Living on a Prayer (Mountain) – Uganda 2022
It is SO good to be back in Uganda.
Just to get you a wee bit jealous this post may include hippo & elephant sightings, preaching to several hundred prisoners, chance to visit Chilli Children, seeing God move in power at an inspiring clergy conference, chance to connect to new friends and some very dear old ones, and yes, a wonderful prayer mountain.
View from Kasese prayer mountain, Diocese of South Rwenzori (to the right is the Great Rift Valley + Elizabeth National Park)
Let’s get the sight seeing and scenery out of the way quickly:
It’s fantastic. You have to come here!
Right, now onto even more important things.
What a joy for Ella and I to be picked up by Alfred and Emily Chemutai (married just this year) and Alice, Emily’s talented sister. We headed with them from Entebbe to Rukunguri and spent a very happy long weekend visiting, refreshing, ministering, sharing plans and heart and having a God-fuelled blast together.
One of the highlights (again) was visiting the prison which you can read about in my 2018 blogs This time Pastor Paul and I preached on Luke 21, the second coming, and about 100 of the men stood up when he led them through a commitment prayer at the end.
Chilli Children project was also beautiful to see, and it was a great joy to meet the Archdeacon in N Kigezi Diocese and minister at his church, All Saints, on Pentecost Sunday. It was also a brilliant chance to visit another project Christ Church W4 have supported, the Hope Collective, set up by Emily, Alfred and Alice to meet a wide variety of needs in Rukuguri. The lastest project involves building a piggery (to help rehabilitate prisoners, give jobs/income to needy families and much more), as a small part of a wholistic mission approach. The front cover of the soon to be released leaflet also shows how two boys I mentioned in 2018 have had their lives turned round by God, Emily and a sponsor from our church (thank you A).
But for all the activity the best part was the brilliant conversation, with those three, Ella, Ugandan and various international guests (Australian/Californians) which made a sparky and encouraging start to the trip. Thank you all…
We then linked up with Revd Muntu and Revd Apophia a young clergy couple from N Kigezi diocese joining our team and headed up to Kasese, delightfully right through the Queen Elizabeth National Park.
This was just magical!
So on the Tuesday morning we arrived in Kasese in time to hear the new Bishop Nason Baluku give a fantastic address to Clergy and spouses at their pre-conference communion. By the first night it was clear that something special could happen this week, with one on team intercessor prophesying that it would be a stepping stone for something much more. We’ve just finished the first full day, and that finished in a rousing prayer tunnel where delegates were encouraged to walk through about 100 other people in a line. It was a fitting end to a day that took me up a prayer mountain before dawn. There’s more to write and share on all this, so I’ll dedicate a post to it later in the week… praying for even more breakthroughs to come in many lives as SOMA UK learns with and from what I hope is the start of an inspirational SOMA Uganda movement.
