www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

An Investment With Great Returns

2009-02-22T05:53:00.001-08:00

In the Bible school we work with, the focus is upon enabling the students to study the Bible for themselves using the inductive method of Bible Study. We teach lectures in class, but the majority of their time is spent outside of class going through each book of the Bible studying it themselves. In the process they observe, then interpret, & then apply what the text says. Here is a sampling of an application of one of our students, Jeremiah, from the Congo. We have shared about him before and the passion he has and the anointing upon him. As I was grading his work, I read some of his application points and asked him if I could share some of the revelations He was receiving while studying the book of Genesis.

After studying the book, he gave the following overall application of one point that stood out to him. These are his own words (emphasis added):

"God created both man & women in His image… I grew up in a culture where women are taught to be lower than their husband. They can't do anything except giving birth to many children and do house works. They are being beaten, sexually abused because they can't stand for themselves and talk. This truth of equality and partnership of man and woman is not being applied.

What do I need to do to live out this change?
I think God has brought me here for this reason to learn and be equipped with the truth of His word and go teach it in my culture. How God value woman.

How will I do this?
I will start by honoring the women that God will bring in my life then my people will learn from me."

To some, this revelation may seem "simple", but to Jeremiah, this is life-changing! In many places in rural Africa women are treated as property and regularly beaten & abused. They are, as Jeremiah said, for bearing children and doing house work. For a young, single African man to see the value of woman and that both man and woman are made in God's image is HUGE! This will affect his relationships with family and friends, his future wife, their children and their children's children, and all who he shares this message with. He told me, "James, I can't wait to go home and share these truths with my people!" Again, this is coming from a man who until recently believed the way he could show love to his future wife was by not beating her. God's Word has the power to transform!

Another application that really humbled me considering his background of being a refugee from a war-torn region:
After observing & interpreting God's call to Noah to be fruitful & multiply, this is his application: "God has called His people to be fruitful. Does the world today apply this truth? If it was applied, killing the innocent blood in Africa would have stopped. War in Africa makes an African man unfruitful."

There are many other points I could share from him & others, but I was just so encouraged to see how this amazingly anointed man of God has grown in studying the Word of God on his own. Before coming to do the School of Biblical Studies he could preach with passion on any subject or verse even without knowing what it meant. Now God is giving him tools to study the Bible and understand and apply it, and as he leaves this school the tools he has are going to be so powerful. I am regularly overwhelmed as I sit down and talk with him of the privilege we have of investing our lives into men and women like him.

Thank you for making this possible.

James & Sarah Lunn
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

We're Getting Married!

2008-04-23T20:10:00.001-07:00

Our first joint update and our last update as singles, from now on these updates will be coming from The Lunn's!

We can't believe how quickly the time has gone, but in 2 days, April 26th at noon, we will be walking down the aisle. We are obviously ecstatic as the day approaches and busy making final plans as friends and family arrive. After the wedding we will be gone for our honeymoon for a couple of weeks before returning to Seattle for our reception at the Vineyard Community Church in Shoreline on June 1st at 4pm. If you are in the Seattle area, you are more than welcome to come and we would love to see you!

We just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have been praying and supporting us. We have had such a wonderful time at home and have seen God's hand of blessing upon us as we have been raising support. While at first it seemed to be a nearly impossible feat of more than doubling our monthly support to reach our required budget, we are now down to needing just another 450 dollars of committed monthly support. God has been so gracious to us so far and we look forward to seeing how He will provide the rest.

We also just found a wonderful apartment to move into in South Africa where we will be moving on June 3rd, and are excited to begin establishing our home there soon.

Thank you again for all your prayers and support and the many ways you have invested in our lives and ministry. Our website has been updated with our current prayer requests and we'll be posting our wedding photos when we get back in a few weeks.

God bless,

James & Sarah (soon to be The Lunn's)
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

We're Engaged!!!

2008-01-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

Hello, Sunday, January 20th, 2008, will go down as one of the best days in my life. Last night Sarah and I got engaged!!! It was a perfect evening that I had been planning for many months and it all came together perfectly. Here is Sarah's account of the evening.

"The plan was to just go to a nice restaurant for a date . . . or so I thought. That nice restaurant turned out to be the top of the space needle where we had an amazing dinner, watching the sunset over Seattle, seeing the city turn from day to night and soaking up the view. After a phone call from James' mom saying we needed to come to the church and meet up with some of James' supporters, the date was cut short . . . so I thought, I had no idea what he had in store. We ended up at his church, walking down a candle lit walkway strewn with rose petals into the lounge where there was music, loads of candles and a table set up with lots of gifts, reminders of our time together in South Africa, some of my favorite things, and other special gifts. James started out reading a poem he'd written for me, ending up on his knee, asking me to be his wife!! The ring was hidden in a book that had special meaning to both of us. And his attention to detail and amount of thought put into this special night was astounding! Wine, chocolate and dried fruit brought all the way from South Africa, a candle holder from Uganda, my favorite cheesecake, communion, roses, and a journal from James, with an entry from him everyday while we were apart. We sat in that room a good long while soaking it all in, dancing, and enjoying just being with each other, really letting it all soak in that we get to spend the rest of our lives together. It was the perfect evening and the perfect proposal, and April 26^th will be the beginning of us spending the rest of our lives together."

So there you have it, I am getting married!!! I could not possibly be more excited and also quite relieved that all the secretive planning and little white lies (as I tried to keep the proposal a surprise) are over. Our wedding date will be April 26th, 2008 in her home town of South Bend, Indiana. After a honeymoon and a Wedding Reception in the Seattle area we will then move back to South Africa together to continue ministering there. For me this is better than a dream come true because I never dreamed of anyone as amazing as Sarah and we, along with both of our families, couldn't be happier.

You can see more pictures of the evening on my websites photo gallery, just click on this link: http://tomakehimknown.com/gallery/index.php?album=Engagement

We will both be here in the Seattle area until the middle of March and would love to get together with each of you while here.

Thank you so much for all of your prayer and support. I just can't believe that God has blessed me with a partner as amazing as Sarah to spend the rest of my life with and it is so wonderful to think I will never have to minister and travel alone again.

Sincerely,

James

There’s No Place Like Home For the Holidays

2007-12-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

After a very long nine months of ministry that involved nine different nations, countless seminars, training hundreds of pastors, and teaching hundreds of hours as well, I have finally returned home and I could not have picked a better time. It has been such a blessing to be home for the Christmas season and be with family. The last two years I have spent the Christmas season alone in the blazing heat of Uganda, which has made this time home even more special.

Just before returning home I had an amazing finish in Uganda. I had a crazy week of preparing Romans and then one of my most memorable weeks of teaching on Bible Schools. The best quote of the week was after the second day of teaching when I overheard one of the students telling a group of people how the teaching was going and she said, "We are getting saved all over again!" God really broke through as we went through the book of Romans and dealt with justification and God's bewildering grace and sovereignty. It seemed that each of our sessions were spent with the students either amazed or in tears at the greatness of God's grace and experiencing the new-found freedom that comes from the understanding of that truth. As I was packing to leave after teaching on the final day I kept being pulled away by different students who had to come and process through with me what God was doing in them through the book. It was so difficult to walk away from those I have become so close to, especially Bosco, Valence and Nassa, the three pastors I have been able to help attend the school through the generosity of supporters and Titus Project. I am so grateful for the time I had with these men and women of faith.

One very memorable moment was the final night there when I was approached by a very tough Tongan who had attended one day of the teaching on justification. This giant of a man, covered in tattoos, wanted to talk about how far God's grace really extended. As we continued to talk, the Spirit was moving and he started to fight to hold back tears. At first it worked, but he couldn't stop the tears as God was just wrenching on his heart and he understood the truth of what God's grace and justification mean. I will never forget that night as tears were streaming down his face and he was shaking as he fought against the tears to no avail. God has just blown me away through studying this book with the truth of justification and it is such a privilege to share His truths with others and see their lives transformed as well.

So now I am back home in Seattle and am heading to Indiana in a few days to visit Sarah's family. I will be returning home in a couple weeks and Sarah will be moving here at that time as well for two months. I would love to get together with you while I am home before returning to South Africa.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support.

Sincerely,

James Lunn
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

"Today is a new day!" What a great week!

