Well… it’s the school holiday which in my world I call it “Go Time”. During the school term I have such a limited time with my students… only 2 hours on Saturdays and then those who go to Jinja SS I see another 2 hours or so during the week, that’s it. But the holiday gives me extra time to pour into them and disciple them and every holiday my prayer is that I would “make the most out of every opportunity”. After much prayer and planning the calendar for the next three weeks is set.
This week we have:
Guys day at Kingfisher (a local resort) on Thursday and then the girls turn is on Friday. I’ve asked several men and women from our staff to help out with this even to spend the afternoon pouring into the students as they swim, eat, and have a good time. I’m excited to see what God will do during these times when they can be themselves and be real as they will also spend time in discussion and prayer. It should be a cool way to kick off the holiday events.
On Saturday, we will the Sunday School team put on a big kids event which will be like a VBS carnival of sorts. My students will help the School of Ministry students as well as the Sunday School teachers as they teach and play with hundreds of kids.
Next week:
My boys LOVE soccer/football and so this Sunday my team, Tottenham Hotspurs will be playing Arsenal (the favorite team of many of my students). So we’re going to pack a venue that will be playing the game, drink some sodas, eat some snacks and partake in maybe just a little smack talk ☺ It should be a cool time of fellowship.
Tuesday will bring a tournament called the Ignite Football/Bible challenge. This will involve the students being in teams of two with one partner who’s good at Bible knowledge and the other who is good at playing football (soccer). They will then be asked trivia questions from the New Testament and if they get them right the football partner will then do a challenge that shows off their football skills in order to get points. The team at the end of course gets a prize.
Wednesday and Thursday we will do classes on how to study their Bibles. We’ve already done a class like that, but this is kind of like How to Study your Bible 201. It was by request that we do this again, so if the students request something like this, then who am I to say no. Needless to say I was stoked by this suggestion.
On Friday we will bless a family who has fallen on rough times. We have many donations of clothes and various household items, we will then go out and buy food and a few other necessities and drop it off at their house and pray for them and seek to show them the love of Christ.
The Final Week:
Sunday we will go and serve alongside the Hospital Ministry where we will pray for those in the hospital. It’s a cool ministry and a great way for the students to get outside of their own world and see that there are so many hurting people who need Christ’s comfort and love to be shown to them.
Tuesday, our plan is to take a bus and go and do an outreach in one of our favorite outreach locations, Tororo. It’s only a couple of hours drive away and the ministry there is raw and awesome. We brought a small team there about a year ago and it was at that location that students stayed around in the rain to finish hearing the teachings and to give their lives to Christ. The church doesn’t even have a building but they meet under an awesome tree, and it’s just such a cool location for real ministry.
The rest of the week will be like the week before: How to Study your Bible and we will bless a second family.
It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks but I’m truly so excited to see what God is going to do! Please lift these events up in prayer, because if God is not at the center of them we doing them in vain.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
To Save a Life
I’m going to be honest… I struggle with Christian movies. There I said it… I know I’m terrible, but really I just can’t get into them most of the time for various (mainly technical) reasons. But one that although I may have qualms with the caliber of acting and such, the message has struck me and it continues to even years after seeing it (I think I've even blogged about it before). The movie, To Save a Life starts with a teenage kid walking into a youth group and the youth pastor coming up to him and asking the typical questions that all of us in youth ministry have all asked at some point or another, “where do you go to school?” “what grade are you in?” etc… Then the youth pastor gets distracted and walks off and forgets to come back. Low and behold this kid was really hurting and his visit to that youth group was his last attempt to find hope and a sense of belonging. Within minutes we find out that the kid went home and committed suicide. (enter pit in your stomach)
In dealing with youth both in the States and here in Uganda, I have reached a couple of conclusions: 1) teenagers are quite possibly THE best actors on the planet, 2) many of them are dealing with stuff beyond our wildest nightmares, and 3) We’ve all got a past and a story to tell. In previous posts I’ve written about how I’ve learned the importance of learning the names of the kids who walk through the doors and are a part of the youth group. There is a HUGE challenge in pouring into the students that are in a formal ministry. They desperately need to be some place where they feel like they belong, that they’re valued, and that that they’re safe to be who God made them to be.
