Quote of the year, "Today is the best day of my entire life!"

Well, it has been another amazing few weeks since arriving in Uganda. It is so great to see so many friends again and especially the pastors who are doing the Bible School here. It has been so wonderful to spend time with these great men and women of faith and yet so humbling to have the chance to train them in how to study the Word of God. This trip to Uganda will be the longest time I will have ever had to work with the same group of people and it has been so wonderful to spend time with these friends of mine and work with them on a day to day basis.

A couple highlights of the last few weeks:

A couple weeks ago I was doing a workshop on interpreting the book of Luke and I had randomly chosen about 8 different passages to look at. After going through one of the passages, the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14), I quickly went through a few possible applications. One that I mentioned was that Jesus looked past the tax collector’s sinful past and so too Christ has justified us and no longer looks at our past, etc. It was one of many applications we spoke of during the day. However, after lunch I was at the office and one of the students, an African missionary who has been ministering for a few years and plans to spend the rest of his life as a missionary in Africa, came up to me and wanted to talk. He sat down and asked, “James, is it really true what you shared today? Does Christ really look past our past? And if so, then why can’t other Christians look past mine?” We spent the next 45 minutes talking about justification, grace, and his past and the more we talked, the more his tears flowed. It broke my heart to find that he was still living under condemnation from other pastors and Christians who could not forgive him for his past sins and as a result he doubted Christ’s own ability to truly forgive him. By the end of our talk after we had prayed, he looked at me with tears flowing down his face and said, “James, today is the best day of my entire life!” I can not describe how humbled and grateful I was to God for allowing me the privilege of having a front-row seat in seeing such a great man of God set free by God’s grace.

Last week I had another great opportunity to teach the book of Acts on the Bible school and there are so many stories of what God did in me while studying it and in the lives of the students through sharing it. One that stands out was just this past Monday morning at the all-base worship meeting where the whole ministry here of about 75 people gathers together. The person leading the session decided to do a group discussion and had chosen Acts 1:8 as the passage for the discussion. I had just spent a couple hours the past week teaching on this very passage and was hopeful that one of the students would at least share something. Well, half of the students ended up sharing and completely dominated the discussion. Especially one student who gave a five minute sermonette explaining the passage within its context, looking at its contrast to the previous verse, and showing how it applied to all who were seated there. I was fighting to hold back tears of joy. I could not have said it any better myself and what he shared was not even what I had taught, but what he had understood from his own studying of the text. Again it was such a great gift to be able to see immediate fruit from the ministry here and it reminded me again of how blessed I am to be here and to get to work with such amazing people.

I could go on and on with the praise reports of what God has been doing. It has just been so exciting for me to come back and work with some of the same people for the 3rd year in a row. 3 of the pastors on the school I have seen trained up over the last 3 years and it is so wonderful to see the fruit of what God has been doing through this ministry. Especially because on a regular basis they come to me and share how grateful they are for this ministry and what God has been doing in and through them as a result of the work I have been able to do here. They send greetings to all those who have been praying and supporting me.

So thank you for all your prayers and support and I hope you are encouraged by all that God is doing through you here in Uganda. Please continue to be praying as this weekend I will be leaving for an IDP camp in the north of the country for a follow up seminar to a seminar I did last year in Aromo. For those of you who remember it is the one where there were about 150 pastors who went from morning until night, where I was teaching 10-12 hours a day and literally collapsed by the time I returned. They were desperate for another one and say they have gathered everyone together again. The only sad thing is my translator at the time, Bosco, can not come because he is a student on the school here now.

So please pray for God to move powerfully for that week and for Nico’s and my health and safety in travel and while staying in the camp, also please continue to pray for wisdom and anointing as I continue to prepare and teach on the school here. Things start getting even busier when I return and I won’t be able to do it on my own. Please also be praying for these students, some of them are starting to get a bit overwhelmed by the work load and by the applications that have been transforming their hearts.

Thank you so much!

