Only $444 Needed!!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!! I am so grateful for your support of my upcoming Uganda trip with Africa Renewal Ministries!! Many of you have given generously and sacrificially and for that I am deeply moved and appreciative. God will bless you exponentially!

I am only $444 away from the $3,000 I have to raise for my trip! Praise God that my plane ticket has been purchased and my other expenditures have almost been met! I am getting so excited because God is working everything out, therefore I know He has BIG things in store for our team!

My plane takes off in two short weeks! Will you please help me raise the rest of what I need?? We can do this!!!

How do you help? ASAP - Call Sonia at the African Renewal office in Austin, TX and make your tax-deductible contribution over the phone! 210.979.7441 Please make sure you tell her to put it toward my trip (Kirsten Vogel).

If you'd prefer to send a check, you can send your tax-deductible contribution to:

Africa Renewal Ministries, PO Box 13733, San Antonio, TX 78213

A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. ~Proverbs 22:9

The Village

I leave for Uganda in less than two weeks. And before I finish my last blog and tell you what God told me to do, I'm going to give you a little background info. on the village where we will be.

The village is outside of a larger village, that is outside of a larger city. There is a mosque near the entrance to the village, but no Christian church. There is a witch doctor, but no medical clinic. People sit in doorways and children run in the streets. Like the children, skinny dogs wander around looking for something remotely edible to fill their bellies. No clean water is found in the village.

322 people per day in Uganda die of malaria. 45 die of HIV/Aids. In Africa as a whole a child dies every three seconds from AIDS and extreme poverty, often before their fifth birthday.

More than one billion people do not have access to clean water.

Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

More than 50 percent of Africans suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.
More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day, 300 million are children.

Of these 300 million children, only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 percent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency. (From Cozay)

All of this is immensely disturbing in and of itself, but what struck me the most was the blackness, evil, and oppression that these children live under. Young children are sold by their parents who can't afford to feed them. Sometimes they are sold out of their parents' ignorance, with promises by a sex trafficker that their child will go to school, receive a job, or have a better life.

Sometimes parents sell their kids because they need money to feed their other kids. Often, children are not sold at all, they are stolen right off the streets where they live as they run, play, or look for food. They are either lured or just thrown into trucks by passersby. These children are sold as slaves, into the sex-trafficking industry, or as human sacrifices. Human sacrifices. You read that correctly. It is real and it happens every day.

Perhaps one of the most impactful things on my last trip was a newspaper article. On the front page of the local paper was a picture of a headless toddler. The story went that the child's father wanted a boda-boda (a motorbike). I mean, he REALLY wanted one. The farmer he worked for told him that for the head of a child, he would give him a boda-boda. This young father severed the head of his only child, his son, and traded it to the farmer for his motorbike.


The child's head was found in a pot on the farmer's stove. When asked about the "pot", the farmer explained that he was making a "potion" to sprinkle around the perimeter of his farm to increase his land borders and make his farm more fruitful.

This is horrible, sickening, and enough to make an italian girl like me have a heck of a temper tantrum. While on this trip I also ready this quote by journalist Andrew Rice: " Some people (Ugandans) worshipped the God of Christianity, some the god of Islam, but they all retained a measure of the age-old belief in the power of nature spirits and in the rainmakers who communed with them." I think this is abundantly clear.

The newspaper article is dated September 30, 2009. This JUST HAPPENED people. How can we turn a blind eye to this? The thing is, maybe you think there are lots of Christians in Africa. Maybe you think that you can't make a difference. But for us who call ourselves the Church, we must take action! This should not be happening on our watch! How will you respond?

A Ugandan Prespective

The following post is written by Malinda Hayes, an amazing 18 yr. old woman I had the privilege of traveling to Uganda with last fall. Malinda followed God's call to go live in the village that we'll be working in for a few months. I encourage you to read ahead. Malinda is an inspiration and adds tremendous insight to life there.



