Posts Tagged: Hopeland

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8
Apr 07

Easter Sunday in Uganda

Happy Easter to Everyone! (http://i14 NULL.photobucket NULL.com/albums/a311/johnkwali/blog4-8-0711 NULL.jpg)

I hope that everyone has/had a great day remembering the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

At HopeLand, Jinja, a few of us gathered together this morning on the lower part of the base for a sunrise service. Of all the places on the base, there is none more fitting for a sunrise, than where we were this morning. The breathtaking sunrise it self spoke volumes of who God is. I don’t know how anyone could withhold praising God after seeing his beautiful creation.

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This week has been a bit of an interesting one. It started off with one of our team members leaving to go back home. Jack’s sister is getting married in Ohio and Jack felt that he should be there for it. It has been hard losing a member of our team, but the Lord has his hands on all of our steps. Please pray for Jack because it was hard for him to leave as well. We love you, Jack!

The rest of the week was quite successful. There are 40 people (not including our team) registered for the conference now from all over the world; India, Netherlands, Korea, the US, China, Burkina Faso (in Africa), and many other countries as well. All the teams are busy in different areas of the base. A few of our team members, Ruth, Jessie, and Tara, have been working with the base hospitality team in welcoming a DTS outreach from South Africa and one from the US that will be here later this week. There has been a little bit of delay in setting up the conference bank account here in Jinja, but we hope to have the problem resolved this week. Pray that we will be met warmly by the banking staff and that we will be able to set up the account without further impediment.

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[Some base beautification... photo - Jonathan Stoner]

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[My feet after a couple hours of slashing (see above)]

We had a day of fun as a base on Good Friday. Gina, Ruth, and a Tongan named Sakias organized the whole thing, splitting up the teams, getting the games going, and even participated. We did everything from the three legged race, to rice-sack relays, football, and even volley-ball. There were 4 teams: Simba (lion in Swahili), the Reds, Thunder, and the Rainbows… yeah… Simba and the Reds both racked up 29 points each and tied for first place… the rainbows didn’t do so well, but they won a very important award, the Spirit Award…

It was a lot of fun and brought the base together as a whole. Friendships were made and good times were had by all.

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[some of my teammates attempting to untie themselves]

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[Pila (Tonga), Maggie (UK), Rachel (Australia), and Tara (US)]

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[Emma Msaki (Tanzania) and Tim (South Africa)]

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[Ruth wrapped in a flag from the UK after a heated volleyball game]

There was also some work done on various team members’ hair this week. Alex and I got our hair cut pretty short. Mine was cut by Pila (a Tongan on base) and I cut Alex’. Jessie and Tara got their hair braided with extensions in town on Saturday as well… It’s been a crazy week.

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That’s about it for this week. I have a couple of prayer requests and updates as well.

Please pray for our team and work will start getting really thick this month. We will need to work together to accomplish a lot of work and the strength to push through, even when we may not feel like it.

Please also pray for breakthroughs with the benefit photography shows that will happen this summer. The plan, as of now, is to do at least 4 major shows: Denver, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara, Seattle (and Ellensberg, WA), and Chicago. If you know anyone that would be willing to help me out in those cities please let me know.

Thank you so much for your prayer and support.

In Christ Alone

John Paul

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11
Mar 07

And We're Off!!! 3-11-07

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(The football (soccer) field that some of us run around some mornings)


It kind of seems like it has been a long week, but when I look back, it flew by. We were assigned what we would be doing in preparation for the upcoming conference so we just started with our tasks. The responsibilities are broken down into three major areas: Communication, Program, and Logistics. I am on the Communications team with Jonathan and Gina. I am also going to working with Microsoft Access to database all of the people that register. Although we all were assigned to different aspects of the conference, we will all need to be working together closely to accomplish this task. Please pray that we will be unified and that we will not become easily overwhelmed by what lies ahead of us.

We have spent much of the last week in meetings, but also in prayer. We really want this time to be dedicated to the Lord. Even though we have the conference ahead of us, we all want to keep in mind the most important thing in life, our relationship with the Lord. It will be very easy to become distracted and even complacent in our relationship with God because of the busyness associated with the conference.

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(The building where the conference will be held [not quite finished yet])

I have been reading this little book called “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer this last week. Even though I am only half way through it right now, I strongly recommend that everyone read it. It was written a long while ago, but the descriptions of the church and the body of believers as a whole still rings true. It’s a very short book and an easy read, but I’m sure that it will change your life, just like it has changed mine. Here are a couple of paragraphs that have impacted me so far…

“When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the ‘and’ lies our great woe. If we would omit the ‘and’ we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing” (p.21)

“God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything over than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is” (p.43)

We also went to the Kingfisher again this weekend. It was a chance for us to spend some time beside Lake Victoria, but also a time where the Program team could plan something and work together to accomplish the goal. It was a huge success (even though the meat was extremely tough and sinewy). After we had all had our fill of beef, coleslaw, fruit salad, and chipote (pronounce chi-pot-ie) we gathered together and prayed for each team member individually. A few of us stayed behind until dark to have some quite time with the Lord before going back to the base.

