cried a little bit. I was happy! I picked him up and gave him his bottle. He has to eat every 2 hours. Only 50ml of formula. Then I just held him and when I tried to put him down he cried and cried. So I kept holding him and then we read a book together. A touch and feel animal book. While I was holding him, he reached up and grabbed my nose for about 30 seconds. Just pinching it and holding onto it. So adorable.

I know this baby is going to live. The Good Shepherd really went out of His way for this one. Let me break it down though. He put it on Katie’s heart to come to Africa for Christmas. Because she was here, we scheduled an outreach. Originally we were to go to the children’s hospital here and visit those who are sick, pray for their healing, and give them all a beanie baby as a gift. I’ve done this before and the joy they receive from that gift was PRICELESS…BUT our beanie babies got delayed. They were coming from the states with a woman named Jayne. Jayne’s flight was delayed 24 hours. Then her bags were missing for several days…the bags full of the beanies for the children’s hospital. So we made a new plan, though it was probably God’s original. We decided to take Christmas to the slums. We had about 20 or so beanies, some small toy cars and gifts, and we decided to stop and get Bibles to take too. God’s Spirit led us DIRECTLY to this home of 23 kids and Jaja. It was like…a Christmas gift to me for God to give us these “treasures hidden in darkness”. I was in awe as we stepped into the dark room while it was raining to discover all these children with their little legs hanging over their bunk beds. Amazing. We prayed, worshipped, and found a baby in need of being rescued, a little lost sheep, little boy who God just loved and led us in His mercy and compassion to. If Katie hadn’t been obedient to God’s call to come (which I believe usually comes in the form of simple DESIRE to go), then we probably never would have found him. God uses people to rescue. God uses people to heal. God uses His BODY to be His hands and His feet and to raise the dead.

MOSES MESHAC SALVATION…This baby will live and not die and declare the works of the Lord. What a beautiful testimony of God’s tender kindness and compassion as a Father and Shepherd. Just a reminder to me…if I am ever lost or in need, God has the power to deliver, to heal, to send a minister to me…or to you. Do you now know that you are in His plan? Do you not know that you are in His hands? He holds you as His son or His daughter. May we never forget the lives that can be changed through our simple desire and acts to give HIS LOVE AWAY. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Moses Meshac. We love you and your Daddy does too.

EDIT: I left out that we went back to the JAJA before leaving Moses Meshac at the baby house! We had to get legal permission from a local govt authority to take him and leave him there and the JAJA agreed to everything knowing the severity of the situation meant life or death. LIFE!

Christmas in Katanga Slum

2010-12-30T01:02:00.000-08:00

This Christmas was a very special one for our family. It was on my heart to take our kids on an outreach because I want them to grow up in a lifestyle of the ministry of compassion and sharing God’s love with others who need it. I also really wanted them to see again how blessed they are. I want them to know that they are no longer poor or orphaned and that there are many more people in the world who are worse off than they are. I think many Christian families want to instill this understanding in their children.
We were so blessed to have our friend and Lady Bulldogs Union University's Basketball Coach, Katie Woodruff with us during our Christmas season. She was such a blessing and was always up for anything. We had planned a trip to the children’s hospital here but due to a delay in the arrival of the supplies and gifts we were taking, we changed our plans. God always has a plan bigger than we expect. So we decided to take Christmas and the love of Jesus to the slums.
We loaded up a van we rented with about 15 people and hit the road.
We took beanie babies and tshirts and other small toys like cars and small balls. We also took Bibles. Luganda Bibles, English Bibles, and children’s Bibles to pass out along the way. We didn’t know where to start or what to do really. It was raining so everyone was inside their houses. My previous trips to the slums have been people gathering outside and we worship and give out clothing but this one was very different due to the rain. We ended up just having to knock on people’s doors to enter their houses. The very first door we knocked on had a hallway path of sorts that led us back to the main part of the house. Though the picture that gives you in your mind is probably not accurate. The hallway has two walls on each side, the floor is filled with rainwater and mud, a few rags and such wet and covered in mud, as well as a pan full of sewage. That picture is more accurate. We had to be careful not to fall walking back and the stench was pretty outrageous. One of the girls turned around, looked up at me with a big smile and said jokingly, “auntie becky, that is perfume.”
We entered the home to find one average sized bedroom full of bunk beds. There was an old lady sitting down with a giant pile of stuff all around her. She was cooking and preparing tea. Above her were about 10 children around the ages of 5-7 with their legs hanging out through the bunk bed in a row. They were bright eyed and expectant. There were also two babies and some older children. In total, there were 23 children living in the one room along with a grandmother and her elderly brother. Here's a shot of all of us together in the room as many could fit in the picture!

The smell was pretty intense but I was so overjoyed that God had led us there to really notice the smell. Roaches were everywhere and I swear I saw a small mouse scurry across the floor. We began by greeting everyone and learning a few names. We found out that this was a Christian family who loved Jesus so we praised God together accompanied by our guitar that we brought along. Then we shared with them that they are not orphans but adopted by their heavenly Father, the King of Kings and he sent us there to shower them with blessings… The first gift we gave was to the Jaja (the Luganda word for grandma). She had a small English Bible but she didn’t speak a word of English so we blessed her with a Luganda Bible. She was truly overjoyed and it was so precious to see. The boys immediately asked for toy cars. I was amazed that we had brought some along and gladly passed them out. I gave each gift to one of our children and they were the ones who gave them out to the other children. I think it really opened their eyes and gave them joy to now be blessed to be a blessing. We also gave every child and adult beanie babies and most of them received brand new tshirts. We also left them with some children’s books and children’s Bibles. It was a true Christmas celebration. Passing out gifts and the children with their beanies, stickers, and tshirts!
We prayed for healing for all of those who were sick and one of the babies looked very unhealthy to me. I have seen HIV babies before so I thought that might be his case by looking at him. I asked if we could take him overnight and bring him back the next day after seeing a doctor but they didn’t want us to take him overnight. SO I asked if we could come back on Monday to visit again and just take him for the day along with the oldest girl in the home who was about 18. They agreed. So we planned to come back…. (See part 2 for that part of the story!) ☺
After spending Christmas with this family and shining light into their dark small house…I was so amazed that God would lead us to these children. There’s no where else I would have rather been at that moment. I’m not sure if they were happier or I was happier…I honestly remember thinking that as we left. Who was more excited? Me or them? Haha. God is so good and so faithful to provide for His children.

The second half of our outreach was evangelism. We preached to many people in the slums encouraging them to come to salvation and attend the church there. Most of them were muslims. We weren’t sure if some of them only wanted to be prayed for so that they could receive a Bible and then sell it for money and to eat…
The Ugandans who were with us helped us to discern who really truly wanted salvation and who was just wanted to get a Bible. So about 10 people were led to Jesus that day and we gave out both Luganda and English Bibles to them. Some of them we asked if they could share a Bible. A lady who was led to salvation. She had a problem with alcohol.
We then attempted to pass out the remainder of the toys we had brought, beanie babies and other small toys. There were about 6 kids standing around. But by the time we gave the 6th child a toy, Katie got mobbed by many children pulling and grabbing at her. I knew that would happen but hoped it wouldn’t. We passed out the rest and quickly got out of dodge. It was the end of our time there for that day.
My heart these days is that I really can’t get enough. The ministry which God has given me is so wonderful and such a blessing. But nothing will ever be enough for me. I will always want to go lower and to go deeper into serving those who are suffering. ..into serving the poor, the sick, the lame, the unsaved, the broken, the hidden, the forgotten, the lonely, the orphaned. I pray that God will continue to allow me to go to deeper and darker places to shine His light…because it is there that I commune with Him. It is there that I feel close to Him. It is there that I feel alive and beautiful and like His bride. The secret place and the prayer closet I cry before Him and feel Him romance me…but when I am ministering to the broken…its almost as though I am with Him tangibly. Jesus is the hungry to be fed, the orphan to be taken in, the thirsty to be given drink, the sick to be prayed for and taken care of, He is the broken and the least of these. Send me out God. Let’s go deeper. Merry Christmas. Part 2 coming soon!!!

Innocence.

2010-11-23T07:10:00.000-08:00

How do u make sense of such a tragedy? 3 little girls I love...3 girls who are true princesses with the purest hearts and sweetest spirits...all violated, raped, and infected with a deadly incurable disease...HIV. I often think of their gifts and talents. One of them is the best dancer at our school and so young. Another one is so adorable and funny at her young age of 5 years. They are so innocent. How could something like this happen?

All I know is that God is our HEALER, our REDEEMER, and He makes all things new...He was beaten and killed and rose from the grave on the 3rd day so that we might know HIs healing redeeming power. He blood washes us and heals us from every tragedy, every wound, every trauma and violation and theft. This story is not over...and nothing can ever take the sweet spirits of these girls. The Devil loses. Love always wins...

I wrote this song inspired by these girls and their story as I myself am still processing it...

"'Come now, let us reason together,' says the Lord. 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.'" -Isaiah 1:18

Wrote this song today...to tell the story and to process the story of Faith, Mercy, and Ruthie...3 girls raped and infected with HIV.

The falling snow
Shakes from her white feathers
Pure winds blow
She rises with
The dawn of a new day
And her song can be heard
But somewhere in the afternoon
She screams a cry of pain
Though the snow
Has turned to red
It’ll be white again one day
Innocence
Cannot be stolen
Innocence
Is always in the heart of a child
The clear light of heaven shines
From their eyes
They are free as a bird
To fly
Three little girls
Daughters of heaven
Perfect delight
Their royalty
Cannot be taken
Though they pass through the night
Cause somewhere in the shadows
They screamed a cry of pain
Though the snow
Turned to red
It is white again today
Innocence
Cannot be stolen
Innocence
Is always in the heart of a child
The clear light of heaven shines
In their eyes
They are free as a bird to fly
Healing is in your wings
Joy comes in the morning
Healing is in your wings
Joy comes in the morning
Innocence
Cannot be stolen
Innocence
Is always in the heart of a child
The clear light of heaven shines
In their eyes
They are free as a bird to fly
Healing is in your wings

Our video and Christmas Flyer.

2010-11-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

This video gives you a glimpse into my everyday life in Uganda. I am so humbled and honored to be a part of what God is doing as He POURS OUT His Spirit on these children. Can you believe they worship Him like this??? I am REALLY missing home tonight. Only a couple weeks til I get back...

Also here is our Christmas Drive flyer. We are trying to raise some funds to buy gifts and transport suitcases full of Christmas 4 Africa. :-)

Haiti.

2010-11-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

On friday of this week at 2pm Haitian time a hurricane is due to hit haiti that the UN has said will destroy every developed town on the island. Let's pray. "Peace be still in Jesus name." amen.

To read a few stories from my friend's mission trip to Haiti that will BREAK your heart and fill you with compassion go here.

2010-11-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Institutional Orphanages looks like a LARGE number of children ...bigger than a family size in a building where usually many of them sleep in the same room and have one main caretaker.

Our model looks like bringing 10-12 children into a HOUSE where there is a mother figure and a father figure and probably other caretakers as well like an auntie or a grandma etc. It is a FAMILY.

God has asked me to bring His lost children HOME. We currently have 12 children in our home/family. 10 of them were brought in as former orphans and 2 of them are biological. One of them is 16 and doesn't have a father but is the son of our neighboring pastor who has come to bless our home by helping us. These kids are NOT orphans anymore. They are now a part of a family and understand themselves to be sons and daughter, princes and princesses of the most High God!!!! Their Father is the King of Kings. They don't like being called orphans and once when I had a sign up that said something about orphans they asked me to remove it from our home because that is not who they are! Holla. :)

Orphanages while providing many basic needs and shelter is just not what we are into. We are into homes and families because that's what God has called us to.

