Cherish Update
February 2009
Hi,
I am writing to thank you for standing so strongly with me and the team here this week!
I have heard reports of you and your people calling specific prayer meetings, fasting and standing with us as this week has continued to unfold with challenges after the near death accident of all our building team and the brutal beating of our driver. It's been amazing to know how big an army we have with us!
As you know, we lost no-one in what I can only explain is a miracle accident! It was clearly the hand of God and each time I reiterate that to the building team, they nod affirmatively as though they are very aware of being rescued. On my arrival on the scene, I felt an evil lurking on the sidelines, almost as if to hide and watch as plans for death were ruined and life was preserved. It felt like a threat.
Three nights later, a young 16 year old boy named Simon and son of our farmer Rose, was severely tortured by a mob. The boy and the torturers are almost neighbors, only the village school stands between their homes. All have lived in this village for a very long time and have known each other well. There is a great evil that motivates mob justice. After a night in hospital, Simon died. The injuries to his head and internal bleeding were the named causes of death in addition to the paraffin poured into his ears while being tortured. The perpetrators are known renegades who have tortured others in the past and it is the same group who were involved in the beating of our driver. We brought the body back from the mortuary and the village wept and mourned his death. Meanwhile, villagers revenged his death by setting fire to the home of the family whose boys are the ones named for his death. They looted the home, burnt all belongings and destroyed property. And evil seemed to set in. It was very dark. Here in Uganda, people talk. It is a culture of communication. The message that has been spoken in this village, is the LOVE demonstrated by Cherish to the community in it's care for the young men in the accident and the family of Simon. People have been talking and in only one week, we are closer to the community than ever before. Our people are them. They are us. And God is with us. Fathers, mothers, wives and others have come to their men in hospital this week and left shaking their heads in amazement of the LOVE their boys have had shown to them. Augustine, Stephen and I took 3 vehicles to the burial deep in a distant village on Saturday/Sunday and there 3 taxi busses full of our local villagers also arrived. In a distant place, our community was united. We are currently actively pursuing justice with local leaders and police. And at the same time praying that forgiveness become the antidote to the pain instead of vengeance. I find it so intensely real that as we have recently strategically planned the HOPE principals of Health, LOVE, Prosperity and Education to penetrate this community....we are given an opportunity to lay a platform of LOVE within this village. On this platform we will work with our community to re-build the walls of HOPE and it will be here that the transformation of life will take place. I have sensed the lifting of the darkness....as we watch the light dawn on the people living here. We had 6 young men give their lives to serve Christ a few weeks ago...this in addition to 2 previously. Our children's church program called SPLAAT just finished a 3 day program discipling the children of the village. God is at work. His purpose is our mission...and that is redemption. As you can imagine, in order to make this vision a reality, we need finances. We have just bid for over £2million on the back of an invitation from another project bidding for $100million to some philanthropists who are looking to fund sustainable development in Africa. It is a miraculous opportunity. A woman who works in our financial department named Stella had a word for us last week an hour before the accident. She was given the verse from Kings where there has been no rain and God says there will be no thunder, no cloud in the sky...no warning. But the RAIN will suddenly pour. It was this week that we were asked to bid. I believe that God is with us and that as we make careful plans to see this community redeemed by HOPE and LOVE...that the darkness pushes against the light. But we have stood and pushed back...and you have done this with us. This is not a battle of flesh and blood...no way. This is the struggle for the enemies territory...the people who live under his oppression....are being freed. The rays of light are beginning to penetrate the darkness and we can afford nothing less than to stand together continually as we see His kingdom built here in Uganda. It's a joy to know that you are with us; that you actively push the darkness back with us and that this vision of HOPE for the hopeless children has the power to transform entire communities. Thank you for calling your people....the army...to pray and stand. And FIGHT. I would love to ask that you continue and join us this week. We have called a week of fasting and prayer. We will be praying everyday this week from 1-2pm (lunch hour) for these three things:
- Safety- that God would continue to protect the lives of our children, their health and our entire staff. Also, we are praying protection over the lives of each person in this community and for the leaders who are pursuing justice with us.
- Our Community- Bulega is a community full of ex-offenders who have escaped to the fishing communities to hide and to live a rebellious life of drunkenness and crime. Many of the women are single mothers who prostitute their bodies to feed their illegitimate children. It is also clustered with large family settlements...which become a large force when one in any particular family is wronged by a non-family member. I believe that God has strategically put us here. It is where His LOVE can transform the least of the least and where a community can begin to see revival.
- The Bid- we have put into the bid every aspect of Cherish's vision for the Akaloosa Village model and the work into the community including a massive social business venture that will sustain Akaloosa village and provide huge profits in the community. I feel we must have childlike faith and not to hold back our faith for fear of disappointment. After all, we have never been without....and that friend, is a miracle. In this bid we have put the entire Dignity project (a social business in the tourism field for the benefit of the local community through cooperatives), our demonstration farm including a processing facility and equiptment for the production of high yield profits from grown crops, the running costs of Akaloosa Village operating at 5 homes/40 children and a suggested 3 more homes and also funding for a primary school that will demonstrate excellent education using the local Ugandan curriculum with as much creativity/interaction/international teaching techniques as possible...which will serve to train teachers/head teachers of schools in the district.
I hope you will join us in praying for these 3 areas of need. It is an awesome thing that we are the CHURCH, Jesus body... and it is the oppressed, the poor, those in chains, the hungry, the abandoned, the needy, the homeless and the hurting that He asks us to respond to with his LOVE. It is awesome that we are this CHURCH together. Again, I am so thankful for your prayers and for strengthening our arms as we battled this week. It upheld us. Together, united, there is nothing God cant do through us. Thank you for praying for me. I treasure your support and prayer for me personally and for the team here. I have felt God with us and today I woke up with a passionate sense of worship and praise within me. It is amazing that we have this treasure in jars of clay. I can't say how strongly I feel that it is truly not us, but God in us that is redeeming life...and to that end we all serve with our lives...what a privilege. LOVE you,Rachel |
