Merry Christmas!

Hello friends and family,

Another year has passed and Christmas is upon us once again. We hope this last year has been a great blessing to you and your family.

As for the Woodson’s, it has been a year of reflection and refueling as we have taken the last three months of 2009 and spent them in the States. Although we still have a few weeks left, the time has gone by very quickly and we will soon be headed back to Uganda.

We have traveled over 5000 miles starting out in California – traveling up the west coast to Vancouver then over to Montana, then down to Colorado Springs, up to Minnesota, back down Kansas City and then back to California. We visited the Redwood Forest, Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon as well as seeing many of our friends and family scattered throughout the many States we visited. All in all we have built many precious memories and have a lot to be thankful for. We thank all of you who put us up your homes and extended your hospitality to us, may the Lord bless you in return.

Although, there were many reasons why we took these three months leave from the field – one of the priorities was to spend some time at International House of Prayer in Kansas City. We took the month of November and spent that time really seeking the Lord for His purposes in our lives, concerning our future. We felt that after being in Uganda for over ten years now that we needed to take a step back and wait upon the Lord. Although we came with some preconceived ideas (you know us humans), God made it very clear from the onset - that this time would not be so much a time of impartation for “vision and plans for the future” but this would be a time for getting ministered to by the Lord - spending time in His presence and being refueled and refreshed. I would have to say that this has in fact happened and the Lord has been able to work in our hearts for His purposes.

During this time I have been doing a personal study on the life of Jacob and have learned some valuable lessons from his life that have spoken much to me during this season. One lesson I have been pondering over is found in Chapter 28. God shows up in Jacob’s life in a profound way and reveals himself to him with an “open heaven” – Jacob is so overwhelmed by the experience that he calls the place Beth-el meaning “the house of God”(Genesis 28:19). Yet not much change takes place in His personal life. This demonstrates clearly that one can have a genuinely electrifying emotional spiritual encounter without the effect of one’s character being changed. You see, it would not be for another 20 years that Jacob would wrestle with an angel and his name would be changed from Jacob to Israel (Genesis 32:28). At that point he would never walk the same again – he would walk with a limp, he would lean on God instead of his own strength. After wrestling with this angel, a short time later Jacob would return to that same place he called Beth-el, but now Jacob would call it El-Beth-el meaning “the God of the house” (Genesis 35:6,7) . The lesson for me is this: You can’t always know what God is doing in your life – but you can know who God is. You can learn His ways in every season you find yourself in. Instead of seeking God for direction – the Lord has beckoned me to simply seek Him. As I have done this – the Lord had been faithful to reveal His purposes to us.

As we return to Uganda in two weeks – there is a firing burning in our hearts to continue to serve Him in this great nation. We are ready to see all of God’s will fulfilled in our lives for such a time as this. We covet your prayers and know how much we need Him to do His work through us – we are vessels of His purposes.

God Bless all of you who have prayed for us. We thank God for all you have been able to do for us as He has enabled you. Merry Christmas and May next year be a fruitful year for you, your family and your church.

Josh shoots a gun and Breanna rides a horse in Montana

We visited our friends the Gregory's in Montana and they converted us into cowboys.

Some shots from our recent road trip up the West Coast. California to Canada

Kampala Riots

Late last week (Sept 10,11th) Kampala was turned into a war zone as the police shut down the city due to riots. Business, schools and government offices were closed and the police arrested more than 550 people and 14 are have been confirmed dead. The violence erupted on Thursday and continued into Friday when the police clashed with supporters of the King of Banganda (which the largest tribe here in Uganda). The President was preventing the King from attending a youth festival in a certain district for fear of unrest. The King was not welcomed by the people living in that area and the government foreseen a problem. When the President told the King he could not visit the district where the youth event was being held – the king’s supporter’s started rioting.

The nation is becoming more and more discontent and the smallest thing can set it off. This should not have caused riots - it was just an excuse. Pray for us as we labor in this city - we covet them.

