Kenya

After a fifteen hour bus ride, we arrived in Nairobi Kenya to be transported to the YWAM base in Athi River (three hours away). At the base they had already planned an entire month of ministry for us: working in schools and churches. Each day was accounted for. We all prayed together and felt like the schedule was not giving God enough room to move. We all felt like we were supposed to work in Nairobi, and were waiting on the go from God.
We spent two weeks at the base working with the ministries they had planned for us, and working alongside the DTS on the base. We worked alongside an all girls secondary school: running a service for them and playing soccer. We taught at a couple primary schools. We also ran services in a couple of the local churches. During this time, we decided to go into Nairobi a few times to see where we would stay there, and what exactly we could be doing.
The other leader on the team's first language is sign language and she heard rumor of a deaf school close to the base and so we ventured out to find it. We found it, and fell in love with the kids there. Then on our way to visiting this school, we found another school called Machakos School for the Physically Handicapped. We went to visit the place and fell in love with the kids there as well. Needless to say, we went back to these two schools a few times.
Once we had all our details in place we moved locations to Nairobi. We found a place to stay just outside the city and right beside the largest slum of the city, Kibera. We went into the slum quite a few times and met so many people. We made a few trips into the city where a couple of the girls preached on the streets while the rest of us worshipped. We made a few trips into Machakos while in Nairobi to visit our friends at the two schools.
During the last week I started bringing a soccer ball to the field by the slums. I ended up meeting a school that were having a physical education class there. They asked me to coach soccer that day, and invited me to come the next. On the second day, they asked me to come teach a religious education class to the entire school. So I taught on faith. I fell in love with those kids.

Joan and Suzan

I always thought about how hard it is to seek God out in a world where we feel as though we can do without him. It is easy to think that we can have control over our own lives and not give him the time of day. We find ourselves constantly making the excuse that we are too busy. We doubt his control, his voice and even his existence. So although we may be from a blessed nation, faith is not "necessary". Therefore, it made sense to come to the conclusion that it would be easier to live by faith if you had nothing. If you had come to the revelation of Christ with nothing to lose, then would you not want to live completely for Him. Would there really be anything between you and Him? I do believe that if you gave God complete trust and control, it would be heaven on earth.
I was sharing this with a local pastor in Uganda, and he said something that really challenged me. He said that there are those who have been blessed on earth and will be blessed for eternity. There are those who suffer on earth, but it is momentary to their eternal comfort. Then there are those who will suffer on earth and suffer for eternity.
Joan,16 and Suzan,14 were members of the Bugembe World Prayer Church. They both stole my heart. Joan and Suzan were both entering secondary school in the upcoming year and both loved to sing. They constantly were asking me for prayer and I admired their faith. One day they asked me to come and meet their families. Suzan lived with her aunt because both of her parents had passed away from AIDS. Her family could barely afford to send her to her boarding school a couple blocks away. Joan spoke better English and so she was able to share more about her family. Her dad died in an accident when she was 2, and her siblings had all passed away from AIDS. She always asked me to pray for her mom because she had malaria. I met her mom and she looked close to death. Her mom did not have malaria, in fact she was dying of AIDS (Joan did not know). Twice I went to visit her mom and pray with her.
After Joan's mom passes, she will have no one. The last words that Joan said to me was asking me if I could support her to go to school. Of course we heard this all the time, but she was one of the few people I know asked me because she knew that I cared and not because of the color of my skin. I told her that I had nothing to give and that I hope God leads us together again.
It is not until you see the tears of the oppressed that you begin to realize the responsibility as the comforter. I trust God with their lives.

Uganda

For one month we were in Uganda. The YWAM base that we worked with there was called Hopeland, and it was just outside of Jinja. We were scheduled to work with the preschool in the mornings and then work alongside other ministries associated with the base. One of the pastors asked us to work with his church, Bugembe World Prayer Church. Pastor Charles had just started this church the year previous and his vision for the congregation and the community was just amazing. They are situated right beside a poor community and each week more and more locals come to visit the church. It's numbers are multiplying and we were able to work alongside many who were passionate about Christ and reaching out to others. Their worship was so much fun to be a part of because there seems to be no boundaries! It's hard to sit still in a service. They asked us to lead the services while we were there and help with the youth as well as community outreach. By the end of the time, we were sad to say our goodbyes.
We were as able to work with a couple of schools, an orphanage, and a soccer ministry on the base.

His Promises

This Scripture is what we felt God wanted us to proclaim to those that we met. These are His Promises:

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengence of our God,
to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion-
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor..."

-Isaiah 61:1-3

Africa

I wish that I could tell you that being in Africa was everything that I had hoped it to be and that I loved every minute of it. The truth is, being in Africa was the hardest time of my life. I had such a romanticized idea of what it would be like to bring hope to the hopeless and to comfort those who mourn. I had no idea just how hopeless the nations were and just what people suffer through every day. Also, being white, we were automatically placed in a position of power. Our words had more worth to them merely because we were blessed with everything we were born into.
Being the first time I had ever led a team, it was hard to come to the realization that this time was more for them than anything else. We are only in a place for a couple weeks at a time, and it was so incredibly hard to move from one suffering population to the next without seeing any fruit of our works. My hope was that at least one of us would develop a vision in the short time and return to the same place: that God would speak so clearly that one day we would be face to face again with those we had worked with. I am still praying, but I know that I must trust these nations in God's hands.
Our vision was to encourage the believers, work with children, and use soccer as a way to develop relationships. We had a few ministries and locations planned out, but we wanted to be able to go where God wanted to lead us. We had the vision to live by faith knowing that we can only offer words of hope, truth, encouragement, and most of all life. Christ was really all we had to offer, and even though everything else is meaningless in comparison, imagine what it is like to tell someone in the midst of suffering to merely believe.
"How did we get to be born into such privilege, while these people suffer?" Many times I would be asked this question and I can tell you that I have no idea what the answer is. I just know that the God I love and serve, is much bigger than I could ever imagine Him to be. He exists outside my concept of time, of suffering, of meaning. He is completion and He merely asks me to trust. Nothing goes without reason, and I know that I am blessed. I will not stop speaking of His promises.