Flying to Uganda and spending almost two weeks in the country is an expensive endeavor. Last year when I committed to go, I wasn’t sure how there would be enough money to pay all the expenses. This year we committed to send three of us. The uncertainty regarding money more than tripled. Yet, both last year and this year we have been so blessed to have other people contribute financially to help with the expenses and participate in the work. 

This time we have had family, friends, and SouthEdgers join together with us in an overwhelming way! As we look ahead to leaving in just a little over a month, we are certain to not only meet all the expenses for the three of us, we are sure to have at least a couple thousand dollars beyond that to devote to feeding the children in one or more of five orphanges/schools we will visit. That just blows me away!

If you are reading this and don’t know me personally, you may not know that I am not a “money guy.” As a kid I hated selling candy to support our school or sports teams. I could never be successful in a job in sales. I will help in just about any way I can in our kids’ schools, but I don’t ever want to be an officer in the PTA/PTO because my stereotype is that it is almost always about fundraising. Money is just not my thing.

So, to know that simply committing to go to Uganda, and telling others we are going, and providing a way for them to join in on the work by making it financially possible, and then seeing the result, it knocks me off my feet. It gives me a great sense of gratitude to God for what He can do in the hearts of people. It also humbles me to think that God would use us not only to care for the people of Uganda, but to nurture caring hearts in the lives of people we love.

Thinking about this drew me to a verse of Scripture, Philippians 4:19, where it says, “And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” I have always been very hesitant to use that verse as some sort of guarentee that God has to give me something. I take very seriously the word “needs” and don’t think that applies to hardly anything I want, even when it seems like it would be a way to love God and love others.

However, today I was so please to go back and read Chapter 4 of Philippians and find that before he writes Verse 19, Paul is thanking the Philippian believers for giving him money when he left Macedonia and more than once when he was in Thessalonica, so he could continue the work to which God had called him. He describes this giving from them to him this way, “Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account.” (Phil. 4:17) In the next verse he calls their gift, “…a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.” (Phil. 4:18)

I really hope everyone who has joined with us in making this trip a reality realizes that their offering, and the sacrifices they have made to make it are not really gifts to us, or even to the people of Uganda. They are gifts given to God.

Is there an opportunity before you to give a gift like that? What sacrifices would you have to make to give a gift like that now or in the future? What do you think God does in response to those who give these kinds of gifts? And finally, is there an opportunity for you be like David (discussed in Day #1) and just go first so that others have the chance to join you?

Growing up, my Dad worked for American Airlines. That impacted me in two ways I am thinking about today. First it meant we had the privilege of traveling quite a bit. Second, it meant we were transferred a couple of times and had to learn to live in new places. I now consider both of these great gifts.

Today I travel much less than I did as a kid, especially by plane. However,  the positive impact of  these two gifts has not been lost . My trip to Uganda last summer affirmed for me that I am still a very good traveler. I can sleep on a plane. I can navigate an airport. I can adjust to another time zone. And, I like it. It actually caught me off-guard to see how much some of the people I traveled with didn’t like it and/or struggled with it.

In additional to being a good traveler, I also was reminded last summer that I have a different way of looking at the world compared to others who would seem to be very much like me. The simplest way for me to describe it is to say I see myself as a citizen of the world.

I have friends I know it bothers when I talk this way, but I have to share it here. I really have no special fondness for the country of which I am a citizen or any of the seven state in which I have resided. I like them all fine. I just don’t define my identity by them. If God ever led me to move to another country and live there for the rest of my days, I would miss people and I would miss some trappings of the culture, but I would be gone in a second and not look back.

Well, if you haven’t checked out on me after that last paragragh, let me get to the positive part of my being a citizen of the world, I really believe we are all one family! The people of Uganda are just as much my brothers and sisters as the people in my neighborhood in Georgia. God loves them as much as He loves me and I am called to love them too.

This value is very important to me and I want to imprint it deeply in the hearts of my kids. That is one of many reasons this trip to Uganda is so special to me, my two oldest children are going with me.

