Seven months of impact

People weren't made to connect and disconnect, were the last words i said to joyce as the team of 40ish people clamored onto a bus. this has been my third Impact Nations trip, its the third time i have stayed behind and watched such amazing people leave me here, alone again. i have gotten used to this connecting and disconnecting, living in Africa for the last 7 months you get used to people coming and doing some kinda work then leaving, or sadly, watching people pass away.

the last 7 months of my life have been the most spiritual months of my life. it all started a year and a half ago when i came to Uganda for the first time. God became real to me, he became my father, he became more then a deity in the sky. as i spent 5 weeks in Uganda and then 5 in Europe i came to know a God i never knew existed; someone who cared about me, someone who wanted to talk to me all the time! when i got home i knew i was meant to come back and prayed into it, and then seven months after that prayer i was getting on a plane to go to Burundi on another missions trip and then travel to Uganda for 6 months. those six months turned into 7 months that have changed my life.

i found my identity in those months, i learned who i was in God, i began to become comfortable playing guitar in public, i became a preacher, i have done things i never thought i would do and seen things i never thought i would see. i won't tell you the months were easy or kind to me. not at all! in fact it was the hardest seven months of my life. in the summer of 2010 God gave me a word about my life. its probably one of the only times i have heard a prophetic word about my life from myself; if not the only time. the word was that my hands would be cut and bruised, the skin torn from them, blood would pour form them and salt and vinegar and lemon would be poured on them, the pain would be the worst i have felt, and this would happen and they would heal and it would happen again. little did i know that God was telling me about these seven months, now this word sounds bad except he said that through all this pain, i would be used to deal with the spirit of suicide and that i would bring hope to the nations through my pain.  that word was fulfilled in my life even over the last few weeks with impact nations. i have gone through hardships, but because of them and because i clung to my father he was with me and brought fruit from it. what kind of fruit you might wonder? i have had the amazing honor of speaking in front of hundreds about Gods love, about how i once had no hope but now i do. i have seen around 1500 thousand saved now i figure. and i have seen people healed from the anointing God has put on my life.  about two weeks ago i saw something that was so incredibly amazing. we were at a crusade and i was given a word of knowledge that someone had pain in there right arm. about  10 seconds later my team mate shows up and tells me she was just praying for someone with a broken right arm. we brought the woman to the front she couldn't move her arm, i remember thinking what am i doing? and as we prayed i began to move her arm were it couldn't move, the look on her face brings chills to me still. she showed no pain, god completely brought the bone back together! but thats not all, she then responded with great joy when i asked if she wanted the same Father that healed her to come into her heart and she said yes!

over the last few weeks i have been working on the biggest team i have been on with impact nations yet. we have seen record people through the clinics and it was amazing. i heard testimony after testimony of people getting saved or healed or eyes opening, but my testimony isn't one of those. mine is actually very personal.  see we go on these trips expecting to help others, but i think we don't realize just how much these people are gonna impact us. living here in Uganda for 7 months you begin to forget what the world around you looks like. but as i worked with "newbies" who had never seen Uganda or the people here my heart began to break as i looked at all the hopeless around me, all the pain, all the hurt. i looked at this one woman and my heart just cried, i wished so badly that she could speak perfect English because i wanted to know all about her, i wanted to ask her what stories put the pain in her eyes or the solem look on her face. after awhile you begin to take the world around you for granted, and this is what God has been teaching me over the last two weeks, about staying focused on him, about knowing the time and the place, about loving the world around you, and learning about it. about respecting those around you because they have a story to, amazing stories. hes been teaching me about being bold for him, and being true in what i believe, but being respectful in it.

and now as i sit here writing this the team is on its way home and i'm still here for 5 more days, then i'm heading to South Africa so God can use me and impact me more. i'm so excited to see what new part of who i'm hes going to show me. i will be there for 4 months then i will be heading to thailand or brazil, in each place i will preach the word of God and teach the message of hope in a world that has been so torn by everything; i wouldn't change this for the world. yah i miss home and will miss it still, but nothing compares to learning about the world around you.
i have one more thing to say: at the beginning of the trip Christina made a comment that each trip there is one person that would have died if we weren't there. this is so true, if we didn't do these trips real humans would actually die. each trip i have been on i have seen this happen, in Burundi it was a baby that was i think from what i was told and could gather less then  a few hours from death. here in Uganda, i watched Heidi and Heather work on a baby that was so small, and from what i was told minutes away form being gone, yet it was saved because of there hard work and the prayers of those around.
  if your reading this, if you have read this far through my note, i beg you, look at the journeys and pray about going on one; everyone of us has been called to impact the world, but know that if you go your not just going to impact the world, but rather its going to impact you.