One of my favorite things about living in Uganda is hearing the many different languages. While sometimes it’s a little overwhelming to be surrounded by languages I don’t understand, I am reminded of how diverse our world really is. When I hear other people praying to God in their native tongue or are singing worship to our God in a variety of languages, it makes me think of heaven.
This world has so many different people, cultures, and languages. What an amazing God we have to create so many unique people! And while sometimes we get distracted by our differences, it is so refreshing to share the unity in Christ when I come together with brothers and sisters in Uganda and recognize there are so many amazing things we can celebrate about one another.
In a life that is so busy, we often forget to make time to retreat, to get away, to intentionally rest. We don’t make the time or we feel guilty because we think maybe we should be doing other things with our time. But I have learned I need retreat. Not just the Sunday afternoon naps, although those are very restful and needed, but also the intentional time with God, by myself, and with others. A happy balance of all those elements is so refreshing for my soul.
Throughout scripture, Jesus gets away to be by himself and with God. If Jesus saw the importance of that time, why don’t we also make that time a priority? In Mark 1:35, Jesus went to a solitary place to pray after a long day before of healing many people. He spent the night praying to God in Luke 6:12 before appointing the twelve apostles. After a long day of ministry and the miracle of feeding the 5000 in Matthew 14:22-23, Jesus spent time alone to pray. Even at the end of his earthly ministry, he knew he needed time alone with God in prayer. In Mark 14:32, Jesus took a few of his disciples along with him to pray in Gethsemane. We all need that time of prayer, refreshment of our soul.
At the beginning of 2024, I asked the discipleship ladies to write down their expectations – how they wanted God to be moving in their lives, in their families, in their churches, and in their communities. When I looked at the expectations, they were common prayers I had heard before: they wanted God to help them by providing school fees for their children, provide ways for them to pay off loans or get money for various needs – seeds for the garden, building a home, etc. These were – and continue to be – ongoing needs, but my hope for these ladies was different. I wanted them to seek God for more than just physical needs. In a country of poverty, there will always be these needs.
So at the beginning of 2025, I asked them to reflect on what they had written in 2024, and prayerfully write down their expectations for how they wanted God to be moving in their lives, in their families, in the churches, and in their communities for this upcoming year. And man, was I blown away….
The expectations are so different than in 2024, and it’s a testimony to the spiritual growth and maturity I have seen in each of them this past year. What these ladies wrote down gave me chills. I am excited about how God will work in their lives and use them in 2025 because they are open and seeking Him.
Over Christmas break, our family took a trip to Indonesia, and we spent 4 days trekking in the Sumatra jungle. Why, you ask? In hopes to see orangutans in the wild, as well as some other wild animals. We did see orangutans and their babies, several different types of monkeys and lots of leeches (which we were NOT expecting). The trek was HARD! I have never done anything this hard before. I’ve hiked mountains in Colorado, Utah, Dominican Republic and Uganda, I live in Africa, I’ve had a baby, I’ve had lots of adventures… But I have never experienced anything THIS hard. I don’t usually push my body to its limits; that just doesn’t sound enjoyable to me. Some of you thrive on intense challenges, so this post is not for you. 😉
So when Day 1 started with steep climbs up a mountain and then steep climbs down another mountain, and up and down again, it was intense! Then rain poured down on us for several hours as we were trying to climb down the mountain to our campsite. We were carrying all our clothes and things for camping in backpacks of about 25+ pounds, and they were soaked! Everything was soaked! When we got to camp while it was still pouring rain, I tried to hang out all our wet stuff in a cramped space with 6 people in one tent area to air it out some. I thought I had reached my limit. I was exhausted, smelly, soaking wet, and overwhelmed with the day… I wanted to quit. We still had 3 more days of this, and I wasn’t sure I could make it.
To celebrate our 9th Uganda-versary, we thought it would be fun for Adalyn, our twelve year old daughter, to write a blog post about living and growing up in Uganda. We moved to Uganda when she had just turned 3 years old, so she really doesn’t remember life before Uganda. Here are her thoughts about living in Uganda:
Living in Uganda means that I feel at home and safe. It has been the best 9 years of my life and the best place to grow up. As I have grown up, I now realize that one day I will have to leave, and I don’t think I will ever be ready to leave. It also scares me to think of leaving because I have grown up here and I am used to Uganda.
