Christ our Hope & Refuge
Our goal with this podcast is to be a resource for those who are seeking refuge and to point them to the hope in Christ!
Christ our Hope & Refuge
Ep 11 - On location in Africa
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A short, no intro, unedited conversation from Uganda Africa! We are here on a mission trip, more conversations to come!
Testing. Oh, we're even sitting in the right spot. Good evening. Annalisa, where are we?
SPEAKER_00We are in Uganda. This is wild to be recording in Uganda.
SPEAKER_02For real. This is the most on location we've ever done. What are we doing here?
SPEAKER_00So we are on a missions trip. We are with Ryan and Megan Kelly and their family and four other people from our Bible studies. So it's just been so sweet. Specifically, some things that we have been doing is well, today we did some village outreach.
SPEAKER_02What does that look like? What is village outreach?
SPEAKER_00So yeah, so we so basically we have been going to what's called the Luanda Children's Home for this is our fourth day. We'll have one more day tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01Which we're gonna be puddles of tears when we leave to leave the children.
SPEAKER_00Seriously, those kids singing with them and just they're just so sweet and so welcoming and so kind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so yeah, so basically their pastor, the pastor in the village there knew of three families and he had contacted them before, kind of just let them know, hey, we would love to come and bless you guys. We have a group coming from the United States. Would that be okay if we swung by? Um, so what yeah, what we did is we stopped by three different houses and just And when you say house, what do you mean by house?
SPEAKER_02Is it like a typical American house?
SPEAKER_00No, so it's more like a hut. A hut. Yeah, it's like mud and what do you say, stone?
SPEAKER_02Probably, yeah, and no electricity or running water, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no electricity, no running water. And you drive on these wild roads. Like we have this this lots of lots of car sickness, yeah. This big van, and you're going in these giant potholes, and you're like, is this van gonna make it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. All the vehicles are made to be in this kind of bumpy roads. Yeah, mine would not survive a day, but that's right.
SPEAKER_00Um, so yeah, basically what we did is we brought a bucket of supplies along with a Bible in their local language. Um, and so we just got to meet them. I think we also did have some people from the Luanda Children's Home that came with us as well to help translate because the people in the village don't speak, a lot of them don't speak English. It's a lot of their language. Um, so basically what we did is we brought this buck of supplies to them.
SPEAKER_02Random people walking by, sorry, I'm laughing because we're getting random people walking by being like, what are they doing? Okay, anyway, keep going.
SPEAKER_00Um, so we brought them like the basics, the essentials that are, you know, rice, sugar, soap, oil, um, the Bible. And so we just shared um, you know, specifically that we've been praying about specific people that the Lord would show who we are supposed to share his love and his grace and his mercy with and to share the gospel with, which is ultimately way more important than this bucket of other supplies. Yeah. Um, so it was just very sweet to meet them. One lady, um, I won't say her name for privacy reasons, but you know, she could use cataract surgery, she's actually blind, and um, so we were able to share the gospel and pray with her. And then another um lady, which she's actually a believer, um, so we were just able to encourage her. Um, but it was cool because about six kids then came over by and started surrounding around, and you know, they got to hear the gospel as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they were just so thankful and so appreciating, yeah. Appreciative. Yeah. And so then what will happen is then the pastor here will go check in with Oh, that's really sweet to have that follow-up, like locally.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I'm genuinely the things she's telling me are new to me because I wasn't there, I was at a different ministry. So this is truly I'm actually finding out what they did.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yep. It was so sweet. And then one of the gentlemen, he actually struggles with alcohol addiction. So yeah, so a lot of people that just have walked through a lot of hard situations.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um and it, but it was just sweet to, you know, we kept r telling them like we're not doing this to be good people. Right. It was it's truly because Christ has given us hope, he's given us a future, and he's called us and commanded us to then go and share this with others.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But why don't you share about what you did this morning?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll try to do that without crying. Um, yes, I was able to go um back and visit a ministry that we visited last week. So we're on our second week of being here. We're we're kind of nearing the end of our time, which is bringing up a lot of emotions for us. But um, yeah, we visited a ministry. So we met this woman at our um hotel that we're staying at. She, of course, just happened to be here. Of course, we know that there's no chances with the Lord. Um, but she was a missionary friend of the Kellys who we came with, who they knew when they were here. Um, and she is a woman who is from the UK. Her name is Bex, and she um when she was here, I think I think she's been here for maybe 10 years. 10 years ago when she came was burdened with um just that there's so many children who um are often like just left home because their parents need to go out and and work to provide for them. Um, but some really big tragedies have happened with some kids who have just been left home without any um one to care for them because the parents are, you know, needing to go to work and and provide for themselves. So she's had a burden to start a daycare for children. Um, and so the qualifications for someone to be in it, it's it's in like a very remote little village, a very poor area. Um, but the qualifications for someone to be in the daycare that she runs is that they're um a child child who's malnourished um or is special needs or both. And so we got to see the facility last week and it was just beautiful. We'll share more about the ministry specifically, um, maybe in a different conversation, but just the whole story of how it came to be. Um, and we would have loved to interview her, but she's a very busy lady. She's got a lot of things to keep afloat. Um, and she has about more than 50 children under her under her care. Either way, so I got to go today and and um just spend a good four hours there and um work with the the local women who help care for these children. There's three or four different classes, and um these local Ugandan women, um, it's their job. They they come every day and like work at this daycare. Um, but it it's just really beautiful. Um, and I cried a lot. Just it's just so sweet. They're just so such beautiful children, and yeah, just um I just was reminded of just like the Lord and his goodness and just looking at them and just like they're created in the image of God. They're just so they're so beautiful, and um, they have such hard