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Official BMS site for BMS Uganda Action Team 2006 - 2007
Sarah Wisdell was working in Uganda as part of a BMS Action Team (October 2006 to May 2007). Click here for the latest news from the Sarah. Before Sarah left for Uganda, she gave a presentation at the morning service on Sunday 10th September 2006 detailing what her plans were for the next year. For a copy of Sarah's powerpoint presentation, click here (360KB). Points for Prayer
21st May 2007 Sarah and the Action Team are now back in the UK and led the morning service at Lymm Baptist Church yesterday morning (20th May). To listen to
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right click on the 20th February 2007 (extracts from Sarah’s e mails home over the past few weeks - warts & all with Debbie's permission!) Ok I know I have been very awful at giving you church updates so I am very very sorry to everyone at church (and to you too dear parents). It’s mainly coz we've been so highly BUSY. Seriously, it’s like they've realized we leave in less than 2 months so they're just PILING stuff on us. Which isn’t a complaint at all? Coz we love the work we're doing. I'm just trying to give a good excuse for not updating. Since Christmas, and the bad patch of illness and stuff, things have been so amazingly better. During the bad time of illness we were not at all happy in our house. It felt very odd and the constant parties of witchdoctors passing with the circumcision ceremonies weren’t helping. We spoke to a number of English, American and Ugandan pastors about this both in Kampala and Mbale and they explained a lot to us about spiritual warfare. Before coming to England I had never given spiritual warfare any thought, and I think if i had heard stories of it I would have passed it off as make believe and a result of over active imaginations. But being here I have realized how real it truly is. Part of the tribal culture over here is the calling upon ancestral spirits and other spirits to both aid them and to curse others. Witchdoctors are very common and people really believe in them, which makes their abilities more powerful. The Lugisu tribe of Mbale are thought to be the tribe who delve the most into the occult and rely on spirits and use them the most in ceremonies such as the circumcision. And so according to the pastors here, it comes as no surprise to them that we would be a target. We are well known here, being the only white people to stay in the area of town we live in, and everyone knows we are working for the church due to the extent of our work in all areas of Mbale. After we had to move up to Kampala over Christmas due to illness, we gave all its a lot of thought and prayer and decided that we would only return to our Mbale house once we had had it prayed over and properly blessed. So our church got together a huge group of members who spent time praising and worshipping and praying round our house with us which was fantastic and we are so grateful to them all. Since then we are continually y prayed for as a team by various members of different churches when we attend services and other events which encourages us enormously. And hurrah hurrah hurrah we've had no illness since then!!!! wooh!! And our house feels so peaceful!! Can’t actually explain the difference we feel!! Ok so onto our work...we're still doing all of our program, I won’t go into all of it because there’s too much to say but i love all of it so much!!!! New stuff and important stuff though..... 1) We have set up a youth social and sports afternoon every Friday which God is really blessing!! We really felt that God was pushing us to take a step of faith and set up our own project to encourage the youth here and we had noticed that although the church here have a lot of prayer groups and bible studies, they lack an informal cell group for youth. So we spoke to our Pastor about starting one at our house and woohoo we've done it!!! Was really quite scary for us to do because it is just NOT HEARD OF here for white people to establish groups for Ugandans in their house, but we really wanted to do it there so we have. We went round a few schools and stuff to tell people bout it and so we now have over 25 young people 17-25s meeting at our house every Friday!!!!!!! EEEEKKK!!! So awesome!!! We love it!! We have a time of praise, worship (and much dancing!!) then some prayer and then a time of discussions from 4:30 to 6ish (chocolate and crisps are involved...essential really...a concept Ugandans have never really thought of...but love!) then we all traipse up to the sports field near us for an hour or more of sports and games. I cant describe how awesome this is but it makes me grin just thinking bout it because God is really blessing us and we've been so encouraged by how just stepping out of comfort zone and going for something has turned out so well. We've made so many firm friendships through it and the language and culture barrier has been completely broken so we now have so many friends who we joke around with and tease and hug and mess around with and we love it. We're currently looking at relationships between girls and boys from a Christian viewpoint, which is throwing up a number of issues so please pray for wisdom for us to know how to approach it. Other than that life goes on as usual, its uber boiling here so nights when we have electricity are amazing because we have the luxury of a fan to help us sleep hurrah!! Oh one more thing! Valentines Day was cool because the boys surprised us by making like a curtain of hearts on our door frame and sewing dozens of hearts all over our mozzie nets which was very exciting!!!! What else???? Have adopted a cat who I have called squodge. She or he is awesome and has a bit of an obsession with powdered milk. Wierdo. Oh!! Just thought of possibly the most exciting thing ever....I had CUCUMBER the other day. I repeat CUCUMBER!!! Admittedly it had to be peeled because the outside was kind of purple with warts but the inside was almost identical!!! hurrah!! Praise God!! 15th December 2006 (extracts from Sarah’s e mails home over the past few weeks - warts & all with Debbie's permission!) Despite some illness and homesickness this week, iv started to realize how much God is in control of everything...it has become obvious that we are never ever placed in a situation just for the fun of it...He truly has a purpose for everything....I don’t know whether i