Thursday, July 3, 2014

Transitions



We made it safely to Kampala almost two weeks ago!!  Time is flying by so fast.  The last two weeks have been full of surprises in culture learning, learning a new diet, learning a new city, and learning new co-workers.  We will spend the next few months in language/culture classes, spend time learning our city, and finding a great church and community.  While we may not have a “job” right now, all this learning is as tiring as an 8am-5pm job would be! 

Please be praying that we will find a church that meets our needs; that we will find community among other expats, as well as locals; that we will have unity among our co-workers (as we are coming into an already formed team here in Kampala); that we will love well and love recklessly.  Please also be praying for our health.  As I write, Courtney has been sick all day.  We know this to be spiritual warfare and DO NOT RECEIVE IT IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!!!  Please keep praying protection over our health in this transition time.  It is hard to learn a new place if you are feeling under the weather. 

You know you live in Uganda when:
*You have a carpenter meet you at a supermarket to discuss plans for a bed he will make for you, negotiate a price for it on a random aisle, and pay him there
*You purchase furniture from a new friend, hire a truck to transport it, but swear all of it won’t fit in the bed of the truck.  Oh don’t worry!!  Ugandan men are creative when getting furniture to fit in the bed of a VERY SMALL pick up!!
*You can flag down a water distributer on the city road as both of you are driving, buy water right out of his truck, and then get his contact info for him to deliver more water to your house when you need it!
*When a child tells you she needs converse shoes, you buy name brand Converse shoes, only to realize that all tennis shoes are called converse!  The school won’t let her have Converse ones, but plain white Nike!
*Milk comes in a bag on the shelf at the store, and cheddar cheese is $7-10 for a brick!


Thank you for your prayers and support!  We feel them!!!  HE is able, and this sweet people group is WORTH everything we have gone through so far! 
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Friday, June 13, 2014

Leaving on jet plane

T minus 4 days!!

Yes you read that right!!  In just 4 days, Courtney and I will be on a plane headed to Uganda, East Africa.  We arrive on Wednesday June 18th at 9:45pm Ugandan time (1:45pm US time).  We will head from the airport to our house, a newly built three bedroom, 2 bath house in Kampala.  Thursday we will start looking for furniture and kitchen appliances for the house.  The challenging part will furnishing an empty house so quickly after we arrive!  But it will be fun to make this place our own.  Both Courtney and I are super excited to have our own rooms again, with places to put things instead of living out of a suitcase like we have the last month!  Our new house is in a new housing addition, and is so new, that our street doesn’t even have a name yet!  We are very blessed to be living in a very secure part of town.  Please pray for us as we transition from “American safety” to “Ugandan safety” with a guard and househelpers. 

The next few months I will be learning the language and culture, getting over culture shock and getting to know our other 10 team members.  The rest of our Equip team live in Jinja Uganda, about 3 hours away from us.  We will get to spend time with them during monthly team meetings and team dinners.  I am super excited to get to know each of them, and to sit under their leadership.  Many on the team have lived in Uganda for a few years.  Each family has gained so much wisdom from living there, and doing life with the sweet Ugandans.  I hope to be a sponge and soak in all the wisdom and knowledge of living in a developing country.  Please be praying for us as we find our place on this team, and are able to bring something new to it.

I will be sending out frequent updates as well as things you can be praying for.  Your love and support mean so much to me.  The Lord has used you in huge ways to speak courage, peace and bravery.  I want to keep you updated in the ways that the Lord is moving in lives in Uganda.  I firmly believe that one day every tongue will speak the name of Jesus and believe Him for who he is.  Here is a list of things you can be praying for in the next couple of weeks. 

Please pray for:
*Courtney and I as we travel on Tuesday—making flight connections, rest on the plane, etc
*All of our bags to arrive and are not held up in customs
*Unity between Courtney and I as we learn to be our own team in Kampala
*An easy transition into Ugandan culture
*For me to learn the language quickly, and without too many cultural bloopers
*For me to have good boundaries as we are transitioning, to be able to say NO to events or tasks that may come up.  I want to protect my time of learning and adjusting
*For each of us to give the other grace and forgiveness in this time of transition
*To be Spirit led, discerning and wise
*To find a church family
*Emotional and Spiritual safety
I love you and miss you already!  May the peace of Christ rule in your heart, may you know his nearness today, and walk in his freedom.  Praying we each live UNHINDERED!!


