Our Trauma Counseling department held a three day training at the Favor of God Mission House on March 10-12. We refreshed our FOGM leaders and also taught others in the community who are interested in working with emotional healing on all levels. We are encouraging churches and believers to go into more schools, prisons, and villages with Trauma Counseling to introduce the powerful emotional healing that is available through Jesus.
After finishing this training course they went into the field to offer a two week class where over 500 are being reached with Trauma Counseling and the gospel. They will finish the class this Friday with an evangelistic outreach. Let’s pray that all of the people attending the class will give their lives to Jesus as their Savior and now their Healer.
After completing this Trauma Counseling session, Zallon, our TC director, will be moving to a new position of leadership with another ministry in town. Zallon has served with Favor of God for four years. Of course we are sad to see him go, but at the same time we are thankful as we watch him take a new and exciting step. He will have the opportunity to train, mentor and bless new people and new leaders in Gulu. Zallon, we love you and appreciate you. You are a mighty warrior for God, and we are excited to partner alongside you and your new ministry!
As Zallon moves on, we will lay down the Trauma Counseling ministry for a few months. We must wait on the Lord for direction and funding in that area. Please keep this part of Favor of God’s ministry in your prayers, as it is such a powerful tool in bringing healing and hope.
Rob and I are very excited that a team from our home church in Riverside is visiting Favor of God in Gulu right now! Hear about the trip from their words:
“The last few days here in Gulu have been filled with tremendous growth both for the local community and our team. We have been given a crash course in door-to-door witnessing using translators, and have gone out sharing Christ in the local community and at the military hospital. In a few cases we have had to use two translators, one to translate from English to Acholi, and another to translate from Acholi to Swahili. It has truly been an amazing experience!
Sharing the Word at the military compound was very special occasion for us, as we were the first Christians allowed into the barracks to share the Gospel since Uganda gained its independence in 1962. After about 50 years of silence, outsiders sharing the Word of God have finally been allowed back into the military compound. Our team had the honor of delivering it! It’s a huge step forward for the local Christian church and a huge blessing for our team.”
These women have been through Favor of God’s Trauma Counseling program written by Dr. Robi. Dr. Robi developed a trauma counseling program that “seeks to empower disenfranchised community members affected by trauma (associated with war, child-exploitation and natural disaster).” You can find out more about Dr. Robi’s EMPOWER program and the work that Favor of God is doing in Gulu and throughout northern Uganda by watching THIS VIDEO.
If you feel compelled and can help Favor of God continue to share this EMPOWER program in northern Uganda, we need to raise a total of $14,000.
For every dollar given, we have ministry partners who will match each gift up to $14,000. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Click HERE if you can help us reach people with this trauma counseling program and other ministries.
You can find out more about this $14,000 challenge here.
Every day, due to a horrific war in northern Uganda, thousands of children and young adults are left orphaned and will face another day without the love and protection from parents, family, or community. They don’t even know the love of Jesus. In that same day, there are adults who have lived most of their lives in brutal war, where their main objective was to survive. They have no love to give because they have never known love. Please take 4 minutes out your day to watch this video and hear how you can be a part of Favor of God’s mission to stop this terrible cycle, and bring the revival of light and transformation, that we believe God has planned for this special nation.
Gulu Community: On February 16 we finally moved our Favor of God clinic into town. We have looked for over a year for a centrally located building to hold the clinic and finally found one with reasonable rent. The landlord is a doctor who works in Kampala, and he agreed to fix up the three-bedroom house for us. There is enough room for a treatment room, office/counseling room, storage room, small laboratory, sick room, and a reception/waiting area. What an answer to prayer!
The community needs to see loving treatment, value and respect for life, high quality of care, and the ministry of prayer and the Word along with medicine. These are nowhere combined in any medical facility in Gulu. We feel it is one more open door to be the light of the world right where God has placed us.
This clinic will be the hub for mobile medical clinics combined with evangelistic outreach and community health programs focused on prevention.
Mobile Outreach: Recently our medical team and a volunteer from Canada headed out into the bush to partner with another ministry in a medical outreach. Our team gave the services, and the other ministry provided the medicines and transportation. They saw over 600 people in 2 days, came back exhausted, but felt very enlarged again with the compassionate loving heart of our gracious Heavenly Daddy for all people!
Favor of God’s New Life Bible College began with the strong conviction that God wants to raise up leaders in every country and community. Many people in northern Uganda have never heard of the name of Jesus and still do not know His saving power. They don’t know hope, and they are in bondage to what their surroundings offer them – despair, witch doctors, fear, anger, and poverty.
Who should reach out to these people? Who is the most powerful witness when preaching to a people who have suffered so greatly? Obviously, God can use anyone and anything. He can use someone from 5,000 miles away or he can use a tree or rock to declare his message. But, we also believe that God wants to use the Ugandan people to reach their own people.
They speak the same language, for the most part. The people being reached have no prejudice, good or bad, because of a different country origin or a different color of skin. They share the same history. They have a collective understanding of fears, anger, and hindrances to forgiveness. Ugandan Christians have personal stories of deliverance and present hope and joy that are powerful among their people!
New Life Bible College began in 2005 and since has sent out hundreds of leaders believing that northern Uganda can be changed by the power of the gospel. And we continue on as we have seen that transformation occurring and have a steadfast hope for more.
Above is a brief clip of Martin Onen discussing Favor of God’s New Life Bible College. Martin is co-founder of Favor of God and is the principal of the New Life Bible College.
