Heading up North: 6 Ways you can Help and Pray

Scroll down to learn more about what a “Mzungu” is.

“It is unthinkable that we would send thousands of people overseas without covering them with a blast furnace of prayer.” – Tom Elliff, IMB president

 

Where I come from, we call it “plowing new ground.”

But DeDe and I are 8500 miles from our Piney Woods home.  We’re in the Red Dirt country of Uganda.

We’ve finally arrived at our (present) home of Entebbe, Uganda.

Beginning this week, we’ll be traveling throughout Uganda and South Sudan researching Unreached People Groups.

Here are six (6) ways you can be praying with/for us:

1.  For God’s direction on what villages/areas to visit.  The needs are great and our Engagement Teams needs Holy Spirit guidance on every decision and priority. Ask the Lord to make us bold in sharing the life-changing Good News about Jesus Christ.

2. Pray for the new Chadan Cluster Team.  This team will be going into South Sudan and southern Chad.  Both areas contain numerous unreached groups, numerous difficulties, and tremendous opportunities.  Pray for safety and wisdom for our entire team, especially our leadership.

3.  Our home church, Dry Creek Baptist, will be sending a vision trip team in late July.  Pray for Bro. Charlie, Todd, Bug, and Andrew as they prepare. Ask God for guidance as we select the right area/villages to take them.

4.  Pray for peace and calm in South Sudan.  After decades of war, things are improving but peace is always fragile in this part of Africa.

5.  Pray for guidance on DeDe’s role in both local ministry as well as the Engaged Work

6.  In visiting unreached areas, it’s essential to find a Man/Woman of Peace.  This is an influential person in a village who can open doors and give legitimacy to outsiders. Pray that we’ll be led to these folks on every stage of our journey.

Pray for us!  It’s not the only thing you can do, but it’s definitely the most important!

 

 

Our church is doing a “Mzungu* t-shirt” fundraiser for an upcoming Africa trip.  They’re looking for a statement/verse/quote to put on the shirts as a conversation starter.  Here are several starter ideas:

1. Fall in love with Africa.
2. It’s an African Thing.
3. Until every tribe has heard.

* The correct spelling is “Mzungu.”  It’s a Kiswahili (language of Swahili) word that means “One who wanders about.”  This is what the Africans called the early white European explorers (Livingstone, Speke, and others.

Mzungu. It is the term we hear dozens of times daily.  When we see another white person (a rarity in village life) we laughingly call out,  “Mzungu.”

Tidbit:  Swahili doesn’t use plurals as a suffix (s) but has a complicated series of noun classes and plural terms.  Mzungu is one person,  Wazungu is the plural.