Please if anyone is sharing about our ministry do not call it an orphanage. We don't have an orphanage and we are not an orphanage. We are just people loving children by bringing them into families. We also educate many children in our community who often live with extended family like aunties and grandmas or even friends because their parents have died...so we offer them free school and meals and love and Jesus. We teach them as well that they are royal sons and daughters of the most high God once they come to know Jesus who makes a way for them to come to know their Father, the King of Kings. :-)

If you want to communicate that we are in orphan care, that's good. Just say she/they have an orphan care ministry that places children into families. Anyone heard of the ministry watoto? We are replicating this awesome model but adding fathers. :-)

Okay that's about all I want to say. :) Thanks everyone for all of your love and support and partnership. This is a touchy area for me because...I was once fatherless as well. Though I have been adopted by my Heavenly Father. I would never want to be part of an orphanage or called an orphan though. That's not who I am. That's not who these kids are either. It's what happened to them.

I am blessed and honored and humbled to love, serve, and empower the TRUE ROYALTY of the kingdom of God in these children.

God bless and keep you.

<3 Rebecca

Phiona's Healing.

2010-10-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

It is with great delight and a deep down joy that I share with you the precious story of Phiona.

Phiona was one of the first girls' to come into our home. We didn't know the full extent of her history ....only that there was some abuse, threats of abuse, and abandonment. Of all the girls in our home, Phiona's eyes and personality were the least SPARKLY so to speak. She was always pretty quiet and detached. When we began having our nightly prayer and worship, God's PRESENCE began to flood our home. The kids would get so lost in worship and praise and the glory of God and His love were so present.

During several of these nights, Phiona began to "manifest" demonic spirits. She would scream and shake and hiss and scream out things. Nothing new to me though...One of the Fathers in our home would began ministering to her having been trained extensively in deliverance and inner healing. I watched one night as he stood in for every man who had abused her, rejected her and abandoned her and asked for her forgiveness. After she forgave through a shaky voice and so many tears, he released a father's blessing over her and THE FATHER's LOVE! After that night, there was a new glow about her. BUT...some issues began happening with her and the other girls. She confessed to always feeling left out of the group. She was feeling REJECTION by everyone in our home. We knew God was GOING DEEPER into her HEART! YES. The walls were coming down and His love was touching hidden wounded places. We worked on it with the girls but there was just a division between them all...and Phiona. I would tell the girls to give her extra love and include her and that each one of them should befriend her. Then after a couple of months of this issue...Phiona stopped speaking. The girls said she just strained her voice at school with too much singing. Phiona could kind of speak through a whisper but that was it. We thought it would go away in a week or so...just a strain. But it didnt. In fact it lasted for months. We took her to several doctors who prescribed different medicines for her and NOTHING worked. Finally one doctor the specialist...told us that he has seen this exact same thing many times in girls who have been abused and abandoned. He said he wanted her to see a psychiatrist. I was so heartbroken to hear this. The enemy still had his grip on her and was silencing her beautiful voice and her beautiful praise to God through these wounds. My heart sunk to the ground. I called on everyone to begin praying for her. FOr her HEART to be healed so that her voice would be free to speak. THe doctors wanted her to be put on antidepressants and I refused that. God is much bigger and more powerful than any drug that would mess with a 12 year old's brain chemicals. No thank you. Four MONTHS after her voice stopped speaking....I had a special time of prayer with the Grace Center children. I wept tears of ...well sadness i think...as each one of these precious children each prayed for Phiona by name asking God to heal her, declaring her healing, filling her with His love and all the rest. They are mighty in childlike faith and pure in heart. God HEARS AND ANSWERS THEIR PRAYERS. Those kids have prayed in a car, a school, a home, and so many other things for me. God QUICKLY answers their prayers. So...after they prayed...on MONDAY the very next day...I got a phone call from Uganda. Phiona had begun SPEAKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was at night there so I couldn't talk to her. Our school head teacher had also ministered to her that Monday and laid hands on her. Late that night...she spoke and spoke and spoke. The next day I talked to her as my eyes filled with tears so happy to HEAR HER VOICE. Such a sweet sound....a joyful african child praising and thanking God.

I just want to share this story as it is another block in the building of God's FAITHFULNESS. HE IS SOOOO FAITHFUL! He is our Healer, our Deliverer, our everything. In His house, ....in My Father's House...no sickness can stand and every one of our needs is abundantly met.

We believe Phiona will be completely healed in every way....her heart her mind her body. Because that's what His word promises...and that's who He is...and that's what we have in HIS HOUSE! AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone who filled the prayer bowls for Phiona. I cry tears of thankfulness even as I type this. Much Love...Much Faith...Much Hope.
<3
Auntie Becky

2010-10-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

Lyrics to a song I wrote for our African worship album and sing with our girls. This is my personal testimony and the testimony of our girls now too. God's redemption of my life multiplied in their hearts. :-)

I was so alone
Abandoned and afraid
Til He rescued me
Washed me in His grace
Showed me of His love
Now I'm not the same
I found my home in Him
Jesus made the way

There's a place for you
In my Father's house
Broken and confused
He is crying out
For you to know His love
and come back home
There is a place for you
In My Father's House

He will hold you close
In His warm embrace
Wipe away your tears
Kiss your fears away
He will never leave
He promised me
He'll tell you the truth
of who you are
And you will believe

There's a place for you
In my Father's house
Broken and confused
He is crying out
For you to know His love
and come back home
There is a place for you
In My Father's House

So don't be afraid
Jesus will light your way
One thing I know is true
He loves me
He loves you....

There's a place for you
In my Father's house
Broken and confused
He is crying out
For you to know His love
and come back home
There is a place for you
In My Father's House

To purchase the CD, please click here.

draw me close 2 u.

2010-10-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

Sembeza woli
tonjabulida
biwayo byona jolie
onfule mwagalwa wo
njaya nira gwe
tewali womulala
afayo jendi nga gwe
mpumulira mu gwe
ondagekubo
eliyiokwagalakwo
neGwe gwene taga
Yaya nira gwe mukama
yeGwe gwe netaga
Nyamba manye kiwoli

A D
Draw me close to you
E A
Never let me go
E D
I lay it all down again
D F#m
To hear you say that I'm your friend
A D
You are my desire
E A
No one else will do
E D
Cause nothing else could take your place

Bridge:
D F#m
To feel the warmth of your embrace
A D E A E
Help me find the way, bring me back to you

Chorus:
A E D
You're all I want
A E D E
You're all I've ever needed
A E D
You're all I want
D E A (F#m)
Help me know you are near

To Love and Be Loved.

2010-10-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

I'm certain I could never be a monk or a nun or anyone that hides themselves away in seclusion in the name of "being with God" or being spiritual. I don't know about you but I find God in my encounters with His most precious creations. I find Him in people and our relationships. I feel God in the longing and attachments I have with those who are closest to my heart. I know He is real because of the love I feel for another. When I see Ronnie, who I found an hour away from death, and my heart breaks like a mother's heart and from that day on he becomes my own, there is something divine and holy in that. There is even something holy in the compassion I feel for my step father. Tonight I am thinking of him. His eyes have grown tired and I see him grappling for dear life...for hope. He is lonely. He suffered a nervous breakdown and a battle with cancer at the same time and nearly did not live through it all. But he did. He survived and he conquered it...the mental illness. the cancer. But he didn't conquer the divorce. My mother divorced him somewhere in the middle of all that. and all of our hearts were broken by that. So now he is still alive but alone. and my heart is hurting for him tonight. I hate alone ness. I hate loneliness. No matter how much we want it to be true that God is all we need... we need each other. We need companionship and love and intimacy with another human being. We were not created to live small isolated lives but lives of love hope compassion generosity service receiving love giving love. I just want to be near to him lately. To spend time with him. To bring joy to him. And of course I think of my own situation...living in another country... my heart strung out all over the world linked to hearts across the waters. I pray I'll never be alone really alone in all I do. I know I'm never alone. God is always with me. My best friend, lover of my soul... But I want to see a human smile sometimes and hold a human hand. I'm so thankful for my life. I'm so thankful for the role I get to play in the lives of precious children. Knowing you are making a difference in the life of someone is pretty priceless. Knowing that your life has purpose is a treasure I would never trade. I love traveling for the most part. I enjoy meeting new people in America as I share my stories and hope and pray that I inspire compassion and still I dread the constant motion as well. Suitcases and packed out cars and carrying boxes in and out of storage and up and down stairs... I know God has a plan in it all. I guess tonight I'm just reflecting. I sure am thankful for Jesus. I'd be a goner without Him. Really... I make so many mistakes even with Him in my life. Without Him...I don't even want to imagine. Thank You Lord for the gift of Your friendship and Presence and Your saving grace. You are So good and I know Your plan is to fulfill every desire of my heart. Help me Oh God to follow You, to listen and obey, and to be in Your perfect will.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
"There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than there is for bread." Mother T.

Parable of the sheep and goats.

2010-10-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

FOR I WAS HUNGRY, WHILE YOU HAD ALL YOU NEEDED. I WAS THIRSTY, BUT YOU DRANK BOTTLED WATER. I WAS A STRANGER, AND YOU WANTED ME DEPORTED. I NEEDED CLOTHES, BUT YOU NEEDED MORE CLOTHES. I WAS SICK, AND YOU POINTED OUT THE BEHAVIORS THAT LED TO MY SICKNESS. I WAS IN PRISON, AND YOU SAID I WAS GETTING WHAT I DESERVED. -The Parable of the Sheep and Goats from The Hole in Our Gospel

The past week has been a whirlwind. People in Jackson, TN have been so kind and gracious and honoring to me. They planned a beautiful week of events that were sewn with love and honor. Sometimes it feels good to be honored honestly...after being hidden in the dirt, digging in and pulling children out of the trenches of warfare, sometimes feeling alone though always aware of the One who sees it all, my Father. I was thankful though for the thoughtfulness and thankfulness of a handful of people who went out of their way to serve and bless me. I certainly don't live for that or do what I do for that...but it is really nice sometimes to have it.

At the beginning of the week someone asked me if I struggle with judgement towards the people I'm around seeing all the wealth of the American lifestyle and the American dream, while I live with people who are dying in their daily poverty and despair. I gave the best answer I could and told him 'no God has really worked on my heart about that issue, and I have come to understand that wealth is a blessing and poverty is a curse but I used to really struggle with that'. But to be honest it really is a little tough for me to swallow. Not necessarily a judgement against those people...but how can such extremes exist among the body of Christ u know? One Christian I know has everything and MORE and MORE and MORE and another cannot afford to feed or house her children... Where is the love...

I don't have the answers. I don't know where the line is between wealth and poverty or where it should be. But I do know this. We should not sit in our extravagant lives while ignoring the needs of the world. We cannot turn a blind eye to those around us just because they live on another continent or another side of town. If we do, we are not followers of Christ. We are not Christians and its really UNFAIR to the God who shed His blood for us, who left His glory and wealth to be born into poverty and dirt for us, who lowered Himself to be dependent on a mother's care and milk, to learn a language, to become a helpless baby and gave up all He had for us to say...that we are like Him when we're not. I understand everyone is at different places in their walks with God. We all have our own struggles and issues, but the church needs to get real and wake up to the facts of the reality of a Suffering Jesus in disguise in this world. He says how we treat Him will in part determine our eternity. Not that salvation depends on works in anyway...but if we are saved we WILL feed the hungry, care for the orphan, and wash the feet of Suffering Jesus with our tears (Mttw 25) because the Spirit of the Living God will be dwelling in side of us, we will know His LOVE and be compelled by that LOVE to do so! (1 Jn 3:17) Not to mention that its a Biblical Mandate!

One of my biggest concerns these days is Mama Nalongo. She has five BEAUTIFUL precious little girls. We have sponsors for three of them. She wasn't able to feed her kids between the school terms so she sent them to a faaar away village where she knew they would be able to find gardens to eat from. Due to poverty, she placed them where they could eat but they were not in her protective care...because she had to continue working her job or she might lose it and had to keep paying the rent on their one small room where they all slept. Four year old Ruth and Seven year olds, Faith and Mercy, were all raped and infected with HIV while they were away. We immediately started food aid when we learned of their situation and got sponsors for 3 of the 5 daughters...the ones who were raped. They are now part of an HIV treatment program as well. BUT Mama Nalongo just learned that she is about to be evicted from her home. We dont really have the money to do it...but what do we do? Is it irresponsible of us not to help her find another place to live or irresponsible if we do? God must have mercy on this woman. We must have mercy on the Homeless Jesus inside of her.