The New Life Bible College began in 2005 with the passion to raise up strong African leaders to reach and lead their own people and people of bordering countries. Please watch this short video to hear a bit about Martin’s vision for the college.
I continue to be amazed at Favor of God’s blessings. The seed to build a Primary school was planted in 2006 and came to fruition in 2008. It was born out of our desire to educate children from our House of Hope Children’s Home, like Emmanuel Odonko, in a spiritually rich and academically sound environment. The best way to accomplish this goal was to have a school in close proximity to the House of Hope, have a class size of less than thirty students, hire highly qualified Christian teachers, and finally, serve a hot lunch to Emmanuel and his classmates every day. Through vigilance and prayer, Favor has accomplished all of this and more.
This vision that began for Emmanuel and the other children of the House of Hope quickly expanded into a campaign for the children of the surrounding Gulu community. The primary school, currently on rented grounds, now educates over 275 students. It is the only school in Gulu to serve lunch and the students consistently score exceptionally high on the government academic tests. No wonder there is a long waiting list to get into the school.
Favor’s vision continues with the recent purchase of ten acres. We have plans to build new facilities for our Primary School, our Bible College, as well as new separate housing facilities for the children of the House of Hope. These dreams have and will be made possible through the generosity of supporters who share the vision of bringing hope and healing to Gulu.
What a beautiful story thus far for Emmanuel and his House of Hope brothers and sisters. Their journey has taken them from spiritual bondage, into a safe-haven of spiritual and physical nourishment. And they are now developing in an environment of academic excellence. God has lifted them up, bathed them in His spirit, educated them in His name, and they are now planters of a new Kingdom . Their lives will inspire and cultivate hope and healing for themselves and generations to follow them.
How can I capture the spirit of what God is doing in this place called Gulu, Uganda? I am led to remember the heart of a child – its transparency and its ability to hope, dream and love. I conjure up images of the children of Gulu, who over the last twenty years have had the virtue of their childhood slowly stripped away by unimaginable forces of the enemy. I have been told of children with hollowed eyes, blank, and vacant – stripped of the gift of God’s love. But through His mercy, the story of at least the thirty-three orphans of the House of Hope has not ended in tragedy. The images that are shared here with you are those of rescued, renewed, and restored souls – proof that all of these children belong to God, and he has not forgotten them. I have great hope that their lives, along with all the children of this region, will one day thrive in the abundance of child-like love.
When I spoke to Cori Sinclair, her words carried this same spirit of hope and renewal. She and her husband Jeremy lived and worked with the children from July, 2008 to July, 2009. There is now an indelible tender spot in the couple’s heart for the children of the House of Hope. Cori and Jeremy witnessed how the children thrived in this safe haven and were blessed by the children’s vibrant and varied personalities. They laughed and played with them, helped them work on hard lessons, and worshipped with them. Finally, they cried with them when they had to return home to the U.S.
Back in Stockton, CA, the couple wanted to give something worthwhile to the children they now loved as their own. How fitting for Cori and Jeremy to think of gifts that would cover the most tender part of the children – their feet. The couple quickly spread the word for the need . Jeremy’s mother went right to work purchasing rubber slip-on shoes which are ideal for slipping off when the children enter the house, and back on as they leave. God’s provision for the children was fully realized when Ugandan couple, Godfrey and Judith, who are part of Favor of God’s faithful staff, visited the Sinclair’s in October and offered to take the shoes back to Gulu.
In Gulu, Godfrey and Judith were greeted with excited smiles and thankful hearts as the children began opening their gifts. For at least the next few months, the children of the House of Hope, with their renewed souls, will also have new soles to protect the bottoms of their feet.
I grew up in a polygamous family with my mother being one of six other wives. When I gave my life to Christ in 1992 my father cut off all support for me and he refused to pay for my school expenses. Without skills or specialized education, I took jobs as a housemaid and a hospital cleaner. I quit both these jobs because of sexual harassment. Out of desperation I went to live in the IDP camp where my family was then living. Later I was able to complete a program in early childhood education.
It was not easy to survive during this time of civil war. In 1995 the rebels attacked our camp, burning huts and attempting to abduct us. We fled and they followed us to a Catholic mission where we had taken refuge. One of the nuns faced the rebels and successfully pleaded for our lives. However, I lost all my documents and other valuables in the destruction of our hut.
I met my husband, Martin, when he was lecturing at a university in Kampala. We had attended the same church in Gulu several years before. For ten years he had prayed for a wife that would complement his ministry-calling…a ministry partner. As we came to know one another we realized that I was destined to be that woman. We were married in 2002.
Carole Vezey came into our lives through Segala Bible School in Entebbe, where Martin and Carole taught. There was instant spiritual bonding between us and we began to pray together for the Acholi people and the situation in the north. At one of these prayer sessions, we began to share our separate visions. Carole had a vision to see prayer established. Martin’s vision was to train Christian leaders and mine was one I’d had for 12 years: to care for and train up children for the Kingdom of God. As we continued to pray, we realized that the LORD was blending those visions into one vision which He would accomplish in the north. In 2005 we returned to our homeland and founded Favor of God Ministries in Gulu.
I continue to be amazed at Favor of God’s blessings. The seed to build a Primary school was planted in 2006 and came to fruition in 2008. It was born out of our desire to educate children from our House of Hope Children’s Home, like 