One thing though is that it’s beginning to hit me is that I have a group of about 30 students who I get to meet with on a regular basis, I know their names, where they go to school, what grade they’re in, what they want to be when they grow up, what their favorite food is, and what even their favorite football (soccer) team is. That’s not bad… but when you live in a town with THOUSANDS of students just like mine, that 30 just doesn’t seem like enough…. You know what I mean? I love, love, love my students. They have my heart and are my most favorite people on the planet next to my husband and my family, but there are so many of their friends and even more than that, there are so many of their enemies that they tell me about and as they share with me about them I realize that there’s a lot more to that problem person than the fact that they’re a bully, or a jealous manipulative girl. I’m not excusing the sin, but really the people my students tell me about are not Christians. They don’t know the sanctifying redeeming work Jesus’ unfailing love can bring in their lives. All they see are the problems in life, the fact that their dad doesn’t want to have anything to do with them, that their family doesn’t have enough money for rent and they don’t know where they’re going to go, etc… Each one of these kids has a story and more than that God knows their story and loves them and desperately wants them to love Him back.
My job, not just as a missionary, but just someone who is called by God to speak into the lives of students, is to point both the kids who are a part of our youth group and those who are so lost they don’t even want to come, to Him. I just pray that I would recognize the opportunities He brings me, that I wouldn’t waste them, or be too “busy” for them.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
The woes of 3rd world youth ministry
So it all started with me trying to pump up our youth group with a few new ideas... I was all stoked on them... I thought they would work beautifully...and well.... I was wrong. Our youth group has been booming but lately the life has kind of been sucked out, we've hit a rut... a big one. I've done the necessary personal reflection on whether there may be sin in my life that is hindering the ministry, but other than my over reaction out bursts that I'm trying to control, I'm doing pretty ok. So then that leads me to the next step, looking at what changes God may want to implement because like I said in the first sentence of this post, it was kind of all me. You know the ideas weren't bad, but they maybe weren't what God had in mind. It's been all this figurative spinning of wheels that got me on the quest that I now find myself embarking upon... HOW TO HAVE A HEALTHY, MATURE, THRIVING YOUTH MINISTRY IN THE HEART OF AFRICA.
I've been online looking at what the different sites have to offer, there are some killer sites about how to do ministry in the States... like really if only those sites were around 10 years ago. But well... they don't really cut it with ministry here. You face a whole other gamut of problems and situations. For instance, youth group is on Saturdays at 4... but these days more and more of my students are having school all day on Saturday, and even if they get out by 4, by then they're exhausted. Not to mention, that even the students who don't have school sometimes don't even reach until 4:30 because well... this is Africa. Well, why don't you change the day then? You might ask... well, Sundays are their only day to get stuff done, to wash their uniforms, help around the house, and study... they also like going for main service. We also can't do it later on Saturday because absolutely no teenager in the town of Jinja owns a car, so they all have to be able to walk home (some as many as a couple of miles) before it gets dark.
I go into the schools and teach, I'm hoping to maybe add another one next term that is a school more of my students go to, but we'll see. At Jinja SS, I get 45 min twice a week with the students who come but at my other two schools: loco primary and St. Peters, I only get 15 minutes to teach due to time constraints... Ughh! I'm blessed to get in the school at all, but really to make disciples, you need more than 15min a week.
I read awesome articles about how you need to pour into your students, invest in them in small groups and one-on-one discipleship... that's great... when you have evenings and weekends that they're available to do that. Can you tell I'm a little frustrated? I know God knows and that these students are His and He has a plan on how to pour into them... I just wish I knew what it was... now.