There are so many people in the world opening their homes, laying down their lives, serving Jesus as they serve the least of these and to me IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL to see the bride of Christ adorned with kindness, clothed in compassion, sparkling with mercy, the jewels of heaven.

He is coming back for a spotless bride. I know He will settle for nothing less. Are you a sheep or a goat? I can only hope and pray I'll be counted among the sheep.

Kari is giving away a trip to Ethiopia!!!

2010-10-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know about my friends' HUGE giveaway on her blog site. Everyone who purchases a tshirt off of her blog will be entered to win a FREE trip to Ethiopia for a missions trip!

Please check it out. Here's a few details from her site:::

* Prize: Mission Trip to Ethiopia, February 17-26, 2011
* Prize value: $3100
* Number of winners: 1 (2 alternatives)
* Number of Tee shirts to sell: 183
* Ending date of the giveaway: 10/28/10
* Where it can be won: My Crazy Adoption Blog (US and CANADA only)
* The prize is from: www.mycrazyadoption.com
* To enter this giveaway, you can: purchase a tee shirt at My Crazy Adoption Store

Here is my GIVEAWAY POST- http://mycrazyadoption.org/biggest-craziest-giveaway-ever
Here is my store link- http://store.mycrazyadoption.org/

What I do in America.

2010-09-28T13:38:00.001-07:00

So lately Ive been thinking about how unusual my life is compared to most American people. So I just thought I'd share with you what my American life looks like. I'm very thankful that my life looks a little bit different...okay a lot different...most of the time.

When I first got to America this year, I was in a hazey daze for about four days. There were no fireworks and even few phone calls those first few days. Sometimes it just takes some time to adjust to a new time zone and diet and living situation. I felt like I was floating or something the first time I drove my car. Seriously it was like physically a very odd feeling. Emotionally, I was psyched beyond my dreams! I remember driving to Wal Mart and feeling like it was more like Disney World with all the choices of anything you could possibly desire. I was beyond excited. McDonald's? I used to be anti but after all the nastiness of imposter hamburgers in Uganda...I was in heaven. High speed internet, Oprah on tv, Hamburger, fries, and a smoothie. I thought I'd gone to heaven. During these first few days, I had many things to do like...

Moving my leftover stuff from Ms Jan's house into my storage unit.

Moving my stuff that I would need over the next several months into my new house...L, my Ugandan friend's apartment, where I would be sleeping on a large comfy couch and storing my stuff in her laundry room now turned large closet. We speak Luganda sometimes too ...to keep me sharp.

Reactivating my car insurance

Running all over town to find a phone charger for my ancient baby nokia cause I left the other one in uganda...no chance in getting that over here...and finally biting the dust and buying a phone after not finding one that fit.

Going to different stores to find a bathing suit on sale to swim in and only finding string bikinis...um no.

Going shopping at Target for the summer sales for 12 kids and fighting every urge to spend over $100.

Buying 12 sets of twin sheets...on sale of course.

Spending a nice amount of money on Skype listening to tiny voices at home speak Luganda and me trying to speak it back ha.

Finally after NOT seeing my friends for a few days ...pretty much on purpose...I felt like a recluse and had to get out!

Then I went to a pool party where I was bear hugged. We played Balderdash all night and I laughed til my stomach hurt. American humor was quite refreshing.

Then I got to work. I worked one night at our church's childcare for $20, then I started on the madness.

I spent 5 hours at McDonald's working on our financial reports for our amazing financial guru/accountant friend which required some net access. I spent another 5 hours at McDonald's working on emails and trying to get a file sent to my friend to make our DVD. McDonald's pretty much became my office that week.

I did a photo shoot of product with my friend Mary. I printed off information and brochures, organized and packed up product and videos and headed west to Arkansas. I had my first event only a couple days after I got there. I did 6 events within 10 days and I was wiped out. I got to eat hamburgers with my home girls and see all my family at a cookout where we also ate more hamburgers. Ate birthday cake and opened birthday presents in September. My birthday is in June.

I was basically whisked around spoke at the rotary club, our fashion luncheon, and my old high school where I left a storm of controversy for saying that our kids had come to "salvation in Christ and out of these false religions and practices" including Polygamist Islam, Rhasta, and witchcraft. I offended a few wiccans and polygamist muslims in the audience. It didn't even cross my mind before or even after my speech that I might offend anyone though I did show our less overtly Christian video. But I got pretty slammed on the facebook by some high schoolers or maybe their 'little friends' all the charismatic readers know who I'm referring to...ha. Kids these days... ;-)

So yeah that was a crazy wild ride of a week. Then I packed and squeezed everything back into my car, drove 8 hours back to Nashvegas and had meetings the next day, today starting at 8am. Its not 4pm and i just felt like blogging though Im quite tired actually. Tonight I'll be doing financial reports.

My only requests for fun during this trip is to go to the little family variety show in my hometown and perhaps go on a hayride and to a bonfire. Something American. Maybe to a couple movies too. :)

This week I have meetings, a million things to send out on emails, to design a new brochure with new products on it, to work on my schedule, a jewelry party, etc. Next week...I move to Jackson for a week to talk to some churches that visited us in Kampala and asked me to come and share and possibly partner (praying for that to happen!). I actually can't wait to see those people again. They were so kind and loving. The way Christians should be. Then I get a couple weeks back in Nash back to Hot Springs then to Birmingham I believe maybe to Oklahoma back to Nash and Hot Springs.....then I have to figure out how to get hundreds of shoes and teddy bears across the ocean....before going BACK TO AFRICA where I start our new building project. I will take at least a few days off before that project starts in Jesus name.

My life is a trip huh? Literally.

THE ONE I LOVE MP3!!!!!

2010-09-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

So it's not on itunes just yet but you can get the mp3's on CD baby ....baby. :)

Blogs: Where free speech can flow and gush in all its glory..so let me gush and flow.

2010-09-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

Yes Yes My Blog! My very own personal blog. Where I can say what I want when I what about whatever I want and since its my blog I don't really have to worry so so much about who is in the audience or what religious group I might offend...although I think Im somewhat of a sensitive person given the situation at hand.

Yesterday I spoke at ASMSA, my former high school. A very prestigious school in our state for the "smart kids" where you have to apply to go and you sign your life away for two years to the rigor of academics, living and studying on the campus. I was asked to speak at Future Forums where they students learn about different fields and I was the main guest speaker. Amazing. I was a speaker along with the newspaper editor and the newspaper's main photographer...score for me. I ended up on the frontpage today!

Well...I spoke for about 30-40 minutes explaining the history of my ministry and what we are doing in Africa throwing in a few personal stories of children there. I felt so loved and honored and had a wonderful introduction. After being hidden in the dirty trenches of Africa pulling children out from the aftermath of war and the rubble of poverty and often feeling invisible, it was so nice to be honored like that. I teared up just as they were introducing me. I proceeded to give my speech which I thought went fairly well, and had many students sign up for email info and express interest in learning more about what we are doing. One student was a muslim girl who was doing a lot for her age to help people. I was really inspired and I didn't even blink an eye when she told me she was a muslim. I also visited the Christian student club on campus during lunch before my talk, and met some of the young people who expressed interest in Africa there as well. Following my speech I was interviewed by the school's PR and the newspaper about my work and felt a little celebrityish which was kinda overwhelming...but all in all I was just thankful to get the word out about what I'm doing and hope that something good might come of it...

Then today I got on facebook, added some of the students who had added me as friend, and saw that there was a storm of controversy that I left behind me all due to a few sentences I spoke in my 40 minute speech. Oh yes...a few sentences can affect your entire life. The main controversial words I spoke were, "Many of these children are raised in Polygamist Islam, Rhasta, and witchcraft but we have seen over 100 children this year come to salvation in Christ and come out from many false religions and practices." Yes those are my words. Apparently they were heard as "every religion except for christianity is a false religion".

Some of the students felt that my words were inappropriate for the setting where I was obviously in the presence of different religious beliefs...which I understand although I was asked to give information about my programs in Uganda and certainly Christian teaching and evangelism is a HUGE part of what I do. Granted since I was in that setting, I purposely did not show a particular video which has footage of our school because it was overtly CHristian and was more aimed for churches and groups of believers. I also of course never evangelized or gave an altar call for heavens sake...

BUT NOW THIS IS MY BLOG!!!!!!!!!! ehheheheheheh....and lemme tell it to the world.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the ONLY WAY to salvation. I believe He is the only way to have a true relationship and come TO THE FATHER! I believe His blood and sacrifice is what cleanses and purifies, heals and redeems our lives from the pit of HELL. I believe there is an eternity after this life which includes both Hell in all its terror, fire, and pain, as well as HEAVEN where there is LIFE, LOVE, beauty, angels, the Godhead 3in1 Father Spirit Son. I believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit which gives us the DUNAMIS POWER of God in full effect and empowers us to be WITNESSES of these truths to the ends of the Earth. I believe that these signs shall follow all Believers, they will speak in other tongues, they will cast our DEMONS, they will lay their hands on the sick and they shall be healed, they will prophesy, they will drink poison and not get sick, they will crush snakes and scorpions. I believe that FOLLOWING JESUS and giving Him your life is the ONLY WAY to Heaven. THAT IS WHAT I BELIEVE. and I'll say it til I die.

While Im at it...let me also say...that I believe Islam is a radical religious belief and I do not agree with it in any way. I have led many a muslim to Christ and I will continue to do so because I LOVE THEM and I want them to know the LOVE OF MY JESUS. I also believe that any religion that condones polygamy is a false and outdated religion and is highly oppressive to women. I have witnessed the chaos and confusion and pain that polygamy causes firsthand and it is not pretty. I will continue to speak out against this oppressive practice that treats women like property until the day I die.

I live to see beautiful children on their faces in the dirt, crying out to God, experiencing His presence, His Love, His glory, that is setting them free and showing them that they are precious treasures. Nothing will stop me from continuing to give this away. I will die doing it.

So to all the polygamists, witches, rhastas, and all the rest...GET SAVED and know this LOVE that sets you free and casts out all fear. AMEN.

Home, Family, America.

2010-09-20T20:00:00.001-07:00

It's pretty much a fact now that I have two homes. I certainly have a home in Uganda where I rent a house, work a job (despite the non existent salary), attend a church, have children (though Ive yet to give birth), and have significant friendships and relationships...sounds like a home to me. This home has people I love and miss and ache for when I'm away. It has beauty and tropical delights as well as challenges and raw realities of life in its fullness.

Then...there's America, which I've gained much more appreciation for. I used to be a little bit cynical about America but for the first time I can clearly see our culture. Our culture...is the things that I miss most about America to be honest... Ugandans used to ask me about my culture...my cultural dances or tribes or what have you...and I've always been a little at a loss for words. But in fact...America does have a beautiful rich culture centered about family. This is what makes America....America:

1. smores
2. campfires
3. hayrides
4. church picnics
5. big yellow school busses
6. the first day of kindergarten
7. birthday parties
8. Christmas festivities
9. Thanksgiving festivities
10. fireworks, sparklers, and fourth of july cookouts with your church family
11. Family Love like grandma and mom and my step dad and all those familiar safe people.
12. driving your own car
13. the mall
14. Wal Mart
15. Places you grew up
16. School dances like the Prom.
17. Western Romance, trust me it's different than other cultures...like going on dates where the guy picks up the girl at her house in his car, dinner and a movie, flowers, extravagant thoughtful marriage proposals, diamond rings, and American wedding customs.
18. College days: eating pizza from friday night's party for all 3 meals on saturday.
19. cute creative baby announcements, wedding invitations in the mail, and showers of all kinds.
20. Taking your kids to get ice cream, to the swimming pool, or to go on family vacations...

Yep those are my list of 20...but I know there's tons more I could think of. Anyone care to post your ideas? What makes America...America? as in ...the good stuff. the culture. the life. the love. I <3 America these days...

