July 27th

Today we attended a presentation by Pastor Jackson and other members of the pastoral staff at Christian Life Church. They wanted to teach us what and how they learned about prayer.

He went through the history of Uganda, starting with their freedom in 1972, when they kindly told Britain to get out. Their first president was not liked by the people. In 1971, Idi Amin took control of the government, which as we all know, was worse than the first president. Idi Amin was a vicious and inhumane ruler. He kicked out the Asians, giving them less than 60 days to leave. He pushed his religion, Islam, to the people. He was paid by other countries to turn all men in Uganda to be Muslim. He was passionate and successful at doing so. He closed down churches and made Sunday a working day and Friday not. He would snap his fingers and have his secret service whipe out an entire village. The Christians went into hiding. Prayer became their last resort. They prayed long and desperate prayers. Overnight prayers became popular and regular. Can you imagine praying for 12 or more hours straight??

According to Pastor Jackson, Idi Amin was intoxicated with power but he did not know that God was using him.

After much prayer, God answered and Idi Amin was out. So, the people relaxed. Then, come to find out, the first president, who was bad, became the successor. He was back to retaliate, and he did so with force and vigor. So, they prayed more, even harder, even more desperate. According to Pastor Jackson, God was punishing the people for being event oriented and worshipping their own success.

One night, elders got together. One agitated man threw down his cane, stood up, and challenged the others to do more, to pray harder, to stop this. They prayed even harder than before with so much desperation. Miraculously, people within the government would get demoted or ousted. 30 days later, the rule of this man was over.

He went on to criticize American churches in particular for being so program oriented instead of spirit oriented. He says prayer should be center stage, not a bullet point in the list of things to do by service end time. It was a challenging message.

He then asked us to pray. We all had to pray out loud at the same time. This was very difficult for me. I think I prayed 20 times within that prayer, “God, please help me concentrate because this is hard for me with all of these other people talking, one of which is my boss who I have become trained to listen for his voice.” It was a mile long prayer, probably one of the longest I have ever participated in. I guarantee if I have ever met you, I prayed for you. My short and to the point prayer mechanisms ran out pretty quickly, and I had to find people out of thin air to pray for. So, I picked you

All in all, it was a learning experience. Even though it was a Christian mentoring Christians, it is evident that they do things a little different in Uganda. I personally would say it is better. They seem to promote a personal relationship with God, one with much prayer, instead of a checkmark off the to-do list. It was interesting to learn more about why Ugandans are like they are, and why there is so much desperation in their prayers.

We then ate lunch with the staff. It was nice to eat different food, as the Ridar hotel food seems to be very similar each day. Considering I have eaten it for 10 days in a row now, the change was welcomed.

We then headed to the craft market. It was fun to souvenir shop for all of my loved ones waiting at home. I am excited to share your gifts with you.

I got a letter from Jason this morning. It made me smile so large!! I saved it for when I got back to the hotel because I had a feeling I would cry and I didn’t want to explain why 24 times (once to each of the people on the trip). It was so sweet and so loving. I could marry that man today if it was an option! He is the one for me!

Tonights meeting was great. It was neat to hear others’ perspectives on the prayer conference. We heard from the people of the day:

Nancy thought it was neat that the prayer conference landed on her day since she is a great intercessor.

Amy felt that it was a great day for her as well, starting at 5:30 this morning when God spoke to her. She was moved by the prayer at the prayer conference.

I think my favorite comment was from Dan. He compared the decline of the American church to a scene in Braveheart. He said he would rather die fighting than live not trying to be a change agent to improve the mindset of Christians in America.

God spoke to me tonight, too. I stepped on my bible, which is the same color as the carpet and a very good sled as well, and my feet ended up above my head. I don’t know what he was saying, but his Word definitely shook me up.