I imagine that there are countless mission teams that have come back bonded and believing they had the ‘Dream Team’.
Well, count me in as one of them.
I wanted to write a few short stories about my incredible team, who they are, some of what we did, some of my interactions with individuals and how the Lord used us. I’ll try to be brief, but that’s not one of my spiritual gifts.
There were 30 of us:
Ben Smith – Leader
Nathan –Leader
Nikki – Leader
Lance Hahn – Pastor
Jill Hahn
Mitch Andrews
Niki Helton
Damara Miller
Hannah-Mae
Alex (travel only)
Irma McClure
Jon Joiner
Katie Joiner
Kelsey Dahlin
Laynee Renslow
Robby Renslow
Mindy Pena
Annika Pena
Ana Sytnikova
Sara Atwood
Sara Williams
Marty Lynn
Hailey Adams
Brynne Edwards
Lori Stanley
Lena Semenyuk
Valerie Lehrer
Melissa Reagan
Lisa Rivard
Brooke Linder
The two primary leaders of this trip were Ben Smith and Nathan McInturf who have both led multiple groups to Uganda. They organized us into various teams with Team Leads:
Preaching, Teaching and Leaders Conference
Team Lead – Pastor Lance
Yaaka Media and Visual Team
Team Lead – Nathan McInturf
Young Women’s Conference
Team Lead – Melissa Reagan
Construction & Painting (Campus Beautification)
Team Leads – Niki Helton & Mitch Andrews
Sports Ministry (Volleyball Camp) for High Schoolers
Team Lead – Brynne Edwards
Medical Clinic
Team Lead – Lena Semenyuk
Vacation Bible School
Team Lead – Nikki McInturf & Mindy Pena
What The Teams Did
Due to having my own portion and team I was unable to attend all of the various events so my account of what they did and the stories they encountered are incredibly limited. If you’d like to know more please contact each of them and find out the incredible things that God did. I can only highlight the small portions I heard about and observed with my own eyes.
3 Night Crusade
We hit the ground running. After arriving on Thursday, our whole team was involved in a Friday, Saturday and Sunday nighttime crusade near Pastor Fred Mudde’s church in Nakaseke (about 15 miles from Pastor Steve’s house in Toggo). It started early and ran late. To do it Ugandan-style means setting up a stage in a big field off the road, a super loud sound system, live band, tons of dancing, inviting special people up to share their talents before the Lord and then more dancing and singing. By the time they brought us in, they had already been going for hours to draw a crowd (there’s not a ton to do at night so people come just to watch). Then we joined in the crowd, dancing with the kids, holding babies and worshiping. By the time our official part started, it was dark and lights from the stage lit the grass field in front of us leaving a large portion of it in the dark and shadows. We selected 3 of our team to give their personal testimonies from the stage on a microphone (for some of them it was the first time they had ever publicly told their story, much less from a stage – I was so proud of them and they did such an amazing job). It was stories of healing from abuse, prison time, anxiety disorders, suicide attempts, broken families and broken lives. Then each night one leader was asked to give the main message of the gospel and salvation and lead an altar call. The first night was Nathan McInturf, the second was Me (Pastor Lance) and the third was Ben Smith. They knocked it out of the park with such passion, honesty, anointing and power. Later we found out from Pastor Steve that 60 people gave their lives to Christ over those 3 nights, by coming forward and committing their lives. Thank you Lord! And then we called the whole team forward (at first they were super nervous) and lined them up across the stage and opened the altar for prayer. We did a mini-Worship, Prayer and Healing night, praying for any and every need that came forward. It was prayer for broken hearts, for broken bodies and broken spirits. God moved mightily, the team was encouraged and the people were ministered to. It was a wonderful crusade all the way around! Yay God!
Yaaka Media and Visual Team
The main goal of this team (Nathan McInturf and Jon Joiner) was to capture everything happening visually and audibly. They were flying the drones over the field watching the kids chasing it and spelling out TICC with little dancing children. They were the ones in the jungle getting interviews from the members and with Pastor Steve. They were filming the Grand Opening. They worked tirelessly in the heat and were up to their eyeballs in trying to figure out how to run technology in a village with no electricity. As a primary leader of Yaaka Afrika (the US-based 501c3 ministry that supports Pastor Steve), Nathan also wanted to film and create promos for sponsorship of the children and keeping current sponsors up to date on progress.
