The village is called Angopet. It is in the sub-county
Gweri, in the Soroti district. This is the village where we will be distributing 150 water filtration system to people who have never had a clean source of water.
We began by gathering at a PAG, (Pentecostal Assembly of God), church far from the village of Angopet. Many people traveled many miles to get to this place, and this is the closest church around. Gathered here in this hallowed brick structure, a humble home for the house of God, are more than 70 families and a group of nursery to primary school students.
We have chosen this environment as an assembly hall to tell the people of the clean water and also to tell them of the Water of Life. The water filters are the light to draw them in, and the gospel is the life to indwell and reconcile them to God.
After the main assembly the team split into groups to minister to the children from a nearby school. The school, St. Marylin’s, was directly beside the church building and had over 50 students enrolled. The building itself was little more than a long brick building with several, segregated and open-aired rooms.
Myself, Dalynn, Josh, Andrew, and Rachel went to work among the teens and older children beneath a shade tree. Some of the children’s ministry team: Abby, Marisa, Mrs. Karen, Christian, Wes, and Victoria are meeting with the younger children beneath another tree. I can hear them and see them from here.
Our team began by having Josh give a gospel illustration where he will cut a rope and then restore it. Dalynn followed with a testimony of how he was saved at the age of 5. Rachel have her testimony next, after which Andrew preached on Nicodemus and being born again.
Currently, Josh is presenting an illustration called, “The Rat Trap”. This illustration is about how easy it is to get trapped in sin. Josh uses a stick to prod around the rat trap, which he calls, “The Sin Trap”, slowly getting closer to the trigger. As he moves the stick around, he tells the crowd about the ways we can fall into sin until we get trapped. As he says it he hits the trigger with the stick, trapping the stick beneath the bar.
After he finishes with that part of the illustration, he calls a member from the group to volunteer and then proceeds to have them hold up their index finger. Grabbing the person’s wrist, he attempts to touch their finger to the trigger and pull it away before the trap snaps down. After faking several times, he thrusts the person’s finger onto the trigger and the crowd gasps as the look and realize that the trap was not even set. Josh uses this to explain how, when Jesus lives within us, we may still fall into sin, but He can take the sting out of sin.
For a big finish, he proves to the crowd that he is fast enough to touch the trigger and get out in time when the trap is set. One time when he did that, a team member leaned over and whispered in my ear, “trusting Jesus can take the sting out of sin, but if your fast enough you can avoid it altogether.” I laughed. Just because we’re on a mission trip doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.
We sang songs and gave them each a gift of a bracelet with the colors of faith on it, explaining to them what each color meant. We left them with an invitation to come to Christ.
The team which stayed at the assembly hall began water filter distribution as we were speaking to the youth and children. The next thing on the agenda is that after lunch we will break into teams for evangelism.
If you gauge success in evangelism upon how many professions of faith were made, then we did very poorly. However, if evangelism is lifting high and proclaiming Christ, we succeeded. Jesus said:
John 12:32
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
All we did was lift Christ up and trusted Him for the rest.
As alway, thanks for reading.
–the anonymous novelist
the anonymous novelist 