The President of the Republic of Uganda, the Minister of Defence and Veteran Affairs, the Chief of Defence Forces, the UPDF fraternity the Right Honourable Prime Ministers emeritus, Members of Parliament, brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen.
I’m deeply honoured to be with you today as you celebrate the 13th Tarehe Sita Thanksgiving Service commemorating 43 years of God’s blessing and favour over the UPDF and our nation, Uganda. When I first received a call from Madame Edith Nsaba Buturo, I told her that I had never spoken to the military before, this is my first time, so I really rely on God’s grace even though during the missions that we organised as Covenant Nations Church around the country we always have many of our brothers and sisters from the UDPF Christian fellowship and also the Uganda Police Christian fellowship.
Having said that I asked her to give me some time to pray and seek the Lord until I receive the green light from Him. So, I want to thank the chief of the Defence Forces for this invitation and Mrs Edith Nsaba Buturo who has been helping us and coordinating and the Christian fellowship at the Ministry of Defence for extending this very kind invitation to me.
The theme for this Thanksgiving is taken from Psalm 116:2 which says; “what can I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me?”
Indeed, we have much to give thanks for as we see the Journey of the UPDF and Uganda all these 43 years. As I sought the Lord about what he would like me to share with you, I felt His leading to share three points of the Journey of UPDF and juxtapose them with the journey of our nation Uganda.
So, we’ll begin with the UPDF of the past. When my family returned from exile in 1986, I was a child of 7 years, the National Resistance Army which was a precursor to the UPDF was a revolutionary Army that had just recently emerged from the Liberation Struggle in the bush.
They were young men and women, they were raw with a kind of righteous zeal, a princely nobility. Whatever they lacked in terms of uniforms, guns, boots, equipment, vehicles, the more they made up for in their love, their passion, their bravery and their integrity.
They loved their revolutionary leader, our President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and their country and they served out of a higher sense of loyalty, service above self and sacrifice.
As we settled into life in Uganda, security became a part of our lives in a way that we had never imagined before. We had to go to school with soldiers in the car, there were soldiers discretely stationed at school all day, they never interrupted our school life but they were always there in the background. We got to know these soldiers very well and formed bonds of friendship with them. Most of them were young very young, some were in their late teens the ones that we called ‘Kadogos’ and others were in their early 20s and early 30s. I remember their faces and their names as many of them are no longer with us today. The late Rwakyazire, Ssendegeya, Nuriat, Peace, the late Kabura, the late Akanga.
As a mother of four children today whose ages range from 20 to 8 years, I can say that they were old children or youth only that they were slightly older than us and they had gone through a war. They were our friends, we played with them, we laughed with them, and we also fought with them.
I recall one day, I asked one of them to hold to play with their pistol, I am sure I wanted to pretend to be James Bond or some other character in a movie I had seen. Thankfully, he removed the magazine and then handed me the pistol. I started playing with a pistol and doing all the commando moves I could think of. Unfortunately, in trying to play with a gun, the trigger caught between the skin between my thumb and my forefinger and I screamed with pain until he rushed to rescue me. After that he wisely said that we should never play with guns again.
The foundation of the UPDF and the people that the Lord used to start the struggle for Liberation were very humble and simple. They were all young people, some had friendships forged in their school days, and others were thrown together because of the danger and the challenges of the times. They came from humble backgrounds and homes and none of them had any guarantees of success. they didn’t have the best uniforms, vehicles, equipment, but they all had a deep sense of purpose, a noble calling to sacrifice everything including their lives for the liberation of their Nation.
How is it that those who were so young and had so little could accomplish so much with what they had? Therein lies the paradox, that it isn’t what you have but what has you, it isn’t what is around you but more importantly what is in you, what you believe about yourself and the world moves you to be and do great things, those are the foundations of the UPDF.
Now we look at the UPDF of today, fast forward, 38 years and find a UPDF that is as different from the NRA of the past as night is different from day. The army of today is a highly professional Army, where education, world-class training, use of state-of-the-art Technology, and international standards are practised. The UPDF has forces deployed not only within Uganda but also in the region and has become a net exporter of peace to the countries around us, amen.
As a nation, we are so proud of the UPDF today when we see the missions that the UPDF has embarked on in the region whether it is in Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, or now in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UPDF has been fulfilling the redemptive purpose of the nation which is to send missionaries to help establish peace in other nations. This is a call of God on the nation and the UPDF is successfully fulfilling that call.
