Reflection

Looking Back at What God Has Done in 2024

/ Leland Sawyer / 2 Comments

Garth Brooks is one of my favorite all-time musical artists. Sure, some can say that he ruined country music, but it can also be said that he SAVED country music. And one of my favorite songs is “The Dance.”

“Looking back on the memory of the dance we shared beneath the stars above. For a moment all the world was right. But how could I have known that you’d ever say goodbye…”

No one is saying goodbye but I love the way he looks back on an experience with such love and passion, knowing that the joy of that dance was worth the pain and heartache. And in some ways, that’s how I feel about looking back at 2024.

The year was too busy…not in a healthy way or a way to celebrate, but in a way that could have really beaten us down. And that’s something we have to address in 2025. But at the same time, 2024 was FULL of amazing God moments, both in family and in ministry. Here’s to “looking back…”

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Life Keeps You Humble

/ Gina Sawyer / 1 Comment

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:

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Discipleship and Leadership: Lessons from Jesus – The Good Shepherd

/ Leland Sawyer / 2 Comments

Recently, at our National Conference of church leaders from across Uganda, we asked an important question for leaders: “If Jesus is THE Good Shepherd, what does it look like for His people to shepherd others the way He does?” As we try to emulate our Savior, what are the implications for how we lead? If we are to truly be disciplemakers in the Way of Jesus, then this pursuit is essential.

Looking in-depth at John 10:1-18 we can glean much guidance when Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd. What qualities and defining characteristics does He point out that we can be sure that we also follow Him in?

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Always Learning

/ Gina Sawyer / 1 Comment

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]

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Women’s Discipleship Reunion

/ Gina Sawyer / Leave a comment

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.

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Reflections

/ Gina Sawyer / 1 Comment

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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Life-On-Life Disciplemaking

/ Leland Sawyer / 3 Comments

We are regularly asked what curriculum we use for making disciples. Many people are eager to know (and try) a curriculum that we use here, with a set of lessons and a timeframe. But that question is always a tricky-one for us to answer because we try NOT to use a curriculum; instead, we try to build relationships. When we look at the example of Jesus, we see Him calling men and women to follow Him. Then He is intentional in those relationships; working in the relationships to grow them spiritually and into His image. This is central for us: If we want to make disciples of Jesus for Jesus, then we also want to make disciples like Jesus; in the same ways he did.

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Things That Make You Smile

/ Gina Sawyer / Leave a comment

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

/ Gina Sawyer / Leave a comment

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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2023 in Retrospect

/ Leland Sawyer / Leave a comment

Every year is different, and every year is the same. Every year brings challenges, but what those challenges are can be different each month and week. Every year brings celebrations and successes, but we never know what that will be until they come. This past year has been a GREAT year in ministry, though it has been moving at a back-breaking speed. The stories of transformation and Holy Spirit impact continue to pile up, but so do the challenges and the work. We find ourselves continuing to pray as Jesus instructed: “Lord send your workers to THIS field!”

Here is a recap of some of the things we’ve been doing as a family and mission here in Eastern Uganda. Warning: This is a long post, but praise God – He has been moving!

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