PADER OR BUST!!!!!!!!!

The Lord has been totally rocking our world this last week! We have seen several healings in the slum and at the hospital, built relationships, and allowed the Lord to use us to encourage some amazing Ugandans who we know he is raising up as his anointed ones here. We've played soccer with street kids, fixed up the sewing shop, hoe'd and weeded a field at the farm, and learned how to love the untouchable. We feel so blessed to be here and we're loving every second of this great adventure the Lord has chosen to take us on!

Today has been a crazy day of transitions for our team. This morning, we had to say goodbye to most of our friends at Come Let's Dance, and I'm sure you all know how hard it can be to say goodbye to friends when you don't know when you're going to see them next. We're now in Narkolabia at Commission International headquarters preparing to embark upon our next adventure! We're all trying to rest up and re-fuel....some of the team is hanging out with Jesus, others are napping, and Scott just attempted to teach some random kiddos who came in off the street how to play duck duck goose, ring around the rosey and red rover. It was pretty fun to watch :)

Tonight, we're leaving to head to prayer mountain where we will spend the entire night with just our team, the Commission team, and the Lord. Pray for this time that the Lord would break in us whatever needs to be broken, fill us up with more and more of himself, unite our team with the Commission team, and prepare us fully for what's to come! We'll leave tomorrow morning from prayer mountain and drive 6 hours north to Pader! Let me tell you, we are all super PUMPED for this coming week, but also, we really have no idea what we're doing. We keep looking at each other saying, this is so CRAZY! but the Lord is so cool and we know he's going to do incredible things! It's all him, not us! We learned this morning what it means to put on the FULL armor of Christ, so pray that we would each have the spirit of a warrior for Jesus, with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, readiness given by the Gospel of peace for shoes, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit!

We're starting to feel a little more prepared in the sense that we sort of have a rough schedule of what's gonna go down while we're there. Monday - Thursday we'll be taking about 5 people at a time and driving all around the district with a truck and a PA system putting on 10 of what Bishop calls "pitch crusades," sharing testimonies, preaching the gospel, and inviting people to come to our big crusade nights on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Also, each of those days, Merlyn and Ashley will be setting up a medical tent for about two hours at a time, and Sara and Ben will be putting on a kids camp. We'll also be sending a few of us to visit 6 different "schools" (they each are held under a different tree) to speak, as well as to the prison to visit the prisoners. On Wednesday, we're having a sports day, which could get a little crazy! There's gonna be a 7k and a soccer tournament! Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights are the main event and it would be awesome if you would cover those in prayer! Those will start around 4:00 our time, so that's 8 am your time. We need all the prayer we can get! We never thought the Lord would ask us crazy college kids to preach in front of 60,000 people at a time! It's gotta be all Him because we sure can't do it ourselves!

We are also truly amazed by the work the Lord has been doing in each one of us on this team. We were going crazy a few nights ago when we had to spontaneously "share a word" in front of a group of Ugandan leaders and Crystal just grabbed the mike and began preaching boldly with so much authority! Don't worry, she'll be preaching at one of our pitch crusades! Sara had been praying before the trip that when things became overwhelming, she would not ask for the situation to be changed, but for the Lord to use the situation to change her, and Praise God, because he has totally answered her prayer! She is so ready to go to Pader with no fear! Ben has been speaking with authority and is ready to rebuke anything the Lord throws his way. Even though he couldn't speak the language, Grant sat with a sick boy in the hospital for over an hour just holding his hand, and later went back to give him his dad's air force jacket because the little boy's dream is to be a pilot. Ashley's faith never fails to grow bigger every day, and just this morning, Merlyn taught us all about walking humbly in the Lord's authority. Brian has learned what true patience is and has been using each and every one of his talents to bless people. Scott has fallen in love with the people and has put in an insane amount of effort to learn as much of their language as he can and to communicate with people despite the language barrier.

We probably won't be able to update this again until next Sunday, so don't worry if you don't hear from us before then Pray for safe travels, all the other things we listed above, and more! Thanks to you all for being so wonderful. We love you a lot!

Love,

Zac and Kristin