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(Rob and Ruth getting ready for the Bar-b-Que)

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(Fishermen on Lake Victoria, and children commissioned by their parents and communities to carry water for long distances back to their homes) [check out Halfway There Water Project (http://halfwaythere NULL.org/en/index NULL.html) ]

There are some other team members which I don’t think I have announced yet. Their pictures will be posted later, but here are their names for your prayer lists and your thoughts:

Tom: from South Africa, he has been on base here at Hopeland for the last 2 years.

Job: a native Ugandan who spent a considerable time in Northern Uganda at a base in Soroti.

Lucy Burrows: the conference coordinator (our boss) from the U.K. who has been involved in the international HIV/AIDS crisis for some time now.

There is a website for the conference if anyone is interested in checking it out.

YWAM Global HIV/AIDS Conference (http://ywamhivaidsconf NULL.org/)

or, Click on the Image Below!



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Thank you for your continued prayers and support, they are definitely felt and appreciated by all of us. Keep then coming!

Also, if you have any words of encouragement for the team, please feel free to leave a comment on the bottom of this blog and I will be sure to pass the word along to the individual or the whole team.
Thanks again!

Grace and Peace through Christ our Lord,

John Paul Vicory

1 Corinthians 15:58

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4
Mar 07

With Blistered Fingers!

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Our first week at the Hopeland Base in Jinja is almost over. It is much different than I had originally expected. Before we got here I thought that it would be a lot like the base in Ethiopia, which had only 2 people living on base (besides our team). There are three schools running here and over 50 people on base.

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(Jonathan, Jack, and Rob before going into Jinja, Jonathan and Tara walking down a local road)

The base here is so beautiful. It is so lush and green. The campus is pretty big, but reminds me of where we were during lecture phase in Hawaii; Makapala. Its kind of outside of towns and cities and has a lot of open land. Many places on campus have a view of Lake Victoria…. One of the most spectacular views on base is from the soccer field at the bottom of campus. One of the first mornings we were here, a few of us went down there to jog and I was blown away by the beauty. The sun had just risen and was the biggest I had ever seen it. I will try to get a picture of the view for next weeks blog update, so hang tight.

For the community base clean up on Friday, we spent the morning with these tools called “slashers” slashing one of the fields of grass. All of us have blisters now because we aren’t used to that kind of work, but I’m sure that our hands will toughen up because we will probably doing the slashing every Friday. It was a great workout, however, and my muscles are still a little bit sore.

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(Slashing Day… it was a little rough for us)

We haven’t been too busy this last week because we only had orientation to do. So we spent our time in various ways: going into Jinja (we are a few minutes outside of it), working out in the mornings, having brief meetings in the evenings, one-on-ones with Lucy, a bit of base management as a community, and yesterday (Saturday) we went to a resort on the shores of Lake Victoria called Kingfisher for a day by the pool.

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(Gina, Rob, Tara, and Scott [another staff member at Hopeland] at the Kingfisher pool)

Base life is different here than in Ethiopia as well. Since there are so many people, meals are prepared for everyone and served as soon as the bell rings. Alex and I learned pretty quickly that if you don’t heed the bell, you may not eat! Now every time we hear that bell, we run to the line. We have a cup of milk tea with 2 rolls every morning for breakfast (similar to what we fed the children at the feeding center for breakfast at Hope Enterprises in Ethiopia), but we have also bought some fruit, bread, peanut butter, and jelly to supplement our diet when we get hungry.

Alex, Jonathan, and I went to a church this morning called Abundant Life Church of Kikera (Kikera is the nearest town to the base; about 30 min. walk). We went with a staff member from Uganda in the DTS School whom Alex had met in Arusha, Tanzania. There weren’t many people who attended, and it was a bit hard to understand the pastor because the translation was pretty much sandwiched on top of the English, but it was still amazing to see how God works in the lives of the people here. It will never cease to amaze me. The minute I got there two kids came over and grabbed both of my free hands and held them through the whole worship service, testimonies, encouragement, and announcements.

During the last week, we have only begun to know our team leader, Lucy Burrows, in a better way. Like I mentioned, she had one-on-ones with all of us and found out about who we were and what God was doing in our lives. She found out that I was the only one with Microsoft Access experience (thank you, Mike at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History) and was pretty excited about that. She had convened with one of her good friends and intercessor back in the UK before she came out and also had stuff to share with us about what she had received from the Lord. Some of what she had received was precisely what I had communicated to her in my one-on-one (she shared at the end of it), so it was very encouraging to me because I had never met her before. God revealed to her exactly who I was and who I am wanting to become. God is so good!

This next week we will be going through some team building exercises and planning out what we will be doing for the next three months. It will be a key week in the grand scheme of our future at the Hopeland Base, so please pray for clarity of vision, teamwork, and unconditional love especially in this next week. Please continue to pray for our team members that have already gone home that they may continue to experience the Lord in new and powerful ways and that they may be witnesses to God’s glory! Thank you so much for your prayers, we see the effects of them in a powerful way at our end. I pray blessings over you for your faithfulness.

John Vicory