Remember the Poor

shared by Cara Murray

I originally sat down to write this blog about my recent trip to Katakwi. However, as I was reading a book by David Platt tonight on my taxi ride home, I came across a section that has really got me thinking. The truth is that the entire book has me thinking and is awesome (and I’d type it all on this blog but that may not be legal so I’ll just encourage you to purchase it), as are his sermons so I thought it appropriate to share this and the update on Katakwi will have to come later.

Platt asks this question, “Do we believe the reward found in Jesus is worth the risk of following him?” He then goes through Matthew 10 and lists the risks that Jesus said we would encounter if we did follow him. Matthew 10:8 says, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” Jesus is telling his disciples about the kind of people they would be among: the sick, the dying and the diseased. Jesus goes on to say in verse 16, “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves.” Clearly danger was added to the list of what the disciples could expect. Lastly, Matthew 10: 22-23, “All men will hate you because of me… when you are persecuted in one place, flee to another.” Jesus said when, not if.

So there you have it: the sick, the dying, the diseased, danger and persecution. I am onboard with going to the sick, the diseased and the dying. I am not sure about how I feel about danger. And I’m definitely not in love with the idea of being persecuted. With that said, I want a faith in which I would do whatever it takes. I want a faith that is so confident of the reward found in Jesus that I knew it was worth the risk at any cost.

It’s funny because on hard days when I think about going home, I think about how much easier things would be. I think about the support of my family and friends, ease of living (hot water, washing machines, street signs) and as of lately the food. But as it turns out, whether it is here or Chicago, the message of Matthew 10 does not say go to the comfortable places with healthy, safe, loving people. Jesus says to bring the gospel to the nations and he tells us what to expect when we do so. Shoot.

As it stands in Uganda, we are free to preach the Word of Christ without worry of danger and persecution but what about the unreached people who live in countries where being a Christian gets you killed? I kind of want to say that I’ll trust others to go there but if I’m honest, and Platt does a great job reminding us of this in the book, we don’t have that freedom. The Bible tells us to go and to be prepared for how hard it will be. But the Bible also tells us of the great reward for doing so. As you keep reading Matthew 10 verse 39 says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” So I pray for a faith that leads wherever God commands, be it Mongolia, Indonesia, Somalia or Chicago (although I hope there’s coffee wherever I go).

I’ll end with one more quote from Platt’s book, “This is the unavoidable conclusion of Matthew 10. To everyone wanting a safe, untroubled, comfortable life free from danger, stay away from Jesus.”

But to that I say, I don’t want to stay away from Jesus.

Cara on one of her trips to Teso

Tonya with Angela, who has been living with her and is now healed of her Tuberculosis

We have the privilege of partnering with two of the most amazing young women you’ll likely ever meet.  Cara lives in Entebbe near the Nkumba schools, and Tonya lives about 4 hours east in Jinja.  Both are in Uganda with Remember the Poor.

Trans-continental trips don’t come cheap!  If you have frequent flyer miles that you’d like to donate (or un-used airline gift cards), please email me with the quantity of miles you have available as well as the airline.  We have specific need for 4 tickets in late January, and 1 in March.  We can use both domestic and international carriers, as some of the travel is within the U.S.

Thank you!

We received the following email a couple of months ago from someone we have never met. We thought we would share it here. Frank and Cindy May

Hello,

My name is Charlie, a dentist in Spokane. I was searching around the internet for missions in dentistry, etc., when I happened upon a link to your ministry. I had no intention on going to the site as I surveyed the list of links. I do not know you and there are many ministries out there. But for some reason, my eyes kept seeing your names and I was compelled to go there. And so I did.

I loved reading your blog and my heart was moved.

I saw your links to David Platt and I had never heard of him. But you said it was a “must-see” for Christians, so I took you up on that. Well, let’s make a long story short, our family has been having “video nights” using David’s series and they have impacted us in amazing ways.  Not an hour goes by without some kind of thought towards our richness and how we can use our resources for heaven and not for ourselves just as Christ showed us. You were right: they are life-changing and I could not be more excited for what God is doing.

So I want to thank you. You, who I do not know, yet used by God to direct our thoughts towards heaven.

David Platt has become kind of a “second” pastor to us and a regular on our podcast subscriptions. I’m especially moved to see my 19 year old downloading many of David’s sermons to his ipod and the other night he had friends in his room and when I dropped in, they were watching one of David’s sermons on Radical Christianity. This has been real powerful.

Tomorrow night we start the Faith Works series. I’m excited about that. We would love to get other families involved with us too as they would be great for a small group ministry.