Malinda writes: As an eighteen year old I have had things thrust onto my lap that I simply felt I could not handle. I came to Uganda to love children, not to be an administrator. For a short time I began to fall into Satan’s trap of guilt and depression, carrying the weight of all this need on my shoulder. Through a period of prayer, I came to recognize that God has not called me to carry the guilt of not being able to feed the thousands and millions of people of this country. God knows of all these things, and I am not a humanitarian. I am an apostle, so all I can do is share about Jesus and his love, and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading on how to help. Also, I realized that I was spiritually starving! There are “churches” in this area, but I do not count them as bodies of Christ, as many of them use unbiblical principles in their services. I have been able to listen to some sermons online from my own church which has been extremely “nourishing.”

After living in my dear missionary friend’s apartment for three weeks, I had this overwhelming since that I was supposed to move back to the school. Now her apartment is absolutely beautiful, with a guard, gate, refrigerator, stove, oven, and even a HOT SHOWER. Yes those things are nice, and there is nothing at all wrong with having them. But I have seen so many missionaries who come to Uganda and shut themselves up in lavish places, and do not live with the people and learn their ways. How are we supposed to minister as missionaries if we come to their country and not build bridges with them? Why even bother? Also, most of what I would consider biblical churches is in the city in Kampala. Where are the missionaries who are willing to start churches out in the bush and villages? Those are the people that desperately need the Word! But many refuse to do this and so these native people suffer. After becoming Christians, they stay spiritual babies, and often mix their witchcraft with Christianity, as they do not have anyone to guide them through the Bible. It breaks my heart. As a white person, why do I have a right to not only spiritual food, but also proper medical care, sturdy houses, electricity, etc., yet these people as my brothers and sisters in Christ seem to have been forgotten and neglected by the Church? My question continues to stay the same… “WHERE IS EVERYBODY?!”

After feeling that God wanted me to move back to the school, I decided to do this. Although I lack privacy, I don’t have Western toilet, and many times my new family laughs at me when I attempt to speak in Lugandan, I know that God is using my awkwardness and discomfort to show these people that I care about them in the name of Jesus. Most of the children are on holiday this month, as school has let out, so it is only a few of us remaining here. Through this intimate time of being together, I am able to love and discipline the children, play with them, and read stories to them before they go to sleep. With the two older girls remaining, I get to stay up late talking with them about anything and everything, let them show me how to cook posho and beans over a charcoal fire, and laugh with them as we wash our clothes by hand together outside. I have been so blessed by this, and it continues to humble me on a daily basis. Although this simple way of living seems difficult, remember what the Bible says-We can do all things in Christ who strengthens us! I hope that somehow this newsletter speaks to someone out there, to give up “self” for Christ and receive a blessing much bigger than human comfort!

God is so cool how He always does that!

I've been craving a really good Bible study lately.... like a Beth Moore with lots of homework. I know, I know.... a glutton for punishment! How can I do homework when I can't even keep up with my kids' homework?! I called my neighbor Amy and asked if she was interested and coincidentally (God is sovereign) she was starting up a Beth Moore study the very next week! Cool, huh?

The Bible Study title is Breaking Free. Now I did this study about ten years ago and boy did I have a lot of things to break free from! But now it is just as fresh and exciting and new because over the past ten years I've worked up a whole other set of things that need to be dealt with. Also, (again God is sovereign) I got to meet another neighbor who is part of the group whom I'd only met in passing before. Not only do we share the same house number (although on different streets), we share a lot of other similarities and struggles with our children. I feel like we are Divine Appointments in one another's lives.

Okay, so I'm starting week one of the homework and part of it is to memorize a verse for the week. When I read the verse I was so excited I just HAD to share it!!!

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the the prisoners...

~Isaiah 61:1

WOW! This is NOT a coincidence and I'm again amazed by God and His perfect timing and His love for me. This is just another reassurance of the calling on my life... to be His ambassador to the ends of the earth! Did I mention that I CANNOT WAIT to go to Uganda with Ekissa in May so I can do the work that the Lord has called me to do?

My Disenchantment with the Contemporary Church, Part 1

Ahh, the proverbial elephant in the room, the one people tiptoe around. As they say here in the south…. It’s a big ‘un!

Let me add my disclaimer here: I am not directing this post at any one church or person or population segment. It is merely my opinion, which I am fully entitled to. I in know way expect everyone to agree with me. I don’t expect ANYONE to agree with me. This is just what God has laid on my heart through His word and the path my life has taken. If it steps on your toes, then maybe it’s time you take a good hard look at the direction of your church and the condition of it’s heart. And from some of you I can hear a resounding “AMEN” because your church is doing things right. Take it or leave it.

