When I was twelve years old, my main concern was surviving middle school. My mind was focused on things like impressing my crush, having my own phone line,and getting my first kiss. I think back to those years and remember how awkward I was. Life was tough on all of us at that age, right? So I thought.
In my last blog, I introduced you to Nancy. Now I'd like to share her story with you.
When Nancy was twelve, her concept of struggle was totally different than mine. In 2003, she was abducted from her home at night, along with 9 other siblings and cousins. The rebels targeted her home after being informed of two things. First of all, a teacher (her father-Santo-also introduced in my last blog) lived there, which to them meant he worked for the government. Second, they were informed that there would be many children there. The rebels came to the house around 11:30 that night. They threatened the bomb the entire house if they weren't allowed in, so the mother opened the door. Santo had left that very day to stay at the university, so he wasn't at home. If the rebels had come one day earlier or later, he would have been killed. Everyone was tied together and taken away. Nancy said she was crying hysterically, but they threatened to kill anyone who cried. The rebels took all of the belongings from the house and dragged the children into the night. The mother was dropped off and allowed to return home because she had Robin (a small baby at the time). Out of the ten children taken from the home that continued with the rebels, the youngest was six. The commander told them that they wanted Santo to pursue them so that he could be killed. The kids were smeared with a black vasaline-type substance so that they could be identified by other rebels in the event of an escape. This marker meant they would be killed on site. They then began their walk toSudan.
Andrew is Nancy's brother. I've also gotten very close to him. He has a large part in this story, as well. Andrew was ten when the rebels came. The ten children were separated into different groups. Andrew was with some of the other children, but not Nancy. Andrew had a special job. He was basically one of the commander's personal slave. He carried his equipment, gun, and food. They were given very little (if anything) to eat most of the time. Typically, two cups of beans was split between his group of twenty other abductees. The rebels had no regard for human life. If they came across a river that needed to be crossed, someone would be pushed in to gage the depth, which usually resulted in drowning. They were frequently beaten by canes for being "lazy". They were walking to Sudan to train to become soldiers. Yes, I do mean walking to Sudan. At one point, Andrew said he was too tired to keep going. His feet, ankles, and legs were swollen greatly. Running on barely any food, he had enough. He sat down and refused to keep walking. Keep in mind he is ten years old at this time. The commanders threaten to kill him if he doesn't continue. He tells them that they'll just have to kill him because he can't do it anymore. An older abductee (around thirty) had a similar response with exhaustion. Without thought, they killed him with a machete. Andrew guesses they let him live because he was the coveted luggage carrier. He finally got up and continued walking.
Both Nancy and Andrew have a similar escape story, even though they happened two months apart. Government troops ambushed the rebels. Planes flew overhead and dropped bombs. Soldiers on the ground fired guns. The commander that Andrew was tied to was shot in the chest. They both fell to the ground. Andrew grabbed the knife from the rebel's waistbelt and cut himself free. He crawled on the ground until he escaped the gun fire. A soldier eventually found him and took him to safety. In the chaos of the battle Nancy encountered, she ran as fast as she could into the bush. She ran and ran until she finally found help.
Andrew was gone for one year and one month. He was the first to return home. Nancy was gone for one year and three months. Out of the ten that were taken, only six survived. Their sister was killed by a government bomb during an attack. Casualties was not a concern. Three cousins died as well, but I'm not sure of the details. Andrew thinks he was the only person to survive the day he escaped. He said, "God protected me...because I was tied to the commander who was shot, I fell on the ground. The bullets went above me. God must have a special plan for my life". Wow.
If you've seen the movie Blood Diamond, you remember the scene where the African father finds his young son who was abducted and turned into a child soldier. The son doesn't recognize his father. I always thought this part was dramatized in the movie. Who could forget their own father? Andrew could. He didn't remember people. He didn't remember how to have normal conversations. He was used to only following commands. War was all he knew. It took time, but he was rehabilitated and is doing wonderful. He's so intelligent and mature for his age.
Nancy is doing well also. She is nineteen and just passed the exams to continue her education. She wants to be a doctor. She sings in the youth worship group and has been at church almost every day since we've been here. I'm really going to miss my friend. Santo, Nancy, Andrew, and the rest of the family have been so hospitable. We spent time at their home again this week and it was amazing, just like last time (refer to previous blog).
These are faces of Northern Uganda. This nation has been plagued with the longest running war of Africa's history. And it's been personal. Every single person we've encountered was affected. It's their story. And there are so many. These stories are no longer just stories. Nancy and Andrew are representations of the mllions of people that have endured through this conflict. They've all been through so much, but they have hope. They have joy. Last night there was worship time at the church. The last song they sang was one I'd heard before...but never in this light. "Sing for joy to God our strength." I've been in services in which we sang this song. For these people, it has so much more meaning. God has been their strength. And he is their joy. In the midst of the tragedies they've faced, they latched onto the hope of Christ. They glow with joy. Glow. And it's contagious. They give me hope.