To God be the glory

I spoke at Prime Time@The Pool on Saturday, Sept the 12th. This is the outreach I have spoken about in a previous blog. They have this event every week that reaches over two thousand students in a single meeting. They gave me the topic of pornography - which I was not to excited about - because this event is outside with a lot of distractions - including a lot heckling and shouting (while your preaching). In fact by the time the preacher stands up usually about 20% of the crowd leaves even before you get a word out. I thank the Lord for what He did this time. First, I brought our drama team with me from the church and they did a skit on "Samson". I had them come on first and this seem to keep the crowd around (very few left). I spoke about how our eyes lead us to sin many times and how pornography "eats" the soul. I ended with talking about how only a right view of God's love for us could give us the strength we need to overcome any addiction including pornography. In the end, over a thousand students stood up to commit themselves to ask God for His help with their addictions (I emphasized any sexual addiction). In addition about 7 or 8 people were saved. May God receive the glory

A Humble Request

We are coming to States for an extended time this year. We are arriving on Sept 22nd and will be around until Dec 27th. We are in need of a vehicle - we will be doing a lot of traveling, including driving up the west coast and then down to Kansas City. If you have an extra vehicle you can loan us or know how we might be able to rent one for a reasonable price - can you please let us know. E-mail us at darrylwoodson@yahoo.com. Thanks.

Anything can work - as long as it runs!!

Kidos

We have a freind who does some nice touch up on photoshop, this is her work of our kids. Enjoy!

Update

Gosh time is just flying these days and I am way over due to get something out on our blog.

Let me just summarize the last month or so. Lorraine and I had to go to Singapore to meet up with our Church in Singapore last month. It was a good time for her to see her family and for me to work (they kept me busy). I think they call it a workshop - I worked, she shops. It was a very short trip, we actually left our kids in Uganda at some missionary friends - they seem to enjoy themselves. I think they missed us............................of course they did!

Upon arriving back I went up to our Bible School to teach "Principles of preaching" which I normally do every semester for ATCEM (Africa Theological Center For Evangelism and Missions). It's not easy to teach expository preaching methods to those who are from the village and don't have a good grasp of the English Language. I have to go slow and repeat myself many times - but in the end my goal to help make preachers out of them all and somehow God helps them and it's always amazing the see the results.

Then last week we had our Annual National Conference for Uganda Assemblies of God - This year we have had a miracle take place and have been able to plant over 1300 churches. We have some incredible testimonies that I hope to upload soon to this blog with more details. But in at least two villages we had similar testimonies - where our church planters went into situations where demon possessed mad men had been bound for tens of years and no one could do anything for them. Our Pastors went in and cast the devil out of these men and churches began right then and there because of God's miracle. It has really been an exciting year and it was an exciting conference to hear about all the testimonies that God has been doing. It has truly been a revival in church planting.

Couples' Dinner - Fireproofing Uganda

Hello Lorraine here, Darryl asked me to step in this time and blog it up. So here we go!

On 14 June Sunday, we organised a couples' dinner at our church. Only those who were married could attend the dinner. The dinner was held in the smaller building. We gave the building a fresh coat of paint. It looked good. We set tables and chairs with table cloths and candles. We made announcements promoting this event for many Sundays in our services. The participants were encouraged to put on formal attires. Many women dressed up for the occassion. A few young women put on their wedding evening gowns. I actually wore my wedding gown.We started with African dinner. We had many single adults who volunteered to be waiters/ waitresses on that night. They ushered the participants to their seats and served them food and drinks. After dinner, we showed the movie "Fireproof". Many people were so blessed by the movie. The highlight of the event was reserved at the very end. We had all the husbands stand facing their wives. Holding their wives' hands, they repeated the "wedding vows" after my husband. Then, the wives repeated the wedding vow after me. To some women it was like they were getting married all over again. There was romance in the air. The participants left the dinner with smiles and a twinkle in their eyes.

Josh and Breanna passing out cookies

Watch Josh as he's quick to know who got the cookies as he looks for those who have not yet received any. He seems to know what he's doing. For complete details follow this blog onto the next one.