A Voice for the Voiceless...

2010-09-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

SO I've been pretty much dreading speaking to the Rotary Club tomorrow and I think my fear is that Im not gonna be able to speak the right words that are gonna touch their hearts. How do I adequately convey the desperate need I encounter on a daily basis in Uganda... Plus a group of American Business people just kinda intimidates me after living in the bush of Africa for almost a year...but hey this is where I've been praying to go! Exactly to groups of people like this one! I just wrote my speech and now I feel pretty much like I'm on fire and I actually pretty much can't wait to share my stories and videos and statistics and hope someone in the audience gets a glimpse into the reality of the world I live in...which is actually the world we all live in.

I also get to speak to a group of women at a luncheon on Tuesday and then to the students at my former high school, Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences...on Wednesday! I'm now stoked!

PRAISE GOD for His Favor, Grace, and most importantly for His LOVE for these amazing children I happen to love too....

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” -Helen Keller

THE ONE I LOVE!

2010-09-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone! Please purchase my all original worship album, The One I Love! This helps me to have personal funds while I'm in the US since I don't take any salary from the ministry work that I'm doing. I really appreciate your support and I know this CD will bless you as you encounter LOVE Himself!

DIGNITY.

2010-09-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Check out this video I made (yes I did it! my first video ever!) of a couple of the women in our co-op who make paper beads and see how they are made and how they are benefitting these women and their children!!! :-)
DIGNITY MOVIE

How I Found a Home in Africa.

2010-09-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

A few people who have newly entered my life have been asking me how in the world did I end up in Africa running a school and a children's home for the precious children of Uganda. So I've decided to write it out for the world to read. I think it's a pretty good story...of redemption, adoption, hope, and healing. My prayer these days is that God would make my life a SPECTACLE of His LOVE!

THE ADOPTION:

I remember standing on his chest as a little girl. My age 3 memories are vague but still have an emotional energy attached to them. I remember feeling so small and my Daddy feeling so big. I remember feeling so loved and safe as his great big arms held me up to stand up tall on his chest...balancing against his arms. Suddenly my world came crashing down and I have a vague memory of my Daddy asking me if I wanted to stand on his chest ...one...last...time. I didn't understand. What was happening? Why did we have to leave? Was it my fault? My mom and I left heading from Texas to Arkansas to go and stay with my grandparents. I wouldn't see my Father again until I was 14 years old. Even then, it was only for a few days. Even today, my earthly Dad is not active in my life.

During those eleven years without my Dad, he would call me every Sunday night to talk on the phone...for about a year then one Sunday night he would stop calling and wouldn't call again for another year or so...then the calls would start again and end again, start again and end again. I was repeatedly hit with bullets of rejection and abandonment during these years often crying myself to sleep at night. I had friends tease me that I didn't have a father. As an only child, with a very busy working single mom, I remember feeling very alone and isolated. God became one of my best friends...but I was wounded...with an orphan heart. It would be years later before I would receive healing, freedom, peace.

One night at college church group I heard this girl singing a spontaneous song to God...she kept singing over and over...Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. I couldn't connect with it. I thought maybe she was just trying to look spiritual. Could she honestly call GOD...Daddy? Though I didn't understand...I desperately wanted that. That night I went back to my campus apartment and lied awake for hours in my bed. Around 3am, I had a powerful encounter with God. Father God visited me and revealed Himself to me as my Father. As a loving God who created me, who knit me together, who knew every part of me, who understood every pain I had, who dreamed me to life, who wanted the best for me, who chose me to be a part of His family, who was beginning to transform me ...from an orphan heart to the heart of a princess. It was the beginning of a journey of healing and discovery. The wounds and lies of rejection and abandonment were gradually replaced with acceptance, safety, and a deep love and confidence in who I was and whose I was...my Daddy's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I learned that I was not a reject or unworthy of love but in fact, I was a royal princess with a royal Father, the King of Kings and NOTHING was impossible for us together! I longed to give this away....to every child who had ever cried themselves to sleep at night...because they were alone or lonely or longing for those who were supposed to be there...to father and mother them.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The REDEMPTION:

I've ALWAYS loved other cultures especially the tropical ones! Their bright colors, their wild rhythms, their dancing and singing, their language, their understanding of one another. When I was little I would even have Africa parties with my friends where we would dress up using big pieces of material to create African dresses and go out and take pictures in the forest! I also have always dreamed of using music as a tool to bring change to the world, to bring awareness to the world's suffering, and to inspire a movement of compassion. During high school, I began to read the writings of Mother Teresa and Ghandi and was drawn to the colors and stories of India. I told my family I was moving there after high school to serve with Mother Teresa's ministry. They refused and told me I needed to go to college. While studying and singing and writing music, I encountered God in a whole new way and desperately longed to serve the poor even more. I worked twice a week at a homeless shelter where I made many unusual friends and I worked in the projects with a church ministry on saturdays playing and bringing hope and food to some sweet kids. But I wanted more....I wanted to give my whole life to compassion and mercy and change and hope and to the suffering of this world. I would lay in my college apartment and cry out to God to send me somewhere ...anywhere. though I really began to long for AFRICA once I heard of this little woman named Mama Heidi from Mozambique who was a little like Mother Teresa meets Peter whose shadow healed the sick. I watched Blood Diamond where I saw child soldiers from Sierra Leone, the Invisible children documentary where I learned of modern day child soldiers in Uganda, and Hotel Rwanda where I saw the evil genocide of Rwanda. I had a justice heart and a mercy heart burning inside me. I wanted to take on the world ...with JESUS!

I applied for Heidi's mission school in Mozambique which was a 3 month program and got accepted. During the process God's voice whispered to me that there was going to be another opportunity come up. Sure enough, a professor I had at my high school who was from Kenya, invited me to go with him and his wife to visit his family in Africa and serve the people of Kenya. I had little desire to go to Kenya...but I felt a nudge from the Lord in that direction. I told God..."if I could go anywhere in the world, I'd want to go to nothern Uganda". This was the home of child soldiers and a 22 year long evil civil war. But I listened to the Lord and began walking towards the Kenya trip (after a lot of struggle between me and God). A week before that trip my kenyan friends let me know they were not able to go due to some issues getting their visas! I didn't know what to do! I had raised all the funds, set out letters, and was desperately finally looking forward to going. Some friends of mine were working in Uganda and had planned to meet me during my time in Kenya. I let them know of the change of plans and they immediately invited me to go ahead and come to Africa...to UGANDA!!! I was very excited and of course jumped on the opportunity. I thought the northern area of UGanda was too dangerous for us to go but we ended up traveling there and I was able to serve the very people of the area I had told God I really wanted to go to. Obedience...always leads us to our heart's desire...even when we can't see it at all. God's eyes are much bigger than ours.

During my time in Uganda, I fell madly in love with Africa...with the children and their sweet voices and faces, with the dirt, the adventure, the sunshine, the rhythms, everything. I felt like I was at HOME. I made some significant friendships with Ugandans there too as I spent a few weeks there completely immersed with no Americans or whites around. I learned a little bit of the language and dived in to the culture. I came back to America with a burden...a big burden for the children I met who had NOTHING and NO ONE. Children who were digging in trash dumps while across the street other children were looking smart in their school uniforms and looking forward to a hopeful future. Children who were dressed in rags and had no clothes. Children who were alone, being abused as child workers, unable to see any sign of love or hope in their lives...and I remembered. I remembered all the times of my childhood when I felt alone...and God gave me HOPE. Why not these kids too? I often asked Him after that trip where are you for these people, for these kids? and He would reply to me, "where are you?..you are my hands, my feet, my heart, my bride. where are you?" I spent the next 6 months collecting supplies and filled up a garage full of school supplies, clothes, and toys. I took a few of my friends back and we distributed these things in slums, refugee camps, hospitals, villages, churches, and schools.

Afterwards I traveled from Uganda to Mozambique where I served under Heidi Baker and Iris Ministries for 3 months...learning about what it really means to serve the poor and to become a missionary with Jesus as our model...He came as a humble dependant baby who had to learn a trade, a culture, a language. He gave His whole life for those He came to serve. He was a real missionary...a true missionary. I learned what it means to have compassion and during my time there, I had a a vision and encounter with God where He asked me...to "please bring my lost children home" as tears ran down His cheeks... I was called, commissioned, and was burning with fire to see this happen...that every orphaned (physical or spiritual) child could find a home in His heart...in His love...in Daddy God!

Through a series of wild events, some Ugandan friends and I formed a school in an area of town where I had always stayed when I went to Uganda. We started it with just a few hundred dollars and some wooden timbers. We built a small structure and some desks....painted the building, named the school Royal Hope Academy, and started with 3 teachers and about 35 children. Only a few months later, we had 9 teachers and 100 children. Another year later, we had 200 children, 10 teachers, plus 5 staff members. We also decided to really bring some of these desperate kids HOME...and started our first family style children's home where 10 of our kids were adopted. We hope to have more of these homes in the future for more of these children who are in great need of home and family! All of the kids at our school, with the exception of about 5% who are simply very needy, are orphaned. These children are either full orphans or half orphans but in Africa if you have lost only one parent, you are considered an orphan. We began the school with no blue print, little experience, no fundraising plans, no money, in the middle of a recession in America...and with an awesome great big faithful and rich Father! Every month, I would pray for God to supply the needs to pay the staff and feed the children and He never never failed us.

Since February 2009 when we first started the school, at least 100 children have come out of polygamist islam, witchcraft or Rhasta into the marvelous light and love of Jesus Christ, really knowing what it means to give Him their hearts and lives. They have learned that they are loved by their heavenly Father, the King of Kings, and that they have been adopted as princes and princesses into His Royal family. Many have been delivered of demonic oppression, healed from diseases and conditions, and certainly saved by the marvelous love of our Faithful Father. They have developed a compassion and a generosity for others as well through a weekly offering they give to help someone in the community who is in need.

We have also seen great healing in our children who are within our home. They have also been delivered and received such a beautiful inner healing as Holy Spirit ministers to them through us about forgiveness of those who have abused them, killed their parents, or abandoned them. They are our dearly loved treasures we would give everything for, and certainly the treasures of their Father.

As I have lived and served these children in Africa, I have an overflowing joy and delight to be a part of what my Daddy is doing for His kids. It's a big part of God's redemption in my own life and certainly Jesus is on the move in Uganda spreading His love and glory among the villagers of Busega, Kampala, Uganda. My joy and delight has been in being blessed to be a blessing. Our ministry is humbled that God has allowed us to help needy single mothers and caretakers feed their children,begin businesses to break the cycle of poverty, bring hope to their families through education, receive medical care and treatment for many different kinds of conditions, and to be given a gift of mercy for their struggle and be loved on by Father God. We are humbled as God has moved through us dissolving tumors, setting children free from demonic oppression, and healing the hearts of young precious lives. These are the treasures hidden in darkness, the true diamonds of Africa... I am honored and blessed to serve the true royalty of God's kingdom...and there is SO MUCH MORE to be done!

To all who have prayed given served gone over the past two years, you are the hands and feet and light and love of Jesus to the world. Thank you! :-)

A peak into our world in Uganda...

2010-08-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

Civil War.

2010-08-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

I think my last 20 posts have been about Africa. This one is about Africa on some level kind of but just a poem. Diving back into my creative flow...

Civil War
We’re in a civil war
Each side wins a small battle
And thinks they’ve won
The war
Only to wake up and discover
The other side is advancing
Trying to find the right road
In the dark with only whispers
To guide and direct the armies
Amidst raging screaming muses
On every side
Amidst trains and birds
Bombs and grenades
How can we find home
Who will win the war
And make peace
Try to listen to the whispers
The true whispers

2010-07-23T21:28:00.001-07:00

Three pretty princesses

...two twins and their baby sister.

All...Raped and infected with HIV.

Broke my heart.

Will you be their sponsor?

For $35 per month you could be the one to change their lives forever.

Sign up here:
http://www.myfathershouseintl.org/index_files/Page349.htm

Only Jesus Can...

