God Shines on the Heart of Janna Island

To our beautiful Central Mission Team Blog viewers, we send our love and blessings. The past four days we tested ourselves through our patience, love, faithfulness, hearts, minds and Stomachs on the Island of Janna. I will try to descriptively explain our experience on the island, but words are unable to give the time we spent on the island justice. We all prepared early that morning for an adventurous boat ride, with an expectation of an Indian Jones adventure, but as the sun laid its rays on our skin, the boat ride turned into a three to four hour sauna. As we pressed forward through the water, the scenic view of God's creation surpassed the discomfort of how close we were to the equator. We finally arrived to the small island and awaiting us was a group of fishermen that began yelling "Muzungu" "The White People are here!". As the children ran down the hill and greeted us with smiles and warm abraces, we officially began what God has sent us out to do, spread his love. A little girl came and held my hand, she helped me carry my luggage to a small school a few miles away. As the luggage came pouring in, the sun came laid to rest and the first night was completed with a wonderful meal prepared by the native women. I laid down in my small bed with rocks supporting it and a mosquito nest all around with no pillow, no blank in the heat of the night. It was hard to fall asleep until I realized that once I decided to set aside my selfish emotions and except my environment for what it was, the beauty of the island, then I began to open up my heart and allow God to work through me to reach his children. We went from shack to shack no bigger than my bedroom, if not smaller, seeing women, men and children on dirt floors, walls made of card board, wooden benches to seat guest. We evangelized, some taught the school children stories from the Bible and played games and constructed activities, and the one that effected me the most was the home vists to women with AIDS. How can a disease so distructing affect women so beautiful? We spoke with the women, praid for the women, and brought useful products such as soap, vitamins,etc... If you made it through this far of the blog, please pray for the people of Janna, and there children, spouses, homes, well being, that through any thing, with trust and faith in God, eternal joy and peace can be obtained. There is so much more to this time in Janna, and the overall story is this, God worked through the us to reach the lives on this island, and when crossed the lake to reach the city of Kampala, take off our dirty clothes and showered clean, the memories still are vivid, our hearts are still settled on that little island, Jenna...
God Bless,
Abigail Rich