Why the Blog-a-Thon??

We've had several people ask about our plans for moving to Gulu. Why Gulu?? What do we think God's plan is for us there? So instead of keeping you in suspense for the newsletter on Monday....we've decided to post about our 2012 plans a few days early. Yes, we're nice like that!

We are SUPER excited about what God is calling us to in Gulu!! After the film Invisible Children was released in 2006 there was a FLOOD of NGOs (non-government organizations) to Gulu. They built huge buildings and started projects....but never really empowered the Ugandans to help themselves. And they CERTAINLY did not teach them about Jesus (most of the NGOs were there for purely humanitarian reasons...some even being anti-Christianity). So now that the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) has left Uganda and moved into the DR Congo...the NGOs are leaving and heading to Juba, South Sudan. This has left a huge hole in Gulu....a hole that needs to be filled with Jesus. It is basically an unreached area...ripe for the harvest. We will be coming alongside a team that has been in the area for almost 2 years. They do life-on-life discipleship....mentoring, training, discipling, and releasing to do the same. It's amazing!!!

The house we will be living in is right next door to an orphanage....another "heart cry" we have....so we will be able to get involved there. We are also surrounded by a small village of African huts (a community that most likely was once an IDP camp....Internally Displaced People). This was another prayer we had about where we lived...we wanted to be near a community that we could become actively involved in on the community development front. We will be living near the Gulu airport so Benji can spend time with the MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) pilots that fly in and out of there (he has wanted to be an MAF pilot since he was 8)....this was a prayer that Scott had that God answered with a YES. How God lead us to this particular house is a TRULY amazing story...one that will be a blog post next week!

As you can see, God has amazing plans for us! We are so excited to live these plans out! But we need your help! Honestly, we can't move without money.

Total number of gifts so far: 5
Yesterday I mistakenly listed our # of gifts as 4....but we also had a 7 year old boy give his parents $20 to help us out (which they included with their gift). Thanks, JI!!

We need your help to bring that number up! Your tax-deductible gift of $5 or more will not only bless our family...it will help bring Jesus to Northern Uganda!

To see the latest total...as of Tuesday 12/20/2011...click here.

To get details about how to participate in Blog-a-Thon 2011 click here.