Tag Archive - relationship

3 Steps to a New Husband: Rediscovering Your Man

April 26, 2012 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Ministry to Women with 2 Comments

These three steps will give you a new husband within the week.

Okay, so that might not be a promise I can keep. But chances are very high that you will have a better relationship with your husband if you daily practice these things. Everyone wants to know the short way to better relationship. Follow these keys to a man’s heart and your husband will take notice.

Wife Respecting Husband

Last week I shared some unofficial statistics about prayer that spurred this post. Prayer for Marriage topped the list of felt needs. It’s no big surprise that marriage, the most unifying human relationship with the greatest opportunity of rift, causes us to seek God’s help.

Prayer makes a difference in our relationships.

After exercising the suggestions from Marriage Tops Secret Prayer List, try these steps to a new husband.

3 Steps to a New Husband

1. Pray.

  • Change your prayer. Stop praying about your husband and how you need/want him to be different. Rather, learn to pray for him according to what the Bible says.  See Stop Praying About Your Husband: How to Pray For Him!
  • Pray to see specific things that would make your husband feel valued and respected. We have different triggers. Scratching his back may make one man feel valued, but do nothing of another.

2. Create a Respect List.

Make a list of things you can do to show respect for your husband. You may have to set aside time to create one, but keep it somewhere you can continue to add to it on the fly.

 3. Respect with words and actions.

Begin telling him daily at least one thing from your list that you respect him for. Show him respect with your body language. No angry faces, snarly smirks, or inappropriate eyebrow raises. Never say or act in such a way as to belittle him. Belittling scratches off all previous respect on his score card.

Resources for Marriage relationships (affiliate links because I value their insight):

His Needs, Her Needs by William Harley
Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlessinger (Judeo world view)

How do you see respect affecting your marriage? What resources have you found helpful in growing a strong marriage?

Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines. This post is part of the blog series A Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges. Check out the others.

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*Picture by  Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Stop Praying About Your Husband: How to Pray For Him

April 25, 2012 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Ministry to Women with 2 Comments

In praying for husbands,

wives should lay all expectations at Jesus’ feet.

That’s a hard one, but it’s the difference in praying about our husbands and praying for them.

Not that my younger self would’ve listened, but I wish that someone had told me when I got married that my husband wasn’t supposed to fulfill my every need or that I couldn’t change him.

Evidence shows that a high percentage of secret prayer involves marriage. See Marriage Tops Secret Prayer List: Discover You’re Not Alone.

Confess Our Need

Each prayer for our husbands should include our confession that

we look to God to meet our needs and accept our husbands as they are,

allowing God to make any changes that he deems worthy. Neither of us are perfect, but God is and he can perfect us.

Let’s begin our attitude of prayer with the truth that

we should be our husband’s best cheerleaders.

And in that role, we can pray to God:

  • Make me his good helper, companion, champion, friend and support.
  • Help me create a peaceful, restful, safe place for him to come home to.
  • Teach me to take care of myself and stay attractive to him.
  • Grow me into a creative and confident woman who is rich in mind, soul and spirit.
  • Make me the kind of woman he can be proud to say is his wife.

Praying Earnestly for My Husband’s Best

Prayer Card for Husbands

God please:

  • Give him strength to lead, time to know his family, and passion to manage his home. (Joshua1:7, Jn10:14, 1Tim3:4)
  •  Bless his work and show him daily how to honor You in his attitude and spirit; confirm the work of his hands unto Your purpose. (Ps90:16+, Dan6)
  •  Make him a wise steward of our finances and all we possess, remembering that all things are Yours and entrusted to us for Your purposes. (Mt6:19+, Luke16:10+)
  •  Help him love You with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and hate evil. (Mk12:30, Ps97:10)
  •  Make him quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. (Jam1:19)
  •  Protect him physically, mentally and spiritually. (Ps28:7+, Ps41, Jn17:15, 2Thes3:3)
  •  Give him the desire to teach and model a godly lifestyle for his children. (Dt6, Ps78:5+)
  •  Instruct him and teach him the way he should go; give him peace in the circumstances and integrity in decisions he must face today. (Ps32:8, 1Cor14:33, Pr11:3)
  •  Bring him to meditate day and night on Your Word, pray without ceasing and stay faithful to Christ to the end. (Ps1:1+, Ps119:18,73, 1Thes5:17, Hb12:1+)
  •  Develop for him strong relationships with other godly men. (Ep4:24+, Hb10:24)

Prayer excerpted from “Lifting My Husband Through Prayer” by FamilyLife ©2006 (No longer offered on their website.)

