If I timed this right, and that’s a stretch but it should be close, we are flying over Egypt right about now looking out over the Saharah Desert. The shot above is what we should be looking at right this very moment as we cross over from the Mediterranean Sea into the great land of Egypt. No, I don’t have wifi on the airplane unfortunately, I just, for once, planned ahead. I’m not really sure why this point in the trip has significance to me, perhaps because after all this preparation we are finally over the continent of Africa, but if you are looking at the photo above and thinking, there’s nothing there… that’s sorta the point. Nothing, for miles, hundreds of miles, except sand. All I could really think about was how in the world did the Israelites wonder around in the desert for 40 years? No wonder they were ready to kill Moses at that point.
Getting to this point in the trip keeps me thinking about being stuck between two worlds, the western world and all it offers is now so far behind us, yet we sit on a plane, which is basically our own civilization and culture, while we look out over a land that Moses walked across some 4,000 years ago (give or take a few). Another 4-6 hours and we will land in Rwanda, then Uganda, and leave the culture we know and understand behind for the next week or so. From then until we leave we will be known as the Mazunga who came to visit.
I’m a terrible poet, but this view and this flight across the desert, where so many thousands and thousands of people flown before today, deserves to be written about at some point. I know, at least for me, I’m excited that we have finally crossed over into Africa.
Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again… Genesis 46:3.4
I love that God has called out this land from the beginning, and I am now able to see it as none of the Israelites could have ever imagined, from 40,000 feet up in the air. Looking forward to some sleep on the ground in another 6-8 hours or so. Till next time.
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Well, each trip is different, and this one was interesting. Taking off out of Atlanta on such a beautiful night, not a cloud in the sky, flying up the east coast in calm skies was just a relaxing few hours before heading out over the Atlantic and apparently non-stop weather. We came into Amsterdam in the roughest crosswinds and heavy rain, and it was calculated that 22.22% of us lost our lunch on the way down (they didn’t want to name names), and those who didn’t, wanted to, except perhaps Bart who seemed to be bother by nothing. Now we are sitting in Amsterdam at the gate watching a zero visibility ceiling, very heavy rain as it blows sideways across the tarmac. But, we are all in good spirits, ready to be above 25,000 feet where we can see the sun again.
You can prepare and prepare mentally for two 10-12 hour plane flights but I’m not really sure you are ever ready to sit on a plane that long. This is my 3rd visit to Amsterdam, so far, in the last 2-3 months and I’m getting a little tired of seeing the cloudy gray cold rain of this side of Europe, but that’s Europe. It’s not quite the bustling zoo that is Atlanta Hartsfield but they do have a Starbucks and an Airbus inside the airport (though I still haven’t had time to get over to see it yet).
This flight coming up is by far my more desirable flight out of the two. We fly the entire flight during the daylight hours, except for the last leg when we stop in Rwanda, and it’s over what seems like the most remote areas of the world (to me) that includes almost the entire length of Italy, the Mediterranean Sea, into Egypt, and over Sudan.
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The day has finally arrived and today as our team heads for the Atlanta airport, and I know we all have prepared and prayed as much as is possible for this moment. In a few hours we will be over the Atlantic, at which time comes my very favorite feeling of all, having no control of driving the bus whatsoever by sitting in a medal tube at 40,000 feet for the next 2 days. Of course I did contemplate with Deborah for a short time about taking a slow boat to Africa but she reminded me we wouldn’t make it back before 2012 was here, so I guess it’s for the best we have planes now, I guess.
In case you missed my last trip from a few months ago (just hit Uganda on my blog and scroll down), we travel from Atlanta to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Rwanda, then on to Uganda (yes, we fly right over Uganda to land in Rwanda), for a total of almost 10,000 miles in just about 36 hours from start to finish. I timed my trip last time from the moment I left my house to the moment I got into the guest house and it was right at 36 hours, which translated into 1 sunrise and 2 sunsets. By the time we landed last time I remember thinking, this has to be Africa, if we traveled any farther we would start to head back home around the other side.