All this to say, please be lifting up our youth ministry in prayer. Be praying for us to have vision... His vision. Pray for us to make plans... His plans. Pray that we execute them in a way that glorifies Him. Pray that we don't get so hung up on the numbers that we get discouraged but instead focus on the one. Pray for creativity. Pray for God to raise up other people with the passion for the youth of Jinja we can join arms with. It's times like this, that the 17 million goal seems unreachable, but again I have to remind myself, "with God, NOTHING is impossible."
I've been online looking at what the different sites have to offer, there are some killer sites about how to do ministry in the States... like really if only those sites were around 10 years ago. But well... they don't really cut it with ministry here. You face a whole other gamut of problems and situations. For instance, youth group is on Saturdays at 4... but these days more and more of my students are having school all day on Saturday, and even if they get out by 4, by then they're exhausted. Not to mention, that even the students who don't have school sometimes don't even reach until 4:30 because well... this is Africa. Well, why don't you change the day then? You might ask... well, Sundays are their only day to get stuff done, to wash their uniforms, help around the house, and study... they also like going for main service. We also can't do it later on Saturday because absolutely no teenager in the town of Jinja owns a car, so they all have to be able to walk home (some as many as a couple of miles) before it gets dark.
I go into the schools and teach, I'm hoping to maybe add another one next term that is a school more of my students go to, but we'll see. At Jinja SS, I get 45 min twice a week with the students who come but at my other two schools: loco primary and St. Peters, I only get 15 minutes to teach due to time constraints... Ughh! I'm blessed to get in the school at all, but really to make disciples, you need more than 15min a week.
I read awesome articles about how you need to pour into your students, invest in them in small groups and one-on-one discipleship... that's great... when you have evenings and weekends that they're available to do that. Can you tell I'm a little frustrated? I know God knows and that these students are His and He has a plan on how to pour into them... I just wish I knew what it was... now.
All this to say, please be lifting up our youth ministry in prayer. Be praying for us to have vision... His vision. Pray for us to make plans... His plans. Pray that we execute them in a way that glorifies Him. Pray that we don't get so hung up on the numbers that we get discouraged but instead focus on the one. Pray for creativity. Pray for God to raise up other people with the passion for the youth of Jinja we can join arms with. It's times like this, that the 17 million goal seems unreachable, but again I have to remind myself, "with God, NOTHING is impossible."
The woes of 3rd world youth ministry
So it all started with me trying to pump up our youth group with a few new ideas... I was all stoked on them... I thought they would work beautifully...and well.... I was wrong. Our youth group has been booming but lately the life has kind of been sucked out, we've hit a rut... a big one. I've done the necessary personal reflection on whether there may be sin in my life that is hindering the ministry, but other than my over reaction out bursts that I'm trying to control, I'm doing pretty ok. So then that leads me to the next step, looking at what changes God may want to implement because like I said in the first sentence of this post, it was kind of all me. You know the ideas weren't bad, but they maybe weren't what God had in mind. It's been all this figurative spinning of wheels that got me on the quest that I now find myself embarking upon... HOW TO HAVE A HEALTHY, MATURE, THRIVING YOUTH MINISTRY IN THE HEART OF AFRICA.
I've been online looking at what the different sites have to offer, there are some killer sites about how to do ministry in the States... like really if only those sites were around 10 years ago. But well... they don't really cut it with ministry here. You face a whole other gamut of problems and situations. For instance, youth group is on Saturdays at 4... but these days more and more of my students are having school all day on Saturday, and even if they get out by 4, by then they're exhausted. Not to mention, that even the students who don't have school sometimes don't even reach until 4:30 because well... this is Africa. Well, why don't you change the day then? You might ask... well, Sundays are their only day to get stuff done, to wash their uniforms, help around the house, and study... they also like going for main service. We also can't do it later on Saturday because absolutely no teenager in the town of Jinja owns a car, so they all have to be able to walk home (some as many as a couple of miles) before it gets dark.