How can you change your prayer habits to make your marriage stronger? What additional requests can we pray for ourselves or for our husbands?

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Marriage Tops Secret Prayer List: Discover You’re Not Alone

April 20, 2012 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Ministry to Women with 1 Comment

After years of counseling women, I’ve noticed that nearly every one carries some kind of relationship burden.

Their prayer requests and private conversations are loaded with relationship issues. The dominant prayer topics are for their children or spouse.

Couple in Relationship Trouble

Marriage Hurts

The marital relationship is the most crucial one in the heart of women.

Recently, after coming home from an event, I was contacted by two women desperate for help in their marriages. Neither attended that day’s event and they lived over 175 miles away from each other. Yet their cry seemed universal.

“My marriage is the pits.” 

After encouraging these women, I had a bright idea.

In the past, I’d taken written prayer requests from women at church events. Why not dig them out of my files, sort them into categories and find the percentage breakdown? I found a correlation between their prayer and their relations.

Unofficial Research

Obviously, this is no official research such as Barna, but it is my findings concerning prayer for relationships.

Prayer Request Percentage

The percentage of prayer requests concerning marriage was much higher than any other type of prayer need recorded.

  • The marriage/spouse requests outpaced the rest at 45% of the group.
  • The requests for their children and step-children came in at 33% of the group.
  • The remaining 22% is a special case. I grouped them together. Many were for other families emphasizing trouble among its members. Odds are pretty high that many of these requests include hidden prayer for marriages.

Christians don’t often admit we’re having trouble with our kids and we surely don’t want others to know our marriage is horrible. We try to keep appearances of having it together, yet the divorce rate is just as high with believers as it is for non-believers.

A bad marriage makes us feel powerless and hopeless, like giving up. Yet, the reality is that we are much more vulnerable than helpless.

We have a 50% chance at minimum to make a bad marriage good, or a good one even better. We are half the answer. If we choose, we can work to change our relationship. And that’s not helpless. Vulnerable maybe, but not powerless.

We can Make a Difference

Change is hard. One way to make the relationship better is for us to change for the better. Here are some things we can do to initiate the desired change:

  • Check our attitude. (Momma was right on this one.)
  • Place a guard over our words.
  • Understand our own imperfections which allows us to offer grace to others in their weaknesses.
  • Trust God to love and keep us safe even if we can’t trust the person who hurt us.

Yes, we are quite vulnerable. But if we add complete faith in God, we are even more effective in changing.

God knows it all.

He already knows the circumstance you’re in and your thoughts about it. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight…” (Hb 4:13). In that case, we should want to discipline and clean our personal and spiritual lives.

Learning to pray conversationally is key to becoming spiritually fit.

Since God knows what we’re thinking, we can tattle to him about others. Venting with God slowly changes the way we think and act, because prayer changes us.

I wrote a training/mentoring book to teach others how to pray in this way. Come Awake has 21 days of exercises and takes the reader though the prayer process while reading the Gospel of John.

When we learn to pray and focus on God, obeying him in all things, our chances of change rises above 50%. In our obedience to God, we pray for the best things to come to the other person and we stop our selfish actions.

We need all the help we can get, because relationships are hard. They are heavy weights in our emotional wellbeing. The closer the relationship, the more weight it holds for possible joy and inevitable pain. I love the line from the movie, The Help. “Love and hate are two horns on the same goat…” And we have to have goats, those close relationships.

