Uganda revival
A small team
from The Sentinel Group is about to embark on a ministry trip to the
country of Uganda (January 5–23). Team members include Mr. George
Otis, Jr. and son, Mr. Brook Otis, Mrs. Lori Greenwood and Mr. Mark
Morache (videographer). The purpose of the journey is two-fold and will
involve participation in Africamp (a ministry conference, leader’s
summit and prayer event) hosted by
Pastor
John Mulinde of World Trumpet Missions, Kampala Uganda.
In addition, the team will be filming a fascinating story for a new
video project already underway. Part of the Moving Cloud Series, and
tentatively titled “An Unconventional War,” this new video
project will depict the supernatural story of the power of spiritual
warfare and highlight a dramatic eco-healing that has resulted. This
story has been unfolding over the past 18 years, with dramatic change
occurring in just the past two to three. It is these dramatic, “unconventional”
changes that we will document.
The story begins in the northern part of Uganda, in the Gulu Province
near the border of Sudan. It centers on a man named Joseph Kony, who
has been the leader of an insurgency movement known as the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA), a deeply demonic organization. Kony was energized
by demonic power through witchcraft and acts of unspeakable terror.
The LRA had several camps in the dense and forbidding bush near the
Sudanese border. One of their trademarks of terror was to go into
schools and churches and kidnap the young children and kill most of
the parents—leaving a few alive to tell the horrible tale and
spread the terror. The children that were taken away suffered one
of three fates. The “best” thing that could happen was
forcing the children to be soldiers. They would teach them how to
kill other people and force them to do it. These kidnapped children
filled the ranks of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Young girls
were forced to be sex slaves, and the balance were offered as human
sacrifices at covenant altar sites where Kony called upon the ancestral
spirits and demonic powers to energize him. In past years, some of
the churches in the towns throughout Gulu were so terrorized by Kony,
that they began to give up their own children to Kony to spare the
rest of the community. These communities “struck a bargain”
with the devil, falsely believing that this helped to hold back the
enemy. Of course, these towns would only fall victim to more pain
and terror when Kony returned again to kill, steal and destroy.
Deeply troubled by this horrific activity, Uganda’s national
government and military launched a campaign intended to capture Kony,
shut down the LRA and stop these acts of terrorism. However, the army
often found themselves in futile battles with “phantom”
fighters who had the ability to appear and disappear with an eerie
and supernatural ease. As a result, the President, Yoweri Museveni
and his wife, Janet (a fervent intercessor), left the capital of Kampala
and headed north to personally oversee the military campaign against
this insurgency. Still, they could get no traction against the LRA.
During this desperate time, a colonel in the Ugandan army had a visitation
from the Lord. In the vision, the Lord explained to him that the battle
could only be won by much prayer and fasting. This man asked for the
leaders to call for a season of prayer. He went to the President who
agreed and approved the request and, in response, the church in Kampala
set their pray-ers in motion. (A few years ago, George was in a stadium
in Kampala where the people travailed all night for the Gulu region.)
Each of the praying churches sent prayer delegates with a pastor named
Julius to travel to the north. Once they arrived, Julius felt that
something was not right. As they visited the Gulu churches, they realized
that the people of God had been giving up their children to Kony,
believing it would spare the majority of their people. Julius took
these people into a deep season of repentance and prayer with fasting.
There was a hill just outside of this town that was adorned by the
skulls of three children that had been human sacrifices for the region.
Following their time of repentance, the church people went and desecrated
this site.
As a result of this corporate prayer and repentance, things soon
began to change. One of the first occurrences happened when the government
of Sudan granted permission to the Ugandan military to cross the border
to chase after the insurgents. In the days that followed, several
LRA leaders were killed. The LRA chief of operations, their military
genius, simply walked in and surrendered. This man then got on the
radio stations to call for all the other insurgents to lay down their
arms and turn themselves in. There were more surrenders in one weekend
then in many years of military effort, and the President noticed the
results.
The President called in Pastor Julius and asked him to explain what
was happening. During this time, the President had thought, “It's
ok to pray; prayer is a good thing.” But now he was witnessing
astonishing and immediate results. Julius began to explain spiritual
warfare to the President, who then called all the generals and military
leaders into this meeting. Julius taught them from Ephesians 6:12
“. . .we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against
powers, principalities, against rulers of this dark world and spiritual
wickedness in high places.” The President asked Julius “Are
the pastors united in this thinking?” Julius answered, “Yes.”
The President responded, “Then I am at your disposal and I will
do whatever you recommend. I need a plan to finish this off.”
As the Lord instructed them, the Pastors asked to be taken to Kony’s
covenant sites. One site in particular was high in the mountains of
Gulu near a pool of water. All the military knew about this place—and
they were afraid of it. The President put the pastors in military
convoys and took them to these sites. They physically pulled down
each altar and desecrated the covenant sites to the demons. When they
finally got to the high mountain pool of water, the soldiers stopped
quite a distance from the pool and refused to go further. The pastors
went on. In this location, untold numbers of people had been sacrificed
in demonic rituals. As a result of this, the water had become a “death
pool” and was so poisoned that anything that touched it, died.
Insects that lighted on the water, died instantly. No plants remained,
they had died from contact with the water. The soldiers great fear
of this water had come from their experiences of seeing men touch
the water and die. It was filled with demonic presence.
As the pastors approached the water, they began to pray. After a
time, Julius felt that the Lord released them and that the burden
to pray lifted from him. At that point Julius stood and walked into
the water. The soldiers gasped and shouted at him to stop but what
they saw was that the power of that place had been defeated.
Our intent is to fully document the full and fascinating story surrounding
this spiritual war and eco-healing. With the help of Pastor John Mulinde
and World Trumpet Mission, we have scheduled a wide variety of people
for interview including military soldiers, former LRA insurgents,
youth who escaped the kidnapping by Joseph Kony, local Pastors, government
officials and several other key individuals. We will also review hours
of footage in Uganda that will be needed for historical perspective.
In addition we have received special government permission and will
be escorted by the military to film at several of the former covenant
sites in the Gulu region.
http://www.sentinelgroup.org/archived-1-Jan.asp