FHLM Newsletter Jan 2019

Greetings and Happy New Year from Masaka!! January has flown by because, as you will read, we’ve  lot happening at FHLM! We got back to God’s business on 3^rd Jan and when we came back to the Centre it was a jungle! With all the rain everything had grown so much, so we had a Centre “clean up day”, slashing, burning brush, and cutting bushes.

Jane went on maternity leave on the 17^th and we are overjoyed to announce that on 02^nd Feb she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy! She and the baby are doing wonderfully and we praise the Lord for bringing them both through safely.

Well that leaves us with a BIG gap and since Joshua is on his secondary 6 vacation he has officially become my assistant for the next 3 months. He will be helping out 3 days a week and he is using the money that he is getting here and the money he’s getting from helping his sister in the market to use toward his personal requirements when he starts university in August. Well done him!

We are all eagerly anticipating my cousin, Angi’s arrival on 5^th Feb. Please keep her travels and time here in prayer that the Lord uses her mightily and reveals to her new and glorious things as she labours for His Kingdom in Uganda. Thank you!

Youthz Update & Programs:

The Grace Discipleship Course: From 7^th-11^th we held the second half of the Freedom in Christ-Grace Course. This discipleship course is designed to help us experience God’s grace in such a deep way that our love for Him becomes the main motivator in your life.

Our first day I taught a brief review of Sessions 1-3 and then we jumped into Session 4, Courageous, in which we discussed how to deal with unhealthy fears, and walk in the Power, Love and Sound Judgment God has given us. For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love and sound judgment. (2Timothy 1:7). Our 2^nd day’s Session 5 was all about Humility vs. Pride and when we begin to understand realize our amazing position of security in God’s love, we are free to humble ourselves before Him and others so that we can work together to reach the world for Christ. Our final day, Session 6, we learnt about being Fruitful!  Our main focus was that if we want to be fruitful, our focus needs to be on staying close to Jesus. (John 15:5) I’m thankful for all that this course took us through and all that we have been able to apply to our lives. “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” (Revelation 22:21)

Movie Day: Well on the 12th we watched a classic for our movie day, The Wizard of Oz. Here are some of the youth’s comments and the lessons learnt from the movie:

• Eddy: “We should not give up if we want to achieve something in life. Dorothy in this movie never gave up not until she got to see the Wizard.”
• Justine: “Let’s treasure what we have first, and then God will entrust us with more. Dorothy treasured Toto so much and God entrusted her with more friends who helped her to achieve her mission of reaching the Wizard.”
• Jane: “Let’s be helpful to one another and it is good not ignore the people we meet in life because God may one day use the in our lives too, Dorothy didn’t ignore any of the things she found on her way to meet the Wizard and we see the scarecrow directing her.”
• William: “In life we need all the three, brain, heart and wisdom.”

We might think that to achieve our dreams, we need to be far away from our homes, but we need to know that there is no place like home. After Dorothy had met the Wizard, she longed to return home.

Chapter & Verse: Of course we continued with our weekly Bible Studies; Tuesdays in 1 Kings and Thursdays in Acts.

FHLM 6^th Annual Youth Prayer, Praise and Fasting Camp-Out was held 18^th to 20^th Jan! This year’s theme was “Wake Up, Jesus is Coming” and the related verse was Romans 13:11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. God did amazing things in the youth this year! We had a lot of younger ones this time and camp was a whole new experience for them. Many testified at camp fire on the last night that they had never known about quiet time, prayer walks or really fasted before and they were so happy to learn and know about these things that can bring them closer to God.