Please share what help you have to offer. What are your most pressing prayer requests? How could you change to create better relationships?

Here is a post to help women in make their marriage better: 3 Steps to a New Husband.

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*Picture by David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Three Effective Actions to Get God’s Help

February 28, 2012 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife with 0 Comments

I read of an elderly black woman who answered a younger person’s question, “How can I get God’s help?” With wisdom from years of walking with God, she answered with great faith. She said, “You just have to believe God’s done it and it’s done.”

The Help God Uses Ordinary People (The Help where God uses ordinary people to make the impossible possible.)

I’m just an ordinary person that tends to think “I got this.” and work to make things happen. But when there’s a hitch in the plan or the task seems impossible, I ask for God’s help. I beg him to come to my aid much like the father in Mark 9 who sought God for his sick son.

The father struggled in his faith about the seemingly impossible health and healing of his son. He says:

“If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”
And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”
Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:22-24)

The man acknowledged his unbelief. Most of us suffer from the same malady. After asking God for help, we don’t believe he’ll do anything. We’ll keep on trying to do it for him, get someone else to help him, and wait impatiently and anxiously always worrying how he will fix it. We need help

Three Effective Actions to Get God’s Help

  1. Pray Begin a conversation with God. He asks us to pray without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17). For further teaching on how to pray in a way that makes a difference, see Come Awake.
  2. Believe God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the one who parted the Red Sea, caused the blind to see and raised Jesus from the dead. He can do what to us is impossible. We must believe him and what he can do. My issue is that I believe he can, but sometimes I’m not certain he will. I pray, “I believe; help my unbelief” and learn to trust him and believe.
  3. Obey Not always, but sometimes we have things we are to do to complete the work of God’s helping us. God isn’t going to do everything for us, we must put effort into it’s accomplishment as well. Ours is to follow God’s way and do all he asks us to do, then trust him to help us. “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this” (Ps 37:5).

Your ability to obtain God’s help is tied to your commitment to following through with these actions. His desire is to help us. We must do our part.

Do you have some impossibility before you? Do you struggle in your belief? How do you seek God’s help? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

As always, if you have a topic or suggestion you would like to discuss please contact me here make a comment on this post!

This post is part of the blog series A Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges if you enjoyed it you can check out the others.

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How to Keep Christmas Real With Only a Charlie Brown Tree

December 23, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife with 2 Comments

I’ve been dreaming of a white Christmas for almost half a century. Living here in Texas, I don’t get to hear sleigh bells jingling in the snow. The other night, my girls netflixed Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. I watched it for the first time since I was a teensy thing. All I remembered about the movie was that it began to snow when they sang about their dreams.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

I’ve been singing my dreams for a long time and, well, nothing. No snow. No white Christmas.

White Christmas Wish

The movie is great. I wanted to hug a veteran, dance around the house and forget about all the Christmas dinner and fixings. It seems that back then food wasn’t a main emphasis to those skinny Americans. I don’t remember seeing one Christmas cookie.

Today’s Christmas

Nowadays, Christmas is about

  • stuffing ourselves with rich food,
  • spending next years wages on things that will be trashed in 6 months,
  • and trying to fit family, even the strange and weird ones, into our already busy schedule.

Americans have so outgrown all the old ways characterized by physical work and hardship. Our lives are bent on pleasure and the pursuit of happiness.

Take Black Friday for example. The retailers created a special day for mass frenzy. I chose to leave madness and macing, spraying pepper spray, to the crazies, while I shopped in my pj’s, online. On Amazon, I found a deal on a throwback Atari game consol. A cool present. It will be a Christmas day showdown of Pong, just my brothers and I. I guess we ought to let my little nephew play since it’s his game. Surely I could beat the four year old.

Dreaming of the white square ball bouncing off my white-bar paddle, I waited for delivery confirmation. It didn’t come. I emailed seller via Amazon. No response.