If we call to him he will answer us
If we run to him he will run to us
If we lift our hands he will lift us up
Come now praise his name, all you saints of God
Sing for joy to God our strength
Sing for joy to God our strength
Draw near to him, he is here with us
Give him your love, he's in love with us
He will heal our hearts, he will cleanse our hands
If we rend our hearts, he will heal our land.
Turkey is literally the #1 unreached country in the world. A country is
considered unreached if less than 2% claim to be Christian. In Turkey,
the percentage is 0.05. Out of 73 million people, only 3000 are
Christians. I would say this is the darkest place we've been so far.
We have been in here for about 10 days now. our focus here has been street evangelism and possibly going to do ethnothgraphy (facilitating groups of people to tell their stories in words) in northern turkey. This would involve searching for a specific people group and then interviewing them and collecting research for our local contacts. For now we are basically, hitting the streets of Istanbul to prayer walk, talk to people, and distribute Bibles to them. We have gotten creative in our approach to evangelism here. We created a survey that we give the people we meet, which gives us an easy open door to talk about their beliefs. This also allows us to be more listeners and hear where people are coming from and their beliefs, and learn about their culture, rather then just preaching at them directly. The town we went to yesterday, had no Christians or missionaries living there and the people we came into contact with or walked past, may have had their first encounter with Jesus ever! None of them spoke a word of English but we still managed to build realtionships in that town and distribute some Bibles after being invited into a few places for tea. It was a great day! We also are doing ministry in the town we are living in. I met a guy named Serkan, that I gave the survey to who was a modern Muslim. At first, he was very hesitant about talking with me or answering any questions. by the end of our conversation, he seemed to really enjoy being forced to come up with answers to tough questions. He was very open and that gave me the opportunity to open up a little bit. I ended the survey by telling what I was doing this year and why I was here. Also, I had a gift for him if he wanted it that had some of the answers to these big life questions. I left him with a packet that contained the gospel of Luke, a cd, and a movie about Jesus. Please continue to pray for our team, as well as Serkan and the country of turkey!
This blog is stolen from my teammate Halley, whole stole it from Chelsea, who stole it from Nick. Gotta love plagarism.
The girls of Team Ninja NEED YOUR HELP!
What has Colby done?
Our fearless leader Colby decided to shave his beard off before the conclusion of "No Shave '09." This would be a forgivable action, except the fact that he left a "CREEPER 'STACHE!"
We tried all we could possibly think of to convince him to shave it off, but he has refused over and over again. After hearing our pleas and bitter insults thousands of times, our dread and disgust sparked creativity in the moustached man. Finally, Colby came to us with a solution to the problem that has been plaguing us for days. He has come up with his terms for when he will shave.
Are you ready? Colby has agreed to shave the "Creeper 'Stache" when and only when two thousand dollars have been added to Nick and Lacey's World Race support account. You might say that this is an outlandish statement. I think it's genius. He knows how badly we want him to shave, and so this becomes motivation to support Nick and Lacey in their support-raising cause. The terms have been set down. Will you help to end the reign of terror, disgust, and shock?
For the love of all that is good in the world, please help us. End the madness and CLICK HERE!
i have realized i am not much of a blogger and probably never will be but i will try to do this more frequently or at least couple times a month. first of all, our teams have switched up a bit along with my respsoiibilities. i have been moved from handling the squad logistics, to becoming a team leader. my new team is mostly the same as before (nick, lacey, chelsea, and halley) except we lost ken and added anthony.
we have been staying at a spiritual retreat center for the first half of our time here in israel. its been amazing to just be able to rest, read, and connect with each other and god. the guy we are staying with knows the bible like no one i have met. i am trying to soak as much out of him as i can while i am here. i am so thankful for our time here and the opportunities we have had thus far. our team took a day to float in the dead sea, jump off waterfalls in en gedi (this is where david wrote many of his psalms while hiding out from saul), and snuck into a hotel pool and jacuzzi.
we also got to visit a sculpture called the fountain of tears at a house near where we are staying. the sculpture tied the holocaust and suffering the jews went through and christ's suffering on the cross together and all the emotions both were experiencing. i think our time with the artist who created this piece was more powerful and impacting then any of the holocaust museums i have been to. after he was finished giving the explanation, we sat in silence because there were no words. www.castingseeds.com
i just want to thank everyone who has supported me in prayer and given financially. i am fully funded but i have teammates who still have a long way to go. nick and lacey pauley are an incredible married couple, i have been so blessed to have as teammates. would you guys consider giving financially to help them reach their goal? check out their video below and click HERE to donate.
we have been in albania for a week or so now but i thought i would share a post from my teammate halley bec she did such a stellar job describing our travel here and what we are up to.