Fun Story:
Both Nathan and Jon brought drones (remote controlled flying cameras). When we all arrived the customs and security asked to see all the camera and technology gear. Nathan’s drone was a fancier one and they immediately locked on it and confiscated it. Nathan was flabbergasted. We carted it all the way over here to have it taken? Pastor Steve assured him that we would do our best to get it released and we drove away. Come to find out…a number of weeks before our arrival, an out-of-country construction company was doing surveying with a drone when a couple of their workers thought it would be a good idea to fly it over a government home and compound. It wasn’t. It turned into an international incident and the drone had to be smuggled out of the country to avoid evidence, since the men were arrested. Since then, the security was on high alert for drones. When Pastor Steve and Nathan finally got it released long into the trip, they went to the area where it was kept and saw a huge closet packed with drones. It took security a while to even find theirs, there were so many confiscated.
Young Women’s Conference
Led by Melissa Reagan a number of our women went to the High School and set up a time with the young ladies to talk about emotional hurts, pains and being free in the Lord. They went through a book and program called, ‘Ditch Your Baggage’. For five days they met with the girls working through heartbreaking stories and Identity in Christ. They listened, laughed, cried and loved. The girls were so sad to see them go. It was life-changing for so many.
Fun Story:
Melissa shared with us a testimony that was mind-blowing. I hope I’m not stealing her thunder on telling this, because I’m sure she had tons of great stories to tell about what God was doing. This one stood out to me as stunning. Melissa’s team was assigned the High School secretary as their liaison to the girls. She was a beautiful sweet young woman. When presented with the material she beamed and told them that she had already read it and was transformed by it (Pastor Steve had brought one back from a previous visit to America and it ended up with her). She then told her testimony of trauma and life-altering situations, loss and hurt, restoration and glory. I will save the big twist at the end of the story for Melissa to share with you, but it’s amazing.
Construction & Painting (Campus Beautification)
Mitch Andrews was supposed to head up the Construction side of things and Niki Helton was supposed to lead the painting portion. By the time we got there, the preparation and beautification of the campus getting ready for the Grand Opening was in full gear. This didn’t allow any time for new construction, so Mitch jumped in with Niki on her team and then filled in about a thousand spots on different teams throughout the mission.
Fun Story:
Niki had her hands full. They needed to paint all the curbs of the TICC campus with a fresh coat of blue and white (and there was a ton of massive curbs). Niki, who is not a young lady, got down on her hands and knees, in a long skirt and went to town. She was a painting maestro, leading a whole team of young Ugandan men and it was ALL accomplished in time. The smell of turpentine was in the air, the sweat was flowing, the sun was beating down, but dang it, they got it done. Incredible!
Sports Ministry (Volleyball Camp) for High Schoolers
Brynne and Hailey love Volleyball, and they are so good at it. Brynne is a coach at Forestlake Christian School and she’s phenomenal. She coached Hailey (and other members of our team) when she was in High School (who’s now at Cal Baptist), so when it came time a number of years ago to go on a mission and do sports ministry, she called part of her team. They all went out to minister to the Uganda high school aged boys and girls by setting up a net and teaching them volleyball. This year was a refresher course and they were out there for hours a day, letting the competitive Ugandans sweat out a victory against each other.
Fun Story:
The vast majority of Ugandans have never heard of Volleyball. But there are ones that have at TICC and Toggo High, and they are good at it. It was fascinating to go down to the pitch and see them bumping, setting and spiking. They are so naturally athletic and competitive that it was always an intense game. In fact, the only injury I sustained on the whole trip was diving for a ball in the cow pasture/pitch court (but I got the point for our team). Brynne’s dream is to have Uganda show up in the Olympics Volleyball and win a medal knowing that it was her and her team first introduced it to the area.
Medical Clinic
Lena and her team joined about 8 doctors from the nearby Ugandan Army medical barracks who donated their time to set up a medical clinic at TICC for the surrounding region. Day in and day out a steady stream of Ugandans came in for various needs and screenings (1729 patients in 7 days). They did cervical cancer screenings, HIV screenings, doled out necessary medications and vaccinations, assessed diseases and injuries and did everything they could to help. It was like a well-oiled machine watching them set up all the stations from consultation, to screening, to medication, to minor surgery. I was so proud of them and of our team who jumped in with both feet. Both Lena and her team were involved in minor surgeries (even sewing up) and invasive screenings.