2007-11-17T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hello. Thank you so much for your prayers. They were definitely answered. We had such a wonderful time in the IDP camp in the North last week training the regional leadership of the churches there and I just finished up a great week teaching 1st & 2nd Timothy on the Bible school here.

Last week's seminar was a follow-up to the greatest seminar I ever had when I was with the same group last year. I had a lot of hopes and was sure it could not match the previous year's intensity and excitement, but this year was just as good, maybe even better! In returning, it was like a homecoming, everyone knows me and was so excited to be studying again. This is the only training they have ever received in their home. They usually travel very long distances to attend any kind of seminar. It amazes me that outside of a couple doctors who have gone to assess the outbreak of AIDS, I am the only westerner to ever go to this camp of 70,000 domestic refugees who have had to flee from the rebel attacks.

I will again limit myself to just a couple quick highlights in order to keep this less than 10 pages:
After leaving at 4am and taking a 14 hour grueling combination of packed buses and trucks we arrived safely in the camp at night and early the next morning started teaching the book of Ephesians. Again this year their hunger was the same as last year and they start at 8 and want teaching up to 10 or 11 at night with a couple short breaks for lunch, bathing, and dinner. They rush back early from every break eager for more and there is almost no point in asking if they want breaks during the teaching, because they will just say no. I just have to take them regardless! At the end of the first day of 8 hours of teaching, I was very tired and thankful the day was over and I could rest. Just then the chairman announced to everyone, "Tonight James will be giving a teaching on leadership in the church, don't be late." This was a shock to me, because I had no idea and the previous year I had taught them all the material I have for church leadership. I had nothing to teach and only about 20 minutes to prepare. After some time in prayer I had decided to just do a short 20-30 minute discussion time with them since I was unprepared and very tired. When I told them my intentions, they responded and said, "No James, we want for you to deliver the word, it must be at least an hour and a half." I desperately prayed to God asking for words, grace, and anointing and began to share with no idea what to say. The Lord just moved and gave me a great message that was well over an hour (I wish I had taken notes on it), dealing with leading by an example of Godliness. At the end I just prayed, not sure if there would even be a response. After a minute of silence I started talking again, but there was no translation, I looked over and my translator could barely speak because of the tears and as I looked around at the faces barely lit by my head lamp, I could see that almost every pastor's head was bowed and was covering their eyes with their hands as they wiped tears away. No one spoke, so we just let God keep moving. I just can't express how cool it is to see God move so powerfully in spite of me. I often teach similar things over and over again and it is sometimes hard to avoid teaching in my own strength, but times like this when I have nothing and God just moves and does everything gives me so much joy and gratitude.

On the 3rd day we taught through Ephesians chapter 5 and dealt with the passages of husbands serving their wives and loving them like they love their own body. I had no idea how it would go, but I have never had so much fun with application or seen such powerful, practical examples of knowing that long term fruit will result from the training. Their ideas on how to apply this were great, some serious, some humorous, some sad. A few examples from some of the pastors: "I will serve her by not committing adultery!" "I will love her by buying a bag of sugar, leaving it on my bicycle rack and then telling her to go outside and see what I have brought for her." "I will stop yelling at her when she can't control the plough and lets the cows lead her, in fact I will help her." "I will stop requiring her to get on her knees and pour the water to wash my hands before meals, instead, I will wash her hands." "I will learn how to cook." In an evening meeting with just a few of the top leadership, one of the leaders said, "James, it seems that our culture here does not value women the way the Bible describes, I think our culture needs to value them as well." When one pastor, the leader of more than 50 churches, said he would wash his wife's dress (apparently that was agreed upon as the most humbling thing a man can do here), another argued with him and said he would never actually do it. The pastor responded by saying, "Let's set a time and you can come over to my house and watch me do it!" All around they were so excited by the idea of being able to apply what God had been showing them. I have never seen anything like it, they were excited to go home and love their wives and teach all those in all their churches that they need to serve their wives as well! When one of the top leaders stated he would start cooking and washing clothes, another challenged him and said, "when was the last time you cooked or cleaned?" He responded, "Never, but that was before, now I know the truth and will start today. Today is a new day!" I have a giant grin and am filled with joy just recalling that night! I praise God for letting me witness His Kingdom coming to Earth in a small way. A significant portion of the leadership in that region were present and they are going to be going back to their churches and passing it on to others. Truly a humbling thought.

I could go on and on, with so many stories. By the time we left they were begging us to return again and I know I will as soon as God opens the door to do so.

This week I will spend working with the students on the school here and preparing to teach the book of Romans the following week before flying home.
It has been such a wonderful time here and I am so grateful for your prayers and support. I can't believe my time here is almost over. Though I am quite saddened to leave here knowing I won't be back next year, I am also excited to return home after a very intense year of ministry. I will be home in just a few short weeks and look forward to getting together with those who have been praying and supporting me during this time. I am especially eager to return home to see Sarah again and for those of you who would like to meet her, I have some great news, she will be moving to Seattle in January for a couple of months! I am so grateful to God for technology which has allowed us to stay in daily communication for the last two months, even when I am out in villages and refugee camps, but am thrilled that this season of long distance is about to end.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers. God has been moving so much. Please continue to pray for the remainder of the time: For anointing in preparing and teaching in the last two weeks and also that in the last two weeks with the students I will be able to pour everything into them I can, deepen relationships, and end the time well.

Sincerely,

James Lunn
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

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

2007-10-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

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

Does it get any better than this?

2007-09-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Well, I don't even know how to describe the last week. Amazing, Revolutionary, Exciting, Humbling, Exhilarating… I could go on and on! This past week we have been working with the greatest group of pastors I have ever had the privilege of working with (and that is saying a lot!). They were all chosen by us as and the director of a local organization here as the best & brightest pastors in the area. Many have been to a few years of Bible School and they were all hungry to pass along these methods to other pastors and leaders, especially taking it to the rural areas.

You can click on the following link to see the pictures and even a video I posted on my website as well as an audio update from one of my teammates, Sarah. www.ToMakeHimKnown.com/training.html

I don't even know where to start. From the first day, they all showed up excited and eager to study. There were just 10 that were chosen and the all showed up on time ready to go. We started off going through the book of Jonah with them and then we went on to the book of Ephesians. After that we had a day of them teaching each other and us the methods we had been teaching them. I can't count the number of times I had to put my head down to wipe tears of joy away as I considered the gravity of what the Lord was allowing us to witness and be a part of. I have never been part of a seminar where it seemed that despite our own lack of understanding really where we were wanting to go and do, because it is the first time Titus Project has ever done this kind of a training, every moment was perfectly planned. I would go so far as to say divinely planned. It really was that smooth. We didn't always feel that way ahead of time, but God moved so powerfully. So many times I had no idea what I was supposed to do, even walking up to speak not having any idea of what to say. One time as I walked forward, panicking, praying that God would show me what to do, I grabbed one set of notes, then set them down, then grabbed another set, then set them down, then started quickly flipping through the Bible trying to find something to say, then I started asking them if they had any questions and after a few minutes of silence, I just opened my mouth and the message God gave was the perfect message for that time and the next hour was just anointed as we looked deep into the scriptures & allowed the Word to penetrate our lives. I just don't know how to explain it other than a perfect week.
I could go on for a hundred pages speaking of what happened, but here are a couple highlights:
- I think the biggest highlight for me was on the third day, one of the most senior pastors came up to me and asked to speak to me in private. He started telling me that he had been to 5 years of Bible college and been a pastor for many years and studying the Bible for more than that and then he said, "but I have never experienced anything as powerful as this training." He went on to say, "James, I need more of this! I must get more of this training, where can I go, what can I do, tell me!" Well, when I told him about the School of Biblical Studies in Capetown, he said, "Alright, I'm going to go there, when do they start?" I couldn't believe it! He is one of the more influential pastors in the area and is now planning on setting aside his very large church, leave his wife and kids behind, and go get trained for 9 months because he is so desperate for what God has been teaching him! Talk about hunger!

