Long overdue update!

Despite the lack of updates in the past two weeks, a lot has actually been going on here besides an ungodly amount of power outages. The rest of the team of Sozo interns got here 2 weeks ago, which has been awesome to have community and encouragement from other believers. In that time my mom also came here with a team from North Carolina and it was awesome to be able to see her and minister alongside her for a few days. Just 2 days after that, another North Carolinian and actually Calvary member came here to join me as my roommate! It has been a blessing to have her (Sherry Olivier) here and to not be the only woman! 

So in the past 2 weeks we have been focusing our time at a couple of different locations. First, here at the Sozo house where I live, along with 17 orphans who are literally the most disciplined, well-mannered, and god-fearing children I have ever encountered. If you weren't aware, I am actually an intern with Sozo Children International, which you can learn more about at the link above. It has been such a blessing to be a part of an organization that the Lord's favor and blessing are so apparently on. The second place where we invest a large portion of our time is Rays of Hope, the school in the slums of Kabalagala. I coach the boys futbol (soccer) team at Rays of Hope and they are awesome! So far we are undefeated (1-0)! We smashed our first opponent 5-0! (It was actually just a scrimmage, but I decided to make it a part of our official record). The third place that we have spent our time is at Airfield, which is a primary school that also boards about forty children who are orphans. We have been taking medicine to the children at Airfield who are sick, because they are unfortunately under the control of a woman who claims to be a Christian but her actions indicate otherwise as she steals from the children and withholds basic necessities from them. This often translates into them being malnourished and when they are sick, not receiving any treatment, purely because she does not care about them or love them. It is both devastating and infuriating. 

Please pray that we receive wisdom from the Lord on how to handle all of these situations in His timing and according to His will as our desire is to help these children as much as we legally can. Please also pray for the Lord's intervention in this matter and that He would provide a way for these children first to come to know Him personally and secondly, that He would provide a way out of this situation for them. Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support. Your prayers are evident as the Lord has provided healing for me and many of the other interns while we recover from various sicknesses. Please keep lifting us up to the Father!

Life in Kabalagala

Where sin runs deep, your grace is more.

Where grace is found is where you are.

And where you are, Lord, I am free.

Holiness is Christ in me.

These lyrics from the latest Passion CD, Here For You have been stuck in my head this whole week.  Starting on Monday we went to minister to a school in the slums of Kabalagala. The school is called Rays of Hope. It is very hard to describe what life is like for children in Kabalagala and many other slums like it. In a place where witchcraft, abuse, abandonment, and sexual immorality are rampant, the only way to encapsulate the spiritual warfare and the evil presence is to quote the lyrics above; it is a place where “sin runs deep.”

Just to give you an idea of the situations we have encountered there in just 5 days, let me share with you a few.

-Shaamira, now ten years old, is a beautiful girl who attends Rays of Hope and always carries a smile on her face, despite the daily pain and embarrassment she feels as she bears the weight of deep emotional and physical scars. When Shaamira was 3 years old, she asked her step-mother for a drink of water, becoming annoyed by Shaamira’s request, her step-mother intentionally spilled a pot of boiling water all over Shaamira’s body. She received third degree burns all over her body that burnt through skin and muscle and exposed bone. Because of lack of medical care here, Shaamira’s body is marked with gruesome scars. Also, her skin did not heal properly and as she grows, she faces the daily pain of her scarred skin stretching and not adjusting properly.  Shaamira needs help from an American doctor who can help heal her physical wounds, but more than anything she needs the healing that comes from knowing her Heavenly Father loves her and calls her beautiful despite the distorted skin all over her chest and arms.

-On Tuesday, ten year old Patricia, who is a Rays of Hope student, was heard screaming. Having no food that day and no means of obtaining it, Patricia had agreed to give her body away to a man, in order that she would have about 25 cents to eat that day. She was brought back to the school and hung her head low in shame. When asked if she knew that she was worth so much more than that and that Jesus had paid an incredibly high price for her life, she answered “no” with tears filled in her eyes and walked away.

-Joan is a 7 year old orphan girl who attends Rays of Hope. She was born completely normal, but after her caregiver agreed to sell her soul to a witch doctor, Joan soon lost her ability to hear and is now deaf. She is the sweetest girl. However, being an orphan girl who lives in a slum, there is little to no hope for her to survive. Thanks be to God that a family from America is in the process of adopting her and brother Derek and that she will soon learn to communicate through sign language and be in a home with a loving mother and father.

-On Friday morning, eight year old Brendah was also brought in to Rays of Hope. Spotted in her school uniform, she was found hanging around older boys who were doing drugs. Eight years old…

As you look among the children, there are scars that mark their bodies. Each of them has stories of heartache where they have been raped, abused, and abandoned by their earthly parents, aunties and uncles. Of the 300 children at Rays of Hope, over 250 are orphans and over 50 have AIDS. I long for these children to know that they have a Father in Heaven who knows every pain they have felt and longs to heal them and hold them in His arms. I pray that in the midst of such evil, these precious children would find that Jesus is their only Hope. As you climb to the top of the slum in Kabalagala, you will hear the students at Rays of Hope singing “I love Jesus, yes, I do, I love Jesus, He is my savior, He is my best friend.” These words echo down through the slum, to the Mosque that’s walls are inches from Rays of Hope, to the prostitute along the roadside who sells her body to men, to the little boy who is beaten by his auntie, and to the witch doctors who are bound by their sin and worship of the devil.

