Choices.....

            As most of you know I was back in Uganda with a team in April. It was a great trip with several very memorable moments for us all.  The reality for Uganda is that it’s poor country and full of dirt and disease; offering up very few comforts. For a Christian on mission in country there is very little focus placed on the environment or at least until it becomes a direct hazard to the people who live there. Yes, we would like to see the Ugandans healthy and happy, but our mission deals more with their soul. Ugandans are wonderful loving people who for the most part provide more blessings for us than we do for them.

            4 HIM IN AFRICA Ministries started because of the children who attend the church run schools that we visit while we are there. Prior to starting our non-profit corporation we realized there was a need, but we felt we already had our hands full with the work we were doing. It was coming home from each trip with the stack of letters given to us by the different widows and orphans asking for their children’s school fee’s that caused things to change. Maybe it was just a soft heart that set all this in motion or maybe it really was God speaking to my heart about doing more. I would like to think the later is true and that we are on a mission ordained by God for the purpose of changing the future of the children in Uganda. I have spent a lot of time there and I can believe it is time for a change.

            Can you imagine what it means to a child who lives in a village deep in the interior of Africa to hear that a person they don’t even know, who lives on the other side of the world wants to give them a chance, a future, hope? It sounds a little dramatic but that is what happened for some of the children we were with in April. The team was able to sit them down and say your school fees are being paid. For several of them they were handed a gift from their sponsor and then they got to write that sponsor a letter. Something that really does not seem that significant to us ($28.75 a month) makes a world of difference to them. The sponsor has given them a uniform, is giving them lunch at school each day, and the school supplies they need. The schools we work with are Christian schools and the children learn to pray and they learn to thank God for meeting their needs. How cool is it to think God has blessed you by providing your needs and you have blessed a child by providing theirs?

           Every child wants an education and we have a lot who would love to go to school. Unfortunately, this plan has not gone the way we had hoped. Yes, we are grateful for those who are sponsoring children, and somehow I doubt they fully understand the magnitude of their generosity. The issue is we are not getting enough sponsors. We are struggling with our efforts to get the word out about the opportunity to be a sponsor. It was our plan that we would form an organization and then create a web site where people could go to pick the child they wanted to sponsor and pay the school fees at the same time. We had hoped that once a person sponsored a child they would encourage their friends to do likewise and soon everyone would be doing it. It did not happen quite that way, although it did in a couple of instances. Then we tried using social media and the internet to promote our corporation including a twitter account that I still don’t fully understand. Through these efforts we have picked up a few more sponsors, but we still are not on track.

            Our goal is 400 students in the year 2013 and we are still hopeful that can happen. It is all a matter of how you look at it. Some people hear us say that and say wow!!!! While others say is that all? And we feel the sponsors are out there if we can just find them and give them the message. I do not know anyone who could not afford a dollar a day to give a child a future. The price of a bottle of water or the hope given to a child who cannot afford an education ….it’s not a hard choice. I realize may people are already giving that dollar in other places and I really am thankful for that, but those people could tell a friend about this opportunity and help make a difference by finding a sponsor.

            Just like the ripples made by throwing a stone into a pool of water your help with this mission can reach further than we can imagine, first a child, then a country, then a continent, and then who know maybe the world. Won’t you help us by sharing our mission? Sponsor a child or tell your family and friends so that we can reach our goal 400-2013.  

400-2013

  

Some thoughts as we get ready...

We are at the start of our last week before leaving for our next mission trip. It is always exciting, but with all those last minute details the excitement can be swept to the back giving way to a host of other emotions. It is not the things we plan that become the pitfalls of the last week, but those things not planned for, that make us crazy. Today I made a list of to do’s and this evening I tried to find it and couldn't so now I can start it all over again.

This team is made up of many different personalities  and I am sure that God has a use for each one. Although, I am not worried about their actions, I do wonder about what they will take away from this trip, and how it will affect the rest of their lives. It is the mission that will not only be their teacher, but also the potter which will shape each of us for a lifetime of use. With such a life changing event just over the horizon it is important to understand we did not arrive here by accident. And with so much at stake we must not forget the training and preparation we have endured during the past weeks. And maybe the most important aspect of our journey so far is those who have worked so hard to provide all that we need to do the ministry before us.

During the last six years I have led mission teams on several types of short term missions and each one has been an incredible learning experience for me. If I think about it enough I can begin to feel a bit of pain due to the mistakes I have made along the way.  Not that any of the trips were a complete failure in any sense of the word, but there were many ways that they could all have been better. A mission trip should be a life changing experience for each team member even if that team member has made multiple trips to the same place before. That is why long ago I started searching for the answer to the hard questions about Short Term Missions and how to apply the solutions for past mistakes. I believe one of those answers is a more intentional approach to team training which requires the team to invest several weeks into training before leaving home.

