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Panoramas of Uganda

Forever and the Beginning of It

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have returned to America.

As I’m listening to Thrice’s new album, Beggars, I am reminded of a very serious simple truth that God has shown me time and time again. The song called “In Exile” resonates with my soul with where I stand right now, having my heart straddle two continents to find my own identity and to see how God’s love stretches the distance, and yet has the patience, kindness, gentleness, joy, peace, GOODNESS, to overflow out of our broken vessels. The song’s lyrics are:

I am an exile, a sojourner
A citizen of some other place
All I’ve seen is just a glimmer in a shadowy mirror
But I know one day we’ll see face to face

I am a nomad, a wanderer
I have nowhere to lay my head down
There’s no point in putting roots too deep when I’m moving on
Than settle in this unsettling town

My heart is filled with songs of forever
A city that endures, where all is made new
And no, I don’t belong here, I’ll never
Call this place my home, I’m just passing through

I am a pilgrim, a voyager
I won’t rest until my lips touch the shore
Of a land that I’ve been longing for as long as I live
Where there’ll be no pain or tears anymore

My heart is filled with songs of forever
A city that endures, where all is made new
And no, I don’t belong here, I’ll never
Call this place my home, I’m just passing through

listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHyZ4ET_ee0

And though we all will see one day that this place we call our world was just a temporary stop on the journey of our lives, I am recognizing that we are all here where we are for a reason. Like the mission field I have been living in for the last 2 months, California, and San Diego, is where my purpose now lies, and communicating all I’ve learned over the last 2 months, and all the incredible works that God has been doing in that time, is now my challenge. To be able to explain fully how the world of God moving in the hearts of the broken in Uganda meets and is a part of the lives of the people of America, is my next step.

How will I do it? I don’t know. How do I know I can? Because my God is with me, here as He was in Uganda.

Going back to the regular updates of what happened over the last few weeks in Lira, our team fell pretty ill to various diseases, and we were challenged by our ministries which never seemed to work out for our schedule. However, we successfully were able to restart our temporary school for the kids in the village that could not afford to go to school, or had no way to get to school every day. I taught a class of Primary level 4 kids and above with my fellow intern, Emma. We got to know our students pretty well, and had a blast teaching them English, math, and writing them songs to learn and sing.

We did our last ministries at the Lira hospital, praying over the sick there. This place is a serious heart testing ground with the brokenness and pain of sick children and adults, women giving painful births, and new mothers mourning over the loss of miscarried children. It was a challenge at first to realize that God was present with these people, but from talking to the many families there, I saw incredible, unmoving faith. One man was sitting in the malnutrition ward with his skeleton of a son, whose name is Dennis. The first week that we saw Dennis, he was barely able to sit up in his bed, with his skin cracking and suffering from malaria as he lost all the nutrients of his body by diarrhea and vomiting. We prayed over this boy, and I was personally afraid that we would not even see him alive the next week. When we returned, we saw the same gaunt figure sitting in bed, with his father sitting faithfully beside him. We prayed again intently, asking and accepting God’s presence into this child’s life, to be a movement of healing and restoration. Our team returned to the hospital the week before we left, and what we saw gave us all a reason to praise God deeply and wholeheartedly. Dennis could stand up, and he could hug us. Still frighteningly skinny, but Dennis was finally showing some roundness in the shape of his face, and his limbs were not showing the joints so pronounced. He was actually retaining the nutrients that the hospital was providing to him! We all praised God, and the news of this brought me to tears, and reminded me, in the midst of our own brokenness, that God was actually moving in our prayers, and in the needs and in the hopes of the needy in Uganda.

Like I said in one of my first blog posts, I have learned deeply that in the most destitute places, in the deepest sorrow, God’s glory and joy is most clearly revealed. In these times I have felt the most pain I have ever endured, and in the same breath, I have never before understood how intensely deep and wide and high and everlasting Jesus’s love for us is.

I have also learned that God is present everywhere, it’s only a matter of looking hard enough. Sometimes God’s presence is through people who love you, sometimes it is the Holy Spirit that moves your body into a tantrum of joyous worship, but in every case, God has never left our side. As I have returned to San Diego, for the remainder of summer, I know this is essential for my survival in making sure that God’s work is made lasting in my heart.

