Watermark in Africa

On Friday, a team of 6 women and 5 men depart Dallas headed for Soroti, Uganda.  Soroti is located in the eastern/central part of the country.  The women are: Mandy Bagdanov, Miriam Sperring, Julie Anders, Melissa Nunley, Pam McGee and Jennifer Lewis.  The guys team includes: John McGee, Kyle Graham, David Dzina, Matt McCuen, JJ Barto.  For most of the team members, this is a first trip to Africa and they are very hopeful, excited, and confident in what the Lord has in store.

Our plan is to visit the trade school that Watermark is building, meet children and families sponsored by the orphan care program, and our primary privilege and responsibility is to teach Biblical principles.  Partnered with ALARM, we are hosting 2 conferences simultaneously – one for the men and one for the women.  We expect 100 or so in each conference – though, as things go in Africa, this number is likely to change significantly with little or no advanced knowledge – Africans have much to teach this American (Jennifer Lewis) about flexibility!

We will be teaching the Biblically-based, hope-filled, grace-motivated messages of roles of men and women in marriage, conflict resolution, leadership, health and hygiene, and the principles of grieving heartache and hurts (so common and horrific there) and receiving and extending the forgiveness that is only available in our Savior.  We covet your prayers as we depart … for the participants to know our Savior and love His Word, for the truths taught to be a source of transformation and not just information (for the Americans as well as the Ugandans!), for safety with flights and physical health, for unity and sweet fellowship of the team.  May the Lord be glorified!

by Jennifer Lewis

[The following pre-trip email was posted with the permission of Rick Howard]

Hello friends and family,

As many of you know I have been blessed over the past two plus years with the opportunity to travel to Central Africa with teams of lawyers from Watermark Community Church here in Dallas.  The three trips I’ve made have included time in Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Congo.  Each one has involved me and other lawyers from WatermarkJustice (our Watermark lawyers group) leading conferences for lawyers, judges, prosecutors, pastors, and government officials.  We’ve covered topics ranging from servant leadership to confronting bribery and corruption as Christians lawyers and judges to biblical conflict resolution.  Each trip has been a unique experience and each one has increased my passion for the people of Central Africa more and more.

After returning from my last trip this past October I was asked to lead a very different trip to Goma, Congo in early 2010.  Different because for the first time for me the audience will not be men and women in positions of authority or influence in the government, church, or military and because I will not have the responsibility to teach and lead extensively at the main conference.  Instead, I and one other guy get the privilege of assisting as (6) incredibly gifted women from Watermark lead a conference for victims of sexual abuse (rape) and the counselors who help them through the healing process physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Eastern Congo is the epicenter of a civil war in Central Africa that has claimed over (5) million lives over the past (15) years.  The genesis of the current conflict began with the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The perpetrators of the massacre of (800,000) Rwandans over a (6) week period in 1994 fled to the mountains of Eastern Congo once the international community responded to the crises.  There in the sanctuary of a jungle the size of Texas those same groups have killed countless innocent local Congolese men, women, and children and caused millions to die from starvation and disease while forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes for sanctuary in refugee (IDP) camps. However, in many respects the worst actions taken by these men is the brutal rape of women, young and old, as an act of war, and act of vengeance, or in some instances an act intended to procreate the next generation of “soldiers” for their militias.

It is against this historical backdrop that these women from my church, Watermark Community Church, whose lives have all been touched in some way directly or indirectly  by sexual abuse along with our partner on the ground, ALARM, will be leading a sexual abuse conference focused on healing, recovery, and forgiveness..  They will be using a curriculum developed at WCC and other churches called “Shelter from the Storm.”   These materials which are designed to help take a women through the process of healing from sexual abuse have been modified after much prayer and effort to be appropriate for an audience of victims and counselors in Goma,Congo.

They will spend (3) days leading and teaching a conference for counselors who have for years been serving and caring for rape victims to better show those victims the path to true and complete healing through Jesus Christ.  In attendance will also be victims of rape in Congo.  Women who have been sexually assaulted, typically in the jungles of eastern Congo, and then rescued from the homes or villages by the staff of Heal Africa or other organizations dedicated to this effort.  Approximately (100) women have been invited to this conference hosted by the ladies from Watermark.  My guess is (1000) could have easily been identified and invited, but space and resources are always at a premium in places like Goma.

It is our hope that this “Shelter” trip is another door God is opening for Watermark to minister to a truly forgotten people in Eastern Congo.  Just as we’ve done with the lawyer in Goma we will spend time seeking out other effective and trustworthy partners on the ground to aid in this effort.  We already have a great partner in ALARM and are building relationship with Heal Africa as well. The hope is that this is the first trip of many to help folks on the ground there  better recover from the devastation of rape and abuse in their lives.