2010-07-18T01:41:00.000-07:00

This is the story of 3 princesses and their desperate mother.

I couldn't believe the words. I felt like someone punched me in the stomach and my heart flew out from the blow. These were my children. Children I loved... children I knew...children I cared for so much. How could this have happened?

The mother told us she didn't have enough money to feed them during the weeks between our school terms. When they are in school, they get two meals per day. Often times in the between school days, the aunties and moms can't even afford to feed their kids...that's the truth. So they send them out wherever they can to extended family...like to the villages where they can get free potatoes and rice for very cheap. So that's what she did. She her three youngest daughter out to the grandfather's village so that they could eat. But all 3 of them, ages 4, 7, and 7 (twin girls), were tragically raped by a stranger and infected with HIV. I couldn't believe this. Our sweet girls?

I tried to brush it off cause I had a lot of work that day...but I could not bear it. I got angry and said okay, I have to go and write more emails and keep getting the word out about what we are doing...but I just could not be strong. I collapsed on my bed and cried. I felt paralyzed. I felt helpless. I cried out to God to heal them. There was nothing I could do...except to feel the pain and to pray.

Then I found out they were walking VERY far to get to school. The mother was terrified that they would be kidnapped and used for child sacrifice. Very common here. People try to pierce as many parts of their children as possible because the more pierced they are the less likely they will be sacrificed. Jesus. Plus the walk was so far and they were walking at night and coming back very tired. The mom never gave them supper except for sometimes bread and tea, so all they were eating was porridge for breakfast from school and beans and rice from lunch at school. Not the best diet if that's all you are eating and with HIV nutrition is so very important.

My dear friend here Michael who I work with in the ministry here kept saying that "God should have mercy, and heal them." He told me the story of his own mother. She was infected with HIV. She died and they wrapped her body. The family members were gathering around the body to grieve. He went out to pray and begged God for the life of His mother...as his father was already dead. Her story is that she went to heaven and saw Jesus. He told her that He was sending her back to be with her son. He's never told her about how He asked His heavenly Father to let her live... Now she's a pastor and moves powerfully in healing and deliverance.

So I got a little bit of hope...but it's so hard when you can't "fix it". When you can't give them money. When you can't give them food. When you can't do anything to make the problem go away. You get desperate with them. You go low with them. You get on your face and You beg the God of heaven and of earth to do what only He can do. You heart breaks with theirs...and you just die to all of what you did in your own strength... and realize how little you have and how little you are...but how BIG the God of heaven and of earth is.

So we fast and we pray and do all we can do...

God blessed us with some extra money to buy rice and beans for these girls for 1 month ...but it's not enough. There's so much more they need. We are looking for sponsors for these 3 little precious princesses to help get them what they need. We want 2 sponsors for each girl each at $35 per month. Their names are Faith and Mercy (the 7 yr old twins), and Ruth (the 4 yr old).

They have an older sister named Joyce. These 4 girls are all so incredibly beautiful and so sweet and precious. I adore them. We are also looking for 2 sponsors for Joyce as she will be leaving Royal Hope and we want to help her get to secondary school next year.

If you sponsor these girls, we will faciliate letter writing so that you can have a connection with them and stay updated on all their stories and progress. Thank you ...from the bottom of my heart...if you are able to help these treasures...thank you.

PHOTOS ON THE WAY!!!!!!!

Can't say goodbye...

2010-07-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

So yesterday...Christine began telling me how much she is going to miss me when I go back to the states. "Becky I'm going to miss you. Don't go." We had just stepped out of the gate and were going to buy some obumpwanchi pwanchi...lol....SNACKS! ;-) and....my eyes started to water... (it's not really cultural to cry or show a lot of emotion in public here...oh yeah right I'm really good at that) ...and I just melted right there in the middle of our little dirt road with all kinds of people around us. I turned around and took a few steps towards back home...when I heard a tiny voice from behind me say, "Auntie Becky, bye". Instead of saying hi here, people say bye. ;-)

So...then I really just began to crumble. We walked back to the gate, went inside, and I just sat down on the wall. and cried.

This is not easy. This is my home. These are my family. These are my kids. There are significant relationships and people I love here so much. People I want to spend my life with ...waste my life on. If anything, this is the part of the life I've chosen that I do not like. This is my home... Can you imagine having to leave your family for 4-6 months to go and work so that you can feed and educate them? I pray that the work and fundraising will go quickly this time so I can get back here ASAP!

True the responsibilities we've taken on here do not in anyway match up to our monthly support ...lol. BUT>>> there is such a thing as walking in faith. It really offends the western mindset...and sometimes people even get kinda offended with me. Telling me its not fair to the children or to their aunties and grandmas to promise them education without having the finances in your bank account. Well, if I lived that way, I'm pretty sure we'd never be able to help anyone. No, we seek first the Kingdom, we step out in faith first, and then our great big LOVING FATHER DADDY GOD who will not leave His children as orphans, runs to them. He comes through for us. He backs us up with His word. He backs us up with His provision, with His healing, with His awesome majestical LOVE. This Daddy we have, He is the Father, the Provider, to the Fatherless. That's me. That's these kids...so we have nothing and noone to fear. No recession. No war. No chaos. No weapon formed against us. Our Daddy loves us. He is with us and for us. He goes before us. We hold His hand. We trust Him. Cause He's just that good.... The first two months of this ministry I did not ask a single person for money. and sometimes crazy things would happen and right at the last minute...money would come through. to pay our staff, to feed our kids, to pay for our amazing home. Over the past two years, I've been learning...and God help me I'm still learning...that I am dependant on My God. No man. No church. No business. Nothing but Him.

So Father, we don't even have to ask because You are with us and You know all of our needs. But Please come and fill us up with Your love, Your provision, Your goodness! We hold your hand as we walk on water together side by side with You. We walk, we dance, we laugh, we jump on the water. With Faith, with Hope, with Love...with peace.

THANK YOU DADDY!!!!!!!! You never never fail us. because LOVE never fails.

Amen.

2010-07-09T01:21:00.000-07:00

The nine children living under my roof in Uganda have become my world, my joy, my family, my song! It is not easy and it is not glamorous but IT IS WORTH IT! Consider sponsoring a child with us so that we can give more children a home and family...or ...

Please consider adopting or sponsoring a child with any other agency. There are so many agencies out there. Just reach out! Instead of burdening you as you might imagine, it will bring you SUCH JOY but even more importantly, it will radically change a life and minister to Jesus the Orphan, the Abandoned, the Lonely...! ♥

With Much Love,
Rebecca

OUR BIG BIRTHDAY BASH!

2010-07-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

June 3rd was my 27th birthday...but we celebrated all of our birthdays together on Saturday June 5th. It was a heavenly dream time where we blessed lots of kids who have never had a birthday party with beautiful cakes, games, prizes, food, juice, praise and worship, lots of laughter and smiles and TONS of LOVE! I also got a few little gifts for me like fresh chicken eggs (wrapped in paper), biscuits and candies from the kids plus amazing dishes from all our teachers! :-) Was truly one of my most favorite days...!

Here's a few pics from the occasion:

We kicked it off with Praise and Worship!

How sweet is this little Princess!

CAKES!!!

We also fed all the kids, had super crazy fun games like carry an egg on a spoon, jump rope races, and lots more! We finished up with a big dance party! I love these kids so much! Then after all the kids went home, the teachers blessed me so much with sweet words and gifts, namely dishes! What a memorable day it was! From myself and all the other birthdays, THANK YOU to those who helped make this all happen! You really blessed me and a lot of very happy kids!! :-)

So thankful...

2010-06-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight during worship, there was such a sweet Presence of God. I wept with joy and thankfulness as I watched our children in worship. They were all lifting their hands, on their knees, down on their faces in sweet intimate worship of our Lord. I was so overwhelmed with thankfulness and awe at what God has done for these children. Last night one of our little girls was delivered of a demon. A spirit of rejection and abandonment began to manifest and started shouting. She was set free and God did some deep healing in her heart as she forgave her father for sexual abuse. One of the fathers in our house stood in the gap to ask for forgiveness on behalf of the men who had hurt her and released a Father's blessing in her life. Then three of our other kids who are fairly new living with us were all born again. I watched them tonight as they worshipped our Lord in such a sweet Spirit. I watched as Christine our oldest girl led us in songs of praise. She has such a pure heart and a sweet spirit. She has AMAZING prophetic dreams all the time where God shows her all kinds of stuff like encounters with Jesus, who stole what from who, who has died in her village, all kinds of cool stuff. She loves God so very much and has such a strong sense of righteousness and standing up for what is right and telling the truth. I'm so proud of her. I was watching her and just in awe of God at where he has brought her from...a domestic servant with no parents to take care of her, watched her father killed, no hope of a future or education... into a daughter in this house who knows she is precious and loved, a princess now educated speaking fluent English, the leader in her school's Christian club teaching the word of God, with dreams of being a doctor! Bam in the enemies face! haha. I'm just so in awe and humbled at what God is doing here with our kids at home! I found a paper taped to our girls wall the other night that was declaring how much they loved God...that in our house we always pray and in our room we always love one another! So precious. I'm so proud of them. I'm so thankful for what God has done here...creating a family, a place for the spirits of these children to be nurtured, to be loved. Even little Ronnie...he has only been here a couple of weeks...but he has lit up like a light bulb. I know from watching him that he has been neglected and deprived. I'm trying to give him a little bit extra like buying him clothes, sodas and chapatis and sweeties sometimes...just to get into him that there is enough and he will be provided for...the desires of His heart will be met. He is no longer neglected or alone but has his needs met. He has been very sick lately ever since he had such a bad case of malaria. He's become very attached to me ...sometimes waking at night crying for me. Please pray for him and for wisdom to know how to love him with good boundaries...I mean he's like my own child...and yet I know in a couple of months I have to leave here for at least 6 months due to finances and Ugandan elections (often times of instability). Pray for wisdom and grace.

Ah....all that to say. God our Father is so good. I'm in awe of Him. He's such a Healer and a Lover and an AWESOME Father!!!!! Worthy is the lamb.

The Dreams of God

2010-06-17T23:50:00.001-07:00

The threads of my heart
have been woven and spun
into a continent
where dreams lie underground
waiting to be resurrected
whose children I carry
in my own womb
from God's heart
to birth forth destiny
She is pregnant with life
this Mother Africa
arising to shine
as a brighter day
calls her forth
The dawn awakens
with her song of praise
to the One who sees
who knows and believes
in the strength she carries
We have joined hands
this Mother and I
to dream
to love
to war
for the lost and forgotten
princes and princesses
Calling to the sleeping hope
that lies within each one
I watch as it wakes
and smiles come
and tears are wiped away
and dreamers dream again
the dreams of God
the hopes of a Father
the masterpieces of creation
the diamonds of Africa
treasures hidden in darkness
I will shine a light
so the world may see
this beauty mystery
marvelous masterpiece
of a King who dreamed
of a King who painted
of a King who breathed
wove and spun
Royalty

Bridging Worlds...

2010-06-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

he other day I was talking with my friend Jennie Joy, an Iris Sudan Missionary, and I was telling her about 3 little girls that I know and see everyday. 3 little girls, two of which are twin sisters, and their younger sister Ruthie. 3 precious little girls, one of whom is in our school church choir and is my absolute favorite to watch during worship because she gets so LOST in the Presence of God worshiping with all her heart and soul and body. 3 little girls who I've told they are princesses, royal treasures, royal daughters of the Most High who has great plans for their future and has given them the inheritance of...salvation, healing, deliverance, provision, and intimate relationship. 3 little girls I've grown to love. 3 little girl sisters ages 5, 8, and 8, who were all raped and infected with HIV/AIDS.

