Rackoko

Northern Uganda is different from the south, how - well busyness is one of them. Driving up to the north takes hours - the roads are not paved - it's red dust roads - love it.

The IDP camps (Internally Displaced People) have their own stories, but the people have all been told to move from their villages. Some of their stories are to strong/horrible to tell, it breaks my heart. All the evil that is out there, how people are deceived and blinded from the Truth. This is the reason we need to go out, so they will learn about the Living God that gives hope in a hopeless situation. That will love them when love is missing....

Now that things have settled down and the peace talks are somewhat in process, people are starting to go out and plant so that they can get food to their families - sell some of it and get money to buy from others. Less than 1 year ago, they had a curfew at 5 pm - they had a lot of fear - in fact they still do with good reason. Slowly but surely they are getting back into a routine, that seems normal....

The children find time to play, some are in school - but there are to many in one class. In the one nurcery we visited there are about 60 children in each class, and they have 5 classrooms - would you like to be there when they have a break, that is about 300 children...... try to keep them in order

In the IDP camp that I visited, about 80 % are infected with the HIV/AIDS virus, and on top of that many of them get malaria. The children are the ones that get affected the most when their parents dies and they don't have relatives in the camp. What to do, where to go, what now??

Uganda Orphans

Wow, this is awesome. The team I've been with these last couple of weeks has been great. We have gone into many different orphanages, yet done the same. Prayed over the children, breaking curses, blessing them with a fathers/mothers blessing. The homes are very different both in size of the houses and in how many children they have. Some have 60 children others have 12.

They have all been happy to see the "Muzungu" which is the white person. Most of the children are screaming, jumping and shouting when they see the land rover coming. The children run to greet you, the girls kneel in front of you as a way of respect and shake hands - the boys shake hands. Some take a little while to warm up, but then by the time we leave they ask when we are coming back to stay the night.

Some of the children have said that they feel very free when the prayers are done, they sense that things are different. Praise the Lord. We believe that things have happened in their lives, and that they will see the consequences later on in life.

In one of the homes we went to, 2 of Joseph Kony's children was present. Joseph Kony is the leader of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). It's so encouraging to know that they are there, and get christian influence. We believe that more of his children will come into orphagage homes.

Going to Uganda

The question always seems to be, where are you going next? And now I can answer that. :)Uganda, it is. The process has been pretty interesting, but when the decission was made that I would go - a lot of doors opened.

The first 2-3 weeks I'll be part of a team that will visit orphanages in the southern part of Uganda - in Kampala and in Jinja. We'll be praying for kids in the orphanages, lead them to Jesus, break orphan spirit, prophesy destiny, pray for healing...etc

Mid February I'll be leaving to go up to the Northern part of Uganda. Some facts about that region, and the ministry I'll be involved in.

In Northern Uganda there has been a war going on for the last 20 years. The war involves the stealing of children to make them soldiers, and the girls to become wives of the commanders. As a result of the war, there are now many displaced person camps. The rebels do not actually fight the government, they kill civilians, often torturing them. So the people in Northern Uganda have had to move out of their villages into these camps. They now depend on the UN for food.

The ministry is in the process of starting an NGO in a Northern District. The first phase is the Tabitha Project. Where they hope to get the neediest widows and teach them tailoring as well as giving them land to grow food. In the future, as they see the need they want to build a small orphanage. Lastly they hope to begin a Bible school. There are also possibilities in doing evangelism in the camp, and teaching and preaching in the church. The language is Luo, but most children are taught English in the school, so they can understand English. But to be able to communicate with the older people the local language needs to be learned.

Feeding the streetkids!

Remember how it is on Sundays after church, when all the people come to eat!
Well, now that the Holy Given School is over the street kids come in and get lunch every day. They stay at the gate all morning, at lunch they come under the tree by the compound gate - the bell rings and they come running to get food. It's quite the sight, they run for their lives - and the guard looses control....

Outreach

The last couple of months have been spent with Iris Ministires staffing Holy Given School in Pemba Mozambique. We just got back from a 2,5 weeks outreach in the bush.

It took us 2 days to get there, in the back of the truck - sore backs, laughter, fun.... very bumpy. Worth all of it, seing what God did in peoples lives.
The local church we connected with, went with us on the outreaches into the bush. 20 westerners, 7 Mozambicans and about 10-15 people from the church also Mozambicans.
We would drive into the bush, have a meeting with worship, preaching and then praying for people. Then at night the Jesus movie would be shown at a different location. After the movie, there would be ministry time where they could get prayed for and majority of the people wanted that. We saw many healings; stomach aches, heart problems, blind, deft and dumb, knees, chest pain.... it was amazing to see God at work and the way people reacted to the healings.

On the 24th of December there was a huge celebration. 15 couples got married and afterwards - food for everybody. The team helped to slaughter the goats (10), clean the rice and beans - serving the newlyweds - then the children and the others. They think that about 600 people got food that day. We had to wash the dished in between the servings, cuz we didn't have enough!! It was a lot of fun.