Why don’t they include a ‘Warning: Speaking to Jan could change your life’ statement on the Flame literature?
Packed into a minibus in stifling heat, weaving left and right to avoid enormous potholes in the dirt road, surrounded by strangers from across the world and not at all confident about what was around the corner, I wondered if everyone that talks to Jan Ransom realises what they could be getting themselves in to!
I had only just arrived back from visiting a friend in Uganda when, together with my husband, daughter and her two children we went off to experience the New Wine summer conference for the first time. Arriving in Shepton Mallet I had no idea that I would be back in Uganda within just a few months. The conference was excellent; we loved the seminars and Bible studies but also took time to relax with church friends and to browse through the book store and mission stands in the market place. I was recovering from my trip nicely and trying to put thoughts of desperately wanting to go back to Uganda out of my mind and had decided that if it were to happen I would wait for God to arrange it.
And that’s when it happened.
An African poster on a small stand run by Flame International seemed to be calling me over and I couldn’t resist going to talk with the two ladies about their work. “We take teams of volunteers into Africa to facilitate trauma healing, forgiveness and reconciliation for post-conflict communities, along with opportunities for prayer and ministry.” Well I stood there agape for a while and finally managed to explain that I was a qualified psychiatric nurse and counsellor and that I had just returned from visiting the wife of a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) pilot who had arranged for me to do some counselling for missionary wives in Uganda. “That’s funny,” they said “we work with MAF regularly and we’re going to Uganda for our next project.” The sense of our hearts burning together was tangible and it wasn’t long before Jan, Val and I were making plans for my joining the team in November. The project turned out to be much larger than I had realised with conferences, workshops and counselling as well as evangelism and prayer ministry for thousands with the local church providing intercessors and all arranged by Jan and Val at Flame International.
It’s hard to describe in these few words the scene that met the team on our first morning at the conference location in Aloi – hundreds of intercessors surrounded us as we got off the minibus, hugging us and shaking our hands with shouts of welcome before leading us off to march and dance around the conference site declaring the Lord’s praises!
That first day we learnt that nearly all of the attendees were internally displaced people (IDPs) and had suffered at the hands of the LRA, a brutal rebel group. Many had walked for days to be at the conference and wasted no time in asking for prayer after the teaching on trauma, forgiveness and healing: they came forward in their hundreds.
During the prayer and counselling times, the women were telling us their stories of having seen their husbands shot and having their children abducted and killed by the LRA. Their homes had been razed to the ground and they had to move into the IDP camps. It was strange to hear them ask for prayer to relieve headaches and stomach aches when really they were desperately traumatised. The whole team felt the pouring out of God’s compassion and we held them in our arms as we prayed for them.
One moment I will never forget was standing facing a sea of people that had stood for prayer with their beautiful faces turned upward with eyes closed and arms reaching up to the Lord. I could not stop the tears from running down my face.
Over the following days we saw God move in amazing ways with people released from the curses of witch doctors, healed physically and perhaps even more significantly forgiving those who had caused so much pain and trauma. Each of us on the Flame International team saw God for ourselves breaking into these people’s lives to set free, save, heal and transform. This was experiencing Jesus Christ performing the same works today as he did in His Earthly body.
I came home with something more than the renewed passion for Uganda that I might have expected: Planted within me was a new desire to tell other ‘older’ Christians that they are not too old to be called by God to mission. I can’t get over it – who would have thought that God would send a little housewife like me on a mission to Africa at my age!!! I realise now that far from sitting down and learning how to knit, I see God doing something new in my life and my husband has now been invited to Kampala so I am excited to see what the Lord has planned for us both.
So, thank you Flame International for making me part of the team, and thank you Lord for not being finished with me yet!
June McLellan