Then Jennie began telling me about some of the street children in Sudan who are so vulnerable and they are often raped during the night and the police officers don't do their job to protect them properly. But ...I didn't have near the same emotional response I did when I heard about Ruthie, Nakato, and Babirye. Because I'm not attached or connected. and I realize that the same is true for all of us. I can tell you all day about these precious little girls that I know their stories their smiles their laughs and have grown to love ...I can tell you about how their tiny innocent bodies were violated...but it won't have the same impact as if you knew them...as if you loved them. And yet they belong to all of us. They belong to the family of Jesus Christ. They belong to us as children in this world...period. As believers, we have a responsibility to every vulnerable child. To every orphan that Jesus promised He would not leave alone but come to them. We have a responsibility to go them and be His hands and feet. God give us bigger hearts that will break for what breaks Yours.

Well in an attempt to bring you into this world...Ive decided to start journaling and writing more...to share what I experience daily as children nearly die in my arms, mothers come begging me for food, children who live alone come to my house asking for food at nearly midnight (like last night), my heart breaks when I hear stories like this of baby Ruthie and her sisters, and all the other beautiful and wonderful things as well. I'm on a mission to stir compassion to awaken the body of Christ to care enough to act. It's not enough to cry or feel pity for someone, that's not love. LOVE MOVES. Love goes Love gives Love saves...LOVE NEVER FAILS.

Experiencing His Heart!

2010-06-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

My work with orphaned children has brought me into so many revelations of the Father's Heart! All of the children at our school and especially the ones that I am blessed to live with in our children's home become like my own children. I have indeed become a "mother of many". What is so powerful is the way I EXPERIENCE what the Father must go through with all of His children...to a tiny degree...in my heart, in my emotions. God is a God of Love and of course He never panics or fears anything! But I know the heart of my God grieves. People always say guess what? God is in a good mood...and yes God is a God of joy but He is so multifaceted. He is also a God that weeps and grieves when His children are raped, sacrificed to the Devil in exchange for $ (a VERY common practice in Uganda), infected with HIV, and every other EVIL DEMONIC thing. I used to ask myself and God...why He allows these things? Why isn't He stopping it? Why is He so silent? I have learned to a degree of what happens in the Spiritual world as well as the power of the human will and choice which God never violates. However, He also never leaves us...meaning though He may not stop a child from being violated...HE NEVER leaves that child. He is always with them.

A few of our girls at home were recently relocated which was not my choice. I grieved the loss as they left. I had poured heart and soul and prayers and every thing I knew how to pour into those radiant princesses of the King of Kings. God told me to allow what was happening to happen and not to fight against it...which is ANTI my NATURE! lol...If anyone really knows me...you know I'll FIGHT for JUSTICE ESPECIALLY WHEN CHILDREN ARE INVOLVED!! haha! So I kept silent and trusted in my Great Big Father! Recently some of the girls have come back to stay with us. Such joy mixed with a great passion filled my heart. I wept tears of...joy as I had been wounded by love for these girls. But two of them have yet to return...! Today as I was eating breakfast ...I was thinking of how it's not enough. It's not enough for only some of them to be back. It's almost more painful because they are reminders that the other ones are not there. I felt such a hole in my heart at their absence. God whispered to me that He feels the same way...

The name of our ministry is My Father's House! The Lord began to speak to me that the way I was feeling was a tiny ounce of what He feels when His children leave His house... and then return! What joy what Love what wonderful cries there are in Heaven when they return. and when they don't? There is a hole in the heart of the Father that longs for them that aches and pleads for them. He never gives up on them. He always wants them to come back HOME. I'm sure I'll always feel that same way for my girls....

If you have left the house of Your Father in any way...He longs for you with an unspeakable Love. Please Come Home to His heart...

May God protect and bless them, prosper them and not harm them, give them a hope and a future, make His face to shine upon them and be Gracious unto them. Amen.

God's Heart for Orphans ...and the Orphan-hearted!

2010-06-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. 5 No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

6 " 'Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, "Live!" [a] 7 I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. [b] Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare.

8 " 'Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

9 " 'I bathed [c] you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. 10 I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. 11 I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, 12 and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. 14 And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.

EZEKIEL 16.

God in His awesome Glory and Compassion...transforms orphans into royalty.
"How Great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God" 1 John 3:1

I can't...but Jesus Can!

2010-06-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

Assurance in Jesus

May Jesus assure you that as you follow Him
you will never meet a fear He cannot conquer,
you will never face an enemy He cannot defeat,
you will never enter a battle He cannot win,
you will never have a need He cannot meet,
you will never face a temptation He cannot overcome,
you will never have a burden He cannot lift,
you will never face a problem He cannot solve,
you will never have a bondage He cannot break,
you will never have a moment when He does not care,
you will never have a time when He is not there.

The past few days I've been swimming in problems I cannot solve...needs I cannot provide for...sickness, hunger, disease, poverty. I can't ...but JESUS CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I believe He can and I believe HE WILL DO THIS! <3 YES! :-)

Streeetch Out!

2010-05-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

A few days ago the Lord spoke to me from Isaiah 54 that we should

Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.

We have quite a few children that are coming to live with us over the next few days in our ministry house! I am more than overjoyed that they will be coming...as well as a little bit nervous. I know this is God's plan (at least I'm praying I heard right from Him!) but I'm still a tiny bit nervous. Caring for children is a big responsibility...You have to feed them clothe them educate them, send them to secondary school when they finish primary, take care of them when they get sick, etc etc. I'm just nervous that I can't do it...and actually I can't do it...I guess that's the hard part in actuality. I cannot do anything about anything. I can't even pay for my own health insurance or food or anything at the moment. I live in Africa...haha. I am completely DEPENDANT! on a God who promises to provide. I have 'walked in faith" for a few years now...in real places of dependancy...but I'm about to get STREEETCHED AGAIN! My family is growing...God's family is growing. I think He likes that. As for me...well...He just loves to push me further and further out into the deep places as I walk on water...first I started from the shoreline...I'm inching my way towards the horizon line. DADDY COME AND PROVIDE FOR YOUR SWEET AMAZING KIDS! That's what you do! As for me, I'm holding Your hand and my eyes are on You. okay...To be more real I just feel like saying...HELP! LORD I BELIEVE FORGIVE ME FOR MY UNBELIEF! lol...Here we go JESUS!!!!! Ya'll pray for me! :-)

Compassion.

2010-05-28T00:47:00.000-07:00

I remember laying on the floor once during a wild time of worship when the Holy Spirit had come in such power and fire. The Holy Spirit kept asking me "how deep will you let my compassion run"? I didn't really know the answer but just kept replying 'all the way'...

The past few days have been our 'back to school' days for Royal Hope, the school for orphaned and very needy children we began last year. The times at school have been richer rich rich with the Presence of God. not in a gold dust and feathers kind of way. Not even in signs wonders or miracles of healing or deliverance. Not in an awards and accolades or big goals finally reached kind of way... But in the Presence of God as He comes in with Deep compassion. I have purposed in my heart to LOVE...deeply fully richly the children and staff I am with daily. I don't want to miss a moment, a breath a hug a smile. I may be the only LOVE many of these children will ever encounter. and in encountering love in me, they will somehow begin to grasp the concept of "You are a precious wanted chosen and royal child of God. Your Heavenly Father Loves you more than you can comprehend!" I don't want to give you sweet sugary stories or sob stories. The stories and things I am experiencing on a daily basis are deep pangs of sorrow mixed with joy and gratitude and delight mixed with an overwhelming awe of God...I think that is something like LOVE. Yesterday I greased a child from head to toe with a VERY severe fungal skin infection. I walked with her to the hospital to get medications, took her inside and held her hand, and told her in her own heart language that Jesus is with her and that she was going to be well. Then we went to get a sweetie ring lollipop from one of the little wooden shops lining the dirt road walk back to school. I walked with her home after lunch to tell her mom the instructions on the medication she would have to take at night! We never found the mom so we just left written instructions. Then today I went with her home again. I discovered a very thankful and very concerned mom. She was very worried about her little girl and I was surprised to learn that the girl had been sick with this skin infection since she was 3...she is now 7. She had been taken to the hospital to receive injections but the infections always came back. The doctors told her she needed a blood test to determine the proper medication and that if she didn't get it before age 10 there would be no hope for her to be healed. Of course there is always hope with Jesus...but I began to see the urgency of the situation. The mother didn't have money to get the blood test. Of course I had prayed and prayed each time I applied the medications to her skin. I also discovered her other little girl siblings...3 of them with nicely braided hair. I wondered what was going on. I found out that the father of the sick little girl had abandoned her from birth then the mother had children with another man. This man sent his own little girls to expensive private schools while his stepchild went to our school...a free school for orphans...and he refused to give the mother anything to help the step child not even one coin for tylenol or anything at all. We found her working while the other little girls played with their little dollies. The mom struggled and would just cry to try to pay for anything for this girl...Talk about a breeding ground for an orphan spirit and a spirit of rejection. My heart broke. I just kept telling her in Luganda that she was a beautiful princess. We're going to do everything we can to get this little girl well. Sometimes love comes and you get a instant miracle. Sometimes love comes and you go on a journey with someone...a journey of compassion where you feel the heart of Jesus.

Today I listened to a missionary tell me a story of how he spent a day with his 10 year old daughter. He took her to help an elderly blind woman cut her rose bushes. He told me how she would take each of their hands and kinda feel her way around and then say okay now cut there. He said it was one of his most breathtaking moments with Jesus. When Jesus was so tangibly present that He could feel Him right there with Him. That's how my days have been lately as I bandage wounds, hug toddlers before they go home, give hungry children food and water and medicine and prayers and love, boss them around to make sure they wash their VERY dirty hands before eating (with their hands), talk to single parents and guardians who can't afford anything for their kids, listen to stories of children who are living in such difficult situations .... It can be overwhelming for sure...but if I just look at each face and take each situation one at a time, I feel God's heartbeat. I feel His LOVE moving in me.

Somehow lately I just CRY. I cry at how beautiful of a life the Lord has allowed me to lead. I cry at how thankful I am for the Lord's faithfulness to see me through a difficult journey in which I thought I had lost everything i had invested in Uganda. I cry because of the compassion I feel the love that I feel for these beautiful ...diamonds as He calls them...the true diamonds...the treasures hidden in darkness...in Africa. Oh God how my heart is bursting is aching is crying is pleading with love for these. How I desperately long to see them loved and safe and blessed and happy and fed and treasured and adored and celebrated. Just to give them safe places free from the battlefield of Africa. Free from the pain the struggle.

Looking into their faces, their eyes, seeing their smiles and laughter, their adorable voices speaking in a foreign tongue that's becoming more familiar to me each day...I am convinced that God gave African children an extra breath of His Spirit. Just a little extra of Him...so that they may endure all that they face. Diseases, death of parents, abandonment, abuse, poverty and struggle, Fathers with many other wives and children, stepmothers who turn them into slaves, oh God...they must have been given a little extra of You. and You can see it...in their eyes, in their faces, in their songs and worship, They just got a little extra drop of God. An extra grace, joy, and strength...to endure to the end.

In all of this I am learning that my worship unto the Lord is most beautiful to me not in perhaps traditional ways, but in PRESSING THROUGH all the warfare all the battle all the nonsense, to get to a place of Love. My worship to Him is just going a little further than my flesh wants to ...to a place of SERVICE. Mind you...service is NOT my gift! But I know the Lord has put MERCY inside of me. Mercy in my heart...and through that mercy ( the desire to relieve suffering and to suffer with), I serve, I give, I love. The good stuff is not necessarily in the instant miracle, the gold dust, the feather, the sign or the wonder... (though I'm all for power and glory of God)...but for me, the good stuff is in the small things, the simple things, the little tiny acts of love we do for one another as unto our Maker. It is NEVER about numbers, it's only about HOW MUCH LOVE we put into it. We could serve ONE person who is destitute or ill or just normal our whole lives as unto the Lord with love and mercy and that is more than the person who leads millions to the Lord without compassion and love. I just feel like crying...tears of joy, tears of love.

Looking back on the past months, I realize I've let his compassion run a little deeper in me. Not by soaking everyday, not really by hearing his voice command me to stop, not by going to the most anointed miracle service with the man of the hour, or attending a conference on compassion...but simply by choosing to keep loving, to not stop, to not leave when I face threats and persecution (which I have), but to just keep hugging the next child, taking the next sick child to the doctor, bandaging the next wound, serving the next plate of food, waking up at 5am to get Christine to school on time, and so on and so forth it goes.

