Steve Stewart's blog

In early December, I woke up one morning with the strong impression that the Lord was asking me to go to Tanzania. This was both unexpected and yet persistent, so I called my friend Mike in Kenya and asked what he thought. Mike’s response was immediate: he believes that this is a time of destiny for Tanzania, and so he was not surprised by what I shared with him. I was leading a Journey of Compassion to Uganda in early January, and so it was not difficult to travel from there to another East African nation.

Yesterday the team headed to a new village, Kantegalamire. It is a very interesting place, indeed. Although it is less than 10 miles from Kalonga, this village of 5,000 is remarkably isolated; in fact it feels like it’s a hundred miles away. I was surprised to discover that the people speak a different language from those in the surrounding towns and villages. This is because Kantegalamire was populated by a nomadic tribe a number of years ago. We found out that we are the first “musungus” (white people) to come in 15 years.

On Wednesday, we began our first mobile medical clinic in a town where we had been last year. The people, especially the children, were very sick. It is malaria season here in Uganda, and a local doctor told me that this is a very bad year for malaria. While the medical clinic went on, David and Cynthia Pearson led teams out into the town with water filters. Each filter will provide about 20-25 people with a permanent supply of clean water. At about 5:30pm, the team went into the middle of town for an outdoor meeting.

I arrived in Kalonga three weeks ago for a three-day pastors’ conference. About 150 men and women gathered from near and far for many hours of teaching and training. By the end of our time together, most of these leaders were really understanding about multiplying ministry by releasing others into their gifts and callings. This is a titanic shift in what they have been previously taught about how to be a leader. They left the conference with a much bigger picture of the Gospel. They also embraced the truth that, according to Mt.

On Sunday, we were in two churches--one in the morning and another that evening. In both, there were lots of healings. Our team prayed for the sick in the morning; at night, I taught about healing, then had the people pray for one another. There were many, many healings; the best part is that now the church knows they can effectively pray for the sick themselves.

Once again, the Lord has worked in wonderful ways. This Journey has been somewhat "underground", with us having to keep a lower public profile in some locations, due to the political climate. While there is never any danger of our team being directly on harassed, we don't want to make life difficult for our partners once we are gone. As a result, we have needed to assess every village and situation separately. Today, we are in the foothills of the Himalayas. The scenery is stunningly beautiful; at this altitude, the air is clear and cool.

“ Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon." Isaiah 58:10

As this remarkable Journey comes to a close, I look back with a deep sense of wonder at all that the Lord accomplished. East Samar is a province of about two million people, mostly in small communities (barangays). Over the past eleven days we have distributed enough water filters for more than 1,400 people. This is especially significant, as there has recently been an outbreak of typhoid fever; the filters will totally eliminate this deadly bacteria from the water. We visited schools, a hospital and prison. Wherever we went, people were healed and saved.

As you may have seen from reading the various reports from team members, we are having an awesome Journey here in the Philippines. We have been on the island of Samar; it is on the east side of the Philippines. Samar is the second poorest area in the country. They have suffered not only the effects of typhoon Yolanda, the super-typhoon that hit in late 2013, but also typhoon Ruby that hit late last year. Ruby was a direct hit, destroying houses, tearing down banana plantations and coconut groves, and destroying rice harvests. The economic impact of Ruby has been devastating.

The last several days were so full, I simply did not find the time to break away and write. Now that the Journey has finished, here are some highlights from the second week.