For those few of you who might want to follow a more exact detail of what’s going on as we board and land etc, you can follow my feed on Twitter @scottfillmer or you can friend me on Facebook. For those who are unfamiliar with Twitter, You do NOT have to be a member of Twitter to follow our trip/team on Twitter, it is an open page, just click on my name above and it will give show you the updates (if you want to respond to something on there you do need to join Twitter if you haven’t already). For Facebook of course you will need to be on Facebook. The information and photos I post on Twitter and Facebook are unique to those two media’s so you won’t see those pics on my blog. I will also be able to update both while I’m actually on the ground in Uganda during the day, so if you are so inclined you can read what we are doing over there as well.
For now, I would like you to meet our team. From the photo above (in no particular order here) we have April Olive, Amy Frye, Bart Hyche, Emile Ewing, Jamie Moussirou, John Dow, Lisa Randall, Prabhakar Clement, and me, Scott Fillmer. Please be praying for each of us through the stresses of travel, and being away from our loved ones, that God will give us the strength needed to make a difference in just the way he has called us to do. See you here when we get to Europe if I can.
Know that we all greatly appreciate all your prayers as we leave and while we are over there. For those who have my cell phone number, please feel free to send text message to me while I’m over there, it’s like getting a letter from home, and I can receive unlimited text messages on my phone, just can’t send a large number. I probably will not reply, but I will receive your message.
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Tonight was our kickoff meal, so to speak, with the Uganda team and our families at the famous Little Italy Pizzeria in Auburn. This was the first time we have all been together with our friends and family in one place, and it was great to all just be in the same room together. Up until now, for months in fact, we have met as a team in preparation for our trip to Uganda, and what a team we have going this trip. Collectively we have such an incredible range of personalities, skills, experience, gifts, and expertise, especially when you include our friends and family that were there tonight. To me, it’s such a great look at how the church body can be so diverse, yet united in Christ together with the desire to follow God halfway across the world.
This will be the first of many upcoming posts from our trip. We leave on Wednesday and I know everyone on the team will greatly appreciate your prayers as we go through the final stages of trying to let go of our busy schedules here and start to focus on the task at hand. For now, here are a few shots from tonight, more to come over the next week to ten days. Thanks so much to the guys at Little Italy for putting up with our large group and all the noise, you guys were awesome (see photo below).
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This is part two of a post I did last week (part 1) on the faces of Uganda. This set of images was a quick project related to the kids at African Renewal Ministries (ARM), which is the ministry group in charge of the sponsor child program we work with at Cornerstone Church. This is a pretty amazing program for the kids in Uganda and ARM coordinates the sponsorship of over 7,000 children in Uganda right now, along with being a bridge for churches and other non-profit organizations among other things. They are an amazing group, but you can really see the difference they make when you actually go over to Uganda and meet the children in the program in person and see that it really does make a difference to them.
To me, they are in the business of producing fruit… something we all should have on our to-do list as Christians, if I can say that and not make it sound like a checklist. They, and the people who work with them are producing the fruit, described in John 15, for future generations in Uganda. Something not just talked about in John but all over scripture, and to me that’s exciting. Our October mission team leaves in about a week and I can’t wait to get back to see those kids again. Just saying that feels a little weird since I’m not really one for searching out kid-friendly whatever but there is just something about the joy those kids have about life that is contagious, except perhaps when they get caught in the rain, but who likes that.
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Today I finally had a chance to process some more photos from the shoot in Uganda. These were specifically pulled out for the kids, and there were way too many to put into one single post so I broke this up into two pieces. I’m not sure what preconceived stereotypes you have in your head when you think about the phrase “Uganda kid photos”, but what I had in mind was the late night 2am TV commercials guilting you into sending money. That just wasn’t what I saw when I was there, and below is a very small sampling of what I encountered while I was there in August. There is no sugar coating their hardships, and they do exist, but as you are surrounded by people who have basically nothing, according to our western standards, you find they are happy, smiling, laughing, and overall excited to see you.
