Lifestyle of Wandering: Reflections of a Wanderer

First pre-mission trip entry:

I’m in Charlottesville tonight. I attended the introductory meeting for the mission team with which I’m traveling to Uganda in February of 2010. It will be my 3rd trip to Uganda, and I’m totally psyched for it. This time I’m going with Mission Link International, headed up by Rick Sadler. He’s been to Uganda approximately 40 times if I understood correctly. And he and his wife Cathy are preparing to move there in the not too distant future.

I was excited about meeting the team, which ranged in age from 17 to retirement age. Close to 30 people in all. The majority were veteran short-term missionaries, with many having been to Uganda 5+ times. Everyone was very friendly and outgoing. I felt at home with the group immediately. There was a group here from Smith Mountain Lake, and one of the ladies suggested that I meet them part way next time and ride up with them.

I’d heard a lot about Pastor Rick from Rocky, who’s traveled with Mission Link before. The things that I was mainly impressed by were his passion for evangelism and discipleship and his willingness to sacrifice his own comfort to take the gospel to the nations. You can tell by listening to him speak that his heart is so full for the call God’s placed on his and Cathy’s lives.

One of our assignments was to start journaling right now, before we ever set foot on the plane. So I’m doing just that with this post.

As I was listening to Pastor Rick review the trip information, one of the first things that struck me was, “Wow! I’m not responsible for any of the logistics of the trip. I don’t have to try to make sure everyone’s on track with finances….I don’t have to schedule planes, vans, housing or anything. Boy, that feels weird!

We’re going to be based in Jinja, but the various teams will be going to different villages every day. We’ll all have an opportunity to work on medical, construction, puppet ministry, evangelism, and prison ministry. I’m so excited that I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the medical missions aspect, but the prospect of being able to go into the prisons and the streets to minister is absolutely fantastic! God is awesome!