Dear
Friends and Family,
I hope
this letter finds you well! Your support through encouragement, prayers and
finances goes beyond words of gratitude during this past year that I have been
serving with Potter’s Field Ministries (PFM) in their “IGNITE” program. Their
IGNITE program is simply a year long discipleship program teaching young adults
to live life on a mission wherever they are by serving in one of PFM’s Kid’s
Club locations throughout the world. This is done through four phases: three
months of training, six months of field service, one month of re-entry and two
months of serving in your local church in hopes to form a life-style of serving
wherever one is.
I arrived
in Antigua, Guatemala July 13, 2013 with 15 other students from across the United
States to begin the training phase of the program. We were the fifth IGNITE class
to go through the program but the first to complete the training portion in
Guatemala. During training we had
classes all day ranging from inductive Bible study, perspectives courses,
apologetics, to practical service and children’s ministry courses. The training
was grueling at times but PFM’s heart is to prepare soldiers to go out in
battle for six months on the foreign mission field. It was during training that
we were assigned to our field locations and if you remember my heart was to
serve God in Uganda. We had no choice or
say as to where we would be sent but I had to trust God and the staff that I
would be sent where I was supposed to go - even if it wasn’t Uganda. What was
once a desire and a prayer of my heart became a reality as I was chosen to
serve in Uganda for six months. Praise God! After being chosen to serve in
Uganda, Ephesians 3:20 became my theme verse and continues to be today.
“ Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all
that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory.”
Upon arriving in Entebbe, Uganda it was indeed
exceedingly, abundantly above all I could ever ask or think and so evident that
God was the one at work in that city because there is no way man could have
conjured up or set in place the transforming of lives happening in that city.
It was truly an honor and a privilege to be a part of the work God is doing
there. Potter’s Field partners with the Calvary Chapel in Entebbe (CCE) and we
spent the majority of our time serving on the church compound through cleaning,
serving meals, work projects, teaching, facilitating the PFM Kid’s Club, outreaches
and loving on the children. My favorite ministry was the island medical
outreach. Once a week we would travel to the islands located on Lake Victoria –
where the poverty level is insurmountable - to set up free medical clinics and
facilitate a Kid’s Club with Bible stories, games and a snack. We meet very
real physical needs that they would not have access to otherwise to share the
even greater need of Jesus Christ.
Uganda has a tragic past full of death,
pain, and heartache creating an absence of family, education and life
essentials through the devastation starting in the ‘70s of president Idi Amin
the “butcher of Uganda”, followed by the AID’s epidemic in the ‘80s and Joseph
Kony rising to power in the ‘90s who is responsible for children soldiers,
concentration camps and the lives of many. Though Uganda has a tragic past it
has a hopeful future through the vision God gave Pastor Craig Linquist (pastor
of CCE) in Isaiah 58:10-12.
“If you extend your soul to the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted
soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness,
and your darkness shall be as the noonday…
Those from among you
shall build the old
waste places;
You
shall raise up the foundations of many generations....”
When Pastor Craig purchased the church
property in Uganda it was literally a garbage dump, a forsaken place and come
to find out a killing site under the reign of president Idi Amin. The church
property is a visual picture and testifies to the work that is spiritually
taking place in the community. This property, which was once a cursed land, is
now God’s land where hundreds (if not thousands) of people each week enter the
property to hear the gospel and their lives are being “built up from the old
waste places.” To God be the glory!
As I was serving in Uganda my heart was
stirred as I realized that thousands of people are dying each day without
Christ because few are willing to lay down their lives that others may have
life eternally. I never thought I would be a “missionary” or serve God overseas
for a long period of time but as I have gotten my feet wet, I hope someday to
be swimming in the sea of need and be a part of bringing the gospel to an
unreached people group. I don’t know how, when, or where nor do I have the
ability or capability but I know that “we
have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us ” (2
Corinthians 4:7) and “the eyes of the
Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those
whose heart is loyal to Him…”
God orchestrates the work if we provide a willing vessel whose heart is loyal
to Him. My response is simply “here I am, send me.”
When I was leaving Virginia to join PFM,
I sensed God wanted me to leave in such a way that I wouldn’t be returning and
to leave America with no financial or material ties that would hold me back
from going wherever the Lord would send me - not knowing what would be ahead.
Circumstances led me to believe I would be settling down in my hometown Corvallis,
Oregon (in which I was excited for) but in the quietness of my heart through
prayer God put it on the heart of Potter’s Field to ask me to come back as
staff with their organization! Exceedingly, abundantly above all I could ever
ask or think! To GOD be the glory!
My role with PFM is not completely
defined yet but I leave for their headquarters in Montana on July 21,st, 2014
and will be doing a various assortment of things with hopes to be stationed in
a new Kid’s Club country location come October if all goes according to “plan.”
I have not set a time commitment but I will be with PFM until the Lord moves me
elsewhere. So I would really appreciate your support through prayers as often
as I come to mind! If you would like to join me on my journey please email me (annachristinescott7190@gmail.com) and I will add you to an update list in which I am hoping to send short
newsletters with pictures every 1-3 months but you have to email me to receive
those updates.
My resolve is to live life on a mission where
ever I am to the glory of God that His kingdom may be advanced until the whole
world hears! In the uncertainties of life, one thing is certain: I will abide
in Christ and He in me. Press on fellow soldiers, for there is a war at hand.
Never give up. Never surrender.
Sincerely, Anna Scott