- I have never been in a seminar where almost every passage we looked at , the pastors took it to real, practical application & truly took it to heart to transform their own lives and their churches. Every major point we hit, they would get excited about and discuss with the other pastors how they weren't doing this or how they needed to do that. Especially as we went through the letter of Ephesians, they were seeing on their own, how the theologies and doctrines they had gained from Bible Schools had shaped their world views and that they needed to get their understanding of God from the Bible, not from a text book. They had revelation after revelation and would get excited and blurt out whatever new revelation God was giving them with a great big smile on their faces.
- During the Teachback time when they were teaching each other doing a "mock-seminar" I often was emotional as these guys did and amazing job. One of the guys, Collins, actually went home & in just one night came up with about 7 or 8 of his own unique illustrations that had never been done before to help explain how to study the Bible. One of the illustrations to show the need to study inductively and listen to what God has to tell us was He had a cassette player and he put a tape in to show that "people are always telling the Bible what they want to hear, but what we need to do is stop playing the tape and turn on the radio to see what God is trying to tell us, and listen to him instead." He also numerous other great ideas that left me in tears. Every pastor added their own twist to the method and made it their own, it was so exciting to watch them and see this ministry being multiplied before our eyes!

This evening the rest of our tam comes up from down South and together we will be traveling to the Western side of Zambia for two more seminars there before finishing up with a final week of training in Livingstone in the South. I can't believe we only have a month left! Wow this has gone by fast.

Thank you so much for your prayers this past week, God moved so much!
- Please continue to pray for the anointing of the Lord on our team and in the lives of the students
- Pray for those who were just trained, that they would get out and use what they have learned and train others. Also, please pray that the Lord would allow us to come back and do a follow-up training with them next year to build on the foundation that has been laid. They are all eager to do so and so are we.
- Please pray for our health and safety as we travel to the other side of country and train there.
Thank you so much for all your support and prayers!

Sincerely,

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Training Trainers

2007-09-01T03:32:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Well, I don’t even know how to describe the last week. Amazing, Revolutionary, Exciting, Humbling, Exhilarating… I could go on and on! This past week we have been working with the greatest group of pastors I have ever had the privilege of working with (and that is saying a lot!). They were all chosen by us as and the director of a local organization here as the best & brightest pastors in the area. Many have been to a few years of Bible School and they were all hungry to pass along these methods to other pastors and leaders, especially taking it to the rural areas.

You can click on the following link to see the pictures and even a video I posted on my website as well as an audio update from one of my teammate, Sarah. www.ToMakeHimKnown.com/training.html

I don’t even know where to start. From the first day, they all showed up excited and eager to study. There were just 10 that were chosen and the all showed up on time ready to go. We started off going through the book of Jonah with them and then we went on to the book of Ephesians. After that we had a day of them teaching each other and us the methods we had been teaching them. I can’t count the number of times I had to put my head down to wipe tears of joy away as I considered the gravity of what the Lord was allowing us to witness and be a part of. I have never been part of a seminar where it seemed that despite our own lack of understanding really where we were wanting to go and do, because it is the first time Titus Project has ever done this kind of a training, every moment was perfectly planned. I would go so far as to say divinely planned. It really was that smooth. We didn’t always feel that way ahead of time, but God moved so powerfully. So many times I had no idea what I was supposed to do, even walking up to speak not having any idea of what to say. One time as I walked forward, panicking, praying that God would show me what to do, I grabbed one set of notes, then set them down, then grabbed another set, then set them down, then started quickly flipping through the Bible trying to find something to say, then I started asking them if they had any questions and after a few minutes of silence, I just opened my mouth and the message God gave was the perfect message for that time and the next hour was just anointed as we looked deep into the scriptures & allowed the Word to penetrate our lives. I just don’t know how to explain it other than a perfect week.
I could go on for a hundred pages speaking of what happened, but here are a couple highlights:
- I think the biggest highlight for me was on the third day, one of the most senior pastors came up to me and asked to speak to me in private. He started telling me that he had been to 5 years of Bible college and been a pastor for many years and studying the Bible for more than that and then he said, “but I have never experienced anything as powerful as this training.” He went on to say, “James, I need more of this! I must get more of this training, where can I go, what can I do, tell me!” Well, when I told him about the School of Biblical Studies in Capetown, he said, “Alright, I’m going to go there, when do they start?” I couldn’t believe it! He is one of the more influential pastors in the area and is now planning on setting aside his very large church, leave his wife and kids behind, and go get trained for 9 months because he is so desperate for what God has been teaching him! Talk about hunger!

- I have never been in a seminar where almost every passage we looked at , the pastors took it to real, practical application & truly took it to heart to transform their own lives and their churches. Every major point we hit, they would get excited about and discuss with the other pastors how they weren’t doing this or how they needed to do that. Especially as we went through the letter of Ephesians, they were seeing on their own, how the theologies and doctrines they had gained from Bible Schools had shaped their world views and that they needed to get their understanding of God from the Bible, not from a text book. They had revelation after revelation and would get excited and blurt out whatever new revelation God was giving them with a great big smile on their faces.
- During the Teachback time when they were teaching each other doing a “mock-seminar” I often was emotional as these guys did and amazing job. One of the guys, Collins, actually went home & in just one night came up with about 7 or 8 of his own unique illustrations that had never been done before to help explain how to study the Bible. One of the illustrations to show the need to study inductively and listen to what God has to tell us was He had a cassette player and he put a tape in to show that “people are always telling the Bible what they want to hear, but what we need to do is stop playing the tape and turn on the radio to see what God is trying to tell us, and listen to him instead.” He also numerous other great ideas that left me in tears. Every pastor added their own twist to the method and made it their own, it was so exciting to watch them and see this ministry being multiplied before our eyes!

This evening the rest of our tam comes up from down South and together we will be travelling to the Western side of Zambia for two more seminars there before finishing up with a final week of training in Livingstone in the South. I can’t believe we only have a month left! Wow this has gone by fast.

Thank you so much for your prayers this past week, God moved so much!
- Please continue to pray for the anointing of the Lord on our team and in the lives of the students
- Pray for those who were just trained, that they would get out and use what they have learned and train others. Also, please pray that the Lord would allow us to come back and do a follow-up training with them next year to build on the foundation that has been laid. They are all eager to do so and so are we.
- Please pray for our health and safety as we travel to the other side of country and train there.
Thank you so much for all your support and prayers!

Sincerely,

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Quote of the week: "This is REVOLUTIONARY!"

2007-08-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Hello,
We just got back from Ndola Zambia in the North and had such an AWESOME time! Instead of just writing about it, I have made an "Audio Newsletter" that you can listen to by clicking on the following link http://www.tomakehimknown.com/news2.htm That will go to the page of my website. Take a listen and be encouraged!

Just a short summary, we had a great small group of pastors from the Vineyard fellowships in that area and were able to go deeper into application than I have ever been able to go. This is one of the hungriest groups I have ever been a part of and it was so hard to leave. When one of the pastors was asked to apply the letter of Philemon to his life, his answer was simply, "this is revolutionary!" I asked him to elaborate and he went on & on as to how this message will completely transform the church and how he had never seen this before and now wants to go back home and teach this any chance he gets. Oh, what a wonderful time. Listen to the update to hear more.

Thank you for your prayers and your support.

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Thank you for your prayers, another great week

2007-08-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

Hello,
Thank you so much for your prayers. We just had an another awesome week with a great group of pastors and leaders. For this one we moved out to the village and were able to spend our time with the people there.

Just a couple praise reports:

- Last Sunday I had one of the greatest experiences I have ever had in ministry. I spoke at the church of one of the pastors who came to our seminar last week and who wants to teach the method in rural villages. He got up for their "back to the Bible teaching" which is normally a 30 minute Bible reading time. However , he began by sharing one of the passages we had gone through in our seminar. He then asked the class how to apply that verse to their lives. I was so disappointed because we spent the whole week teaching that application is the final step of Bible study. But then he totally blew me away as he told the church he was just tricking them and application is the final step, but first they have to pray, then observe, then interpret. He then proceeded to spend the next hour giving a perfect teaching of how to use the Inductive method to study through the Bible. I was holding back tears, trying not to make a fool of myself as I saw this great servant of God teaching the method better than I can. He was interacting with the whole church and they were getting it. It was such a gift to see him not just using what he had learned, but excited to get his whole church using the method and now he wants to teach others as well. He later showed me that their weekly Bible study has changed & is now using the Inductive method of Bible study. He is so excited for what he has learned and is now wanting to share it with as many others as possible.