Last fall I met a man in Georgia who had designed a training program for Short Term Missions. His organization is called Culture Link and their approach is to train team leaders to lead Short Term Mission teams through a curriculum and series of team building exercises created to prepare them for the mission field. After listening to   Larry Ragan speaking at First Baptist Woodstock I was convinced that he was holding a very valuable tool needed for helping to make a mission trip an experience of a lifetime.  It wasn’t long after that I traveled to Pennsylvania to attend one of Culture Link’s training sessions where I learned to use their material in team building and preparation. All this took place just in time for me to bring a condensed version to our team and start team building for this trip. What I have found is pretty exciting and although I don’t believe any training can cover everything completely it has made a difference. Our team has given some great feedback about the experience so far and from a team leaders perspective I just keep noticing improvements with the team responsibilities.

Before you go on line and sign up for the next Culture Link conference I need to add something to the mix. Part of the training is based on the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians:  More than once when I needed help in Thessalonica, you sent it to me. It is not that I just want to receive gifts; rather, I want to see profit added to your account. (Php 4:16-17 GNB)  This teaching is centered on the sender rather than the missionary (or goer)  The idea that we can be guilty of withholding the blessings of God from those He has chose to be part of the mission is driven home early in the team building process. For that reason I decided to recruit a sending team who would meet regularly to pray for the team and the mission. This sending team has sent cards with encouraging words and scripture inside and they ask for prayer requests from the team weekly.  The team is also taught to create their own sending team who will help fund their trip and pray for the team member. This is not just a hit and run solicitation of funds, but rather a team effort where the sender and goer are working together on the same mission.

Will this mission trip be a life changing experience for this team? If it is will that mean that the culture link material is the answer to the hard questions? Is the sending team and their intercessory prayer that much different than the approach we have used in the past?  Of course I won’t know until we have completed the mission or maybe I will never know for sure, but I do know that we are in the last week and I feel really good about what’s next.

Thanks Sandy you have been the gift from God that has helped me stay focused on the mission.  I’m sure all of it has been credited to your account.

"all things work together ..."

Sometimes we fail to realize that the insignificant things of life may only be insignificant at the moment they occur.  Time has a way of allowing those insignificant pieces to stack up until they are no longer insignificant or small. Finally this year God has allowed me to understand just what the sum of many small things can be when they are placed into His plan at exactly the right time. The truth is that everything I have once thought I understood turns out to be much more than I could have ever imagined.

For as many years as I have been traveling to Uganda there has been an equal measure of progression toward what has become a picture perfect example of God’s sovereign grace. When our ministry first decided to take a much bolder approach to teach and train the Ugandan bush pastors some folks said it was too much too fast. During the early years of our ministry we traveled from village to village holding All Saints conferences. These conferences were open to pastors from surrounding villages, but had a curriculum structured for new believers. It did not take long to realize that these bush pastors lacked the training needed for their churches to escape the negative influences of such a severe culture. It was time to commit to these pastors and to offer them the much needed help; although, the cost would be much greater than our small ministry had experienced up to that point.

It was out of the need to teach the bush pastors that we pursued a format that would invite a new group of people to join us. From first glance this change looked pretty insignificant, but after some time it would prove to be much more than significant. One of these people was Ancelett, a pastor from Nairobi who has become a real brother from a different mother. This man who has devoted his life to biblical education has a presence that invites people to listen and a smile that would melt any heart. Ancelett is a great preacher and has started to work as a part of the American team on all of our missions. The other significant person is a Congolese pastor who was introduced to this ministry through one of the most farfetched stories ever told. In fact, this story, which I won’t go into in detail, is so unbelievable that only those who have witnessed the glory of God through supernatural events could even entertain it. Nevertheless, this Congolese pastor pursued us through our Ugandan counterpart (Pastor Simon) to come to the DR Congo. We had found yet another new hurdle to overcome as our faith was challenged through this new acquaintance. It had been very satisfying to travel to Uganda twice a year and teach bush pastors so we really did not have any reason to travel to the DR Congo and expand the ministry.

Without a clue to the far-reaching possibilities, 4 Him in Africa Ministries once again found it necessary to expand the work we were doing. This expansion meant making a decision that would cost us financially much more than we were used too. It is important to understand that every time our ministry budget increases our faith must span a much wider gap between what we have and what we need. This larger leap of faith results in God’s provision being poured out through the hearts of His people. It might have been the fact that God provided the funds needed to plan and travel to the DR Congo and train an additional 200 pastors or it could have been how our traveling partner from Nairobi was able to get us through the frequent roadblocks by speaking Swahili with a mixture of street smarts and personality but, either way it did not take long to realize that the new group of people who had crossed our path were not insignificant. On the day we crossed the border between Burundi and the DR Congo I watched as the Congolese pastor used his influence to move us through every potential obstacle as if we were invisible, while our friend from Nairobi explained the customs and dangers of the culture in a way that two Americans could understand making it look as if this had all had been in God’s plan all along.