I don't really know how to end this so I'm just going to stop. I guess somehow I want to say, if you're not living a life of compassion and love by serving, by going an extra mile, by stopping for the beat up man on the side of the road, by caring for the orphan and widow and the poor, by loving and serving someone as if they were Jesus himself, then you are MISSING OUT on an incredible encounter (in my opinion the BEST kind of encounter) and experience of the Love of God. GOOOOO and LOVE SOMEONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love Song.

2009-12-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

Oprah looks like a saint
while steeples
build bigger buildings
and cafes
and higher salaries for her
staff

Infections run wild through
the Lover who can't see
her Lover in the eyes
of the poor the blind the naked

Truth calls from the distant corners
from the brothels and slums
from the ashes and dust
of the innocent
ravaged and raped
where dreams and hopes
scream silently
Listen to me

Dirty bare feet and
pure smiles
haunt me

I will not be silent
I cannot hide
My Love

Forgive me if I am loud
or obnoxious
but the one that I love
is calling to me
fills my heart with fire
my mouth with a cry
trains my fingers for battle
I will see Him alive

Until then I march on
across waters and territories
No longer afraid of men or death
For I am in Love
and this is my Love Song.

The Girl Effect.

2009-12-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

To Tell Their Stories: Loved.

2009-11-14T07:18:00.000-08:00

I didn't know the extent of the situation. I knew something was wrong with Maria's baby, but I was exhausted from the day's journey and said a quick prayer before going to bed. Then in the middle of the night, I heard a piercing scream. My heart was pounding as I fumbled out of bed groggy with sleep, quickly dragging my hand across the wall to find the light switch. Thoughts of Maria's baby raced through my head. Dear God, what had happened?

I looked through the bedrooms and found no one except Mama Florence with her two little girls Favor and Baby Jamie in the last room I checked. She was crying so hard; it was as though she was choking. Her words were like ice, like rocks, like knives. "Maria's baby is dead" she said through squinted angry eyes. All I knew to say was "are you sure?" She reassured me that it was definite. I didn't want to believe it. I felt so lost. I didn't know what to do. We decided to go.

We walked the dirt road through the darkest of nights with the African stars singing a song of mourning. I carried Baby Jamie while Florence walked with Favor. She had been awake through the whole night. I had never felt the heaviness of Africa quite like this. I had been around the year before when a father died, leaving his wife and children. I even went to the funeral. But these people were my family. These were people I had lived with, served with, laughed with, sang with, and even cried with. These were my friends, my loved ones...and...their newborn baby.

We were all so excited when we heard the news of the birth! It was a boy! They had already had a girl so the first boy of their family was very special and joyful for them. She had asked me what she should name him. I told her the name of my friend who immediately objected and we laughed. I rejoiced with her over this precious gift of life from God.

I heard rumors that Maria had to go back to the hospital after the birth. There were some complications. In America, this doesn't usually mean very much. Thoughts of death certainly never cross your mind. I wanted to know what had happened. I didn't understand.

We walked up to the tiny two room apartment where they were living. The men were all in a room separate from the women as is a tradition from what I understood. I was nervous as I walked into the house where Maria was. What could I do or say? I knew I wanted to pray over the baby. I wanted to pray for the life to be restored, resurrected. I'd heard so many stories of this happening by the power of God all over Africa. Maybe it would happen now! I was anxious but hopeful. The heaviness was like a blanket. Tears filled my eyes as I entered the room. About 5 women were gathered together grieving and consoling Maria. She was beside herself. The cries of a mother losing a child she carried for 9 months, gave birth to, and died in her arms have to be some of the deepest cries of humanity. My baby is dead she said over and over and why why why. A woman who was a bit older with tears also running down her eyes tried to console her. We don't understand why this would happen but you have to be strong.

I went to sit down on the bed. "Becky be careful there is a baby there" There was a tiny little bump under the covers. I could barely see it. I asked if it was alright if I prayed over the baby and they consented. I uncovered the body to see one of the most frightening sights of my life. A two day old infant, cold and pale and without life. I layed my hands on the tiny frame, buried my head in the covers, and cried out to God with all my heart. Nothing. I continued to pray. Nothing...

Africa is a place of raw passion and pain. It is a place where people rely on God for their very lives to be sustained. Maria had complications during her pregnancy and was told to have her baby in a proper hospital. The family couldn't afford it so she just went to a small clinic. Complications during the birth led to a tragedy, the loss of an innocent life.

Stories like this one reveal the curse of poverty and reveal how much we can do out of the kindness of our hearts. It probably would not have been much for this mother to have proper care for her child. A couple of hundred dollars could give her something that is without price.

One thing is for sure...during the two days of life he had, that child was loved and celebrated and prayed over.

This is the story of Name Unknown...I'll call him, Loved.

Psalm 139
12even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

To Tell Their Stories: CHRISTINE.

2009-11-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

I've decided to tell their stories. The stories of the people I've met. The stories of the lives I've seen changed or maybe just wanted to see changed... This is the first of a series I'm going to write...TO TELL THEIR STORIES. Hope it will awaken something in the hearts of those who hear...their stories through my eyes.

Christine:

She slept in a room with a concrete floor no bigger than a closet. She was always awake around 6am running to wash the dishes. Then she would begin washing clothes by hand scrubbing her fingers raw. She built a fire and boiled water for drinking morning tea. She continued her chores throughout the day, scrubbing floors, cooking meals, washing more dishes and clothes. She was a hard worker and she was only… 14. She was shy with a quiet humility but her mouth always smiled when you called her name. I wondered how she’d gotten there…what her story was.

Her Mom had become sick and alone in the village. She couldn’t take care of her. She couldn’t afford to feed her, clothe her, or much less, send her to school, so she was sent out to the city as a worker. The catch was that she wasn’t being paid for her labor. She was a domestic child slave.

I burned at the thought. She should be in school. She had such a sweet spirit and a deep strength about her. She deserved a chance in life just like everyone else.

The only thing I knew to do was to get her into school and out of the house she was working in. The team I was with banded together to make it happen. We agreed and committed to sponsor her monthly, to lay down our lives, to sacrifice, in order that she might have some freedom, hope, and a chance at fulfilling the calling of God on her life. We knew it wouldn’t be easy for us to do, to afford, but we agreed to do it...together. She beamed with delight and wept with joy when we told her.

I later found out that when she was 9 she watched as her father was murdered before her eyes. I would stay up at night with her as her grief was finally released years later through her sobbing. A soaked pillow and jumbled English about how much she missed her Daddy, about how much she loved her Daddy reminded me of my own journey. I let her cry and reminded her of her Heavenly Daddy who is always with her, watching over her, providing for her, healing her heart, and will never leave her. I also learned that when her father died...she had to quit school since her mother was unable to afford it.

Tears filled my eyes when just a while later I was told that her mother finally came to salvation in Christ, overwhelmed at the kindness of God to send Christine to school. I was overwhelmed by the thought. A small gesture led to the salvation of a soul. A destiny was fulfilled, and a soul was saved. The entire village was brought to revival by the mercy of God. I was publically honored with singing and dancing and a joyful parade of African song at her village’s church, which seemed so unbalanced compared to the gift. I realized through that experience the significance of educating an African child.

It was such a small step. It was just the right thing to do. It was justice for what was robbed from her. It was God in His mercy watching over His precious daughter. It was God in His mercy breaking a heavy burden off of a desperate mother. It was five young people feeling God’s heart and trying to make a difference in someone else’s world. It was a wave of gratitude sweeping over a poverty stricken village.

It was love. And this is love. To remember. And to tell her story.

Kind Father.

2009-05-18T17:39:00.001-07:00

My Father is the sweetest Father alive. I love how He has knitted and transformed what were once ugly painful things in my life into things of beauty and love and splendor.

As a child my parents divorced when I was 3 years old. It was a point of severe trauma and shock for me during which I stopped eating and sleeping normally. It became a wound that would not heal until decades later. During my childhood, I cried myself to sleep nearly every night with a Father wound and an orphaned heart. The pain was nearly overwhelming...But...

Years later my Father in heaven began to reveal His love to me in supernatural encounters. I spent countless hours and journeys upon journeys with Him. He would take me places, show me things, show me His love for me, dance with me, sing over me, wash me in His love, and eventually I became transformed into a princess, a daughter of the Beautiful Kind King of all Kings!

My journey wouldn't end there though. Justice would be served to the enemy as my heavenly Father began to restore all that had been lost by birthing deep compassion in my heart for orphaned children who also had experienced the pain of abandonment and rejection. I longed with a deep longing to give them a safe place to be restored to be healed and to KNOW THE LOVE OF THE FATHER. I took the message to the nations. I preached to and prayed over thousands of orphaned children...telling them that they were not actually orphans, but in fact they were ROYAL SONS AND DAUGHTERS. I prayed for them to receive the beautiful Spirit of Adoption.

Then the Lord took me into an encounter where He asked me to "please bring my lost children home." I began having dreams and visions of orphaned children. I would wake up from these dreams crying. Then He told me to call the ministry to do this, "My Father's House." I sorta thought the name was boring and not very appealing to the "world". haha. But he confirmed it in beautiful ways over and over to me...so I accepted the name.

Last night I had a memory. I remembered that as a child, during the painful period of my life, everytime I made a wish throwing a coin into the fountain, wishing upon a star, wishing for a birthday, I wished that God would give us a big white house and my parents would get back together and we would all live happily ever after. While that wish never came true the way that I imagined it...

The Lord told me last night that He was giving me the house. My Father's House.

Wow. How the Lord works in mysterious ways so much higher than our ways. He is so beautiful kind and faithful. He takes the deep things of our hearts and weaves them together into a beautiful tapestry of His grace and faithfulness. How I love Him. How I adore Him. How thankful I am to have walked with Him my whole life and to see His hand upon my life turning pain into beauty, turning mourning into a dance of praise.

In whatever things have led to disappointment or to discouragement, know that God is a God of restoration, justice, faithfulness and works and weaves all things together for our good...and for the good of others...

Poverty and Passion #2.

2009-05-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Well let me tell you what...life is full of surprises and adventures...and while I wouldn't have it any other way really...sometimes I do get a bit overwhelmed.

I'm so thankful for all God is doing lately. He is so faithful to me. He is so close an ever present help in time of need. Last week I was so blessed to be able to buy a car. I bought it just in time to take a road trip...literally the day before I left! haha. God can be so 11:59 with me sometimes. I discovered that He is helping me to grow in patience...which usually requires...waiting. A new friend reminded me today that the "testing of our faith produces patience" Hello. I think that scripture pretty much sums up the season that I am currently walking in. I have such big vision and dreams that the Lord has put in my heart and it is like seeing each step to get there, and they are tiny little baby steps that take forever! Obstacle after obstacle after hurdle. Like today...

I just wanted to open a PO Box. Because...I don't have a street address right now. Which interpreted some would say I'm homeless...I prefer to say I don't have a street address right now. So I needed a PO Box in order to receive mail for the ministry as I need an address for people to send donations and sponsorship forms to us. Well, turns out you have to have a street address and proof of residency in order to get a PO Box. Well that just collapsed my little plan... and tested my faith which I'm sure somehow will produce patience in me. ;-) God is so much bigger than all of the circumstances but sometimes He allows them because He is after something in our hearts ...like FAITH and PATIENCE! haha.

I was blessed last Sunday night to visit Trinity Church. I was able to speak about the church's responsibility and role in caring for orphans around the world and to sing and minister in song. My two loves! In one night! I was also overwhelmed by the church's generosity. I now have a bit of leverage for next month! Praise the LORD!

My biggest challenge right now is resting and relaxing and trusting. I know God is going to provide and do it all. Sometimes I just carry all the responsibility of it. I know that is not right. I know it is not my job to do it. It is a big challenge for me though. I just want to wake up the church. I just want them to know about what we are doing there. I want people to lay down their lives and get out of their boxes. I want to see a movement of compassion to the point that people will be willing and joyfully giving sacrificially of what they have.