When I was a senior in high school I took a school sponsored trip to the then Soviet Union. It was an educational trip with about twenty students and adults. It shaped me forever. Now, in just thirty-nine days I will take a trip with my middle school daughter and high school son that I hope will help them become citizens of the world.

Again, I have friends that just shake their heads when I talk about it, but I really hope my kids grow up to live all over the world, serving all kinds of people and believing that it is normal.

In the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus has a famous discussion with His disciples about being in the world, but not of the world. It is my hearts desire that my kids will grow up to know that they live in this WORLD. They don’t just live in our house or neighborhood or state or country. And, they aren’t just called to love people who are like them. They live in the world and that means the whole earth is a possible residence. Visiting Uganda will hopefully help them discover it is really possible to live anywhere.

But, this trip will also hopefully help them see life differently and be less likely to believe in the principles of the world, especially the American version that they breathe like air. It will be much more difficult, at least for awhile,  for them to say they are “starving” or “poor” or that a hotel room isn’t “clean” after they see what we will see.

They will also discover that there are people who have what we call “nothing” but are rich in love and hospitality and contentment. My trip to Russia was educational. But this trip to Uganda will be entire education! I can’t wait to see what they get and what they don’t. I can’t wait for their to be conversations decades from now when they finally realize just what this meant and how it shaped their decisions later in life.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples they are the, “Light of the world.” I am praying that we will not only get the chance to be Light to the people of Uganda, but that my kids will never again read that verse and think the “world” is limited by marks on a map.

I am excited! Just 40 days from now I will make my second trip to Uganda, Africa. Last summer I traveled there for the first time to care for the people, bring them supplies, and teach them about Jesus. During each of the 40 days prior to my departure, I blogged about what I was thinking and feeling and hoping. If you go read those blog entries, you will find that much of what occupied me then was the “unknown.” What would it be like? What would I experience? How would I respond? How could I possibly be ready?

This time is different! I have a frame of reference from which to operate. I know my experience won’t be identical, but it will be similar. And, I can’t wait! The best word to describe it is EXCITED!

That is also how I am feeling about this second 40-day blog experience–excited! As I mentioned last summer, 40 days is an important period of time in several Bible stories, from both the Old and the New Testament. What I think is so cool is that this past week I was studying a very famous Bible story that I had never before connected to 40 days, and yet there it was, just as I was about to start this blog. It was just another example of God being His crazy, wonderful self and directing my steps!

The story I studied was David and Goliath, found in 1 Samuel 17. Here is how 40 days plays a role in that story:

For 40 days the men of Israel, the soldiers representing God’s people, had been both engaged in a potential battle with their enemies, the Philistines, and stuck in a horrible routine. Day after day after day, for 40 days, they woke up and convinced themselves that “today would be different,” that “today they would finally face and fight and defeat the giant enemy before them.” Full of fear on the inside, they covered themselves with armor on the outside. Maybe it is more accurate to say they were hiding inside their armor. Then, they would shout a war cry to psyche themselves up, run to the battle line, and wait for the giant Goliath to throw down his challenge. But every morning and every evening, day after day when they heard his challenge for one of them to fight him for all the marbles, they all turned and ran for their lives. They faced the giant and lost without even attempting to fight.

I wonder how many people I will encounter in Uganda get up day after day convinced they will finally fight and defeat the “giants” in their lives (giants like poverty, hunger, disease, and spiritual darkness) only to give in to their fear and lose again and again without a fight? At the end of 40 days, David showed up, and in one profound act of courage and trust, he not only killed the giant before him, he also inspired all those fear-full Israelites to take courage and charge and fight and defeat the entire army of their enemies.

This is my desire in Uganda! My moment there is going to be brief. Yet, I want to take those who are stuck in fear and inspire them to trust God and have courage and charge forward to fight those enemies for the glory of God. Oh, if I could be used like David! That is my desire! It is possible! And, it is why I am excited!

What about you? Where are you going today, tomorrow, at the end of the next 40 days? Wherever that is, there are people stuck in fear, losing to the giants before them without even attempting to fight, and waiting for a David to go first and unleash their courage. What if God used you to be that David? Is that your desire? Do you believe it is possible? Are you EXCITED?