told you but part of the reason why we knew so little about our placement over here till we got here was cause BMS had set up 3 successive placements in different parts of the country and each one failed til Mbale. Mbale has never ever had an action team before but it seemed really clear that God wanted them to accept us. We couldn’t see why till we had a chat with Robbie this morning....in Mbale there is a massive slum with over 16000 people living in such extreme poverty and 8000 of them are under the age of 15. Is a place of deep oppression ad there are some really dodgy things going on there. Anyways...its a place very deprived of Christ and in desperate need of Him. There has just started to be many projects setup there for the sick and water aid and education stuff and very very recently the first church has been setup there. The churches we are linked with are very involved there but only in projects, nothing actually working amongst the people. A lot of prayer has gone on about this slum and due to God really speaking to people through prophecies etc there is a very WIDE train of thought that this slum is on the brink of a MASSIVE spiritual revival...like the holy spirit is REALLY going to come down on this place in a big big way. BUT get this...shona, nath, mike and I are currently the ONLY white people going into that place preaching the gospel and praying and talking with people. So i am so so so excited to see what God is going to do to us and through us. But we need so so so much prayer coz this place is full of witchdoctors and people doing really dodgy stuff and so no matter how much you believe in spiritual warfare, we are a real target for the devil. But we are expecting great thing to happen and we've already seen god work in so many ways here...its awesome. Also learning to use every opportunity to tell someone a little about Jesus...is maybe a bit easier over here due to the fact that poverty generally makes you look less to yourself and more to other things so people are more ready to accept Jesus’ love. This is just a quick email to say hello and i am alive and have had my hair done and i look like a rasta hahahahahaha but its awesome --- (A few weeks ago) Saturday was the wedding and the invite said 10 o’clock start so we booked the taxi bus for 9 from the church. at 10:15 we were still waiting for other people who were coming with us to arrive. Typical African style...they have worse time keeping skills than me!!!! The wedding ceremony lasted til about 3. wooh. Is very like a British wedding but a lot louder and people standing up and shouting and dancing around the bride during the vows screaming ai ai ai ai aiiiiiii. Then 20 min drive to the village for the reception. which lasted for houuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrssss. We left at 7 and it was still going strong. Had THE worst church choir EVER singing. The songs were soooooooooooooo cringey and soooo out of tune. Me and nath got the giggles so so so bad. Especially when caroline (bms missionary from kampala who was one of the bridesmaids) was handed a massive live turkey during the present giving ceremony and two goats.!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also we are really really busy so keeps us occupied. Love you all loads. Nearly bought a stuffed cockrel for you the other day. But it was crawling with something so I Thought perhaps not. !!!!!!!!! --- Had some really bad news today that id really like you to pray for. Lebo, the south African girl on the brazil south team has had to fly home because her sister has died in a car crash. How awful. Especially since her other sister died in a crash only a year and a half ago. Cant comprehend how much pain she must be feeling. Its not known yet whether or not she'll be returning to Brazil, especially since it was such a knock to her faith when her other sis died a yr and a half ago so this must have really knocked her faith again. So please just pray that she can turn to God and not away from him.. So plz pray 4 them as well. --- Shona's ok. Bit better than mike was because we made sure it was detected earlier which is good. She is constantly being sick and has lost quite a bit of weight and She’s just very tired and a bit temperaturey. I hate to say this but I feel pretty awful in myself but with three down I can’t afford to be ill so please pray for me to fight this off. Just preparing ourselves for another busy week coming up. Is entering drought season now. So the periods of rain and cloudiness that we've been relying on to cool ourselves down are disappearing. It will now just gradually get hotter and hotter with the hottest being Feb. Wooh. Ha.!! Can’t wait for our holiday. Will be very much deserved. We appear to be the only action team working 6 days a week and evenings!!! the others are all slackers just working half days or 4 days a week. But I prefer working hard and being occupied. Don’t miss home as much. --- Have been quite homesick this past week. Just going through that stage of missing all things home. Especially just missing being able to walk places without sticking out like a sore thumb and being shouted at and having to smile politely when you're not in the mood to and shake all the kids hands. I know its important to cause it means so much to then but sometimes its just so hard to keep doing it you know?? Found the past couple of wks very hard in terms of the other 3 being ill and having time off. It’s meant iv had to kind of do their share of work as well and that’s left me really tired. Am very grateful though that IV not been badly ill. Just very bad headaches and aching and funny stomach and nothing else so praise the Lord for that! Also thank God that he has given me diarhoea rather than vomiting each time!! Hopefully from now on though everyone will be better and will be able to work as a team again, for some reason it really distresses me when we have to leave on person behind cause they’re ill, and there been a bit of a general sense of gloom in the house cause people are tired and ill. Iv tried to cheer them up, which often helps, but its makes me feel so drained when people are moody and quiet. Ah well. Am trying to stay positive which helps me stay happy!!! 13th October 2006 Sarah & the rest of the team arrived in Uganda today. 10th September 2006 Sarah left LBC to begin a month's training prior to flying out to Uganda in October. |
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