Christmas Frustration

About a week later I received this:

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

I was infuriated. I spent $65 of my mother’s money buying this cool game console for her to give my nephew for Christmas and instead I received this $10 Charlie Brown tree!! I could’ve pepper sprayed the seller! Amazon’s guarantee made good on the money before I went “postal” in sending anything but steaming e-mails to the seller. If the injustice of it all wasn’t so bad, it’d be hilarious. So now I have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree to show for the meaning of Christmas.

The Real Christmas

I began to question my ability to be happy and merry if everything about Christmas was taken from me and all I had was my relationship with Jesus.

The meaning behind our busy holiday celebrations is lost to us.

  • Some focus on giving, which often is a backhanded way of focusing on getting recognition for our gift giving.
  • Some of us focus on family, eating and gathering together. But what happens when one can’t make it, or is estranged or deceased. Is the meaning of Christmas nil because family isn’t together?

Could Christmas be celebrated without the feasts and wrappings? Or the gifts and trappings? What if we didn’t even have one lonely Christmas ball on a pitiful branch? No family. Nobody. Could we still have Christmas?

Christmas is about hope. Not just a baby in a barn. It’s about rescue, not just a religious holiday. Christmas is a gift. If we stop the shopping, cooking, planning, decorating and eating long enough to accept the gift of Jesus, we find the peace on earth we’ve searched for.

Can we move beyond a religious exercise, into a spiritual relationship? What if all you had was a puny tree? No gifts? No family or friends? How do you keep your focus on the real meaning of Christmas?

This post is part of the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series, the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series or the other Blog Series.

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3 Changes to Take the Dread out of Happy Holidays

December 20, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife with 3 Comments

In the midst of harried fall and winter celebrations, most people harbor some amount of dread. More than once I was called Scrooge by my kids simply because I didn’t feel like adding all the extra hustle to my bustle. It’s a hassle to put out all that Christmas stuff only to take it down again. Minutes don’t grow on mistletoe. Many, like me, stretch time as it is without adding holiday stress. Somehow, reflection and thankfulness, holiness if you will, gets lost in our expected and celebrated traditions.

Shattered Christmas

Shattered Christmas decoration.

The pressure mounts, as we are forced to be pleasant in situations of strained relationships. A falling out with either a business associate or some family members may make celebrating with them difficult. We all have an odd Uncle Dan hanging out at family gatherings where we just want to get out. Instead we put on a good face and make a first-class show because it’s the expected dreadful experience of the season.

Others simply have nowhere to go to celebrate with anybody. They are alone. Feeling abandoned in an odd sort of way. They dread the Michelangelo’s or Banquet frozen dinners and lifeless Christmas movie viewing. Alone. Again.

A Change of View

As I thought about these dreaded situations, I remembered Jesus’ banquet story. He said a man went to a lot of trouble to get ready for a party and no one really wanted to come. Therefore, he invited the day workers off the corner, the lonely, the drunken castaways and anyone else who just happened by to come to the banquet.

 

Charlie Brown change of view

 

I can see several similarities about this story to my approach to Christmas. First, I see there is much preparation involved in gathering people together. But the point isn’t the preparation, rather, it’s that we set aside time to gather together and reflect on what is holy. I’ve determined that, even with my schedule, I’ll make the food, set the table and get ready to focus on God this season.

Second, I see lots of people who are much like me, way too busy. We often don’t schedule any room for meaningful relationships and have trouble stopping to focus on God’s big picture, to sit at his feet. He’s in control and we need to drop everything and spend time with him at his table. When I stop my busyness, I realize what is really important and what isn’t.

Third, and this may be the most significant; we can be like the man in the story. We can go to great lengths to create an atmosphere for others to celebrate Jesus and then invite them to come to our table. These may be outcasts, people from broken homes, workers who can’t get home, singles with no family or those who feel left out, anyone who will come for a meal and celebrate. We can intentionally set a place for a guest at our celebration in order to give greater meaning to why we celebrate.

Three questions to consider while approaching Christmas.

