“We have seen many heroes over the last two days – God the Father, Noah, Joseph, and John the Baptist. Today is your opportunity to be a hero for Jesus. If you would like to give your life to Jesus, to be forgiven of your sin, and to surrender yourself to a life of serving Him, raise your hand and I will pray with you,“ thundered Pastor Doug Drake to a sea of faces at the Mucwini school ground. The childrens’ hands shot up like rockets! The Team that had labored in prayer, labored in preparation, and taught with passion was stunned. God answered our cries. We were watching these children, so broken, so lost and so poor, be born again.
The climax of our Love Covers event had arrived. Our months of fundraising, planning, packing, producing and praying had paid off! Love Covers was a vision given to Yvonne Kennedy, founder and director of Fashioned Forward Ministries. Our goal was to provide a “Love Pack” to each of the 1,700 children in primary school in the Mucwini Internally Displaced Persons camp (IDP). It was a collaborative effort between Fashioned Forward Ministries, Maranatha Chapel, Far Reaching Ministries and Far Reaching Ministries Aviation. Our team was made up of 16 Americans from Maranatha Chapel, two Americans from Fashioned Forward Ministries, 13 pastors that had graduated from the Far Reaching Ministries Bible College in Nimule, Sudan, 10 members of Children’s Comfort Ministries (a local work in Kitgum we support) and the core staff serving in Kitgum. We joined hands and hearts forgetting about our color and culture.
Our first miracle happened the day the team arrived. As many of you who receive our email prayer updates know, the airstrip in Kitgum was officially shut down in January. Mission Aviation Fellowship worked tirelessly to get permission for us to bring our team into Kitgum. Three groups petitioned the Civil Aviation Authority to ask for permission to land a plane. All three had to explain why they needed to land a big plane. Only our request was granted!
The first two days of the outreach, the team was divided into 15 classrooms. The largest class had almost 200 kids, the smallest 75, and two groups had to meet outdoors. Each classroom had an American missionary, a Sudanese pastor, and a Ugandan translator. Each classroom sang songs, showed pictures, colored and played silly games. The children were hanging on every word. All of the missionaries were amazed that the large groups of children were so well behaved. The kids were especially drawn to the picture cards. We broke after each session, and the Sudanese pastors put on a drama lesson. The angel of the Lord was always covered in a white sheet, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had balloons for fruit, and each pastor acting out an animal went to great lengths to sound and act like that animal. The dramas ended with a song in Acholi, the language of Northern Uganda, about the passage of scripture they acted out.
The night before the distribution, one of the team members said, “This is like the night before Christmas!” Vicky and I had prayed fervently for the distribution. Whenever things are handed out there is a potential for violence. (To give you an idea of how severe it can be, when the World Food Program distributes food in the IDP camps they need armed soldiers on site.) We briefed the team and made up our contingency plans, but God has it covered.
Doug gave the invitation to the children, and they eagerly accepted. Vicky asked them again just to be sure they understood, and again every hand went up! It was beyond wonderful to see the children so excited about Jesus. The Sudanese pastors presented one last drama while we all carried the backpacks to the classrooms.
Every child had a backpack made specifically for them. The missionaries called them by name, put a mark on their hand, and gave them their backpack. In an effort to keep the order, we all agreed to thell the children they had to wait to open their backpacks until everyone’s name had been called and all the bags were given out. It was amazing to peek in the classrooms and see the anticipation on the faces of the kids with their backpacks cradled on their laps.
Listen to Kaitlyn Curran, from Fashioned Forward Ministries, describe the next moments in her classroom:
I told them how many people had worked for these backpacks, and how many people had prayed for them. When it came time to open them, the kids only peeked at first, smiles shining across their face as they showed their friends next to them. We began pulling out the clothes, the blankets, the underwear, the toothbrushes, the Jesus tracts for them to see and touch. As soon as they saw the bright red Love Covers t-shirts, my class basically stripped down right then and there to put them on! They joy was contagious! All over the school, you could hear the eruptions of laughter and glee as the classes opened their gifts. As my dad put it, “I did not think the children’s skid could contain the joy radiating out of their soul.”
As we congregated in the middle of the school yard, I was overwhelmed by the sea of red. Every kid had their red Love Covers shirt on, and what a testimony. Yvonne had chosen red to symbolize the blood of Jesus. Our Messiah loved us enough to shed His blood to cleanse us. His love covers us. His love was covering Mucwini and giving hope to Uganda’s future.
Vicki Bentley, from Maranatha Chapel, said, “He is the Lord of the harvest and He has invited us to play in His fields through Love Covers.” Ephesians 3:20 says, ‘Now glory be to God! By His mighty power at work within us, He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.’” The gates of hell were stormed in Mucwini. The international tapestry of servants who came together to reach these children gave their all and it was beautiful. You are an integral part of that tapestry. Thank you to all of you who supported us financially and in prayer. Please pray that God will use these young men and women to restore godliness and peace to Northern Uganda.
In Christ,
Wes & Vicky Bentley
Kitgum, Uganda