Faith in the Dust: A Devotional for Those who Feel Forgotten

I asked Pastor Daniel Mugeni, one of our First Cause international leaders, to share with you what it is like to minister in a poor rural community in Uganda. Daniel pastors Grace Harvest House of Worship in Iganga, Uganda, a town 33km from the source of the Nile in Jinja. This is critical because it is so easy to be complacent and selfish in a prosperous nation and forget what it means to suffer and struggle not just in faith but in surviving.

 Meditation
2 Corinthians 1:6,7--If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in your endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.

I’m writing this from the dust. From a place where ministry and poverty sit at the same table.
1. When the need is heavier than the words.
            On Sunday I stand to preach, but sometimes people are at my door. They don’t come asking how to give. They come because their child has malaria and there’s no money for the clinic. Because the rains washed away the maize, and there will be no food next month. I’ve never received help from church members. Instead, they come to me asking for help. Our Sunday offerings are less than $10. 
            I also don’t have. In past years I worked at a guest house—cleaning rooms, washing bedsheets, laying beds, washing plates. In the evening I was paid $1. Life in ministry has been very difficult, but I remained hopeful. I later started a food store to help support my ministry, my family, and the orphans. But the weight was too much, and it collapsed. I went back to struggling, and I’m still there now.
            I care for 26 orphans in my house, besides my family of 6. They are helpless, and I cannot send them away. They found shelter under my roof, and they understand my hardship in catering for them. 
            Sometimes after preaching on Sunday, I go back home with nothing to eat. I end up borrowing money to meet the needs at home because, as a father, they expect it of me. At times my children sit at home without going to school because I don’t have money for tuition and school requirements. My family has gone without food more times than I can count.
            Even our church is a picture of this struggle. When it rains, water floods inside. Our shelter is temporary. We’ve tried to build a permanent wall, but it’s still incomplete without a roof. So when the rains come, service has to stop, and everyone scrambles for shelter.
 
2. When poverty strips you bare.
            People think the temptation for pastors is comfort. Here, the temptation is to stop believing God the way He sees you. When you’re digging for food at dawn and people still come asking, when your children miss school, when your family goes to bed hungry, when the rain chases you out of your own church, it’s easy to feel forgotten.
            But it’s in this stripping away that I’ve seen the Lord most clearly. Prayer stops being a duty and becomes a cry. Worship stops being about the building and becomes about whether your soul can still lift itself when your body is weary.
 
3. When ministry is slow and costly.
            Discipleship doesn’t happen in a 4-week course. It happens under a mango tree, one verse at a time, week after week. It happens sitting with a widow whose roof caved in, when you can’t fix it but you can sit with her in the rain.
            My wife and I have chosen to stay in Iganga, even when other pastors have left for Kampala where there’s pay and a paved road. The cost is time, energy, and our own family’s comfort. The challenge is to believe that faithfulness in a small place still matters to God.
 
4. When hope refuses to die.
            I am always praying to God for a helping hand to reach out to me. Not because I’ve given up, but because I know who holds the heavens and the earth. When a man who’s been drunk for 10 years comes to Christ and weeps at the altar, it feels like heaven opened. We have little, but what we have is shared. Poverty forces community. And in that community, I see the body of Christ.
            And here is my greatest encouragement: The 26 orphans in my house all love the Lord and pray always. I teach them the Word of God, and our faith is strong because of the Word we share daily before each one goes to bed. When I feel weak under the weight of responsibility, they are the ones who strengthen my faith. They cannot give me money or food, but they give me Jesus. In the dust, God gave me a family that prays me through.
 
Prayer: 
            Lord, You see me when no one else does. You saw me washing bedsheets for $1 a day. You see me now, caring for 32 people with nothing steady to give them. Be the helping hand I’m praying for. Meet us today according to Your riches in glory. Give me faith to keep digging, keep preaching, and keep loving when there is little to give. And remind me that faithfulness in the dust is still worship to You. Amen.
 
Prayer request* 
            If you’ve read this far, would you carry us to the Father in prayer today?
 
Inspiration
“Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as He loves us better, too.”—Edmund Burke
 
©2026 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  To receive these devotionals, go to www.firstcause.org and click the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed, subject to the inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10—"The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.”  (Holman CSB)

If you were moved by this devotional Pastor Daniel shared, you can support his ministry by giving at https://givebutter.com/first-cause. Mention in the note section that the gift is for "Daniel Mugeni," and First Cause will ensure he receives your entire gift.