  1. Am I considering that the point of all the cooking, shopping and decorating is to gather with other people and focus on what is holy? It’s not just about the food, gifts and fun décor.
  2. Am I too busy to develop meaningful relationships, relax and have fun with others? Is work or my schedule keeping me form experiencing the love and peace of God and others?
  3. Have I considered that there are people all around me that have no reason, no relations or no friends to celebrate Christmas with? Would I be willing to invite those that are overlooked to celebrate with me?

The answer to these questions provide for a more meaningful Christmas.

What about you? How are you taking the “dread” out of the “Merry Christmas?”

This post is part of the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series, the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series or the other Blog Series.

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Two Life-Changing Tools for Spiritual Growth

October 21, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership, Ministry to Women with 0 Comments

While I was MC-ing Yahweh Street Ministries Ladies Retreat, I gave a brief devotion emphasizing our need to spend time with God. I shared answers to feeling spiritually adrift and longing for something more, a life change or spiritual growth. Two things make the difference: listening to, and responding to, God.

Come Awake Cover 3D

Learning to listen and respond to God with Come Awake

Out of my desire to help others find the missing spiritual piece in their lives, I wrote Come Awake. The book is a devotional/journal training manual. It’s what I use to mentor people who want to grow closer to God and work out their lives to gain inner peace. In it teach reading the Bible for life-change and how to respond in prayer. If you’re looking for someone to help you strengthen your spiritual life, use God’s word and pray effectively, then I suggest trying Come Awake. And if you are mentoring others you can order copies to aid your work with them.

NT in 75 Days

Reading NT in 75 Days

Reading the Bible in such a way as to hear God speak into your life situation is a powerful life changer. Another tool I’m using to help me read the Bible is the New Testament in 75 Days app for Apple products. I’ve had several ask for the link to the app. Check it out. If you don’t have Apple capability you can download the NT in 75 Days Reading Schedule and read along using your own Bible or an online one.

As you will find in Come Awake, you can change your life by reading and praying in only 20 minutes a day. I stretch it to 30 minutes when I have time. Anybody can find 20 minutes to invest in a life-changing relationship with God. I challenge mentorees to put effort into spending time with God this way, setting aside 20 minutes five or six days a week for at least 21 days in a row. Twenty-one days is usually the amount of time for creating habits. And how cool is it to have created a habit of spending meaningful time with God!

How do you mentor and lead people in spiritual growth? What have you found to help you read God’s Word and respond in prayer?

This post is part of the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the other Blog Series.

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Last Orphanage Walk

August 21, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership, Ministry to Women with 1 Comment

This morning was filled with mixed emotions. I was ready to get back to see my kids, but I wasn’t quite ready to leave these orphans. I said, “If I could, I’d bring them home with me.” The final packing was very somber. Jacque and I finished before the others were ready and asked if we could walk over to the kid’s house to see them one last time.

Last visit to the Orphanage

We walked like it was our last stride taking in every small thing. Here’s the African cows we passed everyday on our walk:

African Cow

African Cow

We wanted to take it slow, but also wanted to get to the kids quickly. The kids hollered with excitement when we rounded the corner and they saw us. I wanted to cry, but held it together. The kids were delighted to see us.

Carolyn, the orphan choir mistress (leader) and I

Carolyn, the orphan choir mistress (leader) and I

Orphans Saying Goodbye

Orphans Saying Goodbye

The older ones wanted to hug us their goodbyes. Some holding on to us with their eyes. It was difficult to smile. The younger ones had a quick greeting then disappeared to the far corner of the compound to play. As I visited with the older ones, I watched the younger ones building a fort-like tent our of a torn mosquito net, old plastic bags and trash. They tied the net to the corner of the fence at the same level to make a triangle roof to crawl under, Then they put trash on top to block the sun and laid plastic sacks underneath to cover the dirt. They were very busy building.

Homemade Shade Going Away Gift

Homemade Shade Going Away Gift

Later, I felt a tug on my hand. A little girl had come to get me. She didn’t speak English so I had to read her intentions. I’m sort of slow at that and it took her pulling my hand several times for me to get it. She led me to the sitting spot under the homemade shade. The thought crossed my mind, that they were honoring me, the oldest mama, by giving me a special seat that they created. After a minute or two, another went to bring Jacque too.

