Lawrence & Josephine Ssemakula are teachers with a family of six in Bombo Town, Uganda.  Lawrence and his wife have been cooperatives of SLAM’s in Uganda since 2004.  Their 12-year-old daughter, Queen is a very intelligent young lady that aspires to be a doctor some day.

Recently, Queen became very ill and so weak that she was unable to walk. The family immediately took her to the local hospital in Bombo Town for treatment.  Due to minimal access to the proper diagnostic equipment, the hospital gave their best guess of common diseases such as Malaria and Typhoid, yet she increasingly became more ill.

Simultaneously, God was doing something in the heart of a high school senior by the name of Hannah Lee from Mount Carmel United Methodist Church in Clarksville, TN.  Hannah was a participant in a SLAM mission week in Nashville, TN this summer and was inspired to put her faith into action by helping those in need.  Upon returning home from her trip, Hannah organized a car wash as a fundraiser to help SLAM meet some of the needs she became aware of on her trip.

When SLAM became aware of the severity of the situation with Lawrence and Josephine’s child in Uganda, the funds were accessed from Hannah’s car wash.   SLAM utilized the funds raised by Hannah to transport Queen to Uganda’s best health care facility, Kampala International Hospital.  This hospital performed the correct tests to properly diagnose Queen’s sickness.  It was there that the family learned she was suffering from a case of Hepatitis and that Queen also had iron deposits in her liver. Due to her Sickle-Cell Anemia, her sickness was worsened and required immediate response.

Through utilizing Hannah’s funds, SLAM was also able to send Queen to a sickle-cell specialist to prevent another episode from happening.  Had Queen not worked with this specialist, her hemoglobin levels would have dropped significantly causing her to have a blood transfusion (blood transfusions in Africa are often unsanitary and the cause of many deaths).

We live in a world that requires the people of God to use money for the good of others. As Ephesians 4 would tell us, “to give to the needy.” The LORD is so good. In a time of need for Lawrence’s family, Hannah listened to the LORD. We are thankful for God for healing Quinn and thankful to Hannah for obeying the LORD to give to those in need.

Please continue to pray for Quinn as she will continually be monitored as she manages her Sickle Cell anemia.

by: Ty Mathews

These are different journal entries written by some Da’ Mission participants while in India.

Kaitlyn Teem

The newness is wearing away and reality is hitting me.  There is so much poverty and darkness it’s hard to see where the good is, but God tells us there is hope in the darkness.  “In him there was life, and that life was the light of the people.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered it.”  John 1:4-5.  Now I want to figure out how I can be a part of bringing that hope.

Brittany Girton

As I’m approached by begging widows and children, see the swollen bellies of malnourished babies, and see the shacks and huts that are homes to the majority, my heart breaks.  And this is good, because I should be completely shattered by all of the suffering around me.  However, being surrounded by all of this has made it easy to become disheartened.  An overwhelming feeling of helplessness and hopelessness is sometimes all that I seem to feel.  It’s in these moments, though, that I find myself remembering that these are God’s children.  We worship a God who hears his children’s cries; a God who helps, is good, and is love.  So I have to hold fast to that faith that Jesus talks about – the faith that can move mountains.  The mountains of hunger, poverty, and the starvation of love that surrounds us every day.

Liz Maute

Being in this country full of starving people, I feel conflicted. They aren’t just starving for food but also for love from their neighbors and most of all, they’re starving to know Jesus. The need in India is devastating and thus far we’ve tried to help as much as possible. Considering we’re here for a short time we can only invest so much, which breaks my heart but there is an abundance of hope, if we don’t have hope for these people then who will? Our God is a merciful God and he knows the worries of the poor. At this point I believe that we are all feeling broken but that’s the position we need to be in for the Lord to mold us.

Shelby Lechtenberg

In a place full of such immense heartbreak it is hard to not think of yourself as a drop in a bucket. Through the darkness though we are called to look for hope. While we have seen the many faces of the world’s forgotten; swollen bellies of children, the racing eyes of addicts asking for money and the sight of hunched widows hobbling down the streets God has given us hope for this country of heart ache. Today we had the great privilege of meeting beautiful school children doing what children do best, playing. Watching them running with unbridled joy and smiles that beg your heart to grow wider there is no way to see such a moment of light in a dark room and not feel hope only the Lord could bring. While the road ahead of us is long lined with hurt and pain it is dotted and dyed with moments of the light of hope and God’s love for his people. The gift he has given us to be his hands and feet.