If we look at the Biblical context, one of the Redemptive Gifts of Africa and Uganda is to send out missionaries to the nations of the world. To be carriers of Revival and Reformation this is taken from the book of Acts Chapter 13.
It is amazing to see the UPDF succeeding and establishing the missions of Peace in the region. God’s call to the church is to be missionaries to preach the gospel to the Nations, and to do in the spirit realm what the UPDF is doing in the natural realm. We give God all the glory for what he’s using UPDF to do within Uganda and the region.
Where others fail, the UPDF goes in and succeeds beyond the expectations of many and we are all supremely proud and grateful for our Armed Forces. Whether it is in building roads, the recent airport construction, factories and bridges, or farms as we can see in the small booklet the UPDF has grown into a large and well-organized professional Army of the people.
As the Army has grown from its revolutionary Roots, we can ask ourselves is the love, loyalty, sacrifice and service above self still the same as it was in the beginning, or have, we traded the simplicity of our past for sophisticated problems that come with prosperity?
Today, we have a new generation of young people who never experienced war and they face the temptation to place their personal interests before the nation. This is the Dilemma of all Nations that are growing. The example in the Bible of the children of Israel who are a nation of slaves that God emancipated from slavery in Egypt they spent 40 years in the wilderness until the whole generation that had come out of slavery had died, a new generation rose up to go in and conquer The Promised Land.
One of the warnings that God gave this generation can be found in the book of Deuteronomy 8:7, “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. A land of Brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing forth in valleys and Hills, a land of Wheat and barley and Vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you shall eat food without shortage, and lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose Hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full then you shall bless the Lord your God for all the good which he has given you.
Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his Commandments, his precepts and his statutes which I command you today lest when you have eaten and are full and have built goodly houses and live in them and when your herds and your flocks multiply and your silver and your gold multiplies and all that you have is multiplied then your hearts be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage who led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water but who brought you forth water out of the rock, who fed you in the wilderness with Mana which your fathers did not know that he might humble you and test you to do you good in the end and beware lest you say in your heart my power and my might have gotten me this wealth but you shall earnestly remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth that he may establish his Covenant which he swore to your fathers.”
It is our prayer that UPDF will keep to the original foundations that brought such success and blessing to the people. An army for the people and that serves the country with love, justice and integrity. May this great Army never make Freedom a commodity that can be bought and sold with bribes. May UPDF never be corrupted by Pride, by Glamour and power that comes with success that is our prayer then the Lord will always go out with our armies and he will always fight our battles.
To the UPDF of the future, the Journey of the UPDF has mirrored the journey of the nation in many ways rising up out of the ashes of Civil War, disease and poverty to become a united, stable, peaceful, democratic and prosperous Nation.
The story of Uganda is a miracle story. A story that is only possible because of the amazing grace of God. As we look to the future, we see that we have come to a watershed moment in our journey as a nation. During the season of transition, it is time it is the time when the enemy rises up to hijack or derail the purposes of God in order to turn the nation back to the evil cycles of the past.
This is clear in the biblical account of the children of Israel who were on their way to the promised land from captivity in Egypt. They experienced opposition from within and opposition from without. Remarkably some people in the camp out of selfish motives or simply a lack of vision had a desire to return to the comfortable life of slavery in Egypt.
Numbers 11:46 says “and the mixed multitude among them began to lust greedily for the dainty foods and the Israelites wept again and said who will give us meat to eat we remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt and without cost, the Cucumbers, the melons, the leaks, the onions, and the garlics but now our strength is dried up there is nothing at all but this Mana.
The children of Israel long to go back to the place of slavery. There’s also there was also opposition from external forces in addition to the internal opposition Moses and the children of Israel had to contend with external enemies who were afraid of Israel’s growing power and fought hard to lick up all that is around them as the ox licks up the grass of the field.
So Balak, the King of the Moabites sent Messengers to Balam the son of Beor to say, “There is a people come out of Egypt be behold they cover the face of the Earth and they have settled down and dwell opposite me.
Now come I beg of you curse the people for me for they are too powerful for me perhaps I may be able to defeat them out of the land. For I know that him he whom you bless is blessed and he whom you curse is cursed and we know the end of that story that no matter how many times they tried to curse God’s people the curse could not stick because God said you cannot curse those whom God has blessed and I believe that God’s blessing is with us in Uganda.