This western world is full of distractions, with the internet offering every thing that might possibly tear my attention away from God, with regular friendly activities that remind me of how I used to live, with a million choices at the supermarket of what to eat. I am fighting them head on with my bible in hand, and I hope that you will pray for my team as we search out God’s will for us to carry our stories home, so that they will meet the ears of our friends and family in the way that God intends, and that God’s glory would be revealed in all that we were able to see Him accomplish through us and despite our own lack of ability. God fills all the gaps, and I am trusting my whole life in His hands all my days.

My next ground of learning is learning the depths of God’s love. I am learning that sacrificial living for others is an incredible way to see how God loves us, and I know that the secret to who I was born to be lies in my ability to overflow with God’s love.

With this, I close a chapter of life that was partially committed to God, and open a new one, which contains a realm of which my heart spans across the globe, and I learn how to love truly, and God’s glory and goodness are known by me and proclaimed to all those I know. May the gospel blossom from my team’s mouths, and may our lives grow exceedingly outward to our communities to share God’s joy and love. May we decrease in ourselves as God increases in us.

Please rejoice in the truth of God’s word to deliver us safely throughout our trip, and to do through us works that we could not do on our own, to love beyond our own limits, to become a little bit more fully in love with God.

May God bless all of you, our supporters in prayers and finances, and all the outpouring of those who care for us. May you be blessed always as you were a crucial part of our trip, and you helped sustain us in times of trial, and helped us to not fall under the crush of oppression.

God is incredible. You really need to learn this if you don’t know it, and you need to know it more thoroughly than you do now, I am working on this still.

God is good, no matter the circumstance. No matter how bad things get, no matter how far away he might seem, he’s right next to you, holding your hand every step of the way.

God is lovely. God’s desire to be exceedingly loved comes from him loving us exceedingly. Make sure you accept this gift for all it means, and I promise you won’t be able to keep from returning the favor. This love is the greatest thing of all.

Until the next mission field beckons, I am signing off to sort out the next mission here in San Diego. I count myself a man among a family that is blessed by God, and I pray to remember every face that has touched my life thus far. My life is a work in progress, and always will be, and I pray that God gives me the patience and guidance to bless you if your life overlaps with mine sometime.

With all the love that God has blessed me to give,
Scott Thompson

PS.
I love you. You know I’m talking about you. Yeah, you. I love you.

On the Road Home

We are packing up our things after saying goodbye to the sponsored kids of COTN Uganda. We embraced them with tears and with much joy in reflection of how wonderful our time with them has been. There is much to say, so I will post on the blog on returning to America and to let you know how the last times have truly been a blessing here in Uganda. Pray for safe travels, and for us to understand how big God is throughout the sorrow of leaving a place that has been our home and for the Ugandans that have become our family.

Psalm 84
God is good! Don't doubt it for a second.

Sincerely,
Scott

Take hope, trust, bear it, and endure

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need. But even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.
Philippians 4:11-14

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7

Ups and Downs

Quick update!

Bad news first:(
Though our leader Richelle has recovered completely from typhoid fever, our other teammate Elena has caught it, and is getting the regular treatment. She is doing very well for having this disease, and don't worry, it's very treatable. Our other teammates are getting blood tests in the morning just to make sure none of us are carrying it without knowing either.

Good news!
We resumed our village partnership school yesterday, and we had all kids who are not enrolled in school, so class sizes are down, and it's way more fun to teach! We taught today as well, and mine and Emma's class of older children were a joy as we taught them varying vowel sounds in the english language. We freshened up with songs, dances, and running laps while chanting the various vowel sounds we learned. It's hard to beat having forty teenage Ugandans eager to learn as I write letters and draw pictures on a makeshift blackboard which stands on an easel that sits before the group of kids, sitting in the grass under a huge shady tree in the midday Ugandan sun.

Please pray for my team's health as we all do not desire to be debilitated by diseases. God is good and will prevail, we know this much, but for every prayer we rejoice that you guys can be a part of our mission and support us in such a needed way. The second venture team departs in the morning, which means that we have 2 weeks left in Lira, before our excursion and our return home. Pray for our hearts to be ready for all that lies ahead, and that God would be known intimately in our hearts as we seek Him out every moment of our remaining time.