I go into the schools and teach, I'm hoping to maybe add another one next term that is a school more of my students go to, but we'll see. At Jinja SS, I get 45 min twice a week with the students who come but at my other two schools: loco primary and St. Peters, I only get 15 minutes to teach due to time constraints... Ughh! I'm blessed to get in the school at all, but really to make disciples, you need more than 15min a week.
I read awesome articles about how you need to pour into your students, invest in them in small groups and one-on-one discipleship... that's great... when you have evenings and weekends that they're available to do that. Can you tell I'm a little frustrated? I know God knows and that these students are His and He has a plan on how to pour into them... I just wish I knew what it was... now.
All this to say, please be lifting up our youth ministry in prayer. Be praying for us to have vision... His vision. Pray for us to make plans... His plans. Pray that we execute them in a way that glorifies Him. Pray that we don't get so hung up on the numbers that we get discouraged but instead focus on the one. Pray for creativity. Pray for God to raise up other people with the passion for the youth of Jinja we can join arms with. It's times like this, that the 17 million goal seems unreachable, but again I have to remind myself, "with God, NOTHING is impossible."
I've been online looking at what the different sites have to offer, there are some killer sites about how to do ministry in the States... like really if only those sites were around 10 years ago. But well... they don't really cut it with ministry here. You face a whole other gamut of problems and situations. For instance, youth group is on Saturdays at 4... but these days more and more of my students are having school all day on Saturday, and even if they get out by 4, by then they're exhausted. Not to mention, that even the students who don't have school sometimes don't even reach until 4:30 because well... this is Africa. Well, why don't you change the day then? You might ask... well, Sundays are their only day to get stuff done, to wash their uniforms, help around the house, and study... they also like going for main service. We also can't do it later on Saturday because absolutely no teenager in the town of Jinja owns a car, so they all have to be able to walk home (some as many as a couple of miles) before it gets dark.
I go into the schools and teach, I'm hoping to maybe add another one next term that is a school more of my students go to, but we'll see. At Jinja SS, I get 45 min twice a week with the students who come but at my other two schools: loco primary and St. Peters, I only get 15 minutes to teach due to time constraints... Ughh! I'm blessed to get in the school at all, but really to make disciples, you need more than 15min a week.
I read awesome articles about how you need to pour into your students, invest in them in small groups and one-on-one discipleship... that's great... when you have evenings and weekends that they're available to do that. Can you tell I'm a little frustrated? I know God knows and that these students are His and He has a plan on how to pour into them... I just wish I knew what it was... now.
All this to say, please be lifting up our youth ministry in prayer. Be praying for us to have vision... His vision. Pray for us to make plans... His plans. Pray that we execute them in a way that glorifies Him. Pray that we don't get so hung up on the numbers that we get discouraged but instead focus on the one. Pray for creativity. Pray for God to raise up other people with the passion for the youth of Jinja we can join arms with. It's times like this, that the 17 million goal seems unreachable, but again I have to remind myself, "with God, NOTHING is impossible."
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Unanswered Prayers
When Davis and I had our first dance, we got in touch with our inner 1990 and danced to Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks (100% Davis’ suggestion I promise). It was so funny how he suggested it because honestly that song couldn’t ring more true for me as much as it did for him. I look back at my life of crushes and heartbreaks of liking someone and praying fervently that they would fall head over heels for me. I over analyzed and manipulated and tried to rock some strategery to try and make them see that I was the girl of their dreams (it’s embarrassing to admit, but all you girls reading understand what I’m talking about). Only to hear of them asking out a friend of mine or having that awkward conversation of “you’re like a sister to me”. It hurt… bad. I would see friends with their boyfriends and spouses and basically ask the question “what’s wrong with me!?” (don’t answer that one… ). Those “unanswered prayers”, God was responding no to because He knew He had a much better plan than what I thought was right for my life. The guys of my past are all great guys and I now see them being great husbands and fathers and they’re still good friends of mine, but they weren’t the one that God had made for me.
