Perspective, Priorities, and Prominence

After yesterday’s post, and a similar beginning to today, I found myself stepping back and asking some important questions: How do I want to live this day? How could I live today in a way that reflects that God is in control?

This led to more questions:
What is really important?
Who is this trip really about?
How can I give God the central place in this story?
How can I make this blog less about me and more about Him?

Consequently, I have found myself more consciously taking time to focus on people in the midst of my preparations–a conversation with my sister-in-law, lunch with my granddaughter and her step-mother and step-sister, and focused time with my husband. I am reminded that Jesus invites us to know God personally, and He calls us to love one another as an overflow of our love for God.

What matters to God? It isn’t a what, it’s who.

People matter to God. He created us, He sent Jesus to restore us to intimate relationship with Himself, and He sends us to love others, as His ambassadors and ministers of reconciliation. That’s why I am going to Uganda, because my work with Lead Like Jesus gives me an opportunity to equip leaders to live, love and lead like Jesus. And I do that as much by my example as I do with my words.

So today, I spent time showing my granddaughter and her step-sister photos from my last trip to Uganda, helping them to visualize where I will be and the kind of work I will be doing. I showed them pictures of the Nile, we talked about baby Moses being on the Nile, and we looked at statues of a giraffe and an elephant at a hotel in Iganga. We talked about the boxes of crayons that we had bought for children in Uganda to use. And I was fully present with them while we were together, not half in a suitcase and half on an airplane.

I am so grateful for God’s ability to redirect me and help me walk through challenging times. It isn’t that the challenges go away, it’s that He enables me to discover His perspective and realign with His values in the midst of the pressures. That’s what is important in this story, in my story. God can make a real-time difference in people’s lives!

I want Him to be the lead character in my story. As for me, I want others to know that I love them, to see what trust in God looks like, and to experience the hope that I have found in Jesus–here at home and in Uganda.

It’s sinking in…

I am going back to Uganda.

It won’t even have been a year since I was there the first time.

Not only did I never imagine myself going to Africa, but I for sure didn’t imagine going twice in one year.

I am excited to:

• reconnect with people I met last October
• see how they are growing as servant leaders
• help them take the next step in their leadership journey
• meet new people
• see the transformational power of Jesus’ teaching unleashed in their lives
• experience the intimacy of being totally dependent on God in ways that we often don’t experience in the USA

Our motto last time, as my sister reminded me today, was “100% prepared, 100% flexible,” and that is exactly what we will need to be this time around. Ministry in Uganda is nothing if not unpredictable (wait, did that come out right?). From place-to-place, day-to-day, minute-to-minute, you never know if you will have power, food, or people (what if it rains and the streets turn to mud and no one can come for hours?).

Ministry in Uganda is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, other than last October, of course! As servant leaders, it keeps us alert and on our toes, our ears tuned for God’s whisper, Jesus’ voice, the Spirit’s prompting. That’s a good place to be, in Uganda, or in the USA. I can hardly wait to see what God has in store for us…