Obanga mi gum, my brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles in America!
Love,
Scott

5 Weeks, change, change, more change, and Ugandan kids

Hey Folks,

Sorry for the delay, it’s been about 2 weeks since I’ve sent out and update on UGANDA! To tell you the truth, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster over the last two weeks. Last time, I left off at the wedding of Edward, which is still one of the top highlights of the trip. The celebration was slightly hampered by my own failing health, which caused me to be feverish while wearing my groomsman suit on a hot summer day in Uganda. Needless to say, I was very uncomfortable. The wedding involved a procession of the approximately 30 people in the wedding party exiting their cars, walking through the church at a very slow pace, and then we were left standing for about an hour during the beginning ceremonies. Of the ceremony, three things were very different than what is normally expected at a wedding. First, Caitlin, the bride, had her face wiped off incessantly with a handkerchief by one of the bridesmaids. Second, there was about a dozen people with video cameras and regular cameras acting in as paparazzi for the entire ceremony, which made it impossible for Caitlin’s parents to see what was going on. Third, there was no “you may kiss the bride”, which may be sad for us Americans, but is to be expected in a culture like Uganda’s where holding hands with your wife in public is considered too much affection shown. We were able to sit in a tent during the reception, which acted as a greenhouse and made me feel really under the weather, so I returned to the house to rest and get medicated for my symptoms. The wedding ended with the departure of the newlyweds toward their undisclosed honeymoon destination, and all our team rested well and were happy to be back in our beds.

The Monday of the 13th, we journeyed out to a place I visited 2 years ago, and a place that is forever anchored in my heart for what I learned there. 2 years ago, the area was filled with hundreds of families living in the former displacement camp, and soldier barracks still stood after years of abandonment and weather. We had teams that worked on arts and crafts, played soccer, had a health team to take care of wounds, and a photography team, working with the numerous children and adults in the area. All of this happened in the midst of a concrete ring about 200 feet in diameter, and a central monument with a plaque and description of what happened there. The ring of concrete is actually the seal on top of a mass grave for over 500 murdered men, women, and children, which all were killed on a single night, February 21, 2004 at the Barlonyo massacre. I was shocked then how there were families 3 years later who were playing games and living around this concrete ring , which stood for the extreme hardship and impact the war with the rebel army has had. Every person we spoke to had at least witnessed one of their family murdered before their eyes, and even worse which I care not to mention. My heart was moved 2 years ago when I had a joyful time with smiling kids playing soccer.

On our return to Barlonyo 2 years later, the concrete ring was nearly deserted, the army barracks taken down, and felt very empty. We met only a group of 30 or so people of various ages, and played a little bit of soccer while some of the interns, Alisa and Elena, chased around baby goats, trying to catch them. I was encouraged by the fact that this camp was mostly emptied and many people returned to their homes to live outside of the memorial, though I wish I could have seen some of the faces I met two years ago. Several of the children which are fully cared for by COTN are actually from Barlonyo, so we see that the work we are a part of has impacted even further the areas which we visited our first time in Lira.

The rest of the week following our trip to Barlonyo, we spent mornings at Mantle Primary School, helping the teachers with instructing students in English. Our plans changed as we realized that our intentions of just sitting in on classes and being assistants to the teachers were not communicated properly. My classroom, which I taught with my teammate Jill and our national staff member Agnes, was full of Primary Level 4 children, and Jill and I ended up teaching our own curriculum without any Ugandan teacher. We sat through a few awkward moments, but overall it was a pretty fun time getting students participating in grammar exercises and singing and dancing. Our impact as actual teachers may not have been life changing, but we had quite an amazing time doing it, and the kids were very happy to have us. We taught them 3 days in the morning that week, and left with great cheers and songs. Tuesday of last week, we ventured out to Otino Waa in the afternoon, which means “Our Children” in Luo, to see their programs. The facilities there contained a restaurant, where we enjoyed lunch, then we took a tour of the housing and dining areas for the hundreds of kids who live there, as well as the career building area and school which are all within the grounds. The format for living situations is what COTN is using as a model for their new Children’s Village, which is currently under construction, as I mentioned on one of the earlier blogs. It consists of groups of seven houses arranged in a circle around a central eating and cooking area, which are a distance away from the restaurant, and are near the playground and soccer fields. We left Otino Waa with full and happy stomachs, and inspiration to see how COTN might expand in the future. That evening, we had an exposition of the Jesus film to kids nearby our house, and we enjoyed several African music videos too. The intern team that I am a part of savored our last week with the Taussig family and Jon and Jerusha, spending the mornings at Mantle Primary teaching, and the afternoons doing village ministries and hanging out in Lira town.

