Longing Hearts

Serving with the Frontier Mission Team (FMT)
After the FMT retreat held in Dec 2020, in Jan 2021, Tamu and I joined FMT as part time staff after a nudging to be more accountable as we play our part in mobilization and discipleship in Mbarara. Monthly prayer meetings Tamu co-ordinates these meetings the last Friday of the month. They are hosted on a rotation basis between partners homes or workplaces. We pray for the work FMT is doing with a focus on those who have not yet heard about Christ.

How years fly! It’s now been three years and two months since I came to live in Karamoja. My coming here did cause different reactions from different people but to my Lord coming here was ordained for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And to me coming here was sheer joy and simple obedience, the joy of being handed the privilege of being a part of what my father is doing in Karamoja. Our father desires that all peoples, languages, nations and tribes would come to him and worship him, it’s his ultimate passion and desire that Jesus was willing to be sacrificed so that with his blood he could purchase these persons from every tribe and language and people and nations. For me to participate in this desire of my father in whatever way is my life’s pursuit no matter how feeble, weak and unqualified I might be. After all he said we should come as we are; and then he washes us (and oh boy how I have needed that washing more often than not), then he says when we are weak then we are strong in him, and then he qualifies us, there is nothing that stirs me up like the fact that when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus and that my friends was their only qualification, they had been with Jesus. Everything flows from that intimacy. So don’t tire of me always trying to persuade you or remind you of this passion of Christ for the nations because it’s so dear to his heart and there-fore it should be for us as well. We will fail along the way, get discouraged, lose track but we must always find our way back home and he is always there to help us. Let our hearts be broken for what breaks his for he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. Therefore let’s live to worship him, let’s strategically live out our lives in such a way that wherever we are and whatever we do, we are making disciples of all nations.

“When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do. But when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.”
A. C. Dixon

Hello hope all is well,
Allow me share a few insights of what is happening with the Agabas and what the Lord has been teaching us as the year began. Well every year begins in style and yeah this year we thought we had it under control until the Lord humbled us down. For some reason we have been struggling financially since Ivan’s monthly pay has not been certain as they are issues being faced at office, also as family we have been occasionally falling sick even with our little Ka money. In the midst of all this we can reflect on 2 Corinthians 1:9 – 11 NIV “9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

My thoughts on our relationship with Jesus Christ as a friend.

Dear friend,

It is now two months into the new year. I want to take some time to share with you some questions that have got me to re-think my relationship with Jesus as a friend. I hope you will either do the same or share your experience about it with me. It all started in a fellowship group comprised of three ladies. One of us shared about her desire to have a relationship with Jesus not just as Lord of her life but also as a friend! Let us think about this. Jesus as a friend understands us best in every situation and we are not scared of approaching him. This young lady was inspired by her mother's relationship with Jesus which she observed as a little girl. Now that she is older, she desires that experience in her life too. 

Today I want to begin my newsletter with what I hope will be a soul searching question. Whose responsibility is the spread of the gospel? How we answer this question will go a long way to explain our response to the need of the millions of lost people around the world? To be honest I find the need too great that I always find the temptation of indifference to the need a safer bet than my consideration of it, purely because the cost involved is just too costly. In the past, my passion for the glory of God to cover the earth has so driven me that I have too often minimised the cost involved because of the mere delight to serve him. But there are days when the cost weighs on you too strongly for you to ignore. You can feel your passion wane, your love leak, and your hope fade. Like in the words of Paul, ‘so that we despaired even of life’. To understand this you must enter my world, hopefully in a few paragraphs you will have a hint of what am talking about.

It has been sometime since my last newsletter and am so excited to share vision in this newsletter. Apart from the inconvenience that covid19 has caused, it has helped us a lot to evaluate our ministry, strategize and see how everything we have been doing connects together. So brace yourself for a slightly longer newsletter than the usual, I hope to share what we do, how we are doing it and ultimately why we do it. I hope sharing this will bring you closer to the in-workings of our work in Kaabong among the Dodoth and Ik people.

Our end in mind has always been to make disciples but overtime we realised in a least reached people with no churches, it was paramount that disciples be gathered into church communities to grow together, serve and celebrate Christ together as they seek to be a light to their communities. It is out of this realisation that we set out to catalyse for a church planting movement in Kaabong as we pray, preach, teach, equip, and name it.

On my way back to Karamoja I had so many questions running through my mind. This pandemic still seems to be raging on and here I am trying to get miles away from a place I am familiar with. What happens if I get sick along the way? What happens if I am carrying the disease to this remote place? Most of my questions were coming in along those lines (what happens…). I want to imagine many other people have such kinds of questions as they are potentially putting themselves and their loved ones at risk of contracting the disease. Then I figured many people had their reasons to get back into harm’s way.

We recently woke up to different noises outside in a distance. Normally we hear the cows being led out of the kraal and then that’s our cue for a new day but this day was different because while we could hear the cows make the sounds, it did-n’t sound like they were leaving the kraal. So when later we decide to leave the house we notice that there is some smoke coming from the centre of the kraal but we didn’t give it much thought at the time. A little later people start to gather around and also the cows are still there so we figure something else is going on. So we see someone we know passing by coming from the direction of the kraal and ask him what was going on and he tells us they are making a sacrifice. So of course the next question is, sacrifice for what? So Christopher tells us it’s to guarantee some kind of protection to the people and their livestock as well as to usher in the rains. Wow, we all didn’t know what to make of this. I mean we have al-ways heard of sacrifices being made but to see this being done was a whole different experience and it got me thinking of its implication. And I believe there are some people out there who after seeing something of the sort realised that the implication is much more than just the action going on. As someone who identifies as a Christian my desire is to see the Karimojong worship God in their culture in truth and spirit so this sacrifice that was being made reminded me of why I am serving in Karamoja because this can’t be true of God that he desires sacrifice.

This is one of those times we are able to acknowledge the need for a saviour. I believe for some on realising that we don’t have every-thing figured out as humans are probably looking for someone to step up and save the known world from the pandemic that seems to be holding us hostage. So may I take this time to remind us of a saviour I found in Christ Jesus. A saviour not just from the sickness but also to carry us through the uncertainties that we always carry around.