Merry Christmas From Uganda

Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a great time with family and friends this Christmas season and had time to reflect on and celebrate Christ’s birth.
Over here I did not have the opportunity for any kind of traditional Christmas celebration, though I did go into town to grab a bacon cheeseburger for my Christmas dinner. However, this Christmas has been very special in a different way for me. The YWAM base I am staying at was completely deserted for the last few days and I have been here by myself studying John’s Epistles so I will be ready to teach them on the Bible School here in a couple weeks. The focus of 1st John is on Jesus Christ, specifically his incarnation (that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man), and it has been so wonderful to spend a Christmas focusing on Him alone without any other distractions. Spending time reflecting on the fact that our omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God gave everything up and came to Earth not just as a man, but as a helpless baby, in order to save us is enough to bring anyone to their knees and praise God for His indescribable gift. For me, it wasn’t necessarily my own choice to be here alone studying for the last few days, I often longed to be with friends and family, but I am thankful for the opportunity God has given me to spend a Christmas just focusing on His Son Jesus, why He came, what He did, and why it matters.
So thank you again for all of your prayers. The last teaching of Matthew on the Bible School was an amazing time that I will never forget. Another cool thing for that week was that I was asked to speak at a large youth leader’s conference on Friday afternoon. The topic of the conference was “Arise for your destiny” and I was to be the final speaker of the week to close out the week-long conference. I had no idea what to speak on, the topic seemed kind of strange to me and I didn’t know what to tell them about preparing for this future “destiny” and didn’t even really know what it meant. When I went to God with it, all the lights came on. I had been studying and teaching Matthew’s Gospel which is all about the Kingdom of Heaven, that it is here now, but more is still to come. When I again considered what our destiny is, the answer became clear, the Kingdom of Heaven. I immediately knew I had my message and I titled it, “Arise, for your destiny is HERE!” It was such a privilege to be able to share from Matthew’s Gospel that we should not just look to the future for what is to come, but stand up and live as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven today.

One of the Greatest Days of My Lif

I know I just sent out a newsletter, but today was such an amazing day that I felt it would be an encouragement to you who have been supporting and praying for me.
Today I began teaching the book of Matthew on the Bible School here and right as we were to begin I felt led to speak on the need to not give up, but to keep studying & persevering because God is using this school to train the students for what He has for them. It was totally random for me to say that and I didn’t know why I was saying it, but during the break, one of the students came up to me and thanked me, telling me that that very morning they woke at 2am to begin studying Matthew and as they began to study, they cried out to God saying, “I can’t do this any more, it is too much work, I’m not coming back to study after Christmas.” The whole morning they had been telling God that it was just too difficult and they were going to quit. They had made up their mind that this was the last week they would study and came to class feeling overwhelmed, but right as they walked into the classroom a few minutes late, God gave me those words to share. They were amazed how quickly God had responded to them and I am still in awe that I had the privilege of being the messenger. I immediately thanked God, knowing that I had nothing to do with it and was grateful that people are praying for me as I teach this week.

Well, I felt it was a good day of teaching and towards the end I again felt led to move into application, teaching from the Beatitudes, specifically looking at the original Greek meaning of the words “blessed” and “poor in spirit.” I don’t have time to share the whole message here, but God has hammered me with the beatitudes this past week. As I shared on what the word “blessed” meant (makários: a complete satisfaction/bliss that stems from the favor of God, not circumstances) and then “poor in spirit: (to recognize we are completely & utterly helpless & destitute without God; that He is our source, life, & foundation) I could tell that the Spirit was moving. Yet time ran out, the lunch bell called, and so I left them with a challenge to go to God and apply this message. As I was packing up my things, one of the students came to me and shared with me that last night they had been weeping before God begging God to explain to them what He meant when He said He would bless them. Their life has been extremely difficult with a great deal of suffering and they needed an answer. They said God gave them the direct answer to their prayer through me. I couldn’t believe God did it twice in one day!

A few hours later after lunch, two of the students came to my room together. I assumed they had some questions, but they sat down and one began to tell me how God had spoken directly to him during class and he hasn’t been able to do anything since then & he felt he had to come share with me what God has been doing in his heart. So he walked down to see me. On the road walking over, he met up with the other student who also just happened to be coming to see me as well at the exact same time. The second student told me he had been in the prayer garden all afternoon weeping as God was convicting him and showing him his need for more of God. They both went on to say that they just happened to be coming over at the same time and when they met up, they decided to come together so we could all share and pray together. They even said that yet another student had shared with them the same thing from class and that they have never experienced God touching them like this from the beginning of the Bible School until now. They went on to tell me how excited they are to take what God has been showing and teaching them back to the churches they pastor and and eventually back into Sudan when they are able to return. We spent the rest of the afternoon sharing and then had a great time of prayer afterwards.