Orphans Worship as our Parting Gift

About the time we settled in, the vans came to get us. We gathered around the mango tree to share our goodbyes and tears and to sing a praise song once more before we left. This is the first song they taught us and it stuck. Here’s a video of them singing:

We took off toward Entebbe and stopped in Jenga for lunch and picking up a few souvenirs along the way. We were not making good time and drove into the night into Entebbe. It was our first real outing at night in Uganda because it wasn’t the safest for us to be out at night.

We made it through security, faking Chuck’s health all along the way. The team rested in the Entebbe airport for a couple of hours then started the loooong flight home, 22 hours and layovers. Not fun. Since we boarded at 11:30 p.m. I slept the first flight into Amsterdam. During the 4 hour layover in Amsterdam, Chuck laid down in a McDonald’s restaurant area and the team debriefed a little. I found a Starbucks and had my first taste of home, a no foam latte, and a chocolate croissant for breakfast.

On board again. Chuck was taking high potency pain killers along with the antibiotics like clock work. He also numbed the pain by watching back-to-back movies. We finally landed in Texas Thursday afternoon and called the doctor right away. We went to his office and he put Chuck in the hospital. We were so glad to be hospitalized IN Texas.

While Chuck was getting the treatment he needed, I spoke at a women’s prayer breakfast Saturday morning and Sunday morning our Uganda Mission Team (minus Chuck) gave a testimony about Uganda in both our church services. He was released Monday afternoon with plans for surgery later, when the infection was clear.

Orphan Adoption and Sponsorship

Mike and Jacque are looking into the adoption process to give Fiona a physical home since she already has an emotional one in their hearts. You can read more about their story here and on their Bring Fiona Home website. You can also sponsor an orphan, write to them and read letters from them. If interested, check out Elpis Ministries.

Fiona!

Fiona!

More pictures are uploaded on Facebook. Check them out.

Please pray for the mission. You can sign up to be a partner in prayer. And for updates while on location you can subscribe to feed here.

Please comment below. I’d love to hear any insight you have about our choice of choosing to come back to Texas before seeking healthcare, your experience of leaving those you’ve grown to love in ministry, or possibly how God may have moved you to adopt an orphan. Please share your comments below.

This post is part of the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series and you can read more about our trip in the previous Uganda posts. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the other Blog Series.

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Riding Around Africa

August 21, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership, Ministry to Women with 0 Comments

I slept very comfortably in a grass hut. During the night, if we had to use the toilet we walked outside to another hut with a concreted porta-potty kind of thing. It had a toilet seat concreted into a raised sitting spot that went straight into an underground tank. Comfy-at-night feeling.

Waterfall at Sipi Falls

Waterfall at Sipi Falls

Chuck didn’t sleep very well. The altitude sickness from the evening before wasn’t letting up. He was looking forward to getting back down the mountain this morning to see if he got better. Iganga’s elevation where the orphanage is based is about 3600 ft above sea level and Sipi Falls Lodge about 6700 ft in the foothills of Mt. Elgon in eastern Uganda, almost to Kenya. That’s nothing compared to 40,000 ft for about 22 hours flying there (link to flight post).

Early, James knocked to see if we wanted to hike up to the falls. I wanted to, but Chuck was feeling pretty bad so I stayed with him. James, Jacque and Mike took off to climb the slippery, red-mud slopes. It took them about two hours to make the hike to the second waterfall taking pictures and sliding most of the way.

After they left, I went to take a shower which was located in a separate grass hut. It was exquisite in decor. The shower head dripped over flat and smooth rocks where my feet went. The drain was hidden under the rocks. The hot water was non-existent. Well, there was occasional flash of warmer water, but it mostly felt ice cold like the water from the Sipi River. Since the weather was cold 50-60ish and rainy, I was VERY reluctant to jump in the shower. No hair washing today!

