(Uganda) Am I doing what God wants me to do? Am I on the right track? Is there something more or different I should be doing? Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Missionaries working with prisoners in Arua, Uganda recently took some time to ponder these questions, and were blessed to receive an unusually compelling confirmation that they may indeed be on the right track. "We've been working in the prisons now for a couple of years," they explain, "but this year we felt God calling us to go deeper in all the base ministries." "In the prisons ministry, the team took time to seek God's heart for this year. What was his vision for the prisoners and the prison community? Were we on the right track in what we were already doing, or was there something more or different?" The team was led to 1 John 3:16-18 and its call to love "with actions and in truth," and prayed for some ideas of what love in action might look like in their prison ministry. They came up with a list of objectives, including: 1. Provide English as a Second Language and Literacy training for prisoners. 2. Connect released prisoners with Vocational Training programmes to help rehabilitate them back into society. 3. Run the Alpha Course [spiritual ministry] with the various groups within the prison community. About a week after drafting their ministry proposal, the team came across a newspaper story reporting that the state minister for internal affairs in Uganda had recently urged the Prison department to "embark on rehabilitation programmes for the inmates," observing that "programmes like adult literacy, vocational skills training and spiritual instruction would enable the inmates to become better citizens when they are released." The striking similarities between the state minister's new list of objectives and the team's list of objectives "seemed to confirm exactly what God had already been speaking to us." "It was as if He was saying, 'See! You are hearing right from me. We're in this together.'"  To top it off, when the team later visited a prison, one of the prisoners handed them a rolled up newspaper. Inside the paper was a hand-painted "batik" of two women dancing under a coconut tree. The prisoner explained, "It's a picture of two women giving glory to God. You people have been coming here for long, now, and caring for us. This is just a small token of our appreciation for all you people have done for us prisoners."
The ministry team was humbled and nearly speechless. For the first time ever, they had received a gift from a prisoner. "[I]t was especially touching to us that this prisoner, who has nothing and lives in challenging circumstances would give us something. We were so humbled. What could we say? Thank you didn't seem sufficient." The team realized that this is "what love is...God's love in us flowing out to bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." Pray for the YWAM Arua team as they continue to minister to prisoners in Uganda. Pray that God's love will be even more abundent in them as they continue to follow His lead. Read More: Links
YWAM Arua: God's Heart For The Prison Community ______________________________________________________________________________ The International Faith Telegraph
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