Tonight’s blog update is from one of the adopted team members, Ryan. I’m one of the four Americans that the group joined here in Uganda and who was blessed beyond belief to serve alongside the team. It seems like it was just last night that we were meeting them at the airport and bringing them back here to the guest house. Now, as I type this post, the team is making its way towards the Entebbe Airport through insane drivers, heavy jam, and crater-filled roads. In a few hours they will be boarding their flight and at 2:35pm Saturday afternoon they will be stepping off of a plane back in Dulles International Airport.

As the team returns home and shares all of their awesome experiences with family, friends, classmates, coworkers, and complete strangers, I think about Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 1:12: “For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshy wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.”

The past two weeks I watched as 14 amazing men and women of God conducted themselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity. It was simple, sincere actions of love that God used immeasurably these two weeks. Putting a band-aid on a little boy’s boo boo. Playing football with dozens of rowdy teenagers. Reading Harry Potter to a boy in pain. Coloring alongside a child. Listening to some guys who just needed someone to hear them. Giving a friend a meal and saying “This one’s on me.” Handing down some old clothes. Going over to some friends’ place and spending hours just hanging out with them. Singing, dancing, worshipping, and learning alongside brothers and sisters. Giving some of God’s beautiful children the time of day that the world would not.

There will certainly be much boasting about what has happened these last two weeks, but the boasting is not in anything accomplished through our fleshy wisdom. The boasting from this trip is all through the grace of God. Boasting that our Healer healed in magnificent ways. Boasting that our Provider provided by mysterious means. Boasting that our Comforter comforted when nothing else could. Boasting that our Creator created new hearts and new minds. Boasting that our Daddy in Heaven loves the boys living on the streets of Kampala, Uganda soooo much! And boasting that the Alpha and Omega has great plans for Amanda, Jansen, Michelle, Katie, Angela, David, Emberli, Erica, Kate E., Holly, Anna, Amber, Shannon, and Melanie that don’t end at 2:35pm Saturday, January 14, 2012, they are just beginning!!

“I have a plan for you, I have a plan for you. It’s gonna be wild! It’s gonna be great! It’s gonna be full of Me!”