Here we are, finally in Albania. Allow me to give you a quick rundown of our travels these past few days.
Saturday: Depart from Brasov
3 hour train ride to Bucharest
10 hour layover
13 hour train ride to Belgrade, Serbia
10 hour layover
11 hour train ride to Skopje, Macedonia
9 hour layover
6 hour bus ride to Tirana, Albania
Tuesday: Arrive at final destination
Our intense travel schedule has been full of ups and downs. The layovers have actually been quite nice. We've had the chance to see the cities and relax for a while. The train rides have been overnight, and the first was pleasant. The second was miserable. I'm pretty sure the bus ride should have taken us 9 hours. Our driver was a speed demon. The bus was scheduled to arrive at 4:00 am, but we rolled into the city at 1:00. We unloaded our gear and found a park nearby. We stacked our packs between two trees and formed a circle around the perimeter with our mats. The plan was to sleep for 4-5 hours, so the guys took shifts staying awake and keeping guard. Rest assured that we have incredible men of God looking out for us this year. We awoke to a beautiful Albanian morning. Three people went to scout the city in search of lodging. The problem isn't finding a place to stay, it's finding a place to stay within our budget. Even the backpackers' hostel was more than double our available
funds. The rest of us had a quaint little worship service in the park.
I'm pretty sure the locals thought we were famous or something because
they kept getting their friends to take their picture with us. It was
amusing.
I've been astounded at the ways God is moving already. When we arrived Tuesday morning, we had no place to stay, no ministry contact, no food, and no money (our ATM card hasn't worked since Serbia). I'm now sitting in the national headquarters for Campus Crusade here in Albania. Ken worked with Crusade in California, and Chelsea was involved in the Toledo campus, so they both have a network. They both e-mailed the director here last week, completely unaware that the other was doing the same. We never heard back from the director, but the scouting group found the office. The director shared with them that he woke up at 1:00 am Tuesday morning (ironically enough) and couldn't sleep because he was thinking about us. He didn't know when we were arriving in Albania - his wife had just told him about the e-mails and he hadn't had the chance to respond. He said he prayed that he would be able to help us, and here we are. We've been offered full use of this building. We even had the chance to shower! That makes real shower number seven, by the way. They bought us an amazing lunch, complete with Coke and peach tea. And they're setting us up with ministry opportunities. Josh Mcdowell will be here in a little less than a month for a big youth event that we'll be helping out with.They even offered us free lodging.
We're living with the director's neighbors, Petrit and Meredith, who also work with Crusade. This family is great. Petrit is Albanian and Meredith is American - from close to Gainseville, Georgia! She even knew where West Point was, which is 5 minutes from my house. Such a small world. They have three beautiful children - 6, 2, and a few months old. This house is incredible. It's pretty much designed to house people like us for ministry. We were blown away when we saw that we all had our own beds. We were ridiculously giddy. They aren't just beds. They are COMFY beds. With real pillows. And we have a shower!
Our very own shower for the first time. We have access to a full
kitchen and a washing machine. We've been so blessed. There has been
such a turn around in such a shortperiod
of time. From being homeless to living in the lap of luxury. Please
keep us in your continued prayers as we explore this new country.
We're working with Team Triumph this month, so feel free to visit their
blogs as well.
also, here is a video that i wanted to share from romania. we gave our mama and poppa a chainsaw as a gift and they were so overwhelmed with gratefulness. this moment was one of the highlights of the trip thus far!
we have been living in a gypsy village for the past week in the mountains of romania. our host couple has been amazing. we call them momma and poppa and i think thats all they really understand from us but we all still manage to laugh a lot together. we sleep in their tiny 2 bedroom home and cook our meals for us. i spent one morning learning a romanian worship song from poppa and wrote it down on paper phonetically so i could read it and teach it to the team. we all got up and sang with poppa during the church service and it was a hit! our first week we have been going door to door inviting everyone to church and praying for them. the afternoons we have been playing soccer with the men and games with the kids. every night has been a bible study which is a shorter version of church (regular church lasts from 730pm-1230 and sometimes goes until 3 or 4 am). this week we planned a sports camp, vbs, teaching english in school, and hopefully a prayer night, maybe a baptism service. lots of ideas so we will see what happens.
well, i have been in ireland for 2 weeks now so i think its about time i get a blog up. i guess that means i should have more to report on. we spent the first 5 days in dublin doing training sessions with the AIM staff that flew in to meet us here. Both squads camped just outside of dublin in a town called clondalkin. After training, our squad headed to the west coast of Ireland to a city called galway. we have been camping in rain and heavy winds everyday and are just trying to stay dry.
