EMI… How to describe them?

Last night was the final presentation from Engineering Ministries International (EMI). With over 1000 hours for work over the last 10 day, I am overwhelmed. With many more hours of work back at home, planning what to bring, packing for a strange land in Africa, thinking the project through… giving up two weeks of earned vacation time. These 8 team members truly gave of themselves. To top it off as we thanked them from the bottom of our hearts and tried to explain what a blessing they were to Show Mercy, they said “stop, it was a blessing to be privileged to be part of something so wonderful”. They were thanking us! This is how God works for the better good in those who love Him and are willing to trust Him and follow Him.

The ideas this team came up with, the drawings, the systems for the water, the waste water, the electrical options, placement of the buildings, what each building would look like, the shape of and the ventilation of each building, the use of the unbuildable acreage, how would it feel as you approach the front “village” area, the view from an observation deck at the top of the water tower, how the children would be living in a family environment, where they would eat, play, pray, where and how the long and short term missionaries would live, the list can go on and on. This team had a calling to serve and serve they did.

The best part of this experience was seeing these people work on this project like I have never seen people work before. They all work in the private sector of business, but this was different. It was service; the fire I saw is not the common but the exceptional. I was blessed to be part of something great.

Michael, Martin, Sam, David, Megan, Sarah, Robert, and Mariette job well done!

After the presentation the two local gals who took care of the EMI team needs, like all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping; prepared a very traditional African feast. When there is a wedding, graduation, big holiday, they make this dinner. They worked all day and were so proud as they served it. One more demonstration of how these people served us, to serve God. Thank you Sheila and Betty. By the way, they were so cute doing this, I will never forget it.

What a day and what a finish to our trip.

See you all soon, and thanks for reading my blogs.

May God bless each and every one of you who prayed us through this journey.

Feed the Children

It was Palm Sunday, we had been to church, and it had been a great service. During the time of the service several of the women were cooking, cooking up a storm. They were on a mission to feed some 80 children from the village. These are the kids that don’t get three meals a day, maybe not even one meal each day. I am sure that some don’t eat anything some days. When I think of that, it breaks my heart. I know I don’t like to miss a meal.

Today was a day that these kids would eat, and eat, and eat. Drink a soda, and not even care what flavor they got.

When the children had been gathered in the yard of a neighbor’s house, they waited… patiently. Quietly they sat, with a look on their faces not knowing what to expect, oh they knew they were going to eat, but when, and how long were they going to wait.

You could smell the rice, the beans, the cabbage, the chicken… but there they sat. As the women finished preparing the food, three of the older children from Hope Children’s Home were ready to share God’s word. One by one they gave a lesson from the Bible. The Ten Commandments, Jonah and the Whale, and the Good New of Jesus Christ. They all did very well presenting the Word of God. I was glad to see them teach.

In this little court yard filled with kids, the word was given to get in line to be fed. Controlled mayhem would be a good description. They were hunger, but trying to be polite, and with a rush, they were in a line, chest to back and not an inch in between. It was fun to see; they were going to be fed. The older Hope children jumped in and started to serve, I liked to see them learning to help other in need.

As they started to eat you could see the tension unwind, their bellies were filling up. They were starting to be satisfied. They were getting full. Some laid down as they finished. Some brought their bowls back to be washed and used again for the ones at the end of the line. There was a calm that came over all the children.

When they were all done, the children went home and others helped clean up, put the borrowed benches away, haul the biggest pots you have ever seen back the Hope’s Kitchen and sweep up the yard. I was blessed to watch children helping children, Show Mercy supply the food and drink, and know they receive the Word of God.

Hello from Uganda... again

Hello from Uganda, once again.

For those of you who might not know, I am here without my wonderful wife Alisa. So that means you will have to put up with my writing.

Did you know, I love being here. It is warm yet cool, not too hot; the people are friendly, they love seeing you and meeting you. Everyone I have met has been warm and welcoming. As I said, I love being here.
We are here to work with a design team from the US and the UK. The team members include architects, engineers both civil, structural, water, and a survey team. They are all wonderful people who are willing to take their 2 week vacation and spend it here working long 14 hr day. God has blessed Show Mercy with a gracious gift of these people.
The first day was to see the land we call the “Field of Dreams”, to hear the vision of our Dreams, what God has asked us to do.