- That leads to the second major praise report. While here we are partnering with a ministry called Every Home for Christ, a wonderful ministry that is focused on reaching every home in every village across the entire nation. We are working directly with its Zambia director and it has been so amazing for the first time in my experience to partner with a long term evangelistic ministry. The reason why this is so awesome is that right before we came, this ministry had been praying for God to provide a way for them to offer deeper discipleship methods for training pastors around the country, but did not have the means to do it. That same week is when they heard we were coming to Zambia. Now they are so excited to work with us and are committed to do follow up in every location we have gone, but what is even better, is that now they are asking for us to train up a handful of the best & brightest pastors/teachers that have attended the seminars (included the pastor mentioned above) to teach the method around the country so that even when we leave, the work here will continue. Just yesterday we finalized a follow-up training seminar where we will spend a very intensive week training this small group how to teach this method in a seminar setting and then they will go out across the country teaching it themselves! I just can't tell you how awesome this is. Even when we leave this work is going to continue on without us. They are so excited by what we are doing and they are even wanting to raise money to bring us back again! Every time we meet with them they just keep saying over and over again, "you have no idea what a blessing you are to this nation, Zambia will never be the same." What a privilege!

- Also, last time I asked you to pray about the arrangement of seminars. Well, Every Home for Christ has helped with any potential gaps and it looks like we will be packed out with 2 seminars every week from now until the time we leave! Thank you so much for your prayers!

Please also continue to pray:
- the team is splitting up for the next couple weeks. I will be going north with one team member and three will be going south. Pray that God would guide them, anoint them, & give them great wisdom in leading the seminars on their own.
- Please pray for this "training seminar" in one week's time. I am trying to fit 9 months of training in to one week and need a lot of guidance and wisdom in how to do that. Also for the students to all grasp all that they need and be fully equipped to do it on their own across the country.
- Please continue to pray for our health. This past week two members of our team got sick and how to sit out of part of the teachings.

Thank you SO MUCH for all your prayers, I honestly can't express how grateful I am for your support.

Thank you,

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

It's Good To Be In Africa Again

2007-08-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hello, just a quick update.

We have arrived safely in Zambia after a few days on a long bus journey. After arriving late at night and being on the bus for 3 days, our contact told us we would be teaching all day the following morning. No one really felt up to it, but the pastors had already gathered, so I agreed. It ended up being a good time. I taught the whole first day and the team taugh much of the rest of the seminar. The first seminar just ended yesterday afternoon and it was quite wonderful. Though it started off a bit sketchy, poorly planned and not a great turn out, starting on Monday everything turned around and we had a large group of local pastors and leaders who were so hungry to learn. The reason why I feel the seminar was so great is because by the end of the week, most of those in attendance were completely understanding everything we were doing and best of all, close to 10 of the pastors there are now planning to go teach this method to others! How excting is that? Not only do we get to come and train pastors, but now they are going to go and train other pastors! They were so excited by what they were learning and asking great questions. It really was a awesome time.

Another highlight of the week, started off as a rather scary moment. I arrived at a new church on Sunday and the pastor told me he wanted me to teach on their Marriage seminar that afternoon! He had assumed I was married and surprised to learn I wasn't. I couldn't turn him down, so I ran and for 2 hours madly prepared & prayed. I ended up just expositorily going through the end of Ephesians ch. 5, but I had no reason to be scared. I honestly can't think of the last time I had so much fun teaching! I would have all the women literally jumping out of their seats screaming "AMEN!" at one moment and a few minutes later the men doing it in return as we discussed the Biblical view of marital relationships. It was such an awesome time as both sides saw from a 2000 year text, affirming words for each of them and how they should love, affirm, & serve one another. Their response was incredible! Not just having fun, but seriously considering how they love and treat one another. One of the funniest moments was when I asked the men when the last time was that they stayed home and took care of the wives in order to let their wife go out with her girlfriends. It took awhile for the women to quiet down after that one and the men actually admitted and saw the need to share some of the load in raising children. Most of the men said they could not remember the last time they had cared for the children on their own. I left that time thinking, "Man, I can't wait till I get asked to do this again!"

Thank you so much for all your prayers, you have been such a blessing to me and the team.

A few points that we could really use prayer for at the moment:

- Arranging seminars. Right now, things are very up in the air. This is the least organized I have ever seen an outreach so far. We don't know what we will be doing next week or where we will be staying and after that, only one of the remaining weeks are planned. So please pray that the Lord would bring us the right contacts and that we would be able to meet the needs He has set for us.

- Please continue to pray for wisdom for me in leading this team. That I might have the right words to affirm and encourage them as they grow in their teaching and the tact in guiding them in the midst of many unknowns.

- Please continue to pray for our health. So far we have done well & I praise God for that, just please pray that our good health continues.

Thank you so much for your prayers and please let me know how I can be praying for you as well.

Sincerely,

James

www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Quick Update after Kyrgyzstan

2007-06-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Hello Again, Wow, I can't believe that our time in Kyrgyzstan has already finished.

Uzbekistan Airways canceled our return flight so we have had to fly out a week earlier than expected (I wouldn't recommend anyone signing up for their frequent flyer program :) ) though it has turned out as a blessing because it means we are able to debrief as a team on the southern paradise Islands of Thailand. I write this newsletter right now sitting under a palm tree on a white sandy beach overlooking clear turquoise water. What an amazing location to relax and process the last couple months!

Since I wrote last time we have been teaching every week on a Bible school. The highlight for me of the whole trip was teaching the book of Daniel for a week there. The more I studied, the more overwhelmed I became as I realized the book's main message was written to people in identical circumstances as the pastor's and leaders in the Bible school. A few of the students are from a nearby Muslim nation where they are unable to openly exercise their faith. Believers there are regularly tortured and forced to deny their faith. Some of these students will be going back and working with an underground Bible School. Each day the location of the school changes and the students have to sneak into the building 2 by 2 and spread out their arrival to not draw attention. You can imagine it is more than humbling to teach a book which is all about how to live in an anti-God society and with the major message of God's sovereignty over the nations. I prayed so much that God would not let me say anything that would cause the students to misunderstand or to pressure them to make decisions that would get them arrested or worse. There is one person whose own father does not know they are a Christian & yet they feel called to teach the Bible back home. They were often in tears over the consequences they will face when they return home and pursue ministry. The book of Daniel spoke directly into every one of their lives and caused them to ask tough questions and yet also gave real hope. What a privilege it was to be part of that. It was one of the most rewarding weeks I have had teaching in while and also the most prayer-filled as I knew I was completely dependent upon Him for what I was going to say. What an amazing time. It was even more encouraging at the end to hear their feedback of how the Lord was ministering to them during that time.

This outreach has also been good for me because of our focus of working with this particular Bible School. For the past couple years it seems I have traveled every week from one location to the next and so it has been nice to spend time in one place getting to know these pastors and leaders better.

The Bible School ends in a few weeks and these students will be returning to their homes and the inevitable persecution that will come. It brings me to tears to think of what some of them will be facing, yet I amazed & encouraged to see their strength and desire to return home and pass on what they have learned. Right before we left, one of the men was asking us to come teach on their school in their home country next year and joked, "it will be fun, you get to teach and run from the police at the same time!" They all laughed because it is their reality. However, I was again overwhelmed because for some reason I have been called to come and teach these men and women of faith, when the truth is I have little to offer them and they are in fact the ones teaching me.

As for what is next, we leave here in a couple days and will return to Taiwan. A day later I will be heading down to South Africa to staff the next Titus Project that is being pioneered there and lead an outreach to Zambia.

Thank you for your prayers and please continue to pray for these Bible students, especially those that are returning home to their Muslim culture. Pray for strength, boldness, and protection for them. Also, continue to pray for health & safety amidst all the traveling we are doing.

Thank you,

Sincerely,

James Lunn
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Real Men Wear Skirts!

2007-04-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for your prayers and please also continue to let me know how I can be praying for you as well.