God Bless you guys in all your ministry and I will always be grateful to you as

Your brother in the Lord,
Charlie

We are so thankful to the person who introduced us to David Platt’s teaching on one of the most important subjects in the Bible.  We can’t help but share what God has used in our lives.  For anyone who leads a small group, these are two excellent series. (Click on the images above for links to the two online video message series.) Frank has led a couple of groups through this. And we love going through it again ourselves. It is powerful, and truly is a “must-see”. It fits well into a 13-week group. If you have questions or ideas, comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact us! ~ Frank and Cindy

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:23-25

From the village of Aleles in Teso, Uganda (click the images to enlarge and read the letter):

The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns, President of World Vision (excerpts from pages 135-139):

I Was Thirsty…

“Water is life, and because we have no water, life is miserable”- a voice from Kenya

Most of you began this morning with a hot, clean shower.  You brushed your teeth, filled a glass with water, and took a few vitamins.  Perhaps you brewed a cup of coffee or drank a glass of juice with breakfast.  And each day you run your washing machines and dishwashers and take your toilets for granted.  You probably have one, two, or even three bathrooms in your home.  You may also have a sprinkler system to water your lawn and garden.  Your refrigerator is filled with cold drinks, bottled water, and maybe even ice-cold water dispensed from its door.  If you have children, they probably haven’t spent even one hour of their lives fetching water for the family to drink or to bathe with.  And I’ll wager that neither you nor your children have ever had a sick day due to unclean water–unless you have travel to another country and picked up one of many waterborne bacteria or parasites.

So now, I want you to imagine for a moment that when you wake up tomorrow, all of the water-related fixtures and appliances have been removed from your home.  The sinks, toilets, bathtubs, and showers are gone.  Dishwasher, washing machine, garden hoses, sprinklers–all gone.  Let’s say, though, that everything else about your house remains the same.  Still, how would your life change with  just this one difference?

Where I live, we are fortunate to have a wonderful lake just about two miles away, so if I knew I was going to be without water, I could begin to plan ahead to organize some water fetching.  On foot, it would take about two hours round-trip to go fetch water to use for drinking and some rudimentary bathing, but thirty gallons of water weighs about 250 pounds.  I checked my water bill and learned that my family uses about 300 gallons a day.  That would weigh more than a ton and would require 50 round-trips to the lake each day, so my family might have to reduce their water consumption a bit.  Reducing to 30 gallons would be a 90% reduction, but carrying 30 gallons of water two miles would still take about five or six trips a day, carrying 50 pounds each time, consuming about ten hours of hard labor.  If you think it’s inconvenient to go to the gym to work out every morning, try lugging 50 pounds of water back to your house so you can brush your teeth and have a sponge bath–then try making that trip five times.  Now, if you had to work this routine into your schedule every day and still get everyone off to work on school on time, you would have to begin your treks in the wee hours of the morning.  Washing your clothes and dishes, let alone your own body, would become an overwhelming task.

Women and children in developing countries invest 200,000,000 hours a day in fetching water.  That’s equal to a full-time workforce of 25,000,000 people fetching water eight hours a day, seven days a week.

A few years ago, I was traveling in West Africa.  We visited a village in Northern Ghana called Gbum Gbum (pronounced boom boom).  As we gathered around the borehole well that World Vision had drilled several years earlier right next to the school, the school’s headmaster told us that before the borehole he had just 40 students.  Now more than 400 children attended the school!  The difference?  Before the water came to Gbum Gbum, the women and children had to spend about five hours each day fetching water from a waterhole several kilometers away.  They would rise early, before dawn, making several trips throughout the day; they had no time or energy for school.  Another man told me that before the well, children and adults alike were riddled with Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis) caused by parasitic nematodes found in contaminated water.  These worms grow inside the body, sometimes up to three feet in length, and then when full-grown, burrow out through the skin, causing crippling pain and infection.  Now the Guinea worms were gone.

As I continued our walk through the village, we met several dozen women working with great effort to make something called shea butter, an ingredient used in skin lotions and cosmetics, from a locally grown plant.  To my amazement, they were selling this shea butter for a profit.  In fact, I was told that it was even being bought by Bath and Body Works–in the U.S.!  The only thing these women had needed to create this business was time and clean water, both of which were now available.

In Africa, they don’t say that water is important to their lives; they say that water is life.  It is absolutely the foundation upon which civilization and human life is built, and the best news is that we have the knowledge and the technology to provide it.  All we lack is the will.

shared by Nicholas Kowald

Hi! My name is Nicholas. I am 12 years old and I live in Australia but I am on my way to Africa!!

My uncle drove us to the airport and we hopped out of the car and grabbed our suit cases and walked into the building. Team Australia consisted of me, Aunty Narelle and Dad. After 12 hours of flying we touched down on the ground in South Africa and got off the plane. It was a long trip and now I was suffering from jet lag. It was the first time I had ever experienced it.

Finally Team Australia reached Uganda after a few hours of flight and now the jet lag was really starting to hit me. I swear I could have fallen asleep when we arrived. We were met by Frank (Team America), Seggy (Team Uganda) and Mark who was in Team Uganda as well. We had dinner at a hotel and then left for Banana Village. We reached Banana Village and then I crashed… 

Me and dad woke up and walked around to see Banana village, when I casually mentioned how cool it would be to see some monkeys. Trusting my luck we walked outside and looked around and a monkey tried to kill us… literally it started dropping random bits of rotten fruit down to hit us on the head. Luckily no one was hurt. What a fun welcome to Uganda!