What I am about to share is the reason for this seemingly pointless article and the reason I believe our ministry is witnessing a movement of God which will result in changing an entire country. Last October while in Uganda we visited a newly opened refugee camp near the village of Kamwenge. Our investigation uncovered some interesting facts about the camp and its residents. Each week the camp staff processes seven hundred Congolese refugees and will continue to do so until they reach the capacity of sixty thousand. These Congolese refugees are being displaced from the northern regions of the DR Congo due to the civil war happening there. How convenient that on the same trip in which we were going to the DR Congo we would find a Congolese refugee camp in a remote area of southwest Uganda. What’s more the camp was open to evangelism giving us an opportunity to start an ongoing ministry there. Could it be an accident that the people from a war torn country, which due to rebel activities and rugged jungle terrain is almost impossible to evangelize, would move to a place where we have been training pastors to do just that (evangelize). Is it even more interesting that the pastors who attended our training in the DRC were very much interested in helping with the evangelizing and disciplining of their countrymen while waiting for them to return to take their place in the churches of the DRC. Actually, there are so many tiny, insignificant pieces stacked up together in this situation that I am sure it could only have been God who orchestrated it.

So “why it is this so important” you may ask?  As I write this article, the pastors in Uganda that we have been training have rallied their churches together to do outreach at the refugee camp. The vision needed to evangelize sixty thousand people is not one that a Ugandan bush pastor would normally entertain; yet they are. The idea of people who have little to none, in the way of possessions, collecting donations of food and clothing for the Congolese at the camp is overwhelming. And if this is not exciting enough then do the math; the camp has a forty-year lease, which means that in forty years these people will return to their country. They will not be the same, this time when they go back they will be taking their new religion with them. Their religion will be Christianity and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will be its foundation. Did I mention that sixty thousand Congolese will multiply several times over in that span of time. This means that the number of Christians returning to the DRC will be so staggering that the country will have to be affected by their return. What this means is that a country that has suffered from war, abuse, and exploitation of every kind throughout its history will now be evangelized by its own people. And the Christians responsible for disciplining these new evangelists will be the Ugandan bush pastors who have been discipled by a very small ministry called 4 Him in Africa Ministries. It is not a bad plan and I wish I had thought of it, but I was too busy with the insignificant details.

I should not miss an opportunity to make a pitch for www.4HiminAfrica.com and the need for sponsorship to send the Uganda children to school. Did I mention that these children will go to our church run Christian schools?  Did you ever think that for less than a dollar a day you can send a child to a Christian school who in the next forty years will become the church who will evangelize and disciple these Congolese refugees that will be responsible for changing the heart of their country?

It's Not A Competition...

Pastor Danny Cunningham

As with any ministry, 4 Him In Africa depends on receiving our support through the giving of others in order to accomplish our mission.  For years I have shared our story with anyone who will listen making sure that they understood the financial needs we have. Twice a year our mission team leaves the United States for Uganda, while at the same time God continues to grow the ministry obligation here at home. At the beginning of 2013, we found ourselves on the threshold of a new and exciting chapter in this ministry. In addition to all our usual and ongoing efforts we are also looking to find sponsors for 400 Ugandan children to attend school. Even though that is a lofty goal for the first year our team realizes that God has always provided for our needs, and we are always able to testify about how His provision has allowed us to continue participating in His work.

School motto proudly displayed

We all give to some charity almost on a daily basis. Whether we drop money into a jar sitting on the counter at our local convenience store to help a cancer patient, or drop money in the slot located under the pickup window at the fast food restaurant, Americans give. People will send money to Jerry’s kids year after year without hesitation and then write a check for cancer research the very next day. It seems that more and more opportunities to give our money keep popping up each year. There always seems to be a new charity, a new organization or another natural disaster in some remote region of the globe, yet we continue to give. When people see all the good that is being done because of their giving they are inspired to keep giving; its the feeling of making a difference that helps them to be more giving. A quick glance at several sources on the Internet shows that Americans give close to 300 billion in charitable donations each year. Overall people are far from being stingy with their money.

Lifesong Primary students outside the rented school building

Faced with the goal of finding 400 school fee sponsorships this year we have started trying to learn how to get our website noticed. We continue to study and try new things to promote our site. Some might see us as being in competition with the rest of the non-profits for the dollars people give. That is not true with us, and that is exactly the point I want to make. We know that people give for many reasons. Some give out of a heartfelt need to give, and others because they need a tax break, and some give just because they want to further their own cause. But then there are those who give out of their love for Christ, not just giving as a tithe or offering, but giving simply because they love the Lord. We don’t compete for those dollars although we do ask people to give, but ultimately we know that the money we collect is provided by God because we pray and ask him to meet our needs. Ours is not a competition; our need is no greater than the others who have a mission in this world.

What we believe about our funding is biblical: “I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” (Php 4:18 ESV) It is the giving of many that provides for the mission God has given us and no matter how well we advertise our need, whether over the internet or by word of mouth it is still those who give to God that God uses to supply our needs. And it is for that reason we testify God has provide all we need for His glory.

Stop by and check out the website.... (click here)