After re-packing my backpack, I walked up the hill to the main lodge for coffee and breakfast. I needed some warmth. Sipi Falls Lodge was like a royalty treatment in grass huts. The food was delicious and served with special yummy-ness. The total cost of this romantic getaway was about $60 a night per person and that included three meals.

Riding Around Africa

We loaded into the van for the ride home. The beauty of the valley below with the clouds wisping through was awesome. I was totally struck with the thought, “Hey, I’m riding around Africa!”

Driving the mountain

Driving the mountain

On the road, we came to a police check point. The police have stations where they stand on the side of the road stopping traffic whenever they have a whim. They wear camo, carry their AK-47′s, look over the van and ask questions like: Where are you going? Where have you been? What are you going to do? This time they made a request for us to give them a book. Cameron gave him his Bible, then he let us pass. I was pretty scared sitting in the back of the van watching another policeman watching the van. I found out after we were allowed to pass that Jacque was fearful too. (Sorry, no pictures were allowed of police. I didn’t want to get arrested!)

On down the road, Chuck saw monkeys in the forest trees. Jacque and I stuck our heads out the window to look for some. When we didn’t see them right away, we started making monkey sounds hollering into the trees as we whizzed by in the van. At that speed, who knows if I saw one or not. Maybe I did.

Celebration with the Orphans

With only a four hour trip home, we pulled into the missionary house to get ready for the party that night. We took streamers, animal crackers, cake mix and party balloons to have a party for the kids. A regular feast was fixed with rice, beans, chicken, beef, fish, cabbage, peppers, onions, ground innards (a pretty tasty paste made up of …, guess), and soda pop.

Party Streamers with the Orphans

Party Streamers with the Orphans

Chuck took a turn for the worse by the time we got him into bed. Fever spiked and decisions had to be made about doctor, clinic, or go buy some more of the same antibiotics he had already finished the day before. We opted to buy more medicine which anyone can buy without prescriptions in Uganda. We were to fly out the next day and it was already late into the night. He laid in bed while the kids prayed for him in the courtyard. They sang their prayer. Although I fretted about Chuck, their song was beautiful. Chuck dozed and the party began.

We ate played and visited with the kids. We witnessed the whole lot of orphans getting in trouble by Susan. The amount of respect she warrants isn’t to be trifled with. They mind. This might be the reason they are so respectful with us. It’s easy to see the love they have for Susan and her love for them. The party was a hit even though there were obstacles. We had a blast, but in our thoughts was the fact that this was the last night to see the kids.

Before bed we packed part of our bags for the trip home. Click to see more pictures on FaceBook.

Please pray for the mission. You can sign up to be a partner in prayer. And for updates while on location you can subscribe to feed here.

Please contribute your comment below. I’d love to hear your guess about ground innards, your understanding about discipline and respect, or your idea about resorting Uganda being more like camping America. Go ahead and comment.

This post is part of the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series and you can read more about our trip in the previous Uganda posts. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the other Blog Series.

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Travel to Romantic Sipi Falls for Rest

August 20, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership, Ministry to Women with 0 Comments

This morning we went had a good breakfast and went to the orphanage to finish setting up the solar lights and water filter (no more boiling their drinking water). We rode in the back of Phil’s truck, standing up holding onto the rack. Which is common. We saw many Uganda buses, flatbed trucks with rails where people stand and hold on. Every time we walked to the orphanage, we gathered stares from the people on the streets, but riding in the truck like this made us feel like we were in a real parade. “Watch the mzungus” (white people). We smiled and waved back to the people as we rode by. One must wave like a parade queen in Uganda anyway. The folding-fingers-over-palm wave is their way of calling their children to come to them. (Phil used this kind of wave to call me from the van to the porch to meet some school officials.)

Water Filter Barrel in Orphanage

Water Filter Barrel in Orphanage

After the few chores were finished at the kids house, we loaded back into the truck and went back to the missionary house. Everything was ready for our trip of rest. We reloaded into the van with an overnight bag and water bottles to go to Sipi Falls for a much needed rest. We really wanted to stay with the kids, but this scheduled respite was needed. We stopped to pick up Susan, her mother and baby Kaith then got on our way.