Now as I lie next to my husband at night after a whopping 4 months of marriage ☺ I still find myself looking at Davis and can’t believe I have such an amazing man that I know God made for me and me for him. I could go through the gamut of things Davis does that makes him so awesome but I don’t want to get all the husbands out there in trouble for not doing them. But really… I didn’t know guys like Davis existed out there. I always would tell people that chick flicks set us girls up for unrealistic expectations… which in some ways is true, but this is a note of encouragement to all of you who feel like your “love life” is full of “unanswered prayers”. When you wait for God to bring you the guy He made for you, he’s way better than any Ryan Goessling or Nicholas Sparks character (as hard as that may be to believe). God was saying “no” because He loved me so much and knew He had something way better in store for me… someone unimaginably more than I could ever ask for or imagine.
My husband is not perfect, I know that, but he’s perfect for me. There is no man on this planet who could handle all my “Kelliness” with the sass, the anger, the jokes, the passion with such patience and strength like my husband can. He’s definitely “the better half” as much as you might try to offer the “no… Kelli, you’re both amazing!” One day you will meet him and realize I’m not being overly humble it’s just a fact… I’ve done the research and it’s true. He makes me more into the woman God made me to be and is a huge way God is softening so many of my rough edges so I can more effectively do His work. So take heart friends… don’t be discouraged or dismayed at the “no’s”. His ways are AWESOMELY and INFANITELY above our ways. And those “unanswered prayers” are God’s way of showing you “I’ve got this taken care of”.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
The one...
Today as I was doing a Bible study with a friend of mine in the book of Acts we were looking at Lydia’s conversion, and it hit me more than usual…God is all about the one. He sent Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch, he sent Peter to Cornelius, he had Paul and Silas imprisoned to minister to the jailer, and the list goes on and on. Yes we read about Peter preaching and thousands getting saved but more often in the book of Acts you see God calling someone to minister to one person or family.
I wish more of us could recognize what that looks like in ministry today. I’m not saying there’s no place for large-scale, even stadium evangelism, but what I am saying is it’s the one where disciples are made. When you personally get in the trenches, pray with, teach, counsel and answer questions… that’s where you see the growth. One man does the sowing of the seed (i.e. evangelism) and the other tills the soil (i.e. discipleship) and all of that is what comprises the beauty of the body of Christ.
Sometimes those of us in ministry can find ourselves discouraged if we’re only looking at numbers, when really you have one or two solid people… that’s maybe the only reason why God called you to that ministry. We need to not allow our expectations of “success” infringe upon really recognizing what God is doing and His faithfulness to achieve what He had set out to use us to do.
This is not a deep or profound post just simply an encouragement in sharing what God was showing me in order to encourage those of you who maybe feel a bit like you’re in a “Jeremiah ministry”, or where you don’t see large quantities of people show up for your ministry. It’s also to encourage those who aren’t in “formal” ministry and working a 9-5 job and simply meet someone for coffee once a week… that too is priceless ministry in God’s eyes. We need to stop gauging our “success” as servants and disciples by comparing ourselves to others, that’s what God called them to do… not us. We all have our own callings, one is not more valuable than the other. We are called to look not to the right or to the left but straight ahead faithfully doing what God has called us to do with all our might and make disciples be it to ten thousand people in a stadium, ten people in a classroom, or just one person in a coffee shop.
I wish more of us could recognize what that looks like in ministry today. I’m not saying there’s no place for large-scale, even stadium evangelism, but what I am saying is it’s the one where disciples are made. When you personally get in the trenches, pray with, teach, counsel and answer questions… that’s where you see the growth. One man does the sowing of the seed (i.e. evangelism) and the other tills the soil (i.e. discipleship) and all of that is what comprises the beauty of the body of Christ.
Sometimes those of us in ministry can find ourselves discouraged if we’re only looking at numbers, when really you have one or two solid people… that’s maybe the only reason why God called you to that ministry. We need to not allow our expectations of “success” infringe upon really recognizing what God is doing and His faithfulness to achieve what He had set out to use us to do.