One thing I forgot to mention was that the Greg and Patti Kerr arrived last night so now we were a proper team united from different continents. We were together. The team was as follows: Team America: Greg, Frank, Patti and Cara (Cara lives in Uganda but is born in America so its hard to categorize her!) Team Australia: Nicholas, Andrew and Narelle and finally Team Uganda: Seggy and every other person here!

We traveled for five hours to get to our first destination: “Gulu”. On the way we saw the Nile river and baboons. Even Cara was acting like a tourist! We reached our hotel (which I highly disliked, next time I want to sleep in a hut) and met Pastor Experito and his wife Justine. I then went for a swim in the hotel pool and we left for dinner…

We all sat down, ordered and 4 hours later we got our last meal. At least we got to know everyone better. We had taken a young man for dinner named Alfred and he didn’t seem to mind that the food had taken so long.  In fact we might still be waiting for my drink!

The next day we headed out to Alfred’s parents house where we saw the borehole (well) that Remember the Poor had donated. After a short visit we prayed for them and got back into the car. We then drove for a long time to a school where we were greeted by song and dance. We then left after talking to everyone. On the way back Pastor Experito’s tire deflated and we had to leave him.

The next day we went back to the school again. We all split up into two groups and left for three houses each. Unfortunately at our first house no one was there so that took it down to two, but everything else was awesome such as when we reached the first house we went inside their hut and I prayed and talked to them. (Using a translator) I said “I wish I lived here… you have way better houses than what we have in Australia… we have these massive houses that we don’t need.” The reply was “from now on you live here” and lots of laughs.“  Dad then said that my Mum would be sad if I stayed here!

The second house I found puppies and I played with them. They asked my dad whether or not I wanted to keep one… my dad’s reply was that we already had a dog… anyway how would we get it back to Australia?

We left Gulu that day…  I had decided that someday I was going back.

We keep going all over the place, which is fine with me!  And now we are going to Katakwi from Banana Village, but on the way there we are stopping at Seggy’s parents house for lunch, there I eat a feast with my hands… it was sooooooooooooooooo good. I got out the rocket balloons and I brought kids from all over to watch. It was awesome!

One the way to Katakwi, God put on a “Fire works” display for us (lightning is awesome). We reached the place we were staying but there were not enough rooms for all of us, so Seggy and Cara found more rooms at a nearby motel.

Today I woke up remembering that I somehow was meant to find verses for my preaching to the kids in Apelleun… but the light was not working and it was still dark. I waited a bit longer. Then I got out my Bible and found what I wanted to use and Cara and Seggy came over to us for breakfast. We then got into the van rolled the door shut and started driving.  We reached the village and we were swarmed by numerous kids.  Something was telling me that this was going to be chaos.  I was right!  When I was speaking, the hundreds of kids lost interest and lots were looking forward to when I would stop talking. My message did not make its way to their ears. The translator was great; the number of kids was not. When we handed out the beads to the children to make bracelets we were swamped. I also used the rocket balloons and the kids went psycho over it. They loved it… I loved it!  

Alelesi was a lot better. We did the same thing but this time we made pre-made bracelets and there were twenty kids not three hundred, so we got a lot better response from the kids. And I felt that I spoke a lot better this time and the beads were in better control now, though the kids did not like the balloons as much this time but I liked this village better…

We then left Katakwi for Jinja so we sat down in the car and drove for a long time when we finally reached Jinja.  We went to Tonya’s house to stay and we talked for a while and I played with Christopher and Clayton until I had to go to bed.

I woke up surrounded by a mosquito net as usual and dropped down from the bunk bed; then I got up and went out to see only a few people up and doing things like me.  A while later Tonya had made us all banana bread which was really nice. Dad had also invented nutella and banana which tastes just like a chocolate banana– we had a banana breakie. We then got everyone together and we walked to Renee’s house and were met by lots of little children and mothers. Dad got me to have a photo with a young baby named Sophia.  Soon I was cradling her.



At lunch time I went out to help feed the five hundred! They consisted of all children. I was handing out the bananas and having a great time. It was really tiring though! 

The next day was my last day in Uganda in which I gave one hundred dollars to Cara for a bike and cart for the Alelesi village, and after I took a bodoh bodoh (a taxi like motorcycle) with dad to Cara’s house it was so fun! We walked to the Nkumba School/ church and took two children with us to go to the beach (Lake Victoria). At the beach we had fish and chips which tasted great. I even ate the eye ball. It was the best! I felt really sad that I had to go and I kept on looking at my surrounding area thinking how much I would miss it all, and I promised many people that I would come back. I said goodbye to the people I would not see in the morning and went to bed.

I awoke and remembered I was leaving and I was really sad. Frank, Patti and Greg got up early to see the Australians off and then we were driven to the airport by Seggy.

So here I am sitting at this computer typing up 2 weeks of information: a really hard job to get information to you. I love Uganda and I need to go back someday… as a missionary!…. someday.