For the last ten days SLAM has been hosting friends from Raleigh, NC in Bombo Town, Uganda. The North Carolina crew was joined by youth from both Kenya and Uganda to put the biblical teachings of the week into practice by serving the needs of local Uganda families. The team worked hard, showing the love of Jesus to Ugandan families that G.O.D. Int’l has been building relationships with for the last 7 years. Youth from each region brought their own skill-set and perspective to the worksites, allowing for a productive week of service.

Their work included putting up gutters for a rain catchment system, making a keyhole garden for year round production, digging double-dug gardens to help improve crop production, and building an addition on a home that previously only had two rooms. By installing gutters to accompany the larger water catchment system, these youth have helped provide over half of the family’s water needs for one year. (The family who received the gutters previously had to carry 20-liter water containers by hand to the local well and back.) The double-dug gardens will help provide larger yields of produce as well as healthier plants, which means healthier food for the family who received them. The addition to the house provided a living room, additional bedroom, and shower room to a family who previously shared two rooms between two parents and their 3 children still at home. The extra space will offer a healthier and more comfortable space for them to dwell.

When Jesus speaks of those who will inherit the Kingdom of God in Matt. 25, he speaks of those concerned with feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, and clothing the naked. This week, the youth were able to see those who truly were in need of these basic necessities. Their love was directed to people who don’t have clean drinking water, who do not have food to eat everyday, and who lack proper shelter and clothing. As a result, these families got to experience the kind of love that God desires his people to display.

Youths from North Raleigh have been experiencing the culture and people of Africa. They have been working hard, doing construction and helping create new gardens. As they work, they discover the joy of serving people.

by Matthew Parker

Jesus asks his students to, ‘follow me.’  These invitations allowed followers to make a decision in the moment as to whether or not they would turn and begin to see and hear the teachings of Jesus.  For SLAM students during the summer they also are asked to ‘follow Jesus.’  They decide whether or not to hear the words of Scripture and allow those words to inform their perspective each day.

By the end of last week the Students were shocked by the love, generosity, and care that was displayed for them by the Salvadoran people.  The students were welcomed into people’s homes, cooked meals by families who only had a small meal to give, and they were shown a type of love that impacted the rest of their trip.

Following Jesus leads us into lands where we find treasures.  Sometimes these treasures are worth selling all we have in order to buy the field and obtain the treasure.  The SLAM students this week certainly found different treasures and were challenged by the love they themselves were shown.

by Matthew Parker

Jesus emphasizes the need for his followers to see needs wherever they are.  When 5,000 people followed Jesus into the wilderness, he saw that they were hungry.  In that moment, Jesus was able to feed them with the few items a little boy was able to offer (5 loaves and 2 fish).  We can learn from this passage that we ourselves might only have a few loaves and a fish to offer the needs that surround us everyday, but the little we are able to offer in faith is able to do much.

For the boy, the little he was able to offer only seemed ‘little’ in contrast to the 5000 that needed food.  The youth have been encouraged here in El Salvador to respond to each day with faith and believe that they will be able to see redemptive activity come from their ability to see and have mercy for the needs of both themselves, their friends, and the people of El Salvador.

We visited a great friend who lives in a displacement community in a home constructed of scrap metal, plastic and cardboard near Sitio Nuevo.  She was ecstatic to have new friends visit her and loved to see all the youth enjoy the fruit and coffee she was able to serve up.  She shared with our group about how much she thought we were like Jesus.  She said Jesus would go out to the wilderness and find people who were hungry and he would feed them.  She further explained that were she lived is a wilderness and we had come that day and fed her with our presence.  The youth responded to her wonderful encouragement with words of their own which only energized our friend. What the youth had to offer in that moment, surrounded by such overwhelming need, may have seemed small, but it was enough.