My Disenchantment With The Contemporary American Church, Part 1

It is no secret that I’ve become disenchanted with the contemporary Christian Church these days. It’s just that when you’ve looked into the faces of innocent children that go days and weeks eating only bugs and poop, it changes your perspective. Then, to see them raise their faces and hands to God and praising him for His provision and being part of a “church service” right there in the middle of nowhere with a dirt floor and a couple of drums, well it sends chills up your spine. I know without a doubt that I saw the face of Jesus in that place and amongst those people.

So I struggle. I walk into a typical contemporary church and am supposed to be wowed and transcended into this “worship experience” of sounds and lights and artificial fog. It seems that this is how we are wooing the “unchurched” into our church services, by creating this artificial “environment”. The Bible says in John 13:35 “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Do our churches attract people because we love, or do they attract people because we have the coolest music, a laser light show and superb programming?

It’s just something to think about. I’m not saying that those things are inherently bad, but if they are our focus, then we’ve gotten off track. That is my opinion. More later.

Ugandan Beads!!

I'm selling these beads to benefit the ministry of www.ekissa.com

Each bead is hand made from recycled paper and is special and unique. They were purchased at a fair trade price from widows in Uganda. All the proceeds from the necklaces go right back to buy more necklaces, therefore supporting the idea that these widows can be self-sustaining and support their families. Ekissa seeks to provide a holistic approach and do our part to help alleviate poverty in Uganda while sharing the hope of Christ.

Some strands are shorter, and some are longer, but each is unique!

The ones are my neck is one long strand that I have tripled, so you can make it

suit what you're wearing.

They are $10 each plus actual shipping. So, the more you buy, the cheaper to ship!

But if you live near me, I'd love to hand them to you in person!

Child Sponsorship works!

Masituula is an 11 year old girl from Uganda that we sponsor. Because of our sponsorship, she gets to eat one meal a day, go to school, have access to medical care, and gets a uniform to wear! Click here to find out more http://www.hopechest.org/?page_id=411

World Aids Day

Today is World AIDS Day, find out about the 5 ways that YOU can make a difference in the global AIDS crisis at http://5for50.com

Relationships

A big bullet point for me on my trip to Uganda was: relationships. It brought a renewed meaning to the phrase “Love your neighbor as yourself”. That phrase has always begged the question amongst the most well versed of theologians “Who is my neighbor?” The Bible answers quite clearly that we are all each other’s neighbor (Luke 10:29-37), no matter what we look like or where we come from or what we’ve done, where we’re going or what our circumstances are. We are ALL each other’s neighbor.

The thing I love about relationships is that we all have a story. Every single one of us has a story that can be told of the things in our lives that have molded us and made us into who we are, what we are and where we are, for better or for worse. This is a common thread that binds us all no matter of our race, religion, or creed. When we take the time to sit down and hear someone’s story, we find out that we’re not so different after all. We are able to see value in people regardless of their social standing. Some of my best friends are people that might seem quite different from me, but because we know each other’s story, we have a tight bond that binds our hearts together, even though people would look as us and think that we were mis-matched.

One of the highlights of my trip to Uganda was forming relationships with the people that I came into contact with every day. Our host Patrick and his wife Sarah are wonderful people and I cherished the time we had together talking about our respective lives. Patrick and Sarah recently had a four-month-old daughter die. And whereas I have no personal experience with this, I do know about the trials of having sick children and how those experiences have helped to mold me and make me into the person that I am. I can truly say that I love Patrick and Sarah and add them to my list of dear ones. I miss them and can’t wait to see them again.

Also, I was privileged enough to get to know the staff at the guesthouse where we stayed. Florence is such a beautiful person inside and out and she worked so hard to make us feel at home, and we did! She has a passion for hospitality, just like me! That binds us as sisters. David and Eddie, our drivers, also hold dear spots in my heart as they shared some heart-wrenching stuff with our team. I don’t see these people as mere happen-stance in my life, but as Divine appointments whose stories continue to shape me and mold me into who God is making me to be. I am so thankful to have met these wonderful brothers and sisters in Uganda and my heart aches to see them again!