Honestly, as I look back on today, it has been one of the greatest days of my life and I have been in tears as I consider how unworthy I am to be here ministering to these men and women of God who have more to teach me than I can ever teach them. Yet for some crazy reason beyond my realm of understanding, I get to be here and I get to do this. You know, I have probably had other more “newsletter worthy” things happen in the past, but something about what God did today brought me to my knees in awe and gratitude.

Well, some of you might think this letter should just be a personal journal entry, but I felt I should send it out to those who support and pray for me as a thank you letter to each of you.

I honestly can’t express how grateful I am to you for your support and prayers. It might sound cliché, but it is the truth, none of this is possible without you. You’re role in this ministry is just as essential as my own. I know beyond any doubt that what happened today was due in large part to those who were praying and I look forward to what God has in store for the rest of this week and the weeks to come.

THANK YOU!!!

Sincerely,
James

Wow, The Time Has Gone By Fast

Hello, Well, it is been a crazy couple last weeks with three different seminars and three different books taught on the Bible School here finishing with a few days of debriefing with the team. Our Titus Project Outreach is now officially over and the time has gone by so fast, but it has been so good. Thank you so much for your prayers and support during this time, it truly could not have been done without you.

Right now I am trying to quickly prepare for this week. I will be teaching the book of Matthew on the Bible school this week, but have had very little time to prepare and am a bit overwhelmed trying to get my head around all 28 chapters. This update will be quick because I need to get back to studying Matthew, but here are a couple of the highlights from the last two weeks:A week and a half ago we had an amazing two-day seminar. I’ll admit, when we arrived we were a little disappointed because only about 10 people showed up, it was set up at the last moment, we were very tired from all of the teachings and honestly did not feel like teaching. We gave it everything we had and were encouraged by the responsiveness of the students, especially when we learned that the entire leadership of the church was present. They seemed to be excited and were very engaged, giving wonderful answers. At the end of the two days is when I finally learned what God had been doing. At the finish, the pastor stood up and told us that he just came back from finishing seminary two weeks ago and just a few days before our seminar he had a discussion with his elders saying that he wanted to change the way the church gave messages. He wanted to begin teaching the Bible with expository preaching, by going through a book and helping the people to understand the Bible. (This is in direct contrast to the vast majority of churches who preach feel-good messages, the majority of which never even use the Bible in their messages) But he said his problem, is that he did not have a framework by which to study and then teach in this way. He told us that that week God miraculously answered his prayers and brought us to show the leadership how to study the Bible and to give them a framework to follow as they take the church in a new direction! I can’t express with words how in awe we were of what God did. Our sovereign God, in His divine timing, sent us there at that time as a direct answer to this pastor’s prayers and we had the honor of being able to give them a foundation for the future.

The following week we were deep in a village. Our translator drove his two-wheel drive car for about an hour and a half on a muddy village road after torrential rains that I would be scared to drive a 4 wheel drive Landcruiser on. I was positive we would be spending the night in the car and prayed the entire drive, but each time we got stuck, it seems that our prayers were miraculously answered and we had just enough of a “lift” to get us out again. But that week was a wonderful time with the pastors who came from all around. It was great to be able to encourage them and see their hunger for the Word of God. It is such a privilege to go deep into villages where teachers rarely go and be able to see the joy and eagerness of the believers as they get to study the Word of God
After that we had a time of debriefing with the team and it was wonderful to just hang out and reflect on the last few months. We also had the chance to spend a day white water rafting down the Nile River. That was a highlight I won’t forget. We kept flipping over in the middle of grade 4 and 5 rapids. It was an awesome time!

Well, I need to get back to preparing Matthew, but I just wanted to say thank you for all your prayers and support for the last few months. The team is now gone and I will be here on my own working with the Bible school and traveling and doing more pastor training seminars. So please continue to pray as now I need it more than ever by being on my own.

Please pray:
- for this week, that God would anoint me and give me an understanding of the Gospel of Matthew so I can clearly communicate its message to the students and that it would bring about a change in their lives and mine.
- For continued health and safety. Things are going to get very busy, I will only have a few days to rest between now and when I return to the States at the end of January. So please pray for health, strength, and energy.
- Please pray for the logistics of all the seminars that are coming up. The schedule is beginning to be set, but here nothing is certain. Misccoummincation is the norm, not the exception. So please pray that God makes the arrangements and the right people come together at the right times.
- Please pray that I would be able to deepen relationships with the people here and would not feel that I am on my own.

Thank you again,
Sincerely,
James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com