The next day was to see the largest children’s facility called Watoto. Wow is it big. Currently there are over 10,000 kids have been rescued and are off the streets and are living there.
The Third day was to meet with the Architects and designers to begin hone in on actual design of each building. Mike and Doug were at that meeting. The other part of the team was the survey guys. I went with them. We stopped at Hope Children’s home to drop off the Marietta, the team leader’s wife.
NOW the FUN started. As we drove up, the kids had just started their break in school, they were in the yard playing, as we got out of the van, they realized it was us… and we were mobbed by the most wonderful welcome I have ever received. 200 children (and the adults) all wanted to hug us and say Welcome, thank you for coming to see us. I truly had not seen such a welcoming and such love for us. They were disappointed that Alisa was not there with me, but I told them we were planning a return with her. We were only there to drop off Marietta, but I know that it was going to be impossible not to stay for less than an hour. Well, we left to go the Field of Dreams to start the survey. We took two of the older boys Bosco and Vincent, and one of the girls Ruth with us to help. Their job was to gather ripened sugarcane to bring back to all the other kids. We got the majority of the building site survey done. Hiking up and down that hill all day, we were all beat, dirty, and tired. On the way home we stopped for a soda, and the location we stopped at was near a high school that one of our older kid attends. This is Peter Painter’s school and he was outside and saw us. We were blessed to have a minute to visit him! It was a simply gift from God. The day ended with a simple dinner at our hotel. As I think back on the day, I know that God as called us to this beautiful and simple land. I love being here.

Hello one more time from Uganda.

We have been so blessed to have been able to share our experience, as we have been in Uganda. As you have read over the last three weeks, God showed up in a big way. We have seen His love, His grace, and best of all His Mercy. I have seen miracles, seen the unsaved saved, the sick healed, and hearts filled with love. God has given us the opportunity to show His love to many. I will finish this blog after I am back State side.

Thanks for being part of our journey.

In God’s Hands.
Randy and Alisa

Building Your House on the ROCK!

The Dance Choir


Our friend Pamela, Leads the Team.

We arrived at Hope around 10:30 am this morning, ready to celebrate the Lord’s Day with our Uganda family. Pastor Prossy had asked Randy to preach and the Lord had given him a word for these precious people we have come to love. In fact, the Lord had given him several things to share. The first service was just finishing up when we entered the church. The speaker was encouraging the people not the cry about all their problems but to have faith in God and not lose hope. The speaker continued to say that when you are crying, you are lifting up your problems to overcome you. They have overcome so many problems by looking to God rather than their circumstances. They have seen miracles, signs and wonders because they believe in the power of prayer. This word was such an encouragement to us.

The second service started with personal testimonies of God’s goodness, special music people had prepared, introduction of visitors and the choir. This took well over an hour. Soon it was time for Randy to preach. The Pastor introduced him and shared how he is a man who married a woman with six children and loved his step children. In Uganda even among Christians it has been an acceptable practice to get rid of or abuse children of a spouse that are not yours. The stories of many of the children at Hope include this tragic occurrence. When Randy began his sermon He talked about the difficulty and more importantly the blessing of raising 6 children that were not his biological children. He then encouraged them to do the same. After that he shared about a dream God gave him where there was a huge earthquake and his whole city was destroyed; nothing was left standing except one house that was built on a rock. The man who owned the house was seen outside just sweeping his sidewalk like nothing had happened. He told them Jesus is the rock and that building our lives on Him is the way we can experience abundant life. First we must accept Him, then trust Him, follow Him, and share Him with others. After the service many people confirmed that this was a word for them from the Lord.

The afternoon held two delights for us. First, Miriam the cook at Hope had prepared a special lunch for us of beef, onions, and peppers, seasoned with curry and cumin as well as chips (French fries) mango and bananas. I think it was the best meal we have had since arriving in Uganda. Then, we had the opportunity to walk to Pamela’s house. Pamela is a young woman we met last year. She is a single mom who is a teacher and she is on the worship team at church. So we walked quite a ways with her, Angel (her daughter) and our friend Lia. Her house is quite humble, one room with a curtain hung to make a bedroom, a mattress on the floor, no running water and no electricity. It is part of the same building the school is in where she teaches. While there she pulled out a mat to lie over the concrete floor for us to sit on and disappeared for a few minutes to buy sodas for us and juice for Angel (water for herself). Our hearts ache as we experience her circumstances and we wonder at the smile she always has on her face.

What you see is more than half of the room Pamela and Angel call Home.

Finally when we arrived back at Hope, and then enjoyed our first ride in a taxi. Prossy and Ezra went with us in a 15 seater taxi back to the road where we could walk back to our hotel. It was a great experience, crammed into this vehicle which stops regularly to let people off and on. What a day!! Praise the Lord for His goodness and love.

