Dec. 31

Ministry Partners and Friends,

It's hard to believe that today is the last day of the year and I am in Uganda! they tell me that there will be late night celebrations in every town and village, sounds like America.

Today we had an early start and arrived at ______ Prison at 8:30 ready for a morning of ministry but
 the O.C. did not like our documents and would not allow us to enter. It is a large prison and I was disappointed but we returned to the hotel while Aaron and Peace took motor bikes to town to get SYM cards for an extra phone I brought as well as for our personal WyFy system. He had plans to take care of this a number of times but was never able to. He returned to drive us to the prison but left his sister in the long line to try and get this project completed.

While he and Peace are gone I had time to start this blog and take a brief rest. After they returned we went to a different prison who has already accepted our entrance by phone. When we arrived we were told that the O.C. (which we were not allowed to meet) directed that we have 45 minutes. Pretty difficult to cut a 3 hour crusade down to 45 min. I told the Deputy O.C. that Commissioner Elizabeth and Deputy Commissioner Apollo wanted us to do a program that also included the "Forgiveness" portion because no other organization offered that. After further negotiation it was agreed that we could have 1 1/2 hours. Thank you Jesus!

The prisoners sat under a porch and again I stood in the sun but It appears my sun screen is lost somewhere in the van so I had none to put on.

I "clipped" each portion of the crusade and still we watched the Holy Spirit work in power. The prisoners made 3 good choices today. 1- they received Jesus' free gift of salvation, 2- they prayed forgiveness over someone else or themselves, 3- they apologized to each other and asked for forgiveness!!!

Then we handed bibles and booklets to each prisoner and there was enough of each language. Oh, how the inmates celebrated, holding the bibles over their heads singing and dancing. Then they came to me and got on their knee to bow......... goodness I was humbled. I noticed some prisoners behind a screened door that had not been allowed to come so I directed the Deputy O.C. to please give the remaining bibles to those men and he assured me he would.

As Aaron and Peace got things ready to take to the van I quickly found some shade. For the first time in all the times I have preached in the sun I felt myself about to faint. Goodness the sun seemed extra hot today.

All of us were tired from the heat on the way to the hotel. If I have not mentioned it before Aaron is doing a marvelous job, he has such a servants heart. He is doing his regular jobs and the jobs Alfred usually does. He is such a safe driver but says the reason there are so many accidents here is that a large part of the population just buy a car and never get a drivers license so they really don't know the rules of the road.

 

Driving through villages provides a view of the vegetables and fruit available

Apollo called Peace and she reported to him that ______ Prison would not allow us in this morning, he was not happy with them. Sad thing is we do not have time now to add them to our schedule and we added their blankets and bibles to the prison we went to this afternoon.

After we returned today we emptied the van for me to sort everything and but things back in the box or bag where they originally came from while Aaron took the van to be washed inside and out.

Please continue to pray for:

1. Open heart for the Gospel
2. Favor with everyone we meet
3. A fresh anointing each day for the team
4. Travel safety and good health

That none would be lost,

Arlene