As horrific and devastating as earthquakes in Haiti and Chile have been for the people of those countries there is a difference from Congo.  Most of those people can remember a day when there was peace in their land; when the government provided some reasonable security for them, when food was easy to find.  They can also look forward to a day when things will look “normal” again as plane loads of people and assistance arrive each day to help.  On the other side of the world, however, there are no such memories for the generation raised in and around Goma.  They have grown up knowing nothing but war and violence, hunger and disease.  It is our hope that by helping train the leaders of eastern Congo, the women who counsel victims, and the lawyers who will one day take on positions of authority in the principles we find in God’s word that cycle will one day end.

Attached is a prayer calendar for this trip.  I would ask you to print it out so that you might be prompted each day to remember this effort to be the “hands and feet of Christ” to the least of His people.  Please also pray for me and the other lawyer who is joining me on this trip, Russ Brown, as we spend part of the trip discipling a small group of lawyers we’ve developed relationships with since 2007.  Below I’ve also attached a link to a well timed Op/Ed piece done by Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times on Congo and the response to the crises in Africa from a number of different groups.  Specifically, he uses quotes from Richard Stearns’ book The Hole in Our Gospel.  Stearns is the president of World Vision. I recommend you read the article and the book.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html

Thanks for all of your prayers and support for me and for Michele over the past two and half years as we have followed this path to Central Africa.  Your prayers for my team and our efforts will be appreciated once again.  One final note, I am being forced to embrace a higher level of technology than I am comfortable with at this time.  Unless I mess it up or the internet crashes in Congo (both are likely propositions btw), you should be able to read updates from our trip by going to http://watermarkblogs.org/justice.

God Bless,

Rick Howard

Hey guys,

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent today to previous participants on our Burundi trips with ALARM.  Thought you would enjoy.

So what is up in Burundi?  Well if you go to our Africa site (http://watermarkworldwide.com/) or our blog (http://watermarkblogs.org/africa/), then you see all that we are doing in Uganda.  In short, we are ready to do the same in Burundi!  Our Africa Leadership Team (Rick Howard, Matt Levy, Kyle Thompson, Jeff Ward, and me) have been working with ALARM for the past three months to flesh out a vision for our long term work in Burundi, culminating in Kyle meeting with Deo (ALARM Burundi Country Director) in Burundi two weeks ago.  We are now ready to begin moving forward with plans to drill water wells, care for orphans, develop micro-economic development, and expand our equipping (including attorneys, shelter from the storm, etc).  Here is a brief overview.

Location – We will focus most of our efforts in Bubanza Province, the province just north of the capital of Bujumbura.

Water – Living Water has hired their first person in Burundi, a friend of ALARM and Watermark whom we recommended.  ALARM and Living Water are working jointly on the permitting process.  The rig has been acquired.  Our partners are beginning to survey the area.   There are currently no drilling rigs in Burundi (beyond the new Living Water rig), and Living Water has yet to find a location where a true bore hole (deep enough to be in clean water) is currently providing clean water to the people of Burundi.  Please be praying the permitting goes well and allows for drilling to begin in the next few months.

Orphan Care – We will slowly develop a plan similar to what we are doing in Uganda, outlined at http://watermarkworldwide.com/.  We will not rush this, but over time it could grow in size to be similar to Uganda (300-600 kids).  We will only grow in proportion to our ability to do so with excellence.  Deo will be traveling to Uganda soon to spend time with Nelson learning from our efforts there.  We are committed to doing everything in and through the local church.  There is a chance we will need to build an orphanage or transitional home, out of which our heart is to raise up local Burundian families to adopt them.

Microfinance – Two primary targets for this are pastors (very few of whom work full time for church due to insufficient funds) and families adopting the kids.  We hope to lean on David & Missy Williams (http://www.seedeffect.org/), Cary Tucker, and other Watermark members investing in microfinance to develop a plan. We also will look at leveraging folks with “business development” skills to help folks build microenterprises.

Staff Support – ALARM will be hiring some folks to help execute on these plans.  In addition, we are continuing to invest in Deo’s studies, including a trip to the US in May and June for further equipping.  During this visit, he will spend two days with our Africa Leadership Team and a small group of others to continue fleshing out the above.

Someone recently asked this question.  Below is the specific question, and our answer.  I am sure others have the same question, so we wanted to share more broadly.  Let us know if you have more questions.

Question:  I have been wondering about this ministry and would like to understand why we are starting a support ministry for children in Uganda, rather than partnering with Compassion International, or World Vision, ministries that are already up and running, that are doing an incredible job of mentoring and raising up children in the faith of Jesus Christ.  (Like Paul, I am a fan of run-on sentences!)  I support a little boy in Kenya through Compassion International, and that is why I want to know the answer to this.