When the weekend came, it was time for us to depart for our first safari excursion/retreat. The Taussig family stayed at home, but Jon and Jerusha came with us in the van, and we packed mattresses on top of the van and a tent for our camping location. On our way out of Lira, we pulled off the road to greet the new team which arrived in Uganda on Friday of that week, consisting of my friends Amanda, Veronica, Dave, Katie, Andrew, Stacey, and new friends David, Kirsten, Kristen, Troy, and Wanda. We simply jumped out of our vans in the early morning mist and hugged, then parted ways, knowing we would be back to see them on Sunday night. Our early morning trek brought us to the Murchison Falls National Park, where we drove for a few hours through the Ugandan savannah. During our drive, we took turns riding on the roof of the van, sitting on the mattresses and taking pictures while having an elevated view of the amazing surrounding landscape. If not for the haze, we would have been able to see for fifty miles in any direction in some places. In the morning, the wind and mist whipped across us and made us the coldest we have been thus far in Uganda. This experience is not replicable, and can’t be beat by anything I could think of. It is awesome to be driving along, and say “hey, look at that hyena walking through the tall grass!” or “hey, there’s about 30 giraffes a hundred feet to our left, including young awkward teenage giraffes!” There is also a great feeling spotting the water buffalo, the hundreds upon hundreds of antelope, warthogs, and a herd of elephants as well. Our morning drive brought us to the Nile river at about ten, where we waited for a ferry and had one of our loaves of bread stolen out of our car by a hungry mother baboon, with baby on board. We lunched at Red Chillis, our camping spot, among the company of grazing warthogs, and then we boarded a southbound tour boat with the ten of us and our Ugandan friends Jimmy and Patrick down the Nile. We were shown hundreds of hippos, elephants in herds on the shoreline, many a mean looking crocodile, and the Murchison Falls, which is an intensely tumultuous waterfall that gushes 1000 cubic meters a second (260 thousand gallons a second) through a channel only 20 feet wide. Our return trip gave us time to hang out around the lodge of Red Chillis and set up the tent for the girls to sleep in. We ate a great meal of beef stroganoff and sautéed onions with sausage and mashed potatoes for dinner, and only stayed up a few hours longer to journal before going to bed. As we were talking, rain started to pour down, and thunder rumbled as lightning flashed around in the sky, and I think we all slept very well. The next morning was an early rise to do our game drive safari through the driving paths of the national park. The drive was sunnier than the day before, but we had more variation as we sought out other animals. We saw monkeys in the forest areas alongside giraffes, and a lone elephant sitting near us toward the edge of Lake Albert. Our most impressive view was of an adult lioness standing in a thicket and staring at us, after we had searched for the better part of an hour trying to find a lion. Our game drive continued to be a beautiful spectacle, and we stopped for lunch at a resort back where the ferry crossing was. Our drive returned us to the COTN house in the evening, and into our first night spent with the new team.

Monday of this past week we ventured to Mantle Primary School to teach one last time in the morning, and spent the afternoon planning our new ministry in starting a school for the village kids near the new Children’s village, but obviously only a temporary school for the remaining 3 weeks we have here. We also went to the Lira hospital in the evening to pray for the sick and to give them soap, which was incredibly moving. We saw in the hospital many malnutrition suffering kids, malaria cases, and mothers giving birth, and praying for them all. We felt God’s heart for these kids and adults, and knew that God would watch over them. We stayed up for the better part of the night with the Taussigs and Jon and Jerusha, as they departed at 4am from the COTN house into pitch black morning and their afternoon flight lying ahead. It was truly a bittersweet day as we welcomed the new team in, and saw the old team, who were with us for a month, leave to go back home. We all had struggles coping with the loss of so many committed family members of COTN, but we pressed on to form the Yecu Amaro Otino school (Jesus Loves the Children), in the morning. My task in the morning was venturing out from the construction site with staff member Rose and Alisa and Elena, to let children in the outlying areas that we were forming a school for them to attend if they did not afford school elsewhere. We had a turnout of about 100 kids and mothers show up to be enrolled in our course, and we were very excited as we took evaluations on kids who could be potential teacher’s aids, and we also found an indoor location where we could potentially hold classes as well. We reserved the afternoon for yet another lesson planning session for Wednesday’s class, and played some fun games with the new team members in the evening. Wednesday morning brought us back to the village for day 2 of the new school. We took the first portion of our time to register more people to the school, then Emma and I began teaching the kids the alphabet and the pronunciation of English letters. While we were instructing, however, my team leader Richelle pulled me aside and gave me some very disturbing news: parents were pulling their kids from schools they were attending, and cancelling their enrollment, with the idea that our school was going to be free and full time. We also even had a woman ask us for the application to become our school’s nurse. Needless to say, this news made all of the interns, including myself, very worried about the impact of the miscommunication that we were a full time school. This second day pulled in at least 100 more people, so at midday we pulled all 200 plus people together to try to reinforce the fact that we were not holding a full time school, and we were forced to discontinue our school. Our disappointment with this new school brought us into tension not only between the interns, but between our team and the new team that came in. We brought up the issue in a meeting that night, and our teams realized that we were under spiritual attack to bring down our ministries, so we prayed against it and resolved our own feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and aggravation at others in response to what we saw as failures. Please pray with us as we look to see what God has in store with this project.

