Sending Our Jenna Out
One of our members of City Church will soon make her home in Uganda working with women on job skills, teaching Bible studies, and supporting outreach through the local church.
Jenna Murphy first began serving as a missionary in September of 2013 when she journeyed to Bundibugyo, Uganda, with Serge, as an intern. During her eight months there she taught preschool, kids clubs, and youth outreach Bible studies.
The last three-and-a-half months of her term took place in Fort Portal, Uganda, working with Pat Abbott, a Serge missionary, at Women of the Proverbs and Green Leaf Crafts Studio.
Teaching Crochet 201 and Bible studies were highlights of her time in Uganda. As a result of spending time with people in their homes, gardens, and over meals Jenna began to understand the vast gap of cross-cultural differences. Diverse emotional reactions caught her by surprise: laughter, joy, sadness, envy, shock, and disbelief. How was it possible someone could live and think so differently than her?
Remembering that we are all made in the image of God gave Jenna eyes to see that Ugandans were not so different from her. They shared common needs and desires: to be known and loved by God.
Jenna has been approved by Serge to serve for five years in Fort Portal, Uganda, beginning in January of 2017. Currently Jenna is in North Carolina taking part in training to help prepare her to flourish for a longer service term. She described this training in her first email newsletter:
“I am currently in Union Mills, NC to start six weeks of training. The first four weeks will be focusing on cross cultural training and the last two weeks are linguistics and language. I must admit that I am pretty nervous about my time at the Center for Intercultural Training (CIT). There will be a lot of homework and team-building exercises. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always in for a good “trust fall” but it will be an adjustment to have roommates again, and to be in constant community with new people. Please pray that God will give me the endurance, strength, and wisdom while I’m at CIT so that my heart and mind might be as prepared as possible to transition and be effective in my new life, ministry, work, and community in Uganda.”
As a church, we commit to supporting Jenna with consistent prayer, encouragement, and the finances needed for her to serve in Uganda. We hope you’ll join us in lifting her up in prayer!
(If you’d like to stay up-to-date on Jenna’s training for and transition to Uganda, you can email her at jmurphy@serge.org.)