This is not a deep or profound post just simply an encouragement in sharing what God was showing me in order to encourage those of you who maybe feel a bit like you’re in a “Jeremiah ministry”, or where you don’t see large quantities of people show up for your ministry. It’s also to encourage those who aren’t in “formal” ministry and working a 9-5 job and simply meet someone for coffee once a week… that too is priceless ministry in God’s eyes. We need to stop gauging our “success” as servants and disciples by comparing ourselves to others, that’s what God called them to do… not us. We all have our own callings, one is not more valuable than the other. We are called to look not to the right or to the left but straight ahead faithfully doing what God has called us to do with all our might and make disciples be it to ten thousand people in a stadium, ten people in a classroom, or just one person in a coffee shop.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
26....what a year!
It is the day before June 2nd... I like to frequently remind my parents that June 2nd 1986 was pretty much the best day of their lives because they were blessed with ME! :) Just kidding... ok maybe I really do do that, but just in a joking way, I'm not that self involved... (no comment). Anyways... back to the big 2-6. Last year at this time I had absolutely no idea what the year would bring. It's been an insane year of so many ups and downs my mind really can't process it. And really, it was the year I can say I really grew up in both good and hard ways.
The good part was that I got married the THE most amazing man on this planet... like seriously I have no idea why God allowed me to be blessed with such an amazing husband but He did and I thank Him for it each and every day. We had the surprise of my dad coming in for the wedding and really it was three months ago today that I experienced the happiest day of my life.
With that though we had to deal with the other side of growing up... learning that people aren't always who you thought you were. I have been hurt more this past year by people than I think I've ever been before... people spreading rumors about me, talking behind my back, and just full on betrayal. Not to mention the whole thing we experienced with the thieves just this week. It was a year of loosing my innocence and that naive trusting of everyone. I now watch my back, my words, and basically who I open myself up to. I also am now always questioning if someone is going to rob me as I pass by. It's hard not to become bitter through the ordeals that I've been through this past year, God is definitely teaching me just how much He calls me to love my enemies to bless those who persecute me and to lift them up in prayer. It's been a challenge and I've failed at it a number of times but I'm learning.
God has taught me so so many things this year, mainly about trusting Him and clinging to Him. I've seen Him provide and work in ways that I can't even fathom. He has shown He works far beyond all I could ask for or imagine. And I know these struggles are just a part of life. As I prepare to embark on my 27th year of life, I can't help but wonder what all God has in store for us. The good thing is things change but our God never does... I pray that this year through His Spirit I will be blown away at how He will work in and through my life. I am His servant plain and simple and I can't wait to see what He will bring about.
The good part was that I got married the THE most amazing man on this planet... like seriously I have no idea why God allowed me to be blessed with such an amazing husband but He did and I thank Him for it each and every day. We had the surprise of my dad coming in for the wedding and really it was three months ago today that I experienced the happiest day of my life.
With that though we had to deal with the other side of growing up... learning that people aren't always who you thought you were. I have been hurt more this past year by people than I think I've ever been before... people spreading rumors about me, talking behind my back, and just full on betrayal. Not to mention the whole thing we experienced with the thieves just this week. It was a year of loosing my innocence and that naive trusting of everyone. I now watch my back, my words, and basically who I open myself up to. I also am now always questioning if someone is going to rob me as I pass by. It's hard not to become bitter through the ordeals that I've been through this past year, God is definitely teaching me just how much He calls me to love my enemies to bless those who persecute me and to lift them up in prayer. It's been a challenge and I've failed at it a number of times but I'm learning.
God has taught me so so many things this year, mainly about trusting Him and clinging to Him. I've seen Him provide and work in ways that I can't even fathom. He has shown He works far beyond all I could ask for or imagine. And I know these struggles are just a part of life. As I prepare to embark on my 27th year of life, I can't help but wonder what all God has in store for us. The good thing is things change but our God never does... I pray that this year through His Spirit I will be blown away at how He will work in and through my life. I am His servant plain and simple and I can't wait to see what He will bring about.
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