Hey! What a crazy first of the year (and slightly past)! God continues to move here in Uganda. Every week that goes by, I am continually amazed at the goodness, and faithfulness of God. He truly is in control, and is building His church! I am so thankful that I get to be apart of it. I wanted to give you a quick update on all that has been going on this year. If you don’t follow me on twitter, please do to get more frequent updates (beyond these blog posts)
http://www.twitter.com/sethsokoloff
. Everything is going beyond good here. I am healthy, smiling, and having a lot of fun… sometimes to much

Ignite

This year we had 2 new things come to our Ignite intern program. We introduced a 2nd year to those who have already graduated 1st year (46 already!), and started the year off with a wilderness retreat. We have been looking for a way to build unity in our classes, and work out any badittudes (bad attitudes) before we start the year. We took all 25 of our students out to a deserted part of an island, and for one week did challenges, cooked our own food, built our own shelters, and had a lot of fun. One of the challenges we did was to build our own paddles, and then use them to race 2 miles along the shore of and island, and then back again. Brent and I honestly had a hidden fear that someone would get bit by a snake, and by the grace of God we didn’t even see one! The wilderness trip succeeded in building unity in the group, and has set this up to be the best year yet!

GenAlive

Every year we use GenAlive (our annual youth conference) as the time, and excuse to make changes to our stage and A/V set up. This year we completely re-designed our stage for the conference. The stage had been without change since the start of the church, and needed some “freshening up”. We decided to go with a solid color, and added 8 LED can lights, and 2 smart lights. It has made all the difference! Our conference felt like it went to another level this year. Doug and Dona Lasit from Denver, Colorado came to be our main speakers, and to help with worship. They did awesome, and coupled with our local speakers, I can honestly say it was our best GenAlive yet! One of the big things we are going to really push this year, is continuing the relationships made with other youth pastors throughout the conference, and finding new ways of working together.

Happy holidays from Uganda! But that doesn’t look like Uganda…(I had such a great time with my Mom in Europe, that I decided to wish you happy holidays from the Mediterranean Sea this year)

I pray that this year is filled with the goodness of God, and whole lot of laughing and joy! Thanks for all the prayers and support!

Wow. What a season! God is good all the time, all the time….. (This is your part. Doesn’t matter who’s around.) Crazy busyness, insane challenges, incredible fruit! I’m blessed beyond belief to be able to serve the Lord in Uganda. Thanks to your prayers, and support, all theses things are possible. I’m going to kinda pop-corn around a bit to get you up to speed on all the awesomeness that has taken place these last few months. Ready. Set.

Jay Smith and City Church Ventura Team
What a privilege it was to have my mentor here in Uganda serving along side us. Jay Smith brought a team of interns from The City Church – Ventura. They were anointed and literally helped us take over an island for Jesus. In a two week period we:
Went to an island.
Spoke to every person on the island about Jesus.
Held an outreach in each village.
Encouraged the churches, and believers.
Put on a High School festival with over 500 students.
Preached in the village surrounding our Life Church – Bwerenga Campus.
Watched tons of people get saved, healed, and delivered.
Had WAY to much fun!!

Thank you Jude and Becky Fouquier, and The City Church Ventura for lending us this awesome team.

Family Life Church and Westside Team/ GenAlive
GenAlive was ridiculous this year! This was our second year putting on a youth conference here at Life Church. We had 400 young people register and at least 650 attend the 3 day conference. Our theme was “First Love” (1 John 4:19). Danny Schulz and Casey Parnell were our main speakers and killed it. We had an awesome worship team made up of both the FLC and Westside team, coupled with our youth team here. Perfect unity and awesome anointing! It was so great to watch people walk out lighter, free, and on fire! People are already talking about, and planning for next year!

After the conference we took the teams to the islands, and watched an entire town respond day after day to everything we did. I haven’t seen anything like it yet. People hungry for Jesus. Just waiting for us to come, pouring out their lives and receiving Christ. The FLC/Westside team came filled up and ready to go, and go they did!

Thank you Ken Johnson and Westside, Steve Meistrell and Family Life Church, and all the others who made the teams coming possible!

Having teams come encourage us so much, and give such awesome boosts to the things we are doing. It’s really refreshing having a piece of home come here and just simply serve and encourage.

Ignite/Life Church
We have 4 weeks left of this years’ Ignite. Where did the time go?!! I am convinced that discipleship through the local church is the way! Watching the life change in our students is amazing. It’s nothing we or a program can do, only the Lord. We’re pushing on strong for the finish. The last week of Ignite, we take them to the islands for a mission trip. It’s their chance to practice all that they have learned. Be praying for us as we go July 16-20th.

Life Church is continuing to explode. We now have 1,000 people attending our Sunday services in 2 locations. We have gone to 2 services on Sunday morning, and starting to look full again. With more people comes more responsibility and more needs. We’re working hard to grow leaders and remain moldable to all God is doing. He’s building His church! I’m continually amazed and humbled that I get to be apart of it.

It’s been a team filled season and the only thing I could think of that went well with team, is the good ole’ saying, “there’s no I in team”. How true that is, but like the title says, “there is meat”. And I really like meat! Brent and Virginia continue to do all things well, and I am continually blessed working along side them! Thank you for all your prayers and support, and all around being awesome! I couldn’t do anything I’m doing without you! I love you a ton!