I'm contemplating my tent idea still. Right now I'm staying with a precious family for a week or so while I'll be watching the kids of another family who live pretty close by. After that...I just might get a big tent and go on an extended camping trip in the woods behind the Youngs house. and by extended I mean...that's where I would live. I want to sell everything I don't NEED and give all the money away.

I've prayed for free rent. Because I need to pay off a bill and want to use my time and work here in the states to pay it off and save for the next trip. I'm still believing God for that.

Well all in all...it's a challenging but exciting season of life. So many good things are being born of the Spirit in my life.

The necklace sales are doing very well. I just got a new shipment in today! Which I was probably glowing about I was so happy! I love that jewelry. It is so bright and fun and colorful and beautiful and creative and unique. and it has such a sweet connection to the continent that I love. I also received some letters from the children at Royal Hope. They are a true joy in my life.

I'm also beginning on the process of printing CD's. Sold quite a few in pre sales this last weekend! That will be such a desire and dream fulfilled when it is finally here!!!!!

Well, God is good. Life is tough. Don't get the two mixed up. Someone said that to me this week. I liked it.

Oh I'm also praying for a husband! I believe God has a sweet one looking for me. He must either be on african time or not very good at hide and seek...cause I'm not even hiding! haha....j/k. Actually one of my favorite quotes is maya angelou's 'A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him first to find her'. Again...more testing of faith...more patience...

and that's all she wrote. Goodnight.

Poverty and Passion: MY RANT.

2009-04-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Lately, my life has been hectic. I change houses and cars every 3 days or so. I don't have a steady job but I work full time as a housesitter/non profit founder...trust me the latter alone is a full time gig in itself...with a dash of babysitting and voice lessons for 1 on the side.

Lately I have been contemplating my current state of needs seeing as how I am homeless, carless (though not for long thanks to the kindness of a wealthy compassionate Christian couple), and more or less jobless unless you count about $100/wk as an actual form of income. Yes my friends this is what missionaries like to deem so poignantly as "walking in faith" to their prayer partners and friends. Don't get me wrong...it definitely is walking in faith and I have learned a tremendous amount about FAITH in the past two months of my life along with trust in an extravagant giving on time God.

Still during the past two months, there were many times when I thought...is it really worth it? Even times when I thought I've had enough and I'm quitting missions. Many times when folks promised to loan me their car and then fell through or made me late to work. Times...when I have had my belongings in four different places like right now...and trying to remember which place what thing is. TImes...when I've seriously planned out living in a tent on a friend's property and getting a Y membership to shower and primp. Times...when I've thought oh I don't have to pay all of the 5 grand I made in income during the 5 months I was in the US last year to the govt...maybe I could go to the dentist or actually get a proper eye prescription only to realize that I really can't. haha. Times...when I have felt like the biggest failure in life because I have been mooching off of people's houses, cars, and quite frankly their personal income. Sometimes people are very generous and offer to just take you in, but most of the time, you are required to do something in return such as cleaning a house or watching a dog or picking someone up from the airport...which believe me if that's all they ask and I get a roof over my head or a car to drive so that I can meet with someone to discuss fundraising with...I AM MORE THAN HAPPY TO DO IT. I can tell you though that I did all 3 of those things yesterday and had no time for anything else... It can really be exhausting. Nonetheless, I am SUPER thankful for the blessings that've been coming my way lately!

Then there is the question of should missionaries really expect the church to support them....what about when they come back to the states?

Well...the thing is this... In my experience, if you travel out of the country frequently it is nearly impossible to hold a regular full time job. What I have done to earn income during the past few years between my trips ranging anywhere from almost 2 months to 6 months, is work as a nanny caring for kids and part time teaching voice lessons. Speaking of...Im going over to Craigslist to repost about those lessons. BRB.

ok finished. Now where was I...oh yes ranting...

I have turned down countless amazing nanny jobs offering health insurance, paid vacation, and awesome hourly pay because...the families want a full year committment...which I can't offer because of traveling. I am an awesome nanny though!! haha!

The truth is...I love children! I want to take them all in and give them all they need. My mind races pretty much 24/7 with fundraising strategies and numbers and budgets and dreams...and that's okay because I believe that is part of it...though God continually asks me to rest and trust.

If God gave to every person who said they wanted to take in orphans and just plopped the money at their feet, their would be no journey, there would be no mountain to climb, so there would be no mountain top.

I do know this is only a season...or at least I sure as heck hope so... It is a very tough season of sacrifice. The toughest I've been in yet. Not knowing where I'm going to live 3 days from now (which I don't) could stress a person out...not knowing how in the world I'm going to get to the people who just asked me to babysit could also stress a person out...now knowing when I'll get to finally go to the dang dentist or the eye doctor...ahh...etc etc... BUT I believe its going to be worth it and I believe that change is going to come!

I believe that within the next 1 year of my life, there will be a movement of compassion that will cause people to give. They will give to help these children and empower me to do so.

They will give to see children formerly abducted by a rebel army come to know salvation and healing of their hearts. They will give to see Christine who watched her father murdered before her very eyes and was transported to become a domestic servant at age 13 to people who did not pay her or treat her well...go to school, get an education, receive hope and her dreams back and her life back. They will give to see I believe...thousands...of children taken off the streets ending the cycle of begging door to door every night or sleeping on pavement with no blankets...and be brought into safety, into homes with a Heavenly Father who knows them and loves them and loving individuals who will care for them. They will give so that someone will be able to sing a lullaby to the child that wakes up in the middle of the night frightened from nightmares of his former life to be held to be comforted to be loved. They will give because its a mandate of GOd Almighty to care for the orphans, and to help the widows. They will give...because the Spirit of the Living God resides in their hearts. They will give...to empower hundreds of people...to do the work.

Don't get me wrong though...I don't expect a blank check...I am working hard to build a business of beads that will generate income to support the work and myself in the process...but building a business requires time..and money...and usually a car...!

But thankfully a car is coming soon which I am very very grateful for.

Ahh well all of that to say .... ITS GONNA BE WORTH IT.

In the meantime, Im enjoying today...a VERY rare day off. I can't even remember my last true day off. Im dogsitting for a precious pooch in a beautiful home with a lovely jacuzzi tub. There ARE a few perks to my journey! ;-)

Peace ya'll.

my songs!

2008-11-20T14:19:00.001-08:00

Check out my music on my myspace page! www.myspace.com/rebeccakristenmusic Many blessings and love!

Rebecca

in the past hour...

2008-11-18T09:18:00.000-08:00

In the past hour…

1,625 children were forced to live on the streets by the death or abuse of an adult

1,667 children under the age of five died from malnutrition and vaccine-preventable diseases

115 children became prostitutes

66 children under 15 were infected with HIV

257 children were orphaned because of HIV/AIDS

Most children are under the age of fifteen and are…

Sleeping on concrete beds and rancid garbage piles every night – streets, sewers, dumps

Scavenging amongst human waste and excreta for rotting morsels and scraps to eat

Huffing glue and other substances in order to numb the cold, hunger, pain…and shame

Prostituting themselves for basic food and shelter

Trafficked and sold into sexual bondage, even at five years old and younger (see Sexual Exploitation)

Abused and brutalized by sexual predators, local gangs, corrupt police officers, and slum lords

Victimized by HIV/AIDS-infected men who believe that sleeping with young virgins can cure the disease

Recruited into lives of thievery, smuggling and drug dealing

Abducted to serve as child soldiers or the sex slaves of soldiers

Exploited as child laborers or slaves in sweatshops

Executed by local businessmen and officials who view them as a dirty pests interfering with trade and commerce

Sacrificed in occult/witchcraft rituals

Robbed of childhoods; Robbed of self esteem; Robbed of innocence;

Robbed of hope

My heart is bubbling and overflowing with vision, life, and hope for these children. We can do something. We can help them. The body of Christ was designed and intended for this purpose. To care for the orphans and the widows. We will and we can. If we work together...

I have just recently been GIVEN a children's home and school in Uganda by the Ugandans. I am still reeling from this gift. I am just now beginning to feel the weight of it all and what it means...and what it entails. Please pray for me as I embark on a journey of dreams and discovery and despair. I struggle with believing God to provide for all the things that I need much less for hundreds of children...but I know He can and does and will...because that's who He is and what He does and how His heart is. For now, I am in great transition in life...needing mercy and GRACE...and love.

I personally grew up without my Father...and had a huge hole in my heart as a child. I often cried myself to sleep and endured the deep pains of rejection and abandonment. I can't begin to imagine what these children must feel, must think, must endure. They have been robbed of everything and deeply abused in most cases. I so want then all to know...the One I have found. The perfect Father. The loving Savior. The best Friend. and...How He wants them to know Him and how He wants...to heal them, restore them, and set them free into life and destiny.

November 8 2008.

2008-11-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

Hello friends and family!

Wow...how time flies! I have already been in the US for a month! It's been so wonderful to see all of you that I love so much. Still more faces to see and hugs to give...!

I have been praying and praying for God's direction for my next season. I had asked the Lord one night to give me a dream to show me something concerning the next steps for me. The dream I had was of a young orphan girl crying out desperately for her daddy. I held her and cried with her and felt that very familiar father wound. The girl was from another nation, either africa or india, both the nations of my heart. The cry of my heart for the past few years has been for orphaned, war affected, and enslaved children to come out of bondage into the realm of glorious light of the Father's LOVE! This is my own testimony, and I believe the Lord will do it again for many through my life. So I began to write a vision for a children's village that I have been feeling the Lord is leading me to begin in Uganda. I have already attended a training that has shown me step by step how to do this...though as we all know in the kingdom, we are not always led by models, but also by the Holy Spirit. So that is what I have been feeling the Lord has shown me to begin taking small steps towards.

In addition, I have felt the Lord has shown me to continue working on music projects. Yesterday all day I was in my friend's studio recording vocals for two songs. They were both finished, and I have never completed two entire songs in one studio session! That was a miracle! still being edited mixed effects, etc, but hopefully ready soon! Please pray for God's favor to be upon my music and for all He has dreamed for me to be established.

I recently received a phone call from a friend from college who is doing a recording project to buy land to build a children's home in Nairobi. They have invited me to come and help with the project and to be a part of their team. I have a big yes in my Spirit about going with them. The project is supposed to be during the first half of January. I ask you to pray for them that the Lord will guide them in having all the details worked out and to give them 100% confidence and peace about this.

I also just received a phone call from some of my "family" in Kampala. One of the brothers from Family Gospel in Kampala, where I always stay and work with them, just inherited a school and orphanage of 80 precious children! They have asked me to take it over and to help them to expand. My dream is not to have a traditional institutional orphanage, but to put children into families in a village style setting that will include a school and medical clinic. However, I believe this is from the Lord and is supposed to be the beginning of that. I do ask for your prayers for God's guidance on this.

My last two trips to Africa, were very rich, but in some ways a bit shallow as I was traveling so much and visiting and learning while at the same time doing lots of short periods of ministry with various organizations. This trip I have felt like I need to begin getting something established and to go a bit deeper. I'm going to begin looking at plots of land and investigating the steps of establishing this village. A journey to bring children "home" to the Father's house and to the Father's heart. I'm really excited!

For right now, I am staying in Nashville for a short season and working as much as I can to save money. It's been SO good to be back at my home church, Grace Center, and to see all of my friends and spiritual family again. I have missed you. Thank you so much to all of you who have welcomed me with smiles and hugs and housing and a car for a couple of weeks ;) and all of that good stuff! I'm a blessed girl.

I have also been seeing that I need to seek some counsel concerning my personal and ministry finances. If anyone feels led to give me a bit of wisdom and coaching, let me know.

I ask for your prayers as always for God to take me deep into His heart during my season in the US, and for wisdom, guidance, clear hearing of his voice, and blessings on all my relationships... oh and that I won't take one step outside of His will for me...though I know He gives me grace if I stumble a bit like a toddler learning to walk. :)

I'm praying for all of you too!

Much love in Jesus,
Rebecca