The rest of this week was spent in the children’s home, spending time with the kids we know best. This has been refreshing and uplifting on a daily basis as we have been able to grow in community with these bright young Ugandan lives that we know will shape their country someday. One of my fondest memories so far was tutoring the boys in math and English by writing in chalk on the walls around the compound of the children’s home, which was just amazing. We ventured out to the outskirts of Lira on another day to show the Jesus film, and I saw over forty young men and women come to Christ before we had to leave as Richelle has been struggling with typhoid(ps she is doing a lot better now, don’t you all go worry about us!) Yesterday we were able to join with the new team and go to a primary school in walking distance from our house, and all we did was gather the 800 students or so, and played soccer with the boys as the girls played games with our women on the team. All the kids wear green uniforms, so it was a spectacularly colorful time and we just had a blast. In the evening, we returned to Almond College, which is a secondary and technical school I mentioned in a previous blog that I visited about 3 weeks ago. We came and sat in front of the newly elected prefects of the school as well as the rest of the student body, and I shared with them the passage of Romans 5:1-11, which was laid on my heart for those students struggling in school and dealing with issues that American students would never have even dreamed of. We continued in celebration with singing and dancing, and really had a joyous time alongside my Ugandan peers, which was awesome because so many remembered our names from the weeks ago we came the first time.

Finally coming to today, we woke this morning to get ready for the wedding of our friend Christopher Odongo, which we attended in the afternoon. We were not in the wedding party this time, so we did not spend nearly as much time as before, but it was a great honor to see Chris be wed with his new bride Joyce. This afternoon we walked to the Children’s home for a game of soccer with the boys, and the girls worked on art projects. Our small courtyard proved to be quite a sprinting ground, and despite the very cloudy and windy weather cooling us down, we broke a serious sweat, and that’s when you know you’re really enjoying yourself in Uganda, whether it’s on the soccer field or in church. After losing the ball over the wall, we hung out in the courtyard with the kids, and looked at their school work and sang and danced with them, which our teammate Kristen said was a highlight for her trip.

Tomorrow holds another awesome experience at church, and ministry to go to the prisons as well as going to a singles small group to talk to Ugandan singles who have struggles with marriage and dating. Much more in store ahead, and I will update you all soon!

In the meantime, please continue praying for our intern team and our remaining weeks as we continue to seek out God’s will for us while we have time left in Lira. Pray for those on the short term team who will leave this coming Wednesday to return back home, that they would finish strong and truly observe all that God has for them on this trip. Pray for the health of our team, for Richelle’s typhoid fever to continue to improve, and for all of us to be able to do our ministries and not be distracted by these issues. Pray for the hearts of the people we encounter to be open to all that God will do through us, and pray that we would be humble servants at every moment in our remaining time. Thank you and God bless you my friends!

Sincerely in Jesus’ name,
Scott Thompson, over and out!

Psalms 73
Psalms 51
Psalms 139
Jeremiah 17
Ezekiel 34
Romans 5:1-11
Luke 10

3 weeks and change, in life, love and pace

Well we are almost 3/8 of our way through our stay at the COTN house in Lira, Uganda. We were joined yesterday by Jamie, a friend of the host family, who puts the total number currently lodging in the house at 16 people.

Plans are changing daily for our various ministries, but throughout this whole week our intern team of 8 plus the 2 cousins Jon and Jerusha have been driving 84km every morning to Obile Primary School, in the northern part of Lira District. Our treks take about two and a half hours on rough roads one way, which amounts to about 4 to 5 hours of driving a day to spend a mere hour with groups of the 516 students that attend the school.

Our focus this week was to counsel specific children who had been abducted by the rebel army previously. Our objective is to allow these children pathways to overcome and overthrow the chains of torment of the atrocious things that these kids were forced to take part in and witness. The reason we drive out so far every day is that the rebel army had a semi-permanent base of operations within a few kilometers of the school, so there are many children who have been traumatized by the rebels in past years.