Till next time,
Seth

Have you ever had one of those “this is the best year yet” moments? I truly believe that God moves us “from Glory to Glory” in every area of life, and  this truly is the best year yet! I pray this is proving to be true in your life to! Here comes the normal apology for slow updates (ready?): Please forgive me for being slow at writing these, I’m trying to get better

We started our year with our youth camp for Real Life Generation (Our youth ministry). It was awesome!! 150 kids gathered together to worship, receive, and have fun. I’m continually amazed at the power of camps. When you take people out to the middle of nowhere, away from their normal lives, and set up venues for them to seek and wait on the Lord… awesome things happen! All our speakers did great, worship was at a whole new level, and a true sense of Unity was gained in the students. Brent was the main speaker and killed it!! People are still talking about camp and all the life change. Of course we had an epic eating contest. Chugging hot sauce, eating butter, and of course puking. Brent and our youth pastor (Kenneth) jumped in and won in their teams! (I was the judge and gave them a little grace.) I’m looking for a youth group to rally together to help make our games at camp next year even more awesome. If you’re interested let me know and I can give you the details.

We started our 3rd year of Ignite at the end of January. I am amazed at how fast time flies! We are blessed to have the opportunity to disciple 12 new students this year. We started the year with an encounter retreat at our lake property, Bwerenga. Our students gained freedom in many areas and were able to come back excited, and ready for the year. Again, it feels like the best Ignite yet! We’re a little over a month in and the change is noticeable already. Continue to pray for them as they take these 6 months to seek after the Lord, and find what He has planned for them!

In the last month….. I …. got……a …… car!! Thank you so much to everyone who has been so faithful in giving, and praying, and supporting in so many ways! I was able to find an awesome Toyota hatch-back with low miles, imported from London, with one owner. Runs great, and is truly a huge blessing to my daily activities. The fact that I don’t have to ride on a taxi and take 3x as much time getting places is awesome! Thank you again!

The next couple of months are going to be just as busy, if not busier. We have a team from The Ventura City Church coming in a few weeks. We are planning a high school outreach day here at the church in March. Our annual youth conference is coming May 9-11. We have a team coming from Westside and FLC in Idaho for this. Continued Island work, and Ignite. We started 2 services as a church, English only at 8:00, and English/Luganda at 10:30. I love watching God work!

Thank you  so much for all your support, encouraging emails, and prayers. I am able to serve the Lord here in Uganda because of you!! The church is growing, lives are changing, and its made possible by you! I want to effectively pray for you as well. Please send me any prayer requests, and or updates, so I can pray and have our Ignite students doing the same. My arm is all healed up and I am using it again Clapping better than ever. You’re awesome! I miss everyone a ton, I wish I could give you a hug and tell you how great you are in person, but this will have to do. I’m doing great. Falling more in love with the Lord everyday. He continues to speak and is my strength and encouragement. I’m having the time of my life being able to serve Him here in beautiful Uganda, with a great church, and great people! Brent and Virginia are awesome as ever (I like em… I like em a lot!) Please feel free to send me emails with any questions, I’m quick to reply and can give you short updates sooner!

Love ya!!

Seth

I was going to title this post “Back in the swing of things”, but I realized that phrase can’t be used when talking about serving in Uganda. The last few months have been awesome and full of surprises. Let me first say I am continually amazed at how good and faithful God is! HE really is “that good”. And thank you to YOU for all your prayers and support, you truly make it possible to serve in Uganda.

I came back to Uganda with a huge list of projects (if you know me, you know how happy this makes me) and a fresh level of vision for a few areas I am already involved in. I am believing 2012 to be the busiest and most fruit-filled year yet. We have over 30 students on our interest  list for Ignite already, and its only December! I’m expectant, and excited. One of the fun projects I was able  to complete this last month was the installation of our new projector at church. We have been lacking in our ability to show powerpoint and pictures on Sunday mornings, and we finally got a new HD projector. Sorry for terrible picture of the great “picture”.

We had the privilege of hosting Steve Mickel from Westside church this past month. He came and was the main speaker for our Region 1 Conference on Zinga island. Steve rocked it!! He fit right in and was stinken anointed! He slept in tents and bathed behind bushes like it was second nature, obviously an experienced missionary. Struggled a bit with eating sugar cane, but we won’t hold it against him . He was a huge blessing to the Earwickers and I, full of encouragement and wisdom. Steve you’re awesome! Thank you Steve and Westside for all that you do!! The conference went great. 70+ pastors came and left encouraged and committed to a new level of unity. It truly set the framework for what God wants to do this next year on the Islands. I’m continually blessed and challenged as I watch Brent cast vision and gather Island pastors together. 2012 is going to rock!

Last week I took a little spill on my motorcycle and broke a couple of bones in my wrist (right hand). I am having to learn one-handed life for the next couple months. I wrote this whole update one-handed! It’s a new challenge and a bit frustrating at times, but I am thankful a broken arm is all I got, and I may just become ambidextrous in the end. Perspective!!

Love from the one-armed bandit,