The time in Myanmar was amazing and it was so awesome to see God's faithfulness again and again in answering prayer. The first week I taught on a Training School there for about 25 Christians who are headed into missions. I loved being with them and we had a great time together, however the teaching was only in the mornings and there was no one who spoke English to be with the rest of the time and nothing to do other than remain in my room and study. It was much more down-time than I have ever had during a seminar. By the end of the week I was getting concerned about the weekend because there were no plans made and there would be no one who could speak English until the next seminar began on the following Monday. On Friday morning before class I prayed and asked God to give me opportunities to serve on the weekend. I then went to class to finish the week's teachings. At about 12:30, just 30 minutes before the class was to be finished, I was looking forward to being done after a week of teaching and was dreaming of a nice afternoon nap away from the scorching heat in an air-conditioned room. Just then, the leader of the school walked in and interrupted the teaching. He said, "James, you said you would like to be busy, is that still true?" I told him I would and asked if he had found opportunities for the weekend. He told me that the Bible School I would be teaching at on Monday had asked that I teach all day Saturday and be there on Sunday as well. I was so excited. That very morning I had been praying for this very thing, but he then said, "How much do you want to teach? They are also asking if you could go there and start teaching in one hour!" I couldn't believe it. I quickly finished up the morning teachings, grabbed lunch, and jumped in the car to go to the Bible School. When I arrived I told them the story of how God had brought me to Myanmar and how I had been praying that very morning that God would give me more opportunities to teach. The Director of the school then stopped me and praised God as he said that he had been praying on his end that God would send them someone to come and teach. He was very worried that he would have to send all of the students home if I had been unable to come and their homes were days of travel away. It was just so awesome to see that even though I was worried and the Director was worried and both of us were praying, the whole time God had been working out his perfect plan. God's plan is always the best one and I often need to be reminded of that fact.

The week with the Bible school was amazing since they were all studying for their Master's degree in Theology. It was so much fun to teach these pastors and leaders who were so hungry for the word, yet also had a solid foundation. I am usually teaching in villages with pastors who have little education, so it was fun to work with this group, though sometimes frustrating to see the effects of the education system that has greatly stifled creative thinking and makes Bible Interpretation quite difficult to grasp.

On a side note, one of the biggest highlights of being in Myanmar was getting to wear dresses every day! Well, actually it is a Longji and it is more of a wrap-around skirt that is worn by all Burmese men, but if it was culturally appropriate I would wear these things in every hot climate I travel to. They are the most comfortable clothes I've ever worn.

Right now I am back in Taipei and our Training time here has started. We have six students on the school, two westerners and four Taiwanese. So things are getting pretty busy and it won't slow down for at least six months. I am actually pretty excited because in the last few days I prayed through and set down my schedule for the next six months. In three weeks I will be leading a team to Kyrgyzstan where we will be training village pastors and Bible School students. After that I will head to South Africa to help pioneer a new Titus Project location beginning there in July. I will staff that school and lead an outreach to one of the surrounding nations to train pastors there and then come back home to Seattle for a couple weeks at the beginning of September before heading back to Montana for the Titus Project there. I hope to lead another team of Bible Teachers from the Montana school back to Uganda in the fall and follow up on the work we did last year while there. So please continue to keep me in your prayers as there will be a lot of teaching and traveling coming up.
Please be praying for:
- The training time. That the students would be fully equipped with all they need to train the pastors they will be going to.
- Finances: The schedule above is being set in faith, however it will require some miraculous financial provision to see it all happen.
- Anointing in preparing and in teaching: that I would continue to be desperate for God and His presence each day whether I am teaching or preparing.
- Continued Health & Safety
- Whatever else the Lord lays on your heart.

Thank you,

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Back Home Again

2007-02-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

Well I am now back in the states and it feels good to be home! You can check out my website at www.ToMakeHimKnown.com for updated pictures, some stories and even a couple videos from the time in Uganda. I will probably be leaving at the beginning of March to head back to Taiwan to staff the next Titus Project school there for a couple months before leading another team of Bible Teachers back to Asia to train pastors. I don't know exactly where yet, but we will most likely head to either Mongolia or Myanmar. But for now I am enjoying the chance to rest and spend time with family and friends.

The biggest reason I am excited to be home is because I have received the greatest gift I could ever hope for: new eyes! While I was in Uganda I learned that my sister had sent an email out to many of my supporters to see if enough money could be raised for me to get lasik surgery. Well, I was astonished to find out that enough money came in and the only question was whether or not I would be a candidate for the surgery. Just a couple days ago I went in for a pre-op exam and learned that I am a perfect candidate and so tomorrow I will be going into surgery to have lasik on both of my eyes! I truly can't believe this is happening. It is a dream I have had for at least ten years and never imagined I could ever actually afford it. The generosity of those who made this possible has totally overwhelmed me and I am praising God for this amazing blessing.

As for my last week in Uganda, it was wonderful. I was able to work with the same group of pastors for a second week and it was so much fun to work with them again, taking them deeper into studying the Word. By the end of the seminar the feedback was truly amazing as these pastors told me how their whole understanding of the Bible had changed and they were giving examples of how they had used what they had learned over the weekend in preparing their sermons and how the Bible was coming alive to them like never before. They even picked out the church that they said they will convert to a school if I would agree to come and start a Bible school for the priests in the region! I wish you could speak to some of these pastors and see what a difference your support of this ministry has been making.

My last day in Uganda was quite memorable as I spent it hanging out with Paul and William, the two pastors from Sudan that we met last year and then helped to attend the Bible School in Jinja. I took both of them into the city to get their first western meal of their lives: pizza. They absolutely loved it, and it was so much fun to see them try to figure out how to eat it. Later that night William & Paul came down to my room asking if we could share communion together before I departed. It was one of the coolest communions I have ever taken part in -as these two great men of faith asked me to lead us in taking the Lord's supper and then they prayed for me. I was so touched and blessed. The only consolation I had in leaving is knowing that I will be returning next year and will see them again.I have attached a picture of the three of us on the last day together.

So now I am back home resting and tomorrow I am getting lasik surgery. Next week I would like to begin spending time with friends and supporters before heading out again in just under a month.

So please continue to pray:
- Please pray for the surgery, that it goes well and that my eyes heal well and gain good vision. The doctor is a little concerned about the quick turnaround of my trip home not being sufficient time for the eyes to fully heal.
- Please pray for my visa situation for Taiwan. I am waiting on my visa to be processed so I can stay there for a longer period of time. It has been processing for the last 5 weeks and there is no way to know when it will be finished.
- Please pray that this time home will be refreshing and restoring. As you have read, I got pretty worn out on this last trip and even after being home a week I am still very tired.
- Please pray that this time home would be fruitful in relationships with friends and family.
- Please pray that the Lord will raise up the necessary monthly financial support I need to continue on with this ministry.

Thank you.

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Thank you for Praying

2007-01-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much for your prayers! It was a hard week, but yet it was also a very good one. I started off very sick as I had mentioned in the last letter. But the next day, things turned around. Each day I felt better and on Friday my voice was almost back to full strength and I had plenty of energy. In fact the seminar finished off so well, that we actually extended it into this week! So starting tomorrow I will go back and continue to work a couple more days with the same group of pastors. I will then finish up the week by teaching part of Revelation on the Bible School here and then fly out in exactly one week! I can't believe it is almost over!

It has been such a blessing to work with this group this past week and I have been so humbled as God has given me so much favor with the Anglican Church here. I have now been asked to come back and train all of the pastors/priests of the more than 100 churches in this area. The head of the churches here has asked me to give him one month of time to bring all of the leaders together. What a privilege to be able to make such a significant impact on the top leadership of an entire region! The seminars we do are more than just teaching, but we deal with a leader's character, how to preach, how to lead, etc as we study the Bible. I am now getting requests from other bishops/leaders in different regions to come and do the same thing there as well. It is so humbling to have these opportunities and yet so fun to do it (well, as long as I am somewhat healthy).

So thank you for your prayers, and please continue to pray this week as well.
- please pray for continued strength and a full recovery. I am still sick, but well enough to keep going.
- please pray for continued anointing as I finish up this week.
- Please pray for things here to be wrapped up well as I return home.

Also, I will be home in about a week and a half and will have about one month back in the Seattle area. I would like much of that time getting together with those who have supported me, so if you would like to get together with me while I am home, PLEASE send me an email. I have yet to set anything up for the time while home, so my schedule is wide open at this moment.