My group is with 23 boys from the school, ranging from the ages of 7 to 16, of all previously abducted kids. I will have to tell you firsthand what I heard them say about what the rebels made them do, because it won’t do anyone justice to try to type what is almost impossible to capture face to face. To get a sample, I was brought to the verge of tears by only ten words from a boy only 11 years old.

What is shocking most of all is the resolve of these boys to be faithful in God throughout any troubles they’ve had. They have an unconquerable faith and trust in God’s amazing love on their lives, which is something we can all learn to know in deeper ways. God is not something to be put in a box, nor is HE to be limited by our own abilities, or our narrow-mindedness.

Life lesson: sorrow births the greatest joy.

The times our team of interns has shared has developed a deeper bond than I could have predicted. We are becoming rapidly like real family for each other, and I am so thankful for each of them.

Our teams are about to have the honor of viewing a dowry price negotiation, which is essentially the African side of a wedding. The following day our own COTN staff Edward will be marrying Caitlin, and our entire team will be in the wedding party! Andrew, Jon and I will be groomsmen along with numerous Ugandans, and our six girls will be bridesmaids, which is something we are all looking forward eagerly for.

Well, once again thanks for checking in with the updates, and I pray that God blesses you in America and elsewhere in the world, wherever you are, and that you would know the depths of His love.

God bless you my friends and family!

Please continue to pray for our team as we have encountered some less than stellar health, but have yet to be incapacitated.

Love,

Scott

coming soon!

i will post an update on the last week in the next 24 hours, keep your eyes open!

God bless you!

-Scottay

2 weeks in, goodbyes, and getting into the thick of things

Heyo Americans!

My team has just finished our second full week in Lira, Uganda! We are tonight enjoying our last meal with the Kotel Conference team, which consists of Derek, Jamin, Liz, Luiken, Katie, Erin, Hanna, Ron, and Tobias.

This past Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we assisted in leading a leadership conference sponsored by COTN Director Pastor James’s church. The objective of the conference is to equip the church leaders of Lira District with the skills to raise up and restore the church of Uganda by raising up new leaders and addressing both the problems and the people who have been affected by the rebel war that has plagued Northern Uganda for the past 22 years, but is finally seemingly diffusing.

The conference was a great success, with 15 groups making up a number of 154 Ugandan participants, not including our staff working at the Lira Hotel. We saw a lot of new ideas and new growth beginning in our participants, and I am excited to hear of new church leadership growing and flourishing.

All last week, I was able to tag along with a group focused on counseling for traumatized students at the Almond College. My task was undefined, so I decided to introduce myself to a few boys that hung out after our introduction to the school. I met a boy named Isaac who I saw for the next 2 days as well, and he loved taking pictures. I missed coming on Thursday, but every other day I took pictures with the kids and had talks about their hopes and dreams, as well as sharing stories about Uganda and America. My possibly favorite part of our trips to Almond was playing volleyball with eleven other boys, and truly feeling at home.

Church this past Sunday was once again a wonderful experience, with passionate dancing and singing praise to God. In the afternoon, we were invited to join Joyce and Lucy, two elderly women who are involved in prison ministry to reach out to multiple prisons located in Lira. Our group split up in 3 prisons, one for the convicted criminals, one for male prisoners awaiting trial, and one for female prisoners. I joined the group that went to those men awaiting trial. Our entry into the prison was colorful, as there was a group of well over 100 inmates dressed in their yellow prison uniforms, and many of them were dancing and singing praises as we entered. We were ushered into some chairs at the front and center of the group, and introduced ourselves.

For our ministry, we took turns speaking the word of God and sharing God’s amazing work being done in our lives. This is by far the largest group I’ve ever addressed regarding the Gospel, and I was nervous but I felt completely secure that God would bless me with words to speak. The verse I shared was Jeremiah 17 verses 5 thru 8, explaining the difference between trusting in flesh and in man, and trusting in God. This has been the theme of my life for the past year, in my struggles with friendships, with school, with preparations for this trip. I always had the opportunity to doubt, but also the opportunity to truly give my life up and surrender to Christ. I can say that when I followed through with the latter, I was filled with even more reasons to trust, and to fall even more deeply in love with God. I saw 2 men from the crowd of many believers come to Christ for the first time, and I was able to pray for them. Praise God for that opportunity!