Sincerely,
James Lunn
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

A Great Finish & Some Wonderful News

Well, I am now sitting back in Capetown, South Africa after returning with my team from Zambia a few days ago. We had such a great time the last few weeks since my last update as our team got back together and had another three weeks of ministry in Zambia. During that time we held five different seminars in five different locations including training the staff of a newly opened Bible school and finished up with a few days of debriefing before the team flew home. There are endless stories of what God did during these last few weeks that I would love to share, but it would make this update far too long. You can see many photos on my website's photo gallery under "Zambia." So just a couple of the highlights from the last few weeks:

- In one seminar out in the village we were working with a church that belonged to a denomination that did not allow women to preach or lead in any capacity even though the leaders of that church felt their woman could do it. While there, the two women on my team taught each day and on the final day I gave a one and a half hour teaching on women in ministry. During the teaching, the pastors were writing notes as fast as they could and afterwards a few of them came up to me and said, "James, we are taking this to our denomination's regional board meeting this weekend, this is the ammunition we need to finally see the women in this region released to minister." I learned that one of the pastors was the secretary on the board that makes the denominational decisions and said that this coming month the board will be reworking their constitution and now after this week he is confident the women will have the same rights as men!" I couldn't believe it! I had no idea there could be such an impact from a simple sharing of God's Word!

- The following Sunday I was not scheduled to preach when at the last moment I got dropped off at a church of more than 400 people and asked to preach. As I went in and prayed about what to share, I had no idea what to speak on. Finally I was impressed so strongly that I needed to speak on marriage. I tried to ignore this thought for obvious reasons, but it became very clear that it was indeed God leading me to do so. So with great trepidation I stood up to give a 30 minute sermon on marriage from Ephesians chapter 5. As soon as I was up, I felt the Spirit's anointing and proceeded to have the most fun preaching I have ever had that lasted over an hour. The church was divided down the middle between men and women, they even had to tithe in separate baskets to see who gave more. As I shared I would have half the room jumping out of their seats and then the other half as I again shared on the need to prefer one another in marriage and what it means to "love your wife as Christ loved the Church." Afterwards I gave an application for the men to go home and ask their wives what they can do to show them more love. On the way home the pastor we were staying with who had attended told me he was so excited to ask his wife that question and did so as soon as we got home. Later he came to me and told me he was shocked by his wife's response. He said, "I thought she would tell me she wants nicer clothes or better food, but she said, 'just hug me more, kiss me more, and hold me like a baby!'" He responded, "I can do that!" You know, out of all the amazing miracles I get to see God do and all the powerful testimonies I get to see, this is one of the more simple, yet one of my favorites. I love to see God working in people's lives in practical ways that will bring about life change, especially when it is countercultural and empowering the women.

- Overall, one of the things that made this outreach so amazing was the privilege of working with the director of "Every Home For Christ," an international ministry that has a focus on evangelism and mercy ministries. A couple days before we arrived in Zambia they had been praying and asking God how they can do disciple the leaders throughout the country. The next day they heard we were coming and after they saw our first seminar, they were hooked and dropped everything on their plate to travel with us, set up seminars and continually asking us to come back for even longer. This is the group that set up our training seminar a few weeks ago and as we left they even committed to try and raise funds to bring us back and take the training all over the nation. In all the places I have been I have never felt so welcomed and seen people on the ground so aware of the need for Bible Training and willing to do something about it. It is our hope and prayer that we will be able to send more teams back and continue to train up those on the ground to do what we are doing.

As for the best news of all (at least from my perspective), after 10 years of ministry as a single man, God has completely rocked my world and brought the most amazing woman into my life. I actually first met Sarah Avery almost three years ago when I was in Northern Uganda as she was traveling through to Sudan and God recently reunited us as she was one of my team members with me in Zambia. She is from Indiana, has been in missions for the last seven years, and desires to continue in missions for the rest of her life. This season of the life is the happiest I have ever been and it is so wonderful to minister alongside someone I care so much about! More details will be coming.

So that is where things are at over here. I am heading to Uganda on Friday and it is great because another one of my teammates, Nico, will be going with me to Uganda for two and a half months. We will be working with the Bible School there and doing pastor seminars as well. The ministry I am a part of, Titus Project, has helped to sponsor some of the students on the Bible School again this year and I am excited to go back and work more with these amazing men of God. I will be coming home for Christmas and look forward to seeing many of you then. Next year I will be returning with Sarah to Capetown to work with the Bible School here in Capetown.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support (especially for those who have been praying for God to bring a partner in ministry into my life) I can't thank you enough.
Please also continue to pray for wisdom and anointing in the upcoming two months in Uganda, I have a great amount of preparation that needs to be done to teach multiple books on the Bible School there as well as need wisdom in how much external teaching to do in other seminars. Please also continue to pray for health and safety in travel and while living there. I have been amazingly healthy so far and I am so grateful for your prayers in this area.

Thank you again for all your support,

Sincerely,

James Lunn
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com