Thank you again,

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Like Waking Up From A Dream

2007-01-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

Wow, I don't know how else to describe how I feel after traveling back here to Jinja from Aromo IDP camp in Northern Uganda. I feel like I am waking up from a dream. It was without a doubt the best seminar I have ever been a part of and I feel like I can't process everything that happened or even remember most of it, just that it was purely amazing and I am definitely going back. Getting there is kind of a nightmarish two days of travel, but it is worth every second. I honestly don't even know what to say about the week, other than WOW and praise God! I have been on a one week non-stop high and am now trying to recover for one day before I start teaching on the Bible school tomorrow, but I feel like I need a few more days to process the past week.
So how can I describe it? Well, let's just say it was the first seminar I have ever been a part of where the pastors wore me out with their hunger for the Word. We had over a hundred pastors and leaders from one of the largest IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps in the nation of over 70,000 people. People also came from very far away as well. In this camp, all those people are packed together in mud huts in an area about half of a square mile. There is barely room to walk between most of the huts they are so close to each other. Each day we started teaching at 8 in the morning and would finish right around 11 each night. We would take an hour break for lunch and for dinner. The rest of the time they were on the edge of their seats wanting to learn as much as they could. They NEVER got tired. I couldn't believe it. By the time we finished each night I would stumble to my bed and collapse and fall right asleep. Then I would wake up just after 7 and run to the classroom to set up and try to prepare for the day's training. On the final night of teaching, it was about 9:30 at night, we were finishing our dinner, and I couldn't keep my eyes open and so I told them, "You guys must be tired, I know I am, so it is alright if you want to finish here tonight and continue in the morning so you can rest after all this studying." They took a vote and every one of them raised their hand to say they would like to keep studying. I was in shock, I've never seen a hunger like this before. I prayed to God to give me strength and as soon as I opened my mouth to teach, I felt completely alive and finished out the night without the slightest sense of being tired (though I fell asleep the instant I hit my bed) What made it all the more amazing is that because the numbers were so large we had to use a temporary school house that was made entirely of sheet metal that transformed into a massive oven for most of the day because of the hot, equatorial sun.
Without a doubt it was the students that made this week so amazing. Each day they gave everything they had because they wanted to know God's Word better. Quite a few had already had gone to theological school, but had never learned how to study the Bible, just learned theology using the Bible as a text book. Each day I could see significant progress in the students and I have never left a seminar so confident in the students' ability to take the training and begin to use it immediately. I couldn't believe the feedback they were giving during the week. After beginning to understand how to "dig deeper" in the Bible, one of the pastors, who like almost every else in the camp is a farmer, said, "If we had been digging in our gardens the way we used to dig in the Bible, our crops would never grow!" Another pastor told me, "James we used to think that the Bible was very difficult to understand, but you are like a mother hen, teaching all the little chicks how to dig for the worms and other food below the surface." Often after eating lunch the students would rush back to the classroom without even resting. I would tell them, "sit, rest, let your brains recover." They would respond "we want to go study the next section to be ready for class! " This is the first seminar where I have been able to start a seminar at 8 in the morning. That has been impossible in the past, but even though we are deep in the village, they didn't want to miss a minute and many would already be in class when I arrived each morning studying on their own. By the third day of class they were already begging me to extend the seminar another week. By the end of the seminar I can't count the number of people who made sincere requests to make it an ongoing annual "Bible School." In fact they even wrote a letter of appreciation in which they speak to you, my supporters, it says, "We are sending back our congratulation through you to your sponsorship in USA. However, as we have listen and heard carefully about what you have taught us with, so please, could you kindly act as a link for training of the pastors in this region and send James back to us for annual training."
I could go on for thirty pages talking about the people, but here are a few quick highlight stories from the time:On the final day we did application of the book of Titus and I spoke on Titus 1:6, the need for a church leader to be able to lead their family. As we were in prayer on that verse, people were crying out to God in repentance and recommitting to be better fathers, husbands, wives, etc and right in the front one of the pastors was praying in English. He was weeping and crying out, "Lord thank you for bringing me to study your word, but I know that this is the reason you brought me here, to see my sin and to be a better husband and father, I repent of my selfishness, help me to lead my family…" I was on the verge of tears just listening to him pray. At the end of the seminar people were giving appreciation, and he stood up and said that he came to study the Bible, and is thankful for that, but he knows the real reason God brought him is for spiritual transformation, he was not expecting it, but God surprised him. To thank me, he had the whole seminar gather around me and pray for God's anointing and blessing on my ministry. I have never in my life been prayed for like that. As I sat there, I could tangibly feel the presence of God (as well as being covered in saliva, because of all the pastors surrounding me shouting out their prayers to God). It was an amazing time.
One awesome miracle God did was on the third day, one of the men came to class and couldn't see because of a terrible eye infection, so he just laid his head down to listen as we begun class. I felt God say to pray for him, so we all did, by the end of praying, he opened his eye and was able to read without a problem and continued to study for the rest of the week. He was actually the best student in the class. God is so good!
Another cool privilege was a couple days before I left for Aromo, someone sent me money to purchase some bicycles for pastors. They felt God was telling them to do that and told me to get them for whomever God leads me to. Well, when we got there I had my translator, Bosco, who I have known for over a year now, find out where the greatest need was. It turns out that the chairman of the pastors in the region had walked to the seminar because his bicycle was so old it could no longer be fixed and was praying for a bicycle. We were able to bless him, then also, the man who had lead Bosco to the Lord many years ago and was now a traveling preacher had recently sold his own bicycle in order get money to provide for his own children and so was without transportation. You can't imagine how cool it was to see these men receive an answer to their prayers from half way across the world. I wasn't going to present them with the bicycles while we were there, but Bosco insisted that everyone should see what a BIG God we serve who can answer prayers through strangers in another country. It was very cool and all of the glory went to God with everyone knowing neither Bosco or I had anything to do with the gifts. The same day as I was leaving the classroom I noticed that one of the men was barefoot. As we went to lunch I asked and learned that he could not even afford simple sandals which only cost 50 cents. The whole week I had been wearing my own sandals which had begun to hurt my feet because they were too big for me. So I went to look for him, but couldn't find him. I went back to my room to finish packing to leave and then he showed up at my door with a giant smile on his face, I was worried they would not fit him, but they could not have been more perfectly tailored for him. I again was amazed at how God works things out. He was so thankful he wouldn't stop hugging me and then he actually kissed me!
One of the coolest parts of the whole week was being able to spend time with Bosco. I met him last year in Arua. He is one of the school leaders on the YWAM base there and late one night he asked if I could come to his home and do a seminar in the IDP camp which no one has ever gone to before to do training. I told him I would love to do it, but that God would have to make the arrangements. Well, when I came to Africa this time I contacted him about taking the team there, but it didn't work out and we were frustrated. But at the end of our seminar in Ratchkoho about two months ago a few men came and begged me to come back and do a seminar in their own home area. I agreed to do it after the team had left without realizing that they were from the same camp as Bosco. I can't express how great it was to spend the week with Bosco in his home and spend each day teaching with him. God was answering your prayers that I have requested to build deeper friendships. Bosco even told me on the second to last day, "James, this week has been one of the best weeks of my entire life!"
I am sorry for such a long update; however I feel I haven't even begun to describe the week yet. Nonetheless, I need to get back to preparing the epistles of John to teach tomorrow on the Bible school here. I just wanted to let you know about the week and thank everyone for their prayers.
Oh, and one other praise report slash prayer request from two weeks ago. I had been waiting for everything to work out for the remainder of the seminars here and God has given me so much favor with the Anglican church here, which is by far the largest church in Uganda. In fact the bishop of the region I am in has arranged for me to have a 5 day seminar next week with the 22 priests in this diocese. I am completely humbled by this opportunity to have all the top leadership of the Anglican church in this area in a seminar for a week and now am pleading with you to pray for guidance and wisdom as I prepare for this seminar next week. I will have about 40 hours with them and am a little overwhelmed.
- also please continue to pray for health and safety. I only have a little more than three weeks to go and want to finish up strong.- please pray for this week as I will be not just teaching 1st, 2nd, & 3rd John on the Bible school but will also be doing three days of training with the school in how to run a seminar so they can pass on what they are learning to others.
Thank you so much,
Sincerely,
Jameswww.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Merry Christmas From Uganda

2006-12-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

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

Thank You For Your Prayers, It was An Amazing Week

2006-11-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

I just want to first say THANK YOU!!! Thank you for praying for our team this week. It was amazing within a few hours of the email being sent out I had the most violent vomiting attack of my entire life and felt great from that moment on! I have since received your emails and it is amazing to see what God showed you and awesome to know that God is covering us on all sides! We were able to get a vehicle to come and take Molly and Ihn Hee back to Arua to get a check up and it ended up not being malaria and within a couple days she was feeling fine as well. So it worked out wonderfully. Everyone is now healthy and we are here in Jinja, in southern Uganda, teaching on the School of Biblical Studies. The girls were able to have a nice few days to prepare for their teachings this week on the Bible school and Jeremy and I had a phenomenal seminar out in Madi Okolo! Thank you for your prayers!