We went on to the women’s prison to meet up with the second group directly and heard Richelle share a word of truth to the women incarcerated there, some still raising their children in captivity with them. We were able to give them soap, a commodity not commonly given to the prisoners, and they were so grateful for the words of encouragement and the soap, so they sang us a wonderfully beautiful song as we departed from the prison. Meanwhile, the third group was evangelizing at the sentenced prison, and I heard word that at least 20 men came to Christ that day. Once again, praise God!

One more evangelizing opportunity I had was explaining how I had to leave the boys at Almond College. I met with two boys, named Emmanuel and Angara, and I told them that all I could do was encourage them, and give them the hope of God, which they have been relying on this whole time through every hard time. I am so deeply encouraged by their faith despite, or because of, the necessity of His hope.

On Monday, I was honored to have a sabbatical day with my fellow interns, and I hung out at the house most of the day. We went over to the COTN orphan’s home to visit the kids, and I got a kick out of playing soccer and Frisbee with the kids, as well as assisting the jump rope games.

Yesterday, Tuesday June 30^th, we set out for Gulu to visit the very much anticipated Invisible Children office and Sacred Heart Secondary School, which is a school that our Schools for Schools club at UCSD that I helped start, fundraises for. The drive was only a few hours, and only interrupted for random photoshoots roadside and bathroom breaks (aka frantically running into the bushes). Gulu looks much like Lira, excepting the much larger older trees and more greenery that seems to have shaped the development of the city. The Invisible Children offices were very cool, and we met Joli Okot, the country director, as well as Martin, one of the Ugandan representatives of Gulu, and the speaker for the Lobby Days event that Invisible Children initiated in Washington DC this June 22 and 23^rd. We were given a tour of every office, and I was stoked to see the mentor’s open offices for kids in the Visible Child program, and especially the Schools for Schools wing. I was so overjoyed to see the ground zero and staging point for all the projects that our school helps fund. One of the engineers who organizes the projects at Sacred Heart Secondary escorted us to the school, and we got to see all the new innovations being funded by American high school and college students, as well as the hardworking girls who make up 1200 students strong who attend the school. Words can’t cut what I want to express for my excitement about finally seeing it firsthand.

On the way back from Gulu, our van experienced some fairly intense knocking noises coming from the drivetrain, so we pulled over in the grass and red dirt to wait for a mechanic. While we waited, the sun set and the moon and stars began to shine through the clouds, and lightning flashed on the horizon. I climbed onto the roof to get a better view, and I have never been so happy to be broken down on the side of the road, experiencing the moon, stars, and lightning across the Ugandan landscape. We finally were picked up by our ever so wonderful driver, Jimmy, and we drove back to Lira, and into the massive rainstorm we saw in the distance. Turns out our windows were not completely sealed by the manufacturer, and we had minor waterfalls spurting out of most of the tops of the windows, which was yet another inconvenience that I loved to be a part of.

When we arrived, I quickly changed to my trunks and ran around outside in the rain to celebrate and get soaked, and dance, etc. Today, We had another low-action day to relax as the Conference team enjoyed their last day in Lira before they go on safari. The interns went into town to get some dresses tailored, and I decided to order an African styled shirt, which is going to be awesome. We also got some snacks, and celebrated with the COTN orphans one last time before I got to typing this up. Since I started, a huge rainstorm with thunder and lightning washed over Lira and the rain was such a beautiful sound, I wish you could have seen and heard, and felt the rain here.

Well, I’m going to be a groomsman in my first wedding experience in a short 10 days, when our friend Edward, a Ugandan, marries his Oregonite wife, Caitlin. Be excited! Our ministries will continue to change, so prayer requests are:

· please pray for our planning process for our continuing ministries

· please pray for the safe travel of the Conference team as they safari, and return to America this Sunday

· please pray for each of our hearts as we encounter joy and tragedy, tests of patience and rapid change

Thank you all for your prayers and support, and I’ll shoot you another update soon!

Love,

Scott

Week 1 in Lira!

Greetings friends and family!

On behalf of Richelle, Andrew, Jenny, Jill, Elena, Emma, Alisa and I, I’d love to fill you in on the way that our first week in Lira has been going!

The bright smiles and wonderfully warm hugs of the Ugandan staff gave us a welcome that our whole team could never forget. For me, this felt like coming home after two years of being gone. I loved seeing my old friends Jimmy, Ambrose, Thomas, and Pastor James. We were also welcomed by the American interns that came to Lira a week before we arrived, and so we joined a family of Andrew and Sylvia, with their daughters Alex and Marissa, and their niece Katie, as well as two others, Jarusha and John, who are cousins. These interns have been an absolute joy to get to know, and we are so excited for the next month we will spend with them.

