Funding Update

First, a HUGE Thank You to the many of you who have already joined my financial support team. I am happy to announce that with two months remaining before I leave we have raised $3,300! Because my leave date was moved back three weeks, my final goal was lowered from $6,000 to around $5,500. That means we are over halfway there and I am so blessed and excited by the outpouring of support and the ways the God has faithfully provided. Please continue to pray for my heart and spiritual preparation as I'm getting ready to leave, and that God would provide the remainder of the money needed for me to travel to Kampala! If you would like to be a part of my support team and have not received information please e-mail me at laurenconger@yahoo.com.


I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and have a very blessed New Year!


-Lo


What I'm listening to: "Needle & Thread" by Sleeping at Last  


What I'm reading: "When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor or yourself" by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert

How I came to be at the end of Lo

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness 

and the world's deep hunger meet" -Fred Buechner 

 For those of you who don't know, Lo is my nickname, and this letter should explain how I currently find myself at the very ends of myself. I'm so excited to get to be a part of the work that God is doing in Africa and to see the ways he is growing and molding me. This blog is a way to keep all of my friends, family, and supporters updated on my fundraising progress as well as a place to update news, prayer requests, and praises during my time in Africa. If you have already received my letter and are praying with me and supporting me financially: THANK YOU! Please note that the home office notified me yesterday that my departure date has been moved from Feb. 7 to February 28, 2011. 

I’m currently hard at work finishing up one chapter of my life as I get all my final papers and assignments done to earn my Bachelors of Arts in Communication Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this December. I’ve been asked “What’s next?” a number of times in the last few months, but this is a question that God has been asking me for quite some time.

               

I have had the suffering, poverty, and pain of impoverished peoples of Africa on my heart for a few years now, especially youth and children. I have recently been afforded an opportunity to go work in the slums and orpahanges of Kampala, Uganda from February 28, 2011 until the second week of May 2011. I thought about the quote by Fred Buechner a lot when considering what was next for me. My deepest gladness has always been showing people tangibly, not just telling, the limitless, unconditional and perfect love of Christ. My deepest gladness is in using what resources and gifts I’ve been blessed with to bless others, to bring beauty and joy into a world of destruction and suffering. My trip to Uganda will grant me a chance to experience that spot between my gladness and their pain. I’ll be going through the Africa Inland Mission and working with a local non-profit, Dwelling Places (great organization, Google it for more information) to provide support for missionaries and nationals working in teaching, evangelism, and rescue of children living in very tough conditions in Kampala.

During my interview I was asked what I hoped to see happen in me, and what I hoped to see happen in the lives of the Ugandan children and this was my answer:

 I believe that God answers prayers, and that he cannot ignore the cry of his children who are suffering and in pain. I also believe that God uses people like me to answer those prayers, for the people of Uganda-when I show up and do life alongside them for short period of time I want them to look at me and realize that God heard them, that He answers them, and that He is desperately in love with them. For me, I do not want a life of complacency. I want to go and be at the very end of myself, to be in a position where I am desperate for God to be as big and as powerful as he says he is. I’ll be terrified; I am terrified sometimes just thinking about it, I’ll be too weak, and too human to do everything that’s asked of me. But I believe that God is who He claims to be, that He is bigger then I could ever comprehend, and that His power is made perfect in my weakness. I’ll be at the end of me, but I’m ok with that because where I end, He starts.

I need a team of people to be a part of the support team for my trip to Uganda. Together we will be making an investment in God's Kingdom, as my team pours the love of Jesus into the slums of Kampala. Most importantly, I and the missionaries and locals I will be serving alongside will be in desperate need of prayer for every aspect of this adventure. We will surely experience challenges during our time there and there is a real and tangible need for prayer warriors to come alongside and support us from home.

The cost of the trip is $6,000 which covers travel and living expenses for my three months in Uganda. Please pray about being a part of my financial support base. All donations are tax deductible; and all checks should be made out to Africa Inland Mission. Please do not place my name anywhere on the check as the organization is non-profit. All checks should be sent directly to me, so that I may record them. If you are interested in joining my support team, shoot me an e-mail at laurenconger@yahoo.com. 

Thank you for going to battle alongside me. It means more to me then I can express.