I know this email is a little long so you can skim to the bottom for prayer if you would like, but I think the stories are worth sharing.

From the first day in Madi Okolo refugee camp it was great to meet up again with the friends I made last year while in the there and most of them came again. It was like returning home. There were so many wonderful things to share about I will try to share just a few.

One of the highlights was on Saturday night I had no idea what I was supposed to preach on Sunday morning. I met with the chairman of the churches in the area when he came to ask for financial assistance with a few things. One of them was a lot of money to purchase a tray for communion as well as the required special cups and vase, etc. His sister church in Ariwa last week asked me for the same thing. When I asked why they needed to spend this large amount of money on a ceremonial tray, they told me, “that is our doctrine and we can’t celebrate communion without it.” I asked if Jesus used a tray and many small cups and they admitted that it was only their tradition, but that the people would be afraid of doing it any other way. After speaking with the pastor for a while, sharing on the value of communion, and showing how tea and biscuits could be substituted for bread and wine, he asked me if I would teach on Sunday the message of communion and hold the church’s first communion service! I must say that this has been one of the greatest privileges of my life! I was first able to teach what the Bible says about communion, addressing some of their stumbling blocks, and then we took their first communion with a cup of tea and a package of biscuits. To think that for all these years the only thing standing between them and celebrating communion was money. Yet now they see that money is not required to remember the sacrifice of Christ. The greatest part of all was after the service when I had set down the cup tea and the pastor set down the biscuits and he said to me, “we will definitely do this again.” As I sit here remembering this, I am again filled with awe in how awesome God is and humbled that I get to be here.

There were so many other awesome events from the week. We taught from John 13 about servant leadership and for application spoke on how we need to serve each other. I even went so far as to compare Jesus’ act of washing the disciples’ feet, which was only done by servants and women, to the pastors carrying their own water from the bore hole, cooking food for each other, and washing dishes, which the men in their culture refuse to do. It didn’t seem that they had really enjoyed the specific application and instead said they would serve by preaching the gospel. However the next morning a few of the leaders of the church wouldn’t come in to the training and I soon realized they had kicked the women out of the kitchen hut and these men were preparing the food and tea for the day. I then saw another leader walk by with empty jerry cans to go pump and fetch water! Soon the men were coming in washing the others’ hands and serving tea. They then finished preparing lunch and served everyone, fetching even more water, and even cleaned up all the dishes afterwards! I don’t know how to describe how amazing this was. I could not have dreamed of a more perfect way for them to apply the message to their lives and no one who was at the seminar will ever forget it! I put up a couple pictures in my photo gallery of them serving.

One crazy thing that happened while there was that in the middle of our seminar half of the church roof fell down. Luckily people were able to run out in time, but termites ate through the main support of the church and so we had half of the church to work with for the rest of the week. The only nice thing about this was that as a result people had to sit very close together and near the front. Jeremy and I were also laughing when after constantly chasing a chicken out of our hut I found it’s egg sitting behind his backpack.

Another thing that God did in my heart this past week was He bonded my heart closer to many of these men and women and a one question kept nagging at my heart the entire time. What is my responsibility to help the poor? Being surrounded by so much poverty on a week-by-week basis, I am always confronted with this question, but this week I received a new revelation of it and felt that even though I can’t help everyone, I had to do be willing to err on the side of generosity, not caution. It is amazing how a little bit can make such a huge difference out here and one of the greatest parts of the whole week was being able to invest in five of the church leaders to go back to school and obtain their high school diplomas. Without it, they are only able to dig in the fields; with it they can get a good job and have many more opportunities when they return to Sudan. There is also a woman in the camp who wants to be a missionary and do a DTS and I am hoping and praying that God will provide the 400 dollars she needs to do that.

Along those lines, the greatest thing about being here in Jinja is that we are teaching on the Bible School here and this is where Pastor William and Paul are studying. As I mentioned before on my website, a generous donor to Titus Project provided the finances to send these two men of God here to study the Bible for nine months. I can’t express in words how wonderful it was to see them again and see how joyful they are. We sat for hours as they talked about how much they praised God when they found they could get more training and Pastor Paul told me something I will never forget. He said, “James for a long time I wondered why God chose me to come here and study, but I got the answer a few weeks ago while studying 2^nd Timothy chapter 2. Paul tells Timothy to ‘…entrust these things to reliable men who will be able to teach others.’” I almost fell out of my chair when he continued and said, “James, you are my Paul and I am Timothy, and now I must go back and pass this training on to the pastors in my home and then in Sudan when we return.” I quickly assured him that I had nothing to do with it, but he said, “It doesn’t matter, I have a responsibility to now train others.” I have tears in my eyes just recalling these words! This is the reason why we do this ministry! We are not simply teaching a few people, but training them so they can go and train others. It was so exciting to hear this directly from his mouth.

I will be staying on until the end of January working with the Bible School here, but I want to spend even more time with these students who are so hungry for God’s Word. On the Bible school here we have six students, four of them are pastors and three of them are from Sudan. They have all told me that they would like more training on how to take what they are learning and teach it to others, so we will spend time on that in January. I am continually overwhelmed with joy as I talk with them and hear their passion to take their training and pass it on.

Thank you so much for all of your support and giving me the privilege to do this and thank you for your prayers that continue to sustain us as we minister. This week the girls are teaching 1^st & 2^nd Corinthians on the Bible School, Jeremy & I will be teaching in the village. Next week, I will go with the girls to another seminar while Jeremy teaches Hebrews on the Bible school. The following week is our debriefing time and then the team goes back. After that I will teach Matthew on the Bible School and then head to Kenya for a seminar there before coming back to teach on the Bible School again.

So please continue to pray:
- Please pray for our continued health and safety as we travel and minister. God continues to show me how blessed I am to have a prayer covering for my health. THANK YOU!!!
- Please pray for the team to be anointed with wisdom and power as they teach on the Bible School.
- Please pray that we finish out this time strong. It is easy to get tired after this much travel and teaching. So please pray for God’s strength and continued passion for each person to give everything they have.
- And of course, please ask the Lord to show you what to pray for and pray accordingly.

Thank you,

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

The People of Ariwa Send You Their Greetings

2006-11-09T21:48:00.000-08:00

Wow, we just had an amazing time. Not only did we just finish up last week’s seminar in Ariwa Refugee camp, but we spent the last 24 hours in Murchison Falls Wildlife Game Park on a safari. It was amazing. Last year when I came we also went, but this time we saw so much more. God’s creation is so awe inspiring. The animals are amazing, we saw hundreds of elephants up close, giraffes, lions, hippos, crocs, baboons, etc, but this time we spent a few hours on top of the most powerful surge of water in the world where the entire Nile river flows through an 18 foot wide gap in the rocks. It was mesmerizing to sit at the top as I had worship music blaring in my headphones, watching the sun set over the falls and worshipping God and his majesty! You can see some of the photos in my photo gallery under Murchison Falls, I have also added more photos to the Uganda 2006 section from our time in Ariwa. www.ToMakeHimKnown.comOur time in Ariwa was also amazing, though very different from what we were expecting. Last year our trip to Ariwa was the best seminar we had, with almost every pastor in the camp coming out each day. This week we were surprised to find that we arrived right in the middle of harvesting time for sim sim (sesame seeds). They told us two days before we were supposed to come, but it was too late to change our plans. As a result, very few were able to come, each family spends almost all their time harvesting their sim sim for the short window they have after it is ripe and before it spoils. Those who came to the seminar made a huge sacrifice to be there as some of their crops spoiled during the week. We started our seminars around noon so people could have time to work in the fields in the mornings, we would then go until about five when they would return to the fields to work. Also many of the people we really connected with last year were not around this year. Yet even though it appeared to be very unfortunate timing, God was of course not surprised and had His own plans for our time there.

