Calvary Blog
Uganda 2012 Short-term Mission Trip Recap
There are a lot of zones in life. There’s the school zone, the safety zone, the danger zone, and the no parking zone. But, of the many zones we encounter in life, the worst one for Christians is the comfort zone.
Billy Scruby, a minister on staff that serves as the director of Calvary House, recently returned from a mission trip to Uganda with seven others—six being first-time missionaries. Billy shares his experience.
“This world is huge, and God is doing miraculous things everywhere! If you never step out in faith, you’ll miss out on that part of the journey and plan that God has for you!"
---Billy Scruby
"It’s not easy stepping out of your comfort zone; everyone struggles with that. Even when they asked me to lead the team, I thought, ‘I have my own ministry and family. I’ve got a lot going on.’ But you have to take that step in faith. We had an M&M’s executive, a schoolteacher, a single gal, a nineteen-year-old student, and a newlywed couple on the trip. The story of how the couple got to Uganda is amazing. Instead of asking for wedding gifts, they actually asked for people to support them on the trip. They sacrificed all the money and wedding gifts to go on this trip and experience God’s work firsthand. It was a very diverse team of ordinary people that felt that the Lord was calling them to Uganda for His extraordinary work.
We stayed at an orphanage 30 minutes outside the town of Jinja that housed 80 orphans. We got to spend time at the orphanage with Claudia Arango, a Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale missionary who God has been using in Uganda for over 14 years. We did vacation Bible school, sports, face painting, and just spent time with these kids. It was just such a special couple of days, being able to spend time with these amazing kids, encouraging and loving on them.
We also went into the villages to evangelize, where we saw extreme poverty; people living in clay houses, eating only the food they grow, with no money, no clothes, nothing at all. The team really struggled and felt so broken-hearted being around that level of poverty and seeing people that literally had nothing. They were overcome with grief for these people, so we prayed and God put it on our hearts to serve in any fashion we could to show them that God loves them and has a purpose and plan for them.
The highlight of the trip for me was the “How Big is YOUR God?” youth conference we did in Jinja for over 80 18-25 year olds. I’ll never forget watching these young people with nothing worship God with everything. They had such a fire and hunger for the Lord, desiring more of Him, and being able to challenge and encourage them to go out into their world and evangelize was so incredible.”
It may seem difficult to get out of your comfort zone. Life moves at such a fast pace that just taking a minute to shake up the daily routine is a scary thought. But, Jesus didn’t call us to Him so that we could sit comfortably in our homes. He called us to go out into the world and be His hands and feet.
