I hope you enjoyed Caleb's last blog update. He's keeping us all laughing. The sports tournament was a lot of fun but we did have a bit of tension as one of the boys team did have players that did not go to their school. After being disqualified they decided to protest and the coach had signs made up and they went to the soccer field and protested. After refusing to leave and delaying the tournament the police were brought to the field. The coaches were talked to and the players left allowing the fun to continue. It's sad that such behavior and cheating is common here in Uganda especially when financial gain is at stake.

The participation of the local Muslim school was a great sign that the tournament is accepted as a fun event for all no matter your religion. Miles and I befriended the Muslim girls netball team with a bottle of Coke and felt like we were making a commercial of how Coke can make friends. Before the tournament started I was able to address all of the teams, coaches, referees, and visitors with a message based on the Apostle Paul's analogy about sports and fighting the good fight for an eternal prize. The highlight of the tournament was the championship game for boys soccer between Fountain and the school from Kongo which was a rematch from last year's championship. After a 0-0 game the final was decided by penalty kicks with Kongo winning 4-3. Crowds surrounded the field and stormed in celebration ending in a dance festival up at the school. Like last year, the winning school took home a bull - yes a bull as in cattle. In this culture this is quite a prize and the team ends up having a big bar-b-que.

As for the part that Caleb stated was censored he was speaking of our events on Monday. We had arranged a meeting with a local witch doctor to better understand this aspect of the culture. The witch doctor's name was Emmanuel - yes that's a Christian name - and his son was the first convert to Christianity in Bukeeka from Robert's outreach efforts. Additionally, he lives next door to the school and his father sold us the land for the school. I then realized that Emmanuel was the son that attempted to forge land ownership documents and force us to pay him for the land. The issue was eventually dropped when police showed up in Bukeeka looking for him in conjunction with human sacrifices. He fled Bukeeka for two years and recently returned to his home. The interview should be interesting.

With all eight of us plus Pastor Robert plus Emmanuel's son Elisha coming to the interview we were a bit overwhelming but it was a privilege that foreigners would want to visit him. Knowing his background and previous dealings I wasn't surprised by the interview and personally feel he was lying quite a bit to make his profession and witch craft look good. In fact, he made statements such as the spirits he communicates with are good and the highest level one is actually the Holy Spirit. He see's no problem with attending church and seeking advice and offering sacrifices to the spirits. He claims that all spirits are good but had trouble explaining why spirits would torment people. He claims that only bad witch doctors do bad things but that the spirit itself is good. The more we asked him questions the more we realized he didn't know or wasn't as educated as we thought and the more he contradicted himself and his own beliefs. He also told us that the spirits were on the same level as Jesus. When Miles told him that the one sure way to cofirm that a spirit is from God and is good is to ask the spirit to confess that Jesus is Lord. He laughed and said that wasn't necessary as he knows they are good - basically he avoided the question and knew the spirits wouldn't confess Jesus.

After two hours of talking, Pastor Robert finally told us that Emmanuel was getting tired of our questions and should go. Afterward, Elisha thanked us for talking to his father and said that this was the first time his father had publicly stated he loves his son. Elisha also shared with us that his father is blackmailing him by offering to help pay for college only if Elisha comes and worships his spirits. In the end, Emmanuel has been taken in by demons and he's chosen to follow a false God.

In the end, people here use the services of witch doctors for two things: either to ask for advice or help with things such as healing, financial success, marriage issues, etc. The witch doctor consults the spirits and then tells the person what to do and then to offer something to the spirits for their advice or help in making things come true. The second thing a witch doctor may be used for is to affect a situation or do something to someone else - such as something bad. This was what we found with our second visit of the day to Shamimu's house. The witch doctors act as the intermediary to the spirit world.

Shamimu is a sponsored child who had withdrawn from school while in 6th grade because "the demons had not allowed her to attend school". We had told her father we would like to come and talk to her and see what could be done with the situation. We arrived to find that her family was a Muslim family and her father had posters on his wall addressing how a witch doctor should behave. According to Pastor Robert the father was actively involved with witch doctors as well. We were welcomed into the family's house and Shamimu came in somewhat shyly. We spoke about her situation and she explained that she'd rather go to technical school to learn how hairstyling. I asked her to look my in the eyes and found that she had something bothering her and she couldn't keep eye contact for long without looking away. She was also the only person in the family who had accepted Christ and been baptized. She stated that the demons attacks had become worse after her baptism. At school, when she would try to read school books her eyes would water and she couldn't focus and read anything. She felt ashamed.

Eventually, she requested to speak to Sara, Robert's wife, alone. Afterward Sara shared with us that Shamimu wasn't comfortable talking in front of her father because he was the one behind her troubles. He continually gave her chores to do that kept her away from coming to church and had his brothers (Shamimu's uncles) cast spells and send the demons to attack her. She wanted to come back to school but thought that coming to the boarding house would be the best to keep her away from her family's influence. Sara will go back and speak to the father without all eight of us present. For now, we're praying for Shamimu and that she'll be able to overcome the difficulties she's facing both spiritually and physically with her family. While her father spoke the words we wanted to hear such as supporting Shamimu's decision to go to church and that she should be in school, Robert felt that he was outright lying to us. Again, cultural accepted actions especially for Muslim who use witch doctors.

Monday night Miles and I headed out to spend the night in the bush with a local family. That story will have to wait until the next blog as it's time to go to bed! John