Author: Gina Sawyer

Steps to Freedom

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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.

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Reflections

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We have lived in Uganda for more than 8 years. It’s the longest time we have lived anywhere since we’ve been married. We came to Uganda in our early 30s with a “just turned 3-year old” toddler. I can look back on the transition and think of what a mess it was. It was intense! Yet God was SO faithful in everything: from our financial support, prayer team, overseeing church, families’ blessings, and even our belongings being shipped across the world to arrive in Africa the same day we landed in Uganda (which is truly crazy and amazing all at the same time). We had great teammates who let us stay with them for a few weeks while we made adjustments to get our house ready for us to move into. They let us process the LONG days of culture experiences; they let us ask a million questions about life here; they fed us because there were rats in our oven; they let us vent when we didn’t understand what was really go on in a cultural situation; they drove us places while we sorted out getting vehicles; they celebrated with us when things went well; they helped us transition to our new life here.

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Things That Make You Smile

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Throughout life, there are always things that make you smile. Hopefully, you smile often. Every day life gets busy, but it’s the little things throughout the day that often bring us joy. Someone wise told me that we should put things in our home that bring us joy. When we see those items, they make us smile. I have some colored glass and sun catchers hanging in windows; I love little succulents; we have family and friend photos (and Christmas cards) as well as artwork on the wall reminding us of where we’ve been; we have rocking chairs that my dad made for us on our back porch, and so many other little things that make our home “home“. These little things are always there, but when I take the time to remember to look, they make me smile.

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Pearl of Africa

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Uganda is nicknamed the “Pearl of Africa” and that name suits it well. I never realized living on the equator and having 12 hours of sunlight would be so great! I love the consistency of the weather and the rhythm of every day life…year in and year out. While it can get very hot and dry for about 2-3 months out of the year, we live at 3,700 feet above sea level and in the rainforest at the foothills of Mount Elgon, so it’s never as hot or miserable as a Texas summer. Uganda is truly a beautiful place!

Not only do we have beautiful scenery in Mbale with sunsets on the mountain, early morning clouds hovering in the valley, waterfalls that we see from our neighborhood, but we also have the beauty of the Nile River only 2 hours away, Lake Victoria just beyond that, the ice-capped Rwenzori Mountains in Western Uganda, and so much more. We have a plethora of beautiful trees and flowers, exotic birds and interesting animals. I never cared about birds until we moved to Uganda, and now it’s every day life to see birds flying around our compound that we used to only see in exotic pictures. If you are a bird person, message us and we’ll give you a list of the many exotic birds we have seen here in Uganda. (Leland has an East African bird book because we have seen so many cool birds and it’s actually worth identifying them.)

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School Blessings

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Leland and I have always been thankful for Tyler International Homeschool Cooperative (TIHC), the school Adalyn has been part of since she joined kindergarten. It was one of the aspects that helped us feel at ease when we made the decision to move to Uganda. To make the school even possible, we all rely on volunteer teachers, parents, and other missionaries to help, and we can’t take those positions for granted because they are not always filled. Every year, we are looking for teacher volunteers to come to Uganda to teach our kids. Every year, we hope that there are enough classes for the kids who need to be in school. Every year, we pray for the board members, school administrator, and other staff members who make the tough decisions and keep the school running smoothly. And every year, we are so THANKFUL for the school community and healthy learning environment for Adalyn.

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Adalyn Turns 11!

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Adalyn is now 11 years old. When we first moved to Uganda, she had just turned 3 years old. Time has seemed to fly by, but it has been a blessing to watch her grow physically, emotionally, and spiritually over these last several years. Each year, we ask her questions about some of her favorite things, so you can join us in watching her grow. Here are her latest answers:  

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Once in a Lifetime Trip

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It’s no secret that we love to travel! We make it a priority for our family to save for traveling, plus we often celebrate birthdays and holidays with travel experiences instead of gifts. We never imagined we would get to travel on this side of the world, so it’s been fun and exciting to experience new cultures and ways of life. Australia has always been on our “travel bucket list” but towards the bottom, not because we didn’t want to go, but because we never imagined it would be possible. So when the opportunity arose and the funds became available, we decided there was NO better time to visit Australia (and New Zealand) than Summer 2023 when they were hosting the Women’s World Cup. We would be able to watch some soccer games as we explore two new countries on a new continent. But Australia isn’t very close, and it’s not so cheap…

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Australia & New Zealand 2023

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We had three weeks to explore 1 continent and 2 countries, with Australia alone being as large as the continental United States. So needless to say, we did not see everything, but we did do A LOT!

Let me give you the highlights of our trip…

We arrived in Aukland, New Zealand and started with the U.S. versus Vietnam Women’s World Cup game (WWC games were on the top of Adalyn’s to-do list). The U.S. won and it was such a fun and friendly environment. We then drove down to Wellington, New Zealand for the second U.S. game against the Netherlands. We stopped along the way to see glow worms in Watomo Caves and Hobbiton (the movie set location used for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and The Hobbit film trilogy). We also went zip lining in the forest (another favorite of Adalyn) and went to a cultural experience about the Maori people. It is always fun for us to engage with and learn about new cultures, plus try new foods. We drove through Mount Tongariro National Park where it snowed on us, we got a glimpse of “Mount Doom” and we hiked to “Gollum’s Pool” (again from Lord of the Rings trilogies).

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Summer Visitors

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This summer has been full of visitors. It’s the first post-Covid summer that people are back in full swing of international travel, so we were blessed to host many friends over the last couple months.

The first visitor came at the end of May. We had the pleasure of having one of the mission founders, Shawn Tyler, stay with us for a week while he was visiting in Mbale. We enjoyed a village church visit, meeting and reconnecting with the mission staff, and organizing three separate village seminars teaching on the importance of the Lord’s Supper. In all, we taught over 210 church leaders from 51 churches the relational, Biblical, and practical aspects of taking the Lord’s Supper together as a church family.

After his visit, Ryan Hayes (former missionary to Malawi) and Blazio Styford (his Malawian teammate) came to Mbale to conduct a training for village churches interested in forming Village Savings & Loans groups. We had over 140 participants in the sensitizations meeting and 47 churches signed up for further training.

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Re-Learning English

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When we moved to Uganda, we were happy to know that the official language is English. And while there are more than 70 different tribal/local languages, English is common. But the funny thing that we realized after spending time here is that it’s not the same English we are used to speaking. It turns out we speak American, or more precisely, Texan. So we have had to learn to speak “English” with a Ugandan accent and different words / phrases. For fun, we thought we’d share some words and phrases that may be new to you but are everyday language for us (NOW):

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