DAVE CARROLL | A SATISFIED THIRST

A journey from despair to delight

“I know I am going to hell,” Dave says to himself as he presses the cold tip of the knife blade against his wrist. “But hell can’t be any worse than what I am living in right now.”

For years, he has looked everywhere to try to satisfy his thirst for life and happiness: sports, popularity, pleasure, drugs, sex. And he is a slave to alcohol, consumed by a darkness that he can’t escape. He thinks there’s only one way out. But God has different plans. He pursues Dave relentlessly through miraculous interventions, the example of godly acquaintances, seemingly random encounters with bold witnesses, and the undying love of his father. 

Dave finally understands that “What Christ did on the cross, He did for me.” He surrenders his life to Christ; and the transforming power of the Father’s love makes him a new man, replacing his thirst for alcohol with a thirst for Jesus.

He is immediately compelled to share God’s love with others, to point them to the only One in whom life can really be found. That love led Dave and his family to Uganda, where since 1997 they have walked closely with young people to help them overcome painful obstacles that keep them from knowing the Father’s heart, setting them free to walk in the joy and freedom of life as His beloved sons and daughters.

DULTON MUTAAWE | THE FREEDOM OF FORGIVENESS

A journey from bitterness to reconciliation

“I would rather go to hell than forgive my father.” As a child, Dulton is beaten without mercy, told repeatedly by his father that he has no value, that he is unwanted. 

No matter what he does, it’s like he can never measure up. When he tells his story, he recounts the many times he wanted to kill his father. “The truth is,” Dulton says, “I didn’t have a father. I had an enemy.” 

But Dulton did have a Father, one who set his heart on Dulton long before he was even born. Through the intentional love of a godly family, Dulton begins to experience something he could have never imagined - the love of the Father who delights in him; the Father who redeems, heals, and forgives. And that love enabled Dulton to forgive his father for all the pain he had caused him.

In the past, Dulton wanted to destroy his mirror, because he would see the scars and remember the pain. “But now,” he says, “I want to look. I want to see my scars. I want to let them remind me of who I was, so that I remember who I really am - I am a free man!”

Today, Dulton is a husband and father of two. They serve at a school as parents to a house full of girls who have been through the same kind of pain Dulton endured; and they are sharing with them the same love that brought healing to his heart and set him free.

PAUL KUSUUBIRA| A NEW IDENTITY

A journey from orphanhood to sonship

When Paul loses his parents, his whole world crumbles. Still haunted by traumatic memories of Uganda’s civil war, and now an orphan who is alone in the world with no one to turn to, the questions burn in his heart: “Who am I? Why am I even here?”

But God is a Father to the fatherless, and through miraculous circumstances and the intentional love of godly mentors, Paul comes to the realization that he had never been alone. God had been loving him and walking with him every step of the way; and He is inviting Paul into a new identity as a beloved son of God. It soon becomes clear that not only is He calling Paul to be His child, but He is calling him to give his life to lead others into God’s family as well.



Paul is a husband, a father of five, and a pastor in a village near where he grew up. He shares the love of God and the hope of the Gospel, calling lost and broken people to find their home in the heart of the Father. He is also the director of a pastoral training program that has equipped hundreds of village pastors to be godly, Christ-centered leaders of their ministries and their families.

FRANCIS MUGWANYA | CREATED FOR A PURPOSE

A journey from despised to designed

Polio strikes at age 3, leaving Francis unable to walk. For years, he has to crawl on his hands and knees in the dirt just to get around. He is mocked and scorned by a society that considers him to be cursed and of no value at all. And he believes the lies.

But then Francis encounters the Father who has a much different view of him. He discovers through God’s word that He had knit Francis together in his mother’s womb; that he was created in the image of God and chosen and loved as God’s own child; that he is not useless, but complete in Christ and created by the Father for a unique purpose.



 That understanding changed his life forever, and the Lord immediately gave him a burden to share this love and truth with disabled people throughout Uganda. Francis established The Father’s Heart Mobility Ministry, which has enabled him, along with his wife and children, to give wheelchairs to over 25,000 disabled people all over Uganda. And many of them have received new life as beloved sons and daughters of God through Jesus Christ.

MERCY MWEBE | COMING HOME TO THE FATHER

A journey from unwanted child to beloved daughter

By the age of seven, Mercy has tried to commit suicide three times. She is passed from one family member to another. She is often brutally beaten by her auntie, and told regularly that she is stupid, a burden, unwanted and useless. She longs for her father, thinking that if he was there, things would be better.

But her father doesn’t even know her name. And when he does come home, things only get worse. Every day, he tells her that he hates her and he wishes they had aborted her. “I just wanted my father to love me,” she says. “I just wanted him to call me his daughter.”

Then she meets her real Father. At a university discipleship training, she discovers the overwhelming power of the Gospel and the truth of God’s love for her. She comes to know that God is her Father. He knows her name. And He longs for her to come home to Him. 

He gives Mercy a new heart, and immediately she is filled with a desire for her dad to know this love, too. Soon after this, he gets in a car accident, and Mercy goes home to care for him. Through her tangible acts of love, the Lord reveals His heart to her father. He surrenders his life to Christ, and becomes a completely new man who tells Mercy that he loves her and calls her his daughter.

Mercy has a burden for girls whose stories are like hers; and she seeks them out and freely shares the love of the Father with them, so that they can find their home in the heart of God.