Here is a 15 Pass. Taxi. At one point there were 18, yes 18 inside.

1-30 Manna From Above

Today I (Alisa) want to share something the Lord brought me in my quiet time this morning. It is from a daily reading by C.H. Spurgeon:

Genesis 28:15 – “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest’

Do we need journeying mercies? Here are choice ones – God’s presence and preservation. In all places we need both of these and in all places we shall have them if we go at the call of duty, and not merely according to our own fancy. Why should we look upon removal to another country as a sorrowful necessity when it is laid upon us by the divine will? In all lands the believer is equally a pilgrim and a stranger; and yet in every region the Lord is his dwelling place, even as he has been to his saints in all generations. We may miss the protection of an earthly monarch, but when God says, “I will keep thee”, we are in no real danger. This is a blessed passport for a traveler, and a heavenly escort for an emigrant.

Jacob had never left his father’s room before: he had been a mother’s boy, and not an adventurer like his brother. Yet he went abroad, and God went with him. He had little luggage, and no attendants; yet no prince ever journeyed with nobler bodyguard. Even while he slept in the open field, angels watched over him, and the Lord God spoke to him. If the Lord bids us go, let us say with our Lord Jesus, “Arise, let us go hence.”

As I sit here this morning, mosquito bitten, bathed with a bucket of water, fed beans and rice for several weeks, watching out my window as the rain pours and turns the ground to cement like mud, I am yet so grateful to Him for all He has done for us. Jesus has been with us every step of the way. When things have been hard we have asked for help and He has blessed us, when there looked like no way could be found He led us on. In truth here in Uganda, Africa we have found a new freedom. Jesus has freed us of the need to take care of ourselves and instead do His will in loving others. In that love we have found Joy and Peace like we have never known before.

I wonder today if that is not available to all of us wherever we are if we are in His will. All we need to do is forget about ourselves, our needs and serve Him faithfully in love reaching out to those before us and asking Him to show us their need.

Here are some of the pictures of children He let us love today:

Boys Will Be Boys

Today at Hope we got to see the children in everyday action; with no big teams on the compound life gets back to normal. There were children doing their laundry, helping with kitchen duty, watching a movie (We brought a few “G” rated videos from the states), and even more children just running and playing outside.

It reminded us of our own home and bringing up eight children, seven boys and one girl. They all had their chores and their free time. Even though we have many boys, we felt it was very important to train them up to know how to take care of themselves. This means cooking, cleaning, laundry and dishes. That way when they were grown they could either do things for themselves or appreciate their wives’ care of them from a first hand knowledge. We see this at work at Hope as well and we approve of all the children pitching in to help so no one person has to bear the burden of all the hard work.

That said we want to relay two incidents that happened today that show children are not so different across the world. In the morning I (Alisa) was working with Lia (another team member on an extended stay) to interview all the children to add information to their files when some noise and then crying broke out in the front yard. Knowing that sound quite well, I went out to see what was going on. As it turns out, two little boys had been playing and had collided with each other. They were both hurting, crying and a little mad at each other. Pulling them both up on my lap, I just held them and cleaned their faces and dusted their clothes. It brought back the memory of my own little ones who would get into altercations. As soon as they knew they were loved and cared for the tears dried up, smiles came back to their faces and off they went back to play again.

Later in the afternoon all the adults were sitting in Pastor Prossy’s office once again when BANG went a very loud noise! We all sprang into action to see what had happened. As it turns out the sound was glass breaking as a ball sailed into one of the front windows. The big boys had been playing soccer and lost control of the ball. That really took us back in time to our house. How many times have we had to replace windows because of our boys? As Randy cleaned up the mess, making sure all the glass was cleaned up; Alisa relayed a similar incident to Pastor Prossy. After the second time one of our boys (who will remain nameless) broke a window, Randy told him he would need to pay for it himself. Prossy then asked if our son had a job earning money at the time. I replied that he did not, but Dad gave him one and he earned the money for the broken window.

A little while later after the clean up, Prossy called the big boys into her office. As is their custom they came in on bended knee to face their punishment. She then told them that she would be arranging for them to do some work in the neighborhood to earn the money to pay for the window. She said she would not buy the window until the work was done. It was so sweet to see them smile and clap their hands after they heard their fait. You could see they were relieved that they could do something to make up for the loss of a window to their home.

So boys will be boys all over the world and parents can be parents if they have the love in their hearts to raise them well.