I do want to say thank you to all of you who have prayed for the Mighty Men over the past few weeks. I remember a time in my life when I had a crisis of faith, because I didn't understand prayer. I couldn't understand how God could be in control of everything and still respond to our prayers. I still don't understand, but I don't have any doubts that He changes things in response to our prayers. This trip was amazingly easy. I cannot describe the feeling I felt throughout this trip. I just felt the prayers being prayed. Every day I sensed the peace of God, and the blessing of God. Every day I just knew He was going to lead us, and He did.
That's not to say we didn't have any problems. I have a video (which will never be shared publicly) of one of the boys in a major temper-tantrum because we asked him to pull his shorts up to his waist. But even in that, there was an amazing grace from God.
So what did God do on this trip? I believe we will be answering that question for generations. (Really. Generations!) Here are a few things I know today:
1. He took 7 Mighty Men to Uganda safely and brought them back home.
2. He used little boys to encourage missionaries. I can't tell you how surprised I was at how thankful the missionaries were for our team. Our team was really unique. The youngest of us were ten years old and the oldest on Medicare. Many of us had never met before this trip, yet it was clear that God had hand picked this group for his purposes. We worked together better than any team I've ever been on, and we really brought encouragement to the people we met, both missionaries and Ugandans. We came from at least 8 different churches of various denominations. Really the only thing we had in common was that we love Jesus. That was enough.
3. Jesus gave us boldness to share the gospel, and fruitfulness in our sharing. Someone asked me how many people came to Christ on our trip. I really couldn't answer. The people were very receptive, and we wrote down 50 to 100 names of people who told us they wanted to be saved. (Some of those may have already been Christians.) But there were many whose names we didn't write down who responded, also. It was really encouraging to see the Mighty Men talking to complete strangers about Jesus, and sharing His love from hut to hut and on the streets and paths. When the boy who threw the fit about his shorts got home and was asked to tell one story, he said, "I got to save a lady." Not great theology, but it was cool to hear that the thing he wanted to share the most was that he had prayed with a lady as she received Christ.
My kids woke up early and slowed me down a bit. I'll try to share more later.
God is amazing.
Randy
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