Going back and forth between Uganda and America always brings its own quirky challenges. When we return back to our Uganda home, it is always an adjustment to get our house back in order, reconnect with ministry relationships, remembering how to hear / speak Ugandan English again, and just settling back into a different culture. Because we are fully American but live fully in Uganda, sometimes when we travel to and from our two different “homes” we get a bit confused and make the simplest of mistakes. This year coming back to Uganda has brought with it some funny re-learning stories that I shared in a previous blog: Always Learning. After I wrote that blog, I had another funny and humbling experience:
It’s hard to believe we have a pre-teen, but it has been such a joy to watch Adalyn grow into the beautiful young woman she is. She’s still a child at heart, but it is a blessing to see how God is molding her to be the woman she will be. We have enjoyed asking her questions each year, and if you’ve been reading them all these years, you’ll see how some of them are the same, and some of them share her heart as she continues to mature. Here are the questions for this year…
Our family has lived in Uganda for almost 9 years, and we are still learning things about the culture, language, people, and different perspectives. In the past, we have shared funny and not so funny mistakes we’ve made in language and culture. It has been a fun journey (most of the time) and we love learning new things as we continue to dive deeper in relationships with people.
With our return after a 2-month visit to the U.S., we have learned even more lessons these past few weeks. I was sitting in the car with a couple of the mission staff, Grace and Peter, while we waited on Leland to visit a church we all couldn’t get to. (That’s a story for another time.) As we were talking, I asked what card game the kids next to us were playing, and Peter said “matatu”. In my understanding, I always used the word matatu to mean “taxi”. As we were talking, Grace and Peter both said that in Uganda, they do not call taxis “matatu”, but that’s the name of the card game. I was surprised and asked them why they never told us, and they said “matatu” is a Swahili word for taxi, so they assumed that’s what we were referring to whenever we would use the word “matatu.” But Ugandans simply call them taxis. After all these years, we just learned that we have been calling the taxis by the wrong name. [FACE PALM]
In Matthew 4:19, Jesus says “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This verse means more to me now that we are doing ministry here in Uganda. Over the last 8 years, it has been amazing to witness the way God is moving in and through the lives of people here. As Leland and I have both mentioned previously, discipleship (making “fishers of men”) has not been an easy road. But Jesus’ call isn’t an easy one. He never promises health and wealth, although that’s often a lie told to people from all backgrounds. He actually says the opposite: that we will be persecuted, mistreated, abused, taken advantage of, scorned, laughed at…we will be tempted and pursued by Satan to discourage us and pull us away from God.
But God is faithful. Jesus is victorious. And we get to see how the Holy Spirit is transforming lives to be more like Jesus here on earth.
My first discipleship group was an emotional and spiritual challenge. The ladies were very spiritually immature, even though they would never admit it (which was part of the problem). They were hoping to get some financial benefit out of being in the group or from being close to me. Even my co-leader left the group once she realized it wasn’t the employment opportunity she was wanting. But I have stayed in contact with the ladies through phone calls, visits, and conferences, and I have watched how God continues to move in their hearts and lives. It may have been at a much slower pace than I wanted, I have seen how God is transforming each of them into who HE wants them to be. I have also experienced how God has been growing me through my relationships with these ladies: in trusting in His timing and in His plans. He has also humbled me, reminding me that I am NOT the one to save them, but Jesus. My job is to disciple them – He will do the rest.
Before moving to Uganda, I had never heard of Steps to Freedom in Christ by Dr. Neil Anderson. And I had never walked through the steps myself to be set free of past hurts, sin, and bondage that I never really realized I still carried. It wasn’t until we moved to Uganda, and I wrestled with my identity, I let insecurities overcome my thoughts, and I started to see the negative impact I was having on my family, friends, and my own spiritual walk. When I started with the first women in discipleship group, I wanted to join and not lead. I was very happy to sit back and watch, letting another very capable missionary lead. But because of different circumstances, and honestly God pushing me, I began leading the group with a Ugandan co-leader. It was hard. It was frustrating. It was ugly. It was GOOD! It was amazing to watch how God transformed these ladies’ lives, and mine as well. It was encouraging to be in His Word, sharing with others who are very different from me but who were also having similar struggles with living out their faith. God was present.
As part of the Discipleship Journey, my co-leader and I meet with one woman at a time to go through Steps of Freedom. It’s an intense time of sharing, confessing, prayer, and proclaiming God’s Truth. It’s powerful and we have seen God overcome so much in each of the women’s lives time and time again. It’s not an easy day together, but it is so beautiful to see the freedom each woman receives. I also walked through the steps myself before I led the ladies through the process (“you cannot lead where you do not go”), and it was amazing to see how God revealed things in my life that needed to be dealt with. It is also amazing to see how the Holy Spirit continues to work in my life to change me.
Sawyers In Uganda 