I think, and I will challenge you, to step out of your comfort-zone and ask someone their story, you will be delightfully surprised at the bonds that form in your heart. If you want somewhere to start, ask me my story. It would be my honor to share it with you.

Poem by my team-mate (written while we were in Uganda)

Mercy by Malinda Hayes

(Note by Kirsten: Malinda is 18 years old and she wrote this poem after we visited Mercy Orphanage. She is an extraordinary young woman with a God-given vision!)

Images that haunt
Deceit that taunts

Abandonment and shame
Dished out to the lame

Monsters as men tell lies
That lead children to die

Their stomachs go unfed
While they are tortured in their beds

Untreated malaria and worms
Should make the Church do more than squirm

Action should be taken
Because God's plan is in the makin'

Although there may be violence
God will no longer let there be silence

Because of the terror that moves through night
The Church should surely fight!

We will fight with all our might
And follow Jesus's everlasting light

Those who do not walk God's path
Will finally experience His wrath

For giving up just one meal on the table
Or maybe just your basic cable

A child's physical needs can be bought

And education can be taught

We may send money to the poor

But Christ commands us to do more

In Christ's suffering we are supposed to share

So take the time to say a prayer

Jesus gave us the Great Commission

So why has the church made such a great omission?

Love one another, as I have loved you

That is all he has asked us to do

Jesus paid the ultimate cost

Now it is up to us to help the lost

Total Injustice

*I just need to get a few things off my chest so if you're easily offended or deeply in love with either Farrah Fawcet or Michael Jackson, I suggest you not read any further.

What the heck is wrong with us Americans? I am personally appalled by all the public mourning, weeping, and carrying on about two have-been pop/tv stars. Farrah's battle with cancer was admirable and she educated a lot of people with her documentary about fighting and finding a cure for cancer, now sadly her death is certainly taking a back seat to MJ's. So if I had to pick favorites, yeah it would be her. Michael, on the other hand, may have written some good songs which defined a decade, but do we forget such incidences as him dangling his son over a balcony or all the "allegations" of child pornography and sexual abuse going on in his own home? Okay, so they're only allegations, and OJ only "allegedly" chopped his wife's head off.

But this is not my soap box. My anger and disbelief are directed at the media and those who are skipping work to stay home to watch the live telecasts and tributes to these individuals. They're dead. People die every day. In fact, 28 million children die of curable diseases each year! 17 million children die from starvation. STARVATION! They don't die because they have fought a valiant battle with cancer deserving of media attention; they don't die of heart attacks sleeping between the finest of linens. They die because they have no FOOD. They die because they don't have a basic antibiotic to treat malaria....a $25 antibiotic!! But these children get no media attention. They get no justice. What is wrong with us? How can we sit in front of our big screen TV's munching on chips and watching and mourning the death of a freakin pedophile for goodness sake when children are dying TODAY because they have no food to eat? It's pathetic. It's inexcusable.

The child you see in the above picture is a REAL child from Uganda. This photo was taken in May; his body was lifeless and he was literally starving to death. You don't see these faces on the news. You don't see the ticker rolling every time an innocent child dies from lack of food or totally obtainable and affordable medicine. Instead we are content to live in our world with delusions of grandeur and Neverland ranches, while idolizing those pretty faces we see from our TV sets. We choose to ignore the suffering and the dying in places like Africa. Why? Because we are so far removed or because it hurts too much to watch or because we're too selfish and like to put ourselves up on pedestals because we're better, richer, and prettier than the rest of the world? No wonder the world hates Americans.

Did you know that every year 10 million children are involved in the sex industry? And some of that is within our own borders!? Instead of mourning Michael Jackson for his "music", wouldn't we be more effective in giving our time and attention to free the innocent from the bonds of sex slavery?

It's time that we wake up people. It's time that we did something. No more pathetic excuses. Two weeks ago two 11 year olds set up a lemonade stand and baked cookies and raised $40 to buy food for kids in Uganda. If they can do it, so can we. We can choose to not ignore the statistics, we can choose to not idolize people for their good looks or the ability to write songs, we can choose to make a difference, to pay attention, to do SOMETHING!