The drive was to be four hours in the direction of Kenya. That’s a long trip considering that every village uses huge speed bumps to slow traffic. That’s on top of the pot holes that take up most of the road. Phil said the roads will be fixed and reworked when an election is upcoming. I guess, politicians in every country want votes and do things to get them.

We rode in a new-to-the-ministry van that had “new” seats which were very comfortable. The drive took much longer because the van kept getting overheated. We stopped often to pour our water bottles into the radiator. Once we began to run out we had help form the locals who fetched the water from a river or somewhere that had dirty reddish water. The ground in Uganda is red and the water has a red tint. The dirt is sort of like the red clay stuff on the baseball diamond. Turns out the van was fresh from Tokyo and had some strange blanket over the radiator making it heat up.

Ocean of African Plains

African Dog Overlooking Ocean of African Plains

African Dog Overlooking Ocean of African Plains

As we approached Sipi Falls, mountains rose out of the plain. These mountains are not quite like any I’ve seen in America. They were beautiful like ours but different. Cows grazed and farmers walked the steep hillside working crops in places similar to the ones the goats and sheep bound from in Yellowstone. Once we were in the mountains and looked back, it seemed like an ocean of African plains laid below as far as the eye could see.

Uganda Orphan Mission Team at Sipi Falls

Uganda Orphan Mission Team at Sipi Falls

Uganda Orphan Mission Team at Sipi Falls

Eight hours or so later, our van finally made it to our overnight place. We pulled in and had a European lunch that should have been served at 1 but we were arriving at 5. That’s Uganda time again. One never knows what will happen or when. We ate “lunch” then hiked a short trail to a handmade cave under the first water fall. It had rained and the red dirt was mud. Sipi Falls was more like Slippery Falls.

European Elegant Dining at Sipi Falls

European Elegant Dining at Sipi Falls

Once we started out on the trail about 6 youths joined us to hold our hands and be tour guides. I had one on each hand to keep me from slipping. They were barefoot and kept solid footing the whole time. I might as well been in ice skates and I don’t skate! We slid back for dinner by 7:30. We dined in elegance in an African hut rustic meets Europe kind of place. European foods (A creamy fish soup to start off served with big crusty rolls and jam, followed by curried chicken and rice with steamed veggies, then brownies which were more of an unsweetened, bitter chocolate version, and African Tea. Chuck got altitude sickness and missed the meal.

 Grass Hut Experience

Grass Hut at Sipi Falls

Grass Hut at Sipi Falls

Inside Grass Hut at Sipi Falls

Inside Grass Hut at Sipi Falls

Grass Hut Keeping us Dry

Grass Hut Keeping us Dry

After dinner, I went with Chuck to our grass-roofed hut for the night leaving the team visiting with their African coffee and tea. It was raining and dark out, but we were amazingly dry in our grass hut. Once again, it was so elegant and quaint. The grass on the roof was at least 12 inches thick and the edge of the roof showed only the first inch wet. The bed and night stands were rocked into the hut with a foam mattress to rest on. The bathrooms were in a separate grass hut and the showers were in another.

Chuck and I at Sipi Falls

Chuck and I at Sipi Falls

Sipi Falls is a very romantic kind of place. We slept with the roar of the waterfall lulling us to sleep. Through our opened door, the morning light held a splendid view of the falls with beautiful foliage surrounding.

More pictures are uploaded on Facebook. Check them out.

Please pray for the mission. You can sign up to be a partner in prayer. And for updates while on location you can subscribe to feed here.

Please comment below. I’d love to hear any questions you might have about mission work in Uganda.

This post is part of the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series and you can read more about our trip in the previous Uganda posts. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the otherBlog Series.

Was this post helpful? Consider subscribing!

Check out the options for subscribing here! That way you won’t miss a post. And if you really think it’s tops, Twitter it and like the FaceBook page!

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