In the evening, the COTN staff in Uganda brought over the children that live in the orphanage and that COTN helps sponsor to keep them well fed and clothed, housed and educated. These kids are the Ugandans that some of you are helping sponsor, and it was a joy as they performed welcoming songs to us and danced as well.

Scheduling came to be an ever-changing amalgamation of needs and our own capacities to serve, so all of our team has been required to cope with a constantly shifting ministry.

Two days into our stay at Lira, when we were preparing to go to church on Sunday, I heard the voices of my friends from the short-term leadership conference team, and I just ran into the hall and was very excited to spend our team’s first Sunday service with them. Church in Uganda is an incredible fusion of high volume singing and dancing which has really given me new appreciation for all the ways that we can worship God together, even in international and multilingual community. After church we all hung out as a large group and played volleyball in the courtyard of the COTN house.

For the evening, we went to a secondary school in the outskirts of town to show the Jesus Film. There was a group of about 800 students there to interact with, and I was personally taken aback with the prospect of interacting with such a large group, but I was able to get to know a few boys and there were fifty people that gave their lives to Christ that night! That night I wrote down a few words, which read:

I have walked their streets

I have sat at their school desks

I have seen their scars

I have seen their faith and beauty

I desire to know my place here

I desire to be the best of help I can

I desire to give more of myself

I desire You.

These words were a reflection into my experience with the knowledge that many of these children have suffered extreme trauma from rebel attacks, yet they know true joy in spite of every hurt. I am so grateful of these children’s stories of triumph, and my words will never do them justice.

After organizing supplies for future ministries on Monday morning, our team was able to go into Lira on a scavenger hunt, which was also a ton of fun, in which we got to buy a live chicken, avocadoes, ground nuts, and ride on the bicycle taxis, called “boda bodas”. I was so happy to be in the marketplace as well, because the cultural richness was beyond any of my expectation, specifically being underneath the sheets and tarps that covered the stands of fruits and produce, as well as clothing vendors, with the sun creating a myriad of colors on everything within sight.

The intern team, of which I am a part, has now every day this week been visiting the Almond College, which is a short drive away from our house. While some specific teams have been doing wonderful counseling work with students who had traumatic experiences, the other interns interacted with students around the campus. I chose to introduce myself to quite a few boys, and we spent our time together as a group of about a dozen Ugandan boys with me. I was overjoyed to share with them the education I am receiving in Uganda, as well as telling stories of my childhood, which they compared to their own childhood experiences growing up in the Lira district. We actually have more in common than I thought! This interaction truly gave me more energy than I have felt since landing in Uganda.

Each of us are learning of the needs of kids in these schools, and we are assessing how we can use different ministries to address their needs. I simply cannot wait to build more relationships with these children and young adults! We seem to have a lifetime of experience to share with each other.

Yesterday, our college pastor Adam Klekowski’s team arrived to the house, around 5pm, and they marked the beginning of our in-country preparations for the Kotel Leadership Summit, a conference we all hope will hopefully enable the people of Lira to continue to build up their communities in Christ-centered ways, and the excitement is building!(For those curious, “kotel” is the Hebrew word for “holy wall” used in the chapters of the book of Nehemiah in the Bible, giving foundation and protection to the community here. Tomorrow evening we are going to begin the conference with an introduction time and many of us will coach small groups of Ugandans participating in the summit.

God is at work, and He shows Himself when we know we are getting opposition from forces of darkness. Many of our team are experiencing new trials of many kinds, and we see God providing in every case, and for that we rejoice that our God is larger than anything in this universe!

Thank you, each of you, for your prayer in support halfway around the world from us, we absolutely need that support. Please continue praying for our team, that God would grant us the courage, compassion, kindness, patience, and strength to continue His work here in Lira, and rejoice as we see new growth! Until the next blog, take care, and Obanga ni gum! (God bless you!)

Sincerely in His Hands,

Scott Thompson

Off to Uganda in 14 hours!

Well my friends, God has carried me to this point of departure, to my 2 month internship with Children of the Nations in Uganda this summer. As I leave soon, I want to thank all of my friends old and new that have made this trip possible, and I reserve this space as a place where I can expound on my experiences and others can be informed, and possibly inspired, by what is going on in our various ministries.

Check back often for updates on my trip, and hopefully I will be able to give more detailed summaries upon return.

Thank you for your interest in my trip! Come along for the ride with my blog!

Praise God!
-Scott