As your heart becomes burdened by these stories and for these children, please plead to our Heavenly Father on their behalf and ask Him what role you might play in furthering the gospel in these children’s lives and what that might look like. A program is in the midst of being set up, where each of these children at Rays of Hope will have the opportunity to be sponsored by families across the world. Please contact me at ecastle91@yahoo.com if you would like to learn more about this.

So, to wrap this up…I find joy and comfort and in knowing that God is not for the perfect and those who are without fault. Rather, “where sin runs deep, His grace is more. Where grace is found is where He is” and in Him we find freedom, forgiveness and healing. God’s grace is greater than the evil and corruption in Kabalagala and I long to see Him redeem these people as He has redeemed me and my evil heart.  I know that He will, because I see His faithfulness in my life, despite all my sin, so I will labor in prayer for God’s will to be done in this slum and that He will break the chains of evil and be exalted above all other names.

Desperate For Redemption

Isaiah 61:1-3.

1The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3to grant to those who mourn in Zion- to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

I have always loved this passage of scripture. There is something about it that when I read it, it leaves me in awe of and filled with the power of the gospel.  I think it is the confidence and tenacity with which Isaiah declares that the Lord has anointed him and is going to use him to further God’s kingdom.  I, too, know that God has called me to minister to his children in Uganda and I eagerly wait with my eyes set on Him, knowing that He has complete knowledge of everything that will take place this summer. What a blessing to know that He has gone before me and I am not alone. 

I was reading over this passage before I left because I feel like it captures my heart for what I long to see the Lord do among the nations. When I came to the end of verse 3, it marked the end of the often quoted passage with which I had become familiar. I began to wonder why the rest of the passage was never included. While I cannot claim to have mastered the meaning behind the whole passage, I feel like every time I read the passage God grants me a greater understanding of what it means and how it relates to what and where He has called me.  With that being said, I continued reading to verse 4 and had no idea what it was talking about or how it could apply to anything. Then I began to pray that the Lord would grant me further understanding as I felt that He had directed me to this passage.  I read the passage again, and immediately the Lord gave me an understanding of His word. I’m not sure why I was so surprised. It really challenged me to start praying with full expectation that God can and will answer my prayers when my heart is pure and set on Him. 

Verse 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

So, the Lord showed me that verse 4 was not about actual physical structures that were destructed, but rather the lives of individuals who were formerly in ruin but since they received “a beautiful headdress…the oil of gladness…the garment of praise,” now they are “oaks of righteousness” and are being redeemed “that he may be glorified.” I love the words in the verse that point to the redemptive ways of our God… “build up…raise up…repair.” To me, the picture of the Lord redeeming the poor, brokenhearted, captives and bound is overwhelmingly beautiful. Immediately after reading the verse a second time, the Lord showed me that he was going to use me to bring His name forth in Uganda, that the former devastations might be redeemed, that the ancient ruins might be rebuilt.  Uganda has been devastated by the acts of the LRA (refer to my last post to read about what the LRA or Lord’s Resistance Army has done in Uganda) and now the Lord seeks to restore villages, restore girls who have been raped and restore boys who have been forced to murder their own family and friends. Now, the Lord desires that the people would not only be reconciled to Him but that they would be reconciled to each other.  And the picture becomes even more beautiful when we realize that we were once orphans, captive to our sin and without any hope and the Lord redeemed us and now uses you and me to help restore others to Him. Thank you Lord for including me in what you are doing among the nations.

Please join me in praying for the reconciliation of the Ugandan people first to God and second to each other.

The Journey Continues

Although my journey in Uganda begins on Friday morning when I leave America on an airplane, I feel as if this journey has been underway for many years and this is simply the next phase. Allow me a minute to explain. In 8^th grade I distinctly remember watching a documentary on the turmoil inside a war-stricken country in Africa. The young boys were kidnapped, brainwashed, and trained to be soldiers who then returned to their villages temporarily for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc. They were forced to mutilate, amputate, and murder their siblings, parents, neighbors, and friends. These were and are boys. Not teenagers and men. Boys. It is beyond my ability to imagine my almost 5 year old nephew being taken into the hands of such evil men and being trained to perform such horrific acts. As if this is not enough, the girls and women were also kidnapped and brutally raped.

We often become numb to such stories of brutality as we are so far removed and often feel powerless in the face of a crisis so daunting. However, the Lord softened my heart for His people in Africa on that day and even at that young age I knew that the Lord had called me to eventually go to Africa. Not because of what I can offer these people, but because of what I can learn from them as they have persevered through this devastation and most importantly the healing and hope that I know my Lord can give to these precious people.

Now, seven years later, these tragedies are still rampant in Africa and my burden has only intensified as the Lord has faithfully led me exactly where He wants me to be. His provision, guidance, and peace are more than evident to me and through these means He has repeatedly confirmed His will for me. While my family and friends might be concerned over my safety, I would not want to be anywhere else but in the will of God and I rest in knowing that He holds me in His hands.

Please pray that I make all my connections and that my luggage arrives in Uganda with me.

Note: Whether or not you think that this post was well thought and put together, I assure you that the posts to follow will be much more scattered and accompanied with many more typos! So please bear with me as I try to keep you updated throughout the summer. Thank you for all your prayers and support! :)