“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10
The Lord is most amazing! How He has put the calling into our hearts for Uganda is truly remarkable and only God! He is worthy to be praised for He calls us all! He has a perfect plan, a calling, and desire to use each of us to His Glory. Our family’s calling may be to Uganda, but we all have a call to serve Him somehow – it may be to our neighbors, to the poor, to our brothers and sisters in Christ, or to distant lands. I share our calling with you, only to encourage you to seek God’s calling for your own life.
Mine started in high school when I took mission trips every summer to places around the States and to Canada. I fell in love with sharing Christ with others and with helping those in need. Later in college, God further put it on my heart for foreign missions and particularly Africa. I was able to take a month long trip to the Ukraine and serve at an orphanage there. I also studied missions and received a mission’s certificate along with a teaching degree. After college I knew that before I went to any mission field that I had to pay off my loans, so I got a job as a teacher in Colorado Springs in hopes that I’d teach for a few years and then head overseas. Though overseas missions was put on hold, the Lord provided an opportunity for me to go to Uganda with a fellow teacher and friend, Jennie Dangers. She grew up in Uganda and her family ran an orphanage there. A few of us teachers went out with her that first summer to teach at the orphanage and give the full time teachers a bit of vacation. It was there that my heart was established for Africa and specifically Uganda. Also during this time I was dating Kent and it was important for me to know that he was also called to missions. His passion for God, people, and the lost spoke volumes, though he wasn’t sure if he was particularly called overseas. I knew though that this was the man God had for me and that he had a missionary heart and would do “missions” anywhere we were, including right here in Colorado Springs, or maybe Africa someday.
A few years after we were married, Kent was feeling called to get out of the military and go into full time ministry. This was a total leap of faith as Kent over 13 years in and we’d be giving up his retirement. In the world’s eyes this was a stupid decision, but we sought the Lord and took Him at His word that He would provide. And provide He did! He not only got a job as missions pastor for Rocky Mountain Calvary, but also allowed him a job in the Air Force Reserve. Amazingly enough RMC had 3 focus countries for their missions work – Morocco, Mexico, and Uganda. Through being the missions pastor and leading trips to Uganda every year, Kent’s heart for Uganda grew in line with mine. Now we both loved the country, the people, and were praying about how we would do ministry there and if we should move there. After years of prayer and having the burden on our hearts for Uganda, the Lord finally made it clear that we were to move there and serve the people there.
We are both excited and in awe of how this came about and how the Lord has linked our hearts. It was not our timing, but His. I’m so thankful that I waited for God’s perfect timing and that now I get to go overseas with my family this July. I’m grateful for a God who puts desires in our hearts for a people group, for a country, for a purpose to serve Him. I hold fast to this verse from Psalm 37, “Trust in the Lord, and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your ways to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.”