The church we have been partnering with is called Abundant Life. So far, our ministry here has been doing street evangelism. Each day we head to a big park in the center of town and share the gospel with those we meet. In general, the irish people are pretty turned off to the church because of all the abuses that have been surfacing. This has allowed for some great opportunities to hear their thoughts and share my own on our beliefs. A couple of the people I have met at the park so far:
-Ahmed (from Tunisia): devout Muslim I shared the gospel with and was able to pray for him after he prayed for me in arabic.
-Darius: I have run into him at the park on 3 different days, so we have been building a good friendship. Each day he asks more and more questions about Christianity and God.
Please con't to pray for my team to be bold, to listen where to go and who to speak with for our last week in Ireland. We fly to Romania on Sept 1st.
Cheers!
Here is a video clip of our time and ministry so far.
i grew up as a missionary kid but i dont think my friends and i were exactly the greatest examples of what that's supposed to look like. i know i definitely did not want to be a missionary when i was growing up. somehow in the last five years god has really changed this in me, and i have developed a heart geared towards expanding the kingdom of god around the world. a big part of the reason for this would be the church i have been going to. i have been on several mission trips with my church that have really impacted me in life changing ways. as a church, we went through a season of discovering what it means to give ourselves away. it was amazing to be in a place where we could discover what this looked like as a church together. ot of 5000 people, we sent over 2000 people on mission during the summer. it was also around this time that i saw the documentary, Invisible Children. after watching this, i decided i didnt want to sit on the sidelines any longer but wanted to be involved in these social justice issues. i finally got my chance to go to northern uganda and i am so excited to be able to return with the world race. i have always wanted to do something like the world race but there have always been excuses that have prevented me from going (mostly student loans). one day, i stumbled across the world race info while reading relevent magazine and looked the website up. i spent the next couple hours reading blogs and looking at pictures of some of the world racers. i was blown away at how this was exactly the thing i have been wanting to do but had no idea existed. this trip has everything that i love and value- traveling the world (especially areas of extreme poverty ), community, making disciples, ministry in social justice issues, backpacking, competition, partnering with local churches, and learning from the established missionaries in each country we visit. i have no idea what my future holds in terms of missions but i think this is a great step to help me discover what that could look like.
When Nancy was twelve, her concept of struggle was totally different than mine. In 2003, she was abducted from her home at night, along with 9 other siblings and cousins. The rebels targeted her home after being informed of two things. First of all, a teacher (her father-Santo-also introduced in my last blog) lived there, which to them meant he worked for the government. Second, they were informed that there would be many children there. The rebels came to the house around 11:30 that night. They threatened the bomb the entire house if they weren't allowed in, so the mother opened the door. Santo had left that very day to stay at the university, so he wasn't at home. If the rebels had come one day earlier or later, he would have been killed. Everyone was tied together and taken away. Nancy said she was crying hysterically, but they threatened to kill anyone who cried. The rebels took all of the belongings from the house and dragged the children into the night. The mother was dropped off and allowed to return home because she had Robin (a small baby at the time). Out of the ten children taken from the home that continued with the rebels, the youngest was six. The commander told them that they wanted Santo to pursue them so that he could be killed. The kids were smeared with a black vasaline-type substance so that they could be identified by other rebels in the event of an escape. This marker meant they would be killed on site. They then began their walk toSudan.
Andrew is Nancy's brother. I've also gotten very close to him. He has a large part in this story, as well. Andrew was ten when the rebels came. The ten children were separated into different groups. Andrew was with some of the other children, but not Nancy. Andrew had a special job. He was basically one of the commander's personal slave. He carried his equipment, gun, and food. They were given very little (if anything) to eat most of the time. Typically, two cups of beans was split between his group of twenty other abductees. The rebels had no regard for human life. If they came across a river that needed to be crossed, someone would be pushed in to gage the depth, which usually resulted in drowning. They were frequently beaten by canes for being "lazy". They were walking to Sudan to train to become soldiers. Yes, I do mean walking to Sudan. At one point, Andrew said he was too tired to keep going. His feet, ankles, and legs were swollen greatly. Running on barely any food, he had enough. He sat down and refused to keep walking. Keep in mind he is ten years old at this time. The commanders threaten to kill him if he doesn't continue. He tells them that they'll just have to kill him because he can't do it anymore. An older abductee (around thirty) had a similar response with exhaustion. Without thought, they killed him with a machete. Andrew guesses they let him live because he was the coveted luggage carrier. He finally got up and continued walking.