All these attacks happened as a nation was in a season of transition moving from one place to the to another. The enemy knows that when a nation is in transition it is open and vulnerable to attacks both internal and external. It is important for us as Christians to be like the men of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32 men who understood the times and the seasons and who knew what Israel ought to do.
So, what happens during a time of transition? During a time of transition, the womb of time or the Gate of time opens and just like a natural womb once that process has started, you cannot stop it or turn it backwards.
By the grace of God, my husband and I have four children and so I’ve gone through this process of delivering children and once the labour process begins and the womb starts to open to deliver that baby, there’s no way you can go back and try to close that womb that baby has to be born. So, it is the same with spiritual things and it’s the same with seasons and time.
Their contention in the spirit realm is over who will control the gates of the time or the seasons. The enemy contends to control the gate because whoever controls the gate controls the season that will come.
This was clear in the time leading up to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It would be an understatement to say that a new season was coming upon the Earth. It was the season of All Seasons the creator of the universe was coming to live amongst his creation the Lord Jesus was coming to be the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. He came to fulfill and do away with the old Covenant and establish the New Covenant through his blood sacrifice.
The stakes were very high, the star had already heralded his birth it had appeared in the heavens and the wise men who studied the stars came in search for him. The devil although not aware of the full plan was working hard to ensure that the Son of God would not be born in
Bethlehem according to the scriptures. He orchestrated the killing of thousands of baby boys under the age of 12 in the whole region of Bethlehem.
This was a repeat scenario of something that had played out thousands of years before when God was raising up Moses to be a deliverer. The enemy again orchestrated events that led to the killing of Hebrew Boys by the Egyptians. These terrible events both preceded the birth of a great deliverer. The one was a deliverer of the children of Israel that is Moses, the second was the Lord Jesus Christ who would be the deliverer of the world.
The first was to establish the old Covenant based on the law, the second was to establish the New Covenant that’s based on the blood of Jesus. In spite of all the opposition, the Lord’s purpose prevailed. Both babies were born in their time. The baby Jesus was preserved by God’s power and by the prayers of faithful intercessors because God had intercessors at that time in the temple who were praying for the birth of the Lord Jesus. The baby Jesus lived and went on to fulfill his Destiny.
Therefore, it is important that the church understands that there is a contention in the spirit realm for the destiny of the nation and which spiritual Force controls the gate with will also control the season. So, what must we do to rightly contend for the season?
I believe that the first thing is prayer according to Psalms 24:7-10
“Lift up your heads oh you Gates and be lifted up you age-abiding doors that the king of glory may come in who is the king of glory the lord strong and mighty the Lord Mighty in battle lift up your heads oh you Gates yes lift them up you age-abiding doors that the king of glory may come in who is the king of glory the Lord of hosts he is the king of glory. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one to whom all Gates of Time and Seasons answer.
As we pray and intercede for our nation and for our leaders, we are inviting the Lord Jesus Christ to come and walk ahead of us into the future and Trust in that he will ensure that the right gates open and that the wrong Gates stay closed. He will go ahead of us as the king of glory as we approach the gates of time and seasons and they will lift up their heads and they will be opened in Jesus’s mighty name.
The second thing I believe we can do is found in Jeremiah 6:16; “thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look and ask for the Eternal path where the good old way is then walk in it and you will find rest for your souls.” Here the Lord advises the children of Israel to return to their foundations to go back to the Eternal path and to do the good old ways and walk in them.
This is a word for us all as a nation there are foundations that build the up built the UPDF into the Force for good that it is today. There are values that have built the nation up until now. Many of these values have been exemplified by our President and leader, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and by the revolutionaries that sacrificed their lives for our freedom. Those values were sacrifice, discipline, Unity, integrity and serving the country above self.
I believe that if you as the UPDF and we as the Country Return to our foundations to the Eternal paths that we have walked in the past we will not only take possession of the gates of the future but we will secure those Gates spiritually and in the natural for generations to come.
May we come before the Lord today in Repentance for where we have missed the mark and we dedicate ourselves to be the country and to be the UPDF that the Lord desires us to be then we will not miss our day of visitation. We will be able to be divinely repositioned as a nation to possess the gates of time that are before us and continue advancing as a nation.
I pray that with the Lord help we will not miss this great moment we are Living in.
Pastor Patience Museveni Rwabwogo is the First Daughter, Evangelist and Senior Pastor at the Covenant Nations Church.
