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Mark 8:1-26
Matthew 16:12
Luke 6:40

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Mark 7:1-23
Jeremiah 2:22
Matthew 5:17-18

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Mark 6:7, 12-13, 14, 30-33, 45-52
Matthew 14:28-33
1 John 4:16-19
Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV)
Hebrews 10:35-39

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Hebrews 2:1
Genesis 1:26-28a
Genesis 3:4-13, 21, 24
Hebrews 1:1-3
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV)

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Mark 6:1-6
Luke 2:46-47
John 8:38-41
Isaiah 53:2-5
Hebrews 2:1

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Mark 5:21-43
Luke 14:26-27
Ephesians 2:1-10

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Mark 5:1-20
John 10:10
Matthew 12:28
Romans 15:8-9a
1 Peter 2:9-10
Acts 20:24
Matthew 28:18-20

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Mark 4:26-41
Isaiah 55:8-9
Psalm 8
Jeremiah 17:7
Psalm 107:26-29

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Mark 3:22-30, 4:1-25
Isaiah 6:9-10
Isaiah 55:10-11
Jeremiah 17:7-8
Galatians 6:7-10

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Mark 2:18-3:6
Judges 20:26
Exodus 20:8-11
Matthew 5:17
Isaiah 43:18-19
Matthew 11:28-30

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Mark 1:9-15
Matthew 3:14-15
Isaiah 11:1-2
Isaiah 61:1
Isaiah 42:1
Psalm 2:7
Isaiah 53:11
2 Corinthians 5:21
1 Peter 3:18
Romans 6:3-4
1 John 4:7-8
James 1:13
Hebrews 4:15
1 John 3:8b
Luke 5:31-32

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Mark 1:16-34
Matthew 4:12-16
John 1:35-42
Luke 5:1-11
1 Corinthians 1:26-29
Mark 3:14-15
Mark 8:34-35
Hebrews 12:2

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Isaiah 11:1-2
Isaiah 61:1
Isaiah 42:1
Psalm 2:7
Isaiah 53:11
2 Corinthians 5:21
1 Peter 3:18
Romans 6:3-4
1 John 4:7-8
James 1:13
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1 John 3:8b
Luke 5:31-32

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Mark 1:1-8
Matthew 1:20-21
Romans 1:1-6, 16

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Ecclesiastes 1:1-2, 12-14
Ecclesiastes 2:1-26
Ecclesiastes 3:10-14
Ecclesiastes 4:4
Ecclesiastes 6:7
Ecclesiastes 7:20
Ecclesiastes 8:11-13
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

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2 Chronicles 6:14-21
2 Chronicles 7:1-3, 11-22
John 2:13-22
John 4:19-24

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2 Chronicles 1:1-13
John 14:12-14
1 John 5:13-15
Acts 17:26-28
Philippians 4:13, 19

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Acts 8:26-39

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1 Chronicles 29:5b-20

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2 Samuel 14:12-14
Jeremiah 29:11-14
Luke 15:31-32
Acts 17:24-28
John 14:6

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2 Samuel 11:1-5, 27b
2 Samuel 12:13
Romans 3:25-26 (NAS)
Psalm 51:1-19
Exodus 34:6b-7a
1 John 1:7-9

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2 Samuel 7:1-16
Hosea 3:4-5
Isaiah 16:5
Jeremiah 23:5
Ezekiel 34:23-24
Amos 9:11-12
Zechariah 12:10
Zechariah 13:1
Isaiah 9:6-7
Luke 1:31-33
Matthew 1:1
Revelation 11:15
Revelation 22:16-17

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Leviticus 19:1-2, 18
Romans 12:1-2, 14, 17-21
Romans 13:1-2
1 Samuel 24:1-13

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?

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.