backgrounds, and it's just a gift to be able to just be there and hold them and love on them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and like Natalie, like you had mentioned, like we're we could go into so much depth about her ministry, but like one thing I think that both impacted us really is her her love for the people with the special needs, because we you know, I have a brother with Down syndrome, and you've also worked very closely with people with special needs. Yeah, and so we've always had a heart for people with special needs, and she has shared um different stories about parents just don't have the education here um to know what to do, and oftentimes it's actually seen seen as shameful to have um someone with special needs, they they're you know, people might think that you've been cursed, different things like that. So what she had shared is oftentimes these kids and not to the parents' fault because the parents don't have that education to know um better, but the kids are often just locked in rooms and left, you know, and it's just very, very shameful situation. And I was just so encouraged, you know, like these kids are getting a new chance at life, and not only that, but like she is, you know, she works with all the you know, local police, um different organizations. She has a social worker on staff, different things like that. But I was just so encouraged what they also do is they try to then they have classes that these parents are required to attend to then learn so not just mandating the solution, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, trying to like help the community holistically, you know, like serving the children, but then also um educating the parents in different in different ways and trying to yeah help them, but all in the name of Christ and sharing the love of of God with them and and um yeah, sharing about the Lord all along all along the way. The whole entire building and the inside is covered with painted scriptures all over the wall, and they do like a big praise and worship time with all the kids, and they have a prayer for the day and a scripture for the day, and it's just so beautiful. It's the Lord is all over it, and yeah, it's very moving to see what our brethren across the world. So, first of all, from UK now here, they're moved here in Uganda into Uganda. So, yeah, what our brethren are doing across the world and what the Lord is doing through them, it's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, it's been so encouraging. What would you say is been one of the more challenging things about um just being in Uganda?
SPEAKER_02Do you um well there's all of like the normal travel challenges, of course, but those kind of pale in comparison to just like the the things of the heart, you know. So just I think we both have been, yeah, struggling the past few days, just thinking about like our time coming to an end and like having to say goodbye to all these people and like feeling like the needs are just so great and they're so obvious and there's so much around us that it feels yeah, just tough to be like just go back to back home, you know? Yeah, um, so yeah, just wrestling through like ah, like we had talked about at the beginning, like um struggling with like Lord, how do we prepare ourselves to like see the different things we're gonna see? And um uh yeah, just meet all these different people and like how do we prepare ourselves? Like as far as like guarding our heart and all these things. And Ryan, who is the pastor who we're here with, encouraged us like don't put walls up, like just like let yourself, you know, like be fully present and like um yeah, don't put any walls up and like don't be afraid to like love like Jesus loves, yeah, you know. Yeah, and I kind of had the thought like when he when he was saying, like, don't be afraid to you know get emotional or all the different things, like yeah thinking about like so we as believers are called to be like Christ's representatives, we are you know called to like make Christ known by telling people about about him, but we are also ambassadors for Christ and we are like we are the hands and feet of Christ, and so um those that have trusted in him are his people and are called to be his image, you know. Um, and so thinking about like if Jesus, because we, you know, the common saying is like what would Jesus do, right? Um, well, if Jesus was here on the earth like and he was around brokenness and sadness and poverty and just all of the hard things that were around, like no way would he hold himself back, no way would he like guard himself and like not let himself be broken. Like he would, you know, let the little children come to me, you know, he would weep with those who weeped and rejoice with those who rejoice, as scripture tells us to. And so remembering that, that like, okay, I'm gonna let myself feel all the feels and like just you know be broken for these people and and love unconditionally through the yeah, through the power of the Lord and like know that he'll meet me in that as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, even if it's hard because we it's interesting. We even had this conversation kind of semi-recently before coming to Uganda. Um we both have a lot of college friends just because we live in a college town. So this is not really specifically to do with Uganda, but kind of specific to what we're talking about, you know.
SPEAKER_02As far as like guarding your heart.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we talked about like how hard it is that you know, we make these close friends and then you know, we know they're they're only here for a short while.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a lot of goodbyes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's you know, we're always having goodbye parties, unfortunately, you know. But it's like so, but the blessings that they brought into our life for that specific period of time, like if I would have guarded my heart, um, I would have missed so many blessings along the way. So that's so similar to being here and just you know, yeah, saying goodbye is gonna be really hard. Um, but like to be able to just love like Jesus loved, um not through our own strength, but because Jesus gives us that strength. Um it's been really sweet.
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely. But it would definitely will be tough as we say goodbye. But we know that the Lord will meet us in our in our weeping for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, and he's just you know, like I have just seen the great benefit from even like doing like something like a short-term thing like this, because I've realized like these are actual people, like they so, you know, if I'm not called to be a missionary, or if I am called to be a missionary, but either way, like God is calling me to be active in supporting and encouraging our missionaries across the world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. But John Piper says you are either um a goer, a sender, or you're disobedient. If you're a believer, um you are called to the mission field in the sense of you are either called to go and um preach the gospel across the world to the unreach, um, to the hurting, um, or you're called to give, to send those who can go, or or you're disobedient and you're not. Um that's what John Piper would say, which is a helpful to think about in that term. So yeah, we're um excited to have some more conversations. We'll wrap this one up because I see one of our special guests arriving. Bye.
SPEAKER_01Bye.