Fun Story:
A woman ran up to our team crying and panicking, carrying a baby with a high fever. The baby had malaria and wasn’t doing good at all. As a matter of fact, Pastor Steve let me know that in the State hospital they would have blamed the mom for waiting too long and refused to treat the infant, letting it die. Annika, our 15-year old medical team member jumped into action, scooping up the baby and carrying it to the doctors. For the next number of hours she held the baby the whole time while they gave it medication and put in an IV. She cooled it and prayed over it with Mitch and other members of the team. Hours later, I was in teaching the boys when Mitch came in and said, the baby’s fever broke and it was healing up. Thank you Jesus! Another one saved!
Incredible Statistics (how one clinic made a difference in hundreds of lives)
- 13 “simple” surgeries
- 160 dental care
- Screening Results revealed, for those tested, we found…
- 15 had Hepatitis B.
- 286 had Malaria
- 82 tested positive for HIV
- 11 had Cancer
- Each was given counsel, medication and hope.
Vacation Bible School
Hands down the biggest and wildest team we had was the VBS team headed by Nikki McInturf & Mindy Pena and supported by a whole bunch of our ladies and Robby our newly 13-year old young man. They did such an amazing job. They were out there in the sun, jumping and dancing, teaching about Jesus, singing songs, hugging and holding, laughing and sweating. They had their faces painted and wore their colors of their individual teams proudly. The kids fell in love with each and every one of them.
Fun Story:
Gabby is one of Pastor Steve’s older daughters. She is a joyful, vibrant, hilarious woman. You don’t want a Ugandan party without Gabby. I called her the ‘Greatest Dancer in all Uganda’. Even after long days in the sun, she would kick up the music and have a personal dance party with the mission team. But her joy didn’t stop her from being the boss with those kids. Two particular boys threw something at the drone we were flying (after warnings) and Gabby found out about it. Out of hundreds of kids she nailed the two culprits and sent them to time out under the stage. We called it little kid prison. Even after all the kids were sent back to the school for the day and the VBS team was cleaning up, they still sat there. When they were finally released, she told them that punishment was still coming when they got back to the school. Don’t mess with Dancer Gabby.
Preaching, Teaching and Leaders Conference
My team and I had two very distinct portions of our trip. 1.) Lead, preach and teach a pastors and leaders conference at a church in another village (Pastor Fred Mudde’s church in Nakaseke). 2.) Preach and teach to the young men of TICC and Toggo High about Christ, life, theology, identity in Him and humility. I was joined by Nathan, Mitch, Ben and Jon. Each of them brought someone unique and valuable to the table. The boys and leaders loved hearing from them and I was proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. For some of them it was the first time they publicly taught or preached. Despite their nervousness they pushed through and did a phenomenal job.
Fun Story:
I was teaching at the Pastor’s and Leader’s Conference a day or so into the week. I was doing a 3-part series that day on Interpreting the Bible, so I would do a more basic teaching on how to read the Bible and then a fiery sermon around the subject matter. This particular time I was teaching on the New Testament and decided to preach the story of the Naked Demon Guy from Luke 8. As I went into the sermon further I got to the part about the demons begging to go into the pigs. Just then a high-pitched squeal started just outside the door (the windows and doors were open). It was long and sustained. I thought at first that it was a piece of machinery, but quickly learned that it was indeed…a pig. I hadn’t seen a pig in the country before this (I did see some after but not many), nor did it make a sound before this part of the story. Everyone began to laugh. To add to the humor I shouted, ‘Get Out!’ which I don’t think translated into Ugandan well because most of them looked at me as if I was serious.
I could go on and on about how the team bonded and were so patient with each other. I could talk about the prayer for one another, or the ease of travel with them, the camaraderie, the teasing and playfulness, the lack of drama, the support,…blah, blah, blah, but then it gets boring for you as a reader. But it’s all true.
I could not have been more proud of this team. They were outstanding in every way. They kept servant’s hearts and the right mindset of flexibility. They were sensitive to the culture and lived for Jesus. I would go on any trip with this team again in a heartbeat knowing that there is nothing that they cannot accomplish and do it with the right spirit. I consider them all friends of mine and carry them in my heart.