It was quite inspiring to be around people who seemed to genuinely happy in spite of the adversity they face. There are so many things we (I include me in this) complain about every day that I think some days we just flat out lose our joy for life. Perspective helps, but that too fades with time. Ultimately I pray God will at least change my heart for the things He cares about, like the people in these photos. Only about 10 more days before I head back to Uganda with a completely different group of people, a completely different mission and schedule, but I’m pretty sure all of us have a soft spot in our heart for these smiling faces. In some respects this upcoming trip will be emotionally harder as we are scheduled to be in two different children’s prisons in the middle of the week. I know God will be moving with us and the kids while we are there, but I know the entire team would appreciate your prayers as we get closer to leaving.
Keep an eye out for part two of this post with the remaining five or so photos from this particular batch. Have a great weekend.
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It’s hard for me to believe that in just three weeks our next team will be on our way to Uganda. I am basically still processing what our previous team did while we were there in early August, but our next team has been meeting now for months to prepare for our trip, which leaves on October 5th. The mission of these two teams couldn’t be more different in planning, people, and objectives, while all being unified under the banner of Matthew 28:19.
Over the last few weeks I have been trying to figure out how to explain, in actual words, what it means to “go”, at least in the context of going to Uganda. Since coming back from my last trip I have been asked many different questions, but the questions that are the most difficult for me to answer are the ones that require a tangible objective reached to be valid. They are perfectly valid questions when it costs so much to “go”, but it’s also mutually exclusive to the directive in Matthew 28:19, and a tangible result (or lack of one) doesn’t always equate to success or failure of the mission.
There are so many different churches, groups, and organizations working in places all over the world like Uganda that most “trips” are setup to specifically achieve objective A-B-C, and when they get back, they can say, it was a success, we did A-B-C. These are “clean straight lines” as our beloved staff member likes to say. Problem is, as I have learned, it isn’t that clean, and the lines are rarely straight. They aren’t arranged efficiently to move down from point A to point B while all done in the proper order. Of course this is mainly because we are dealing with people here, not data points or entries on a balance sheet to put it in accounting terms I’m familiar with myself.
No one travels over 16,000 miles without planning and preparation, and specific objectives they would like to see accomplished, but the words of Matthew that say “make disciples of all nations” isn’t a precise checklist, thank goodness. I took many classes in seminary that were specifically discipleship classes, and one basically spent the entire semester discussing those five words. For some teams “make disciples” means installing rain catch systems, for others it’s digging a well, or building a church building, or playing soccer. Sometimes, “make disciples” means building relationships, and how do you quantify that into points A-B-C, and why would we want to. And that’s what I love about our mission. We have done and are doing the specifics, but it’s for the purpose of building relationships with those brothers and sisters in Christ and for those who have yet to hear the Good News, and the results are not always quantifiable in western terms.
Our team that leaves in three weeks has every single day cram-packed at this point. For the first time we are going to be working with 60 Feet, an organization that “bring[s] hope and restoration to imprisoned children“, research in the science of clean water at the university level, and a host of other things in Buloba and the orphanage. Will these translate into tangible objectives reached? I have no idea, and I am starting to ask why it is so important other than to satisfy our western view of productivity and progress. If we were a corporation it would be totally different, but we aren’t, we are working for the objective of Matthew 28:19. Accountability and using the always limited resources of any non-profit is of the utmost importance to everyone, but I still think the end result has to be balanced with the goals of Matthew 28:19.
Years ago I probably wouldn’t have ever written this post, but then, a few months ago, I met the girl in the photo I took above, and realized that she doesn’t care about any of that. David Platt did a much better job explaining this than I just did in his book I reviewed back in March, Radical. This journey didn’t start for me back in March, or during this previous trip in August, and I don’t expect it to end with this next trip in October, because this is what God has commissioned us to do for those who believe in Him, and I hope I will always be involved in God’s objectives, tangible or intangible.