From the first day we struggled with our teachings as people were clearly distracted by their other work, few had attended last years seminar, and most who came had little to no education. As a result we had to change what we were doing and focus on meeting the people where they were at. At first I was quite disappointed as it was clear they were not ready for the teachings we had prepared, but we took our teachings and simplified them to the greatest extent possible and it was so encouraging to see people begin to study the Bible for the first time in their lives. We had awesome testimonies from the pastors who came on how they clearly saw for the first time that there was so much more to God’s Word than they had ever seen and that they now felt they could study it on their own.

We also had the privilege of being able to speak on some important issues in the church. We spent a lot of time dealing with Biblical leadership and had a great time discussing the importance of ministers having a strong family life. To give you an idea of some of the mindsets, I explained a situation I encountered here last year where a pastor would never go to his home because his wife was sick with Malaria and wouldn’t serve him food. So he would go out to get food for himself from other people instead of being with his wife and he left her to fend for herself while deathly sick. When I asked them what is wrong with this scenario, one of the pastors answered, “the wife does not have faith, the husband does!” I was truly shocked and it lead to a wonderful discussion of what it means for a husband to love his wife. It was awesome as some of the other leaders stood up and spoke of what it really means to love your wife. We also spent time dealing with the issue of divorce as many of the pastors here believe it is okay to divorce if their wife is distracting them from ministry. A couple people stood up and left during that discussion, but they came back later when we had moved on to a different topic. It was just so cool to be able to have a time of looking at leadership from a Biblical perspective, not just cultural.

There were so many other cool things God did during the seminar, I wish there was time to share. However, outside of the seminar it was also a great week. This was the first week that we lived among the people and it was awesome to share life with the family we stayed with and those that lived around us. One wonderful thing that God allowed us to be a part of was the head pastor’s young daughter was extremely sick. He had run out of medicine for her and couldn’t afford more. When I went to see her at their home, she could not stand as she had had a terrible case giardia and worms for at least a week. Well I and the pastor prayed for her and then I asked how much the medicine she needed cost. I couldn’t believe when he told me he only needed less than two dollars. I quickly gave it to him and he went to the clinic and bought the medicine right away. Two days later the pastor came over with his young daughter and she looked great and was even carrying her baby brother on her back. She was smiling and happy.

It is sometimes hard because you do not want to come in as a westerner and throw money around. There is already way too much dependence upon the west and expectation for westerners to give away money, but after an experience last year in Madi Okollo I just want to do whatever I can while still trying to respect the culture. Last year in Madi Okollo one of the pastors who was in our seminar saw his daughter die of malaria during our teachings. However, if we had known of her condition, we had Malaria medication in our medical kit that we could have given him. After attending that girl’s funeral last year I decided that I don’t want to attend any more preventable funerals if there is any way in which I can help to prevent them.

Another time I saw a young boy had a gaping wound on his ankle the size of a quarter and very deep. He had hit himself with a hoe and flies were literally inside of his ankle and he was running around in the dust and mud with no protection. Again we were able to help clean his wound from our medical kit and then arranged for him to get ongoing treatment from the local clinic. His parents are away in Sudan and he has to take care of himself, who knows what would have happened if he allowed it to get infected. Even with all the amazing stories from our seminars, it is often these simple practical things that stick with me, how something so little can make such a big difference.

One other highlight from the week for me, was being able to see John again. It was so wonderful to see his bright smile as I saw him on the side of the road. I was happy to find that his eyesight has not gotten any worse from last year and it was neat to take another picture with him as he proudly wore the sunglasses I gave him last year.

There are many more stories I could share from the week, but I have to get back and prepare for our next seminar in Madi Okollo tomorrow.

So please continue to pray for me and the team. This week we are in another refugee camp, then next week we head to Jinja. Half will teach on the Bible school and the other half will do a pastoral seminar, then the following week we switch.
- Please ask the Lord how you should pray and pray accordingly.
- Also, Please pray for health and safety. We have all been a bit sick in the past week, some more than others. Please, please continue to pray for our health.
- Please pray for John, I attached his picture, pray that God would restore his eyesight. He can’t go to school because he can’t see and can’t work in the fields either for the same reason. So if you think about it, please lift him up in prayer and pray for his healing.
- Please pray for anointing this week as we prepare and teach. Things are getting very stressful for the team as they are preparing this week’s teachings as well as preparing to teach on the Bible school the following two weeks. Each person is overwhelmed so please lift them up in prayer, Molly, Jeremy, Ihn Hee, & myself.
- And again, please continue to pray for wisdom and guidance for me. God has stretched me a lot during this trip and I am growing a ton and continue to be desperate for his guidance and wisdom.

Thank you so much for your support.

Sincerely,

James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Audio Update from Arua

2006-10-31T21:50:00.000-08:00

Hello Again,

We have just finished our second seminar here in Northern Uganda. It has been another awesome week. Instead of an email update I have made another audio newsletter. Just go to my website and click on the audio newsletter. You can listen to it on the web, or download a higher quality version to your computer. I also uploaded a many photos to my photo gallery so you can check those out as well under Uganda 2006 www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

This past week has been wonderful in Ratchkoko IDP camp and you can listen to how it went from the link. Right now we are back in Arua for a couple days at the YWAM base and will be leaving for Ariwa Refugee camp tomorrow. I can’t wait to return to Ariwa since that it where we were last year and God did so many awesome things there.

It is crazy to think that we are already three weeks in, the time has gone by so fast and God has done so many things.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers:
- pray for health and safety as we travel and live in the refugee camps
- please pray for anointing for each of us as we prepare and teach the messages God has given us
- please pray for wisdom for me as I lead this team and do my best to encourage and challenge our team as well as the pastors and leaders who come
- please pray for whatever else the Lord lays on your heart,
Thank you
James
www.ToMakeHimKnown.com

Northern Uganda

2006-10-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hello, I only have a couple minutes and the internet here is not reliable, but I wanted to give you a quick update and give a few prayer points for the next week.

We just finished our first seminar here in the North of Uganda. It was amazing! I spent quite a bit of time with tears in my eyes this week as I was able to worship with the wonderful Acholli people here and see them get so excited about studying God’s Word. We usedthe book of Philemon to train how to study the Bible and its message of forgivness and reconciliation was amazingly powerful here with an awesome time of application where many saw breakthrough in grace and frogiveness. But the most exciting part was seeing so many of the pastors and leaders get excited about Bible study. There were between 35-50 attendants and some of them had already completed a few years of BIble school but were so adamant that they have never recieved training like this and they are begging me to bring a team back next year. One of the pastors here also runs a radio station that reaches out to tens of thousands of people in northern Uganda and southern Sudan and is trying to find a way that I can come back in December or January and do a live seminar with his leaders on the air so everyone in the region can listen in and learn! I just can’t put in to words how blessed i feel to be here. I just can’t believe that I get to do this for a living! The quote of the week, that I will never forget was by the chairman of many of the churche in the area. He told us at the end of the seminar, “we thought we needed money, but what we really needed was teaching.” Again, tears come to my eyes. Oh, one other great blessing this week was that we were able to stay at an actual house with a western toilet and running water!

We are enjoying it while it lasts because after a rest day today, tomorrow we head off for an IDP (internally displaced people) camp. That is where the people who have fled their homes because of the LRA have been moved to. Thousands of people in very close quarters with small mud huts stacked next to each other an arms-length away. We are so excited we have heard that the pastors are so thrilled that we are coming and have already made all the preparations. there are even pastors coming for other IDP camps in the area to stay with us at the church so they can participate in the teachings as well. One of the men who came to our seminar on the second day traveled hours on the road, his bus broke down so he slept on the road, then arrived here the following day. He was coming to see if he should have his church come to the seminar next week. He said he was so touched after one day of teaching that not only is he going back to tell his leaders to come, but he is going to skip next week studying at his own Bible School so that he can come and attend the seminar again next week as well! It is so awesome to see God working in the hearts and minds of the people.

Well I have to go to the market and buy our posho, rice, beans, and kasava for next week in the camps, but I will write more when i get internet access again next week. So thank you for all your support and prayers and please continue to pray. Your prayers make the difference!

please continue to pray for us:

- Please pray for God’s safety and good health as we travel to and live in the IDP camps.

- Please pray for our team, that we would continue to walk in love and unity,

- Please pray that our team would have anointing and wisdom as they prepare their teachings and deliver them.

- Please pray for God to take over this week and move powerfully within the lives of the pastors in the IDP camp.

- Please pray for whatever else the Lord lays on your heart.

Sincerely,

James Lunn