Ephesians 18-19a : “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

As I sought to understand the God of Uganda, I found myself thinking a lot about the God of Genesis. The slower paced environment in Africa seemed to point back to a simpler way of living; people eat whole foods from their own gardens and locals hang around outside socializing, face to face conversations still being the main mode of communication. I felt that the lack of distractions made it easier to see the stark contrast between the beauty of God’s creation and the curse of Adam’s sin. When I witnessed the sacrificial lives of the missionaries and the shepherd hearts of the native leaders I thought about the God who proclaimed that it was good. I can’t forget some of the personal stories and testimonies they shared about their journeys of faith; they reminded me that man was created in the image of God, equipped with an amazing capacity to love. At the same time the curse of sin was sobering. I was reminded of it each time the buzz of a mosquito struck fear in my heart. We spent time in Dr. Luke Lim’s clinic and visited a few local hospitals and orphanages. The sicknesses and poverty we encountered were heart-wrenching and even revolting at times. In addition, Ugandan brothers and sisters were very frank about the less obvious spiritual sicknesses that afflicted many young people. For example, despite the fact that Uganda is predominantly Christian, the pursuit of false idols cause many to attend church merely as a vehicle for their own personal gain. In this way, Bible teachers there are often burned and taken advantage of by self-seeking students. It is a difficult labor of love.

At times I felt burdened by the reality of mission, and I was thankful to receive new hope from the God of Genesis through the study of the call of Abram. The Makerere University chapter was beginning the study of the life of Abraham, and through our study I feel so blessed to understand more deeply our gracious God who calls things that are not as though they were. Surely, Abraham’s human reality was that he was an ordinary man full of weaknesses, born into an idol worshiping family, getting old, and married to a barren woman to boot. However, God challenged Abraham to claim a new reality by faith. In a fallen world, the God of Abraham sees life where there is death, hope where there is fatalism, and a new creation in the midst of the old sinful one; God’s reality reflects the victory of Christ.

I was so moved by the God who called an ordinary man to be blessed with unbelievable promises, and I was inspired by an ordinary man who claimed those unbelievable promises by faith and obedience. This forced me to think about my own doubt and human thinking, especially in regards to the responsibilities of being passed the torch of the ministry as a second gen. Having been raised in the church, I have had plenty of time to develop idealistic views about what it means to live a life of faith. Accordingly, I have also had enough time to watch each ideal become jaded by the human experience. I wondered how it was possible to become unjaded and to think like a child again when it’s impossible to unlearn the reality of the world and the reality of my own weaknesses. This has been a recurring source of frustration, and sometimes I wondered whether spiritual hopes were fairytales, no different than human dreams. But through the faith of Abraham, I was deeply convicted of my sin of allowing my faith be dictated by human reality rather than the reality of Christ. I can see clearly that faith in Christ can never be jaded by this world because Christ has overcome the reality of this world. I pray for the simple and transcendent faith of Abraham, so that I may believe that no matter how many promises God has made, they are all "Yes" in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank God that He also sees me as worthy of bearing His reality in Jesus. I thank Him for calling me to be his own child, to lead a life of love, faith, and obedience. I pray that God may fix my heart in His kingdom, beyond the realm of this world. May God enable me to become a powerful mother of prayer who has a shepherd heart after Jesus so that I can be an effective Bible teacher for world mission.

ONE WORD: May the eyes of my heart be enlightened to see Jesus