Answer:

Thanks for the note.  We are definitely encouraged by the work of Compassion, WorldVision and the hundreds of other ministries that are caring for children.  Likewise, we are grateful that our partner, ALARM, has identified these 300 children in great need that are not being cared for by the other ministries caring for children (like WorldVision and Compassion).  We see how God has chosen to have ALARM help minister to these children, and we are humbled that we get to care for these children with ALARM, along with the microfinance, water wells, education, trauma healing, and other ministries we do with ALARM.

Watermark has been caring for these children with ALARM over the past couple years, and as we looked to move from having the church simply support all of them to having individual members sponsor them, we looked at a lot of options.  We met with Richard Stearns, CEO of World Vision, and other leaders of World Vision about Watermark and ALARM caring for these kids while placing the kids in the World Vision program.  We also met with Tom Davis, CEO of Children’s Hope Chest, about a similar set up.  We considered other ministries as well.  None of them was ideal.

At the same time, some members of Watermark who do technology work and love using their gifts for Christ asked if we would let them create a website to easily allow our members to sponsor these kids we were already caring for alongside ALARM.  We soon realized this would drive the administrative costs to be much lower than having another ministry administer the interface for us.  At the same time, it would allow ALARM to continue caring for these kids in a way that encourages us in its holistic, gospel-centered, church uplifting manner.

We are grateful for all the ministries that care for children, and love how God uniquely allows each ministry to identify kids in need of holistic support.  This includes ALARM, World Vision, Compassion, Children’s Hope Chest, Rafiki, and many others.

We continue to meet with many of these ministries, considering whether this is who God wants us to partner with, along with our many EXISTING partners in Africa, including ALARM, e3, Living Water, World Vision, IJM, World Relief, and others.

We have a team of men and women in Burundi right now.  They are teaching in Gitega, which is the geographically  central city in the country.  This is also the first town where we ever taught in Burundi, back in October 2006.  I received info from Kyle Thompson today, who is one of the key leaders for our Africa ministry.  He went along with our core team in order to further explore how we can build our ministry beyond teaching in Burundi along the same lines as what we are doing in Uganda.  Kyle reported back today that things went very well on this front.  He met with leaders from ALARM and Living Water.  The rig we assisted Living Water in purchasing is now in country, and Living Water has begun hiring staff in Burundi.  They are currently working out of ALARM’s office.  I can’t tell you enough how encouraging it is to see parachurch ministries work so well together.  It is a real testament to the Christ-centered focus of both of these ministries.  We also began to catch a vision for our orphan care ministry in Burundi as well.  More later!

Also, please remember that the next two teams will be heading to Uganda and Congo in the next few weeks.  Please be praying for both teams.

We shared the below video with our church body on Sunday.  If you are a member at Watermark and want to join us in sponsoring a child, please go to http://watermarkworldwide.com/ and select Meet The Children.  To God be the glory…

Yesterday we got an e-mail from Nelson, ALARM’s Country Director in Uganda.  He told us he had identified the next six locations for ALARM, Watermark, and Living Water to drill wells in Uganda.  We will soon begin drilling wells at six of the following seven locations:

Palisa Eastern Uganda (ALARM ministered here)

Masindi – Mid Western Uganda (ALARM ministered here)

Bweyale – Te Okutu (ALARM ministered here)

Pader – Balakwa CER Community Farm (Te got Amoko)

Pader -Ngekidi Community (Dure)

Pader (Pader TC )

Pader Pajule SS School community (Pajule Center)

Palisa, Masindi, and Bweyale are three locations where Watermark either has or will be doing a conference.  Bweyale is also the location of the Piggery Project we blogged about in November.  Pader is the town where we have done multiple conferences, are building a trade school, have orphans we sponsor, and have drilled four other wells.

Please be praying for the drilling of these wells, the recipients of this gift, and for God to receive all the glory.

On previous posts, I mentioned that we as a church are partnering with ALARM to support about 300 kids in Uganda.  As a church, we have provided financial support to these kids for three years.  Now we have set up a chance for you to directly sponsor one of these kids and more personally increase your involvement in Watermark’s ministry to our brothers and sisters in Uganda and eventually in Burundi and elsewhere.  So if you want to learn more about our objectives in Africa and sponsor one of the children we are ministering to, please go to http://watermarkworldwide.com/.  You can click on THE OVERVIEW to learn more, and you can click on MEET THE CHILDREN to sponsor a child.  This opportunity is open to all Watermark members.

We were able to capture this footage in Uganda on our trip last month.  So humbled that the Lord continues to allow us to be His means of grace to our friends around the globe.  2 Corinthians 8:13-14