DEAR PARENTS

Dear parents,

Thank you for entrusting your students to me here in Uganda. Thank you for the very kind words you have all posted in the comments. Thanks for all your prayer and support. It means the world to me and has changed your students and blessed the people in Uganda with whom we have interacted this week.

Your sons and daughters are in the air and on their way to London. They left via bus this morning at 3am our time and their flight is up and on it's way. I believe it left near on time around 9:30am and 9 hours from now they should be at Heathrow. They will be met there by the guest house they are staying in in London. They are going to shower and change and head to the tube to tour the night lights of London for the first time and grab some dinner. Then after a few hours of sleep and back to the airport they go back to LAX.

I'm praying your reunion is sweet. I'm sure already it will be tear filled. They will need some sleep and some space to process their experience, but I'm sure they will open up to you after their bodies have a chance to catch up with their souls. Last night we had our final meal at a great restaurant here in town called "2 friends" and our team shared some great learnings from our trip over dinner with Mandy. This has been a truly life altering experience for all of us.... and for a few students, they know that God is clearly calling them to work in a context like the one's we've seen this week in the future. That is both risky and scary and exciting for all of you and your teens I'm sure. It's so great to see how God has spoken our students have listened.

We prayed different, listened different, spent money different, lived different and talked different this week. We know some of that is cultural, but some of that is God's intention for us too. I'm praying that what changes God wants to do in and through us stick and I'm praying that your home experiences a change that is directly tied to what God did in your student this week. Our prayer has been for God to help us create a "new normal"- a phrase we kicked around at OGN a little this year and that our students have begun to live out this week.

Lastly, please continue to pray for the children and the needs of this place. Pray for physical healing of God sized Kingdom movement level- the kind of stuff miracles are made of. They are open to the gospel and a Holy Spirit move in this town could change the whole country. I'm confident of that. Pray for God's work all over the globe. His people are alive and well.

Serving Jesus and students with you. See you in a few weeks,

Brian C Berry.