Also many said they loved the outreach and door to door evangelism we did on Saturday. This year we teamed with Gosma Church-Bugabira and visited four elderly people from the church. We split into 2 groups since getting to each home was quite a walk. Our team visited Charles & Leopold, two gentlemen in their 80’s. We talked with them, prayed and gave them rice, sugar, soap and beans. Then Joshua and I shared the gospel with Leopold and he accepted Christ. Charles sat and listened and immediately after Leopold had said the sinners’ prayer Charles spoke up and said, “I want to know Jesus too!” It was amazing and I know the Holy Spirit was moving because if at their age they were willing to accept Christ I know that it was the real deal! After we all stayed and chatted to each of the men. Then we were off to visit Bakakanaga Maria, an elderly lady that was a bit sickly. She was very excited to see us all and so grateful for the food items. She accepted us to pray for her and then Joshua asked if she was born again and she said, “No I’m a catholic”. He spoke to her for sometime about Jesus and next thing we saw her take off her rosary, put it to one side and said, “No more”.  He then led her in the sinners’ prayer. Wow God moved in our midst that Saturday!

We were blessed to once again have Pastor Julius Kintu as our teacher on Sunday. He is so led by the Holy Spirit and always does an amazing job. It’s like he takes all that we had taught over the weekend, wraps it up in a beautiful gift for the youth, so they can then take it home and unwrap it during their quite time with Jesus. The whole weekend was so wonderful! Alpha said, “This was my sweetest camp yet!” and I have to agree. I thank everyone that prayed for the camp, just know that your prayers were answered and the Holy Spirit moved!

Holiday Youth Conferences/Camps: Joshua was able to attend the Full Gospel Churches of Masaka Regions’ annual week-long camp-out at Lake Nabugabu from 07-11 Jan. Though he missed The Grace Course, he said that this year’s camp was so good to him because they taught a lot on sexual purity, a topic so dear to his heart! All of our youth attended the week long G.R.I.P. Youth Conference at Masaka Pentecostal Church from 21^st to 25^th. And then they ended the Holiday with the Hilltop Church’s 1 day Youth Conference on 1^st Feb themed “Prove Yourself”  based on 1 Timothy 4:12. AS you can see they received a lot of spiritual feeding over this long holiday. Let us pray that all the nourishment that they received gets put into practice and used to grow them into the men and women God has called them to be.

Back to University: Well Babirye returned to Ndeeje University on the 27^th for her 2^nd Semester. Though she had been sick with malaria the week before, when she left she was strong enough to go and was very excited to start another semester. She said, “Every time I think that I’m attending university I get amazed at God’s goodness to me”.

Letters To God Workshop: I have to thank my Mom, Patti Fouts, for giving me the idea and the curriculum for this workshop we held on the 28^th. The movie, Letters to God, about 8 year old boy, Tyler, fighting cancer who writes letters to God, touching lives in his neighbourhood and community and inspiring hope among everyone he comes in contact. An unsuspecting substitute postman, with a troubled life of his own, becomes entangled in the boy’s journey and his family by reading the letters. The letters inspire him to seek a better life for himself and his own son he’s lost through his alcohol addiction.

After we had watched we had a very open and candid time as we went through the discussion questions. All shared about family members or personal friends that have had serious illnesses or cancer and how God had healed them or used the illnesses to deepen their faith in God. Tyler not only gave the postman, the community and his family hope to live their lives for God, but also our youth!

We celebrated Oliver’s 19^th Birthday on the 29^th with a little birthday party here at the Centre with cake, soda, and some of her friends. We thank God for her life and for how far He has brought her.

Arts & Crafts Day: On the 30^th a new friends of the ministry, Julius Hamegere, had an art session with the youth. He taught them some basic art principles, like primary colours, secondary colours and tints.  He then talked to them about their DREAMS, what they would like to do and become in their future. He then explained how they can paint their DREAM. So each of the youth sketched out their DREAM, some like Eddy, did their names and then he painted Lawyer his future profession and all the words that related to him becoming a lawyer like-God fearing, hard work, studies, discipline. The youth really enjoyed this art class and thinking about their future. Mr. Julius is planning on coming back again soon.

As you can see we have had a joyous and fruitful January! I again thank all of the people that prayed for the Retreat, and for those that always keep us in prayer! Please know that your prayers are felt and the Holy Spirit is moving through your prayers and supplication! God bless you all!!!

Have a blessed day!

Much Love,

Rita Bulegeya-Director

Faith Hope Love Missions