MJ
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Sunday, March 23, 2014

STEPPING OUT UNHINDERED- A MISSIONARY STORY

If you were to ask me two years ago, or even eighteen months ago if I would consider myself a “missionary”, I would have told you “NO!”.  I love missions, I love short term trips, I love everything about cross cultural ministry.  I studied abroad in nursing school in Haiti.  I grew up overseas.  But I was afraid of the label.  
I would have told you then that I had the best of both worlds.  I have an amazing job as a nurse in the Medical Center, and I get time off every year to be part of a medical team serving in Niger West Africa.  I thought I had it made, until the Lord gave me the word OBEDIENCE for 2013.  I was serving on a medical team in Jan 2013, and couldn’t escape offers to come join the team there full time.  I love all things African, but have never felt called to the Sahara Dessert.  So I wrestled with the Lord.  “Ok, you have given me a heart for unreached people of Africa, but yet my only experience is in a country I don’t feel called to.  What does all this mean?!”  I would tell him this over and over, and beg for vision.  I asked my Community Group to pray for vision and direction.  An opportunity to go to Uganda in May 2013 fell in my lap.  It wasn’t a medical team, but one that educates and exposes the reality of orphans around the world through Visiting Orphans.  The Lord has always given me a tender spot for orphans and vulnerable children.  
This trip was very hard for me honestly.  I have dreamed of adopting one day when I am married.  I have dreamed of going to meet my children with my husband in Africa.  I knew I would be meeting orphans, and falling in love with them without a husband yet.  Some of those dreams had to die.  But oh my goodness how the Lord is so faithful.  I had this Spirit feeling that this trip was going to be life changing because it was so different from all the other trips I had been on, and because I agonized over those dreams dying.  So I walked in obedience.  It was a hard walk, but when you are in a place of pouring out your dreams and hopes to the One who gave them to you, it is a sweet time of being held by Him.
My time in Uganda was incredible.  I fell in love with the faces of the people,  with the lush green landscape, with the smells of dirt and smoke, of livestock, and I felt the Lord say Welcome Home.  I haven’t felt at home in the States since my family moved back from living in Europe.  One day as I was sitting along the banks of the Nile, praying for vision, that I heard him say, “This is where I have called you in Africa.  You were made for such a time as this. Now go.  Don’t be afraid of the label of missionary.  I have called you, and I am FAITHFUL.  Walk in obedience of this calling.”
I returned to the states and continued to walk in this calling.  I shared with my Community group over the summer what the Lord had said.  I started telling more and more people, asking for prayer for provision for me to live there one day.  He provided contacts in Uganda, so I began asking them if they knew of any organization that had a need for a nurse.  The Lord brought me to Freda Luzinda, a child advocacy lawyer.  Freda and her team of four social workers focus on improvements in the care and protection of vulnerable Ugandan children and their families, particularly institutionalized children (children in orphanages).  I am humbled to be part of this team.  With my medical background, I will lead health education initiatives and self-sustainability projects for HIV-infected mothers.  Additionally, I will provide first aid for orphans and families referred for care and protection.
Through an incredible sending agency, Equip International, and an amazing US- based child advocacy organization, A Child’s Voice, the Lord has provided a way to merge my love for orphans, vulnerable women, and children with some basic nursing skills, education, and triage skills.  My heart will always be stirred for the marginalized person, and A Child’s Voice shares the same vision.  A Child’s Voice was born to raise support in the USA and to bring awareness to the work of Child Advocacy Africa.
This is where you come in.  I wholeheartedly believe that TOGETHER you and I are a force for good for these marginalized women and children.  Working with vulnerable children and families living in extreme poverty is emotionally, spiritually, and physically hard work, and I cannot accurately express the magnitude of prayer I will need. Your commitment to partner with me in prayer for the children of Uganda and for our ministry mean more than you know!  Knowing that I have a cloud of witnesses fighting for me in the heavenly realm, enables me to be equipped and covered to fight in this realm for these precious women and children.  Would you consider partnering with me in prayer?
Thank you for letting me share my heart and vision the Lord has given me.  I plan to leave for Uganda by June 2014.  I covet your prayers as I prepare to leave all I have known in the States to fight for justice for children trafficked into orphanages and families ravaged by HIV.  May every heart know their Father and Creator!!  I know the Lord will provide immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine this year (Eph 3:20).
As I prepare to leave the US, my new word is UNHINDERED.  Pastor Curtis used it last week in his sermon, and it has sat deep in my spirit since.  I want to serve Ugandans UNHINDERED; I want to love my family and friends UNHINDERED; I want to be present UNHINDERED while I prepare to live in Uganda. 
MJ pic My soul agrees with the words of Isaiah:
“Learn to do what is good. Seek justice. Correct the oppressor. Defend the rights of the fatherless. Plead the widow’s cause.” Isaiah 1.17  
Because I was once an orphan, adopted by the Most High,
MJ pic 1
MJ Cox
A Bayou City Fellowship Member
________
MJ is a courageous member of our church and one of 4 missionaries we plan to commission out this year! She spends her days in the neonatal ICU as a nurse and has faithfully been apart of the Heights/Oak Forest community group for the past few years.   We as a church believe in her and are financially supporting her monthly.  She is at about 42% of her funding.  If you would be interested in financially supporting MJ or coming along side her in this next leg of the journey, than you can email MJ Cox.   If you recognize her at church, introduce yourself, love on her and encourage her as we makes steps to go.  Let’s honor her as she goes!- Alicia Divers- Mobilization Pastor

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ABOUT ALICIA DIVERS

Alicia Divers is the Mobilization Pastor at Bayou City Fellowship. After spending two years in India working in the slums post-college, she moved to California, where she completed a Master's degree in Intercultural Studies. She split her occupational time there between university project coordinating and coffee slinging barista-ing. Her aim is to blend her academic and personal giftings for cross-cultural leadership in the rich ethnically diverse Bayou City and across the nations.
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