Learning, Loving, and Leaving

This morning we returned to the doorless, windowless, dirt floored, plank-sided school room in Buloba for worship, and were greeted warmly by Pastor Fred, his older brother, Pastor Benjamin, and a packed house of around 100 believers. In fact, when one elderly lady saw us come in the door she ran up and hugged us all! Once again we were amazed at the joy in the drumming, dancing and singing of praises by people who are so poor by our standards, but so rich in spirit. In addition to some adult praise leaders, a group of seven children sang and danced a song of greeting in English and then a song in Lugandan encouraging people to have faith.

After many greetings Pastor Ken preached a great sermon on passing along the faith to our children based on David’s words to Solomon in 1^st Chronicles. Then Bosco exhorted the people in their own language. We had been told that only one of us would preach, which made me glad as a sinus infection has given me an increasingly sore throat, but the next thing I knew Bosco was introducing me as the second preacher of the morning! I borrowed a Bible from Pastor Peter, opened it up to Matthew 16, and improvised a sermon similar to the one I had delivered in Ndolwa. One of the essential skills in any kind of mission adventure is to be flexible and ready for anything!

In addition to the joy of worship, we are so often struck by the love and gratitude of Ugandans, who again and again ask us to pass on the following message to our home congregations: “Thank you for loving us.” They are so encouraged by the thought of people in America praying for them, and so hungry for more knowledge of the Scriptures. In fact, one of Pastor Benjamin’s heartfelt hopes is that they can get some Lugandan Bibles so the people in the congregation can read the Scriptures themselves.

Following worship the congregation insisted that we join them for a meal, after which they were going out to evangelize their neighbors. We sat on school benches as we enjoyed the now familiar meal of matoke, rice, beef broth, chicken broth, and cooked greens. It gave us a chance to talk to Pastor Benjamin, in particular, who shared the congregation’s ambition to somehow buy land of their own nearby, where they can continue to serve and evangelize this very needy, predominantly Muslim village. At present they feel that they have no sense of permanence and are unable to put in place many of the programs they would like to since the school is owned and operated by a private citizen, but it would take around $5,000 for them to purchase an acre and a half of land to have a permanent home.

As we were preparing to leave we gifted both pastors and their wives with packages of the food staples we had prepared and waved to the congregation as we headed to our home base in Njeru. After unloading the van we also gifted Pastor Peter with a box of staples, then hugged and blessed him, as he goes into surgery this week to remove the polyps from his vocal cords and is very nervous, having never undergone any kind of surgery before. It was a tearful farewell, with many eyes leaking, as they say in Uganda.

Tonight we are tying up loose ends and getting packed, as we have to leave at 4 AM tomorrow so that I can get checked in for my 9:30 flight to London. Ken, Martha, Becca and Charlie will stay at a guest house in Entebbe, as they need to check in for their flight to South Africa the next morning at 5:30 AM.  

We are also considering everything that we will take with us in our hearts. To be sure we will not miss the pervasive sights of mud, trash, advertising and poverty, nor the continual sounds of crying children, chainsaw engines, livestock and traffic, nor the potent smells of smoke, diesel fumes, open latrines, and body odor, nor the rattling taxi rides down poorly maintained roads. But we will deeply miss the people we have come to know here: their bright smiles and gentle laughter, their generous hospitality, enthusiastic worship, persevering faith, and loving friendship.

Thank you to all of you who have supported us in your prayers and helped us to make this trip. We look forward to bringing back a portion of the love and learning we have received, and hope to return again as soon as the Lord wills it. Please also pray about coming to Uganda yourself in the future. It is not for the faint of heart, but it will change your life to experience how the LORD is at work among His people here.

Joy in Jesus,

Kirk and the 2013 Ugandan Mission Team

Worship and Witness in Ndolwa

This morning we woke up early at the guesthouse in Kamuli to get on the road back to Ndolwa. I was really hoping for a hot shower but the electricity went out, and what I thought was coffee was definitely something else, though I am not sure what! As we jolted along the road for an hour and a half to Ndolwa, I was reflecting on all the things we take for granted back home, not least of which are shock absorbers on our vehicles.

When we got to Ndolwa, however, all thoughts of deprivation were dismissed by the joyful singing and whole hearted dancing of the choir at True Worship Centre! As Martha said recently, “If there are corners in heaven, I want to be in the Africa corner!” The choir was sharply dressed in shirts and pants or dresses all made from the same brightly patterned green material, and as they sang they smiled and danced enthusiastically, with such expression in their bodies I could often get a sense of what they were saying even without understanding Lugandan. Anet, Pastor Godfrey’s wife, led the praise and at one point told the growing congregation “If you are not sweating, you are not yet worshiping Jesus with everything!”

While Pastor Ken and I stayed to preach at the all believers’ conference, Becca, Martha, and Charlie went out into the bush with Pastor Godfrey to bring food blessings to six impoverished families. The contrast between the praise of the believers and the poverty in which some of them live could not be starker. One woman, Esther, had been abandoned along with her eight children by her husband, and had then lost one of the children to disease. Another, Ani, suffers from some kind of mental illness, yet always makes it to church on Sunday. Bringing food blessings and praying with them seems such a small gesture, but it is so important that they know they are not forgotten.

The return of our outreach group was considerably delayed when a road hazard slashed one of the van tires, but Jawale expertly repaired and replaced it. We were again treated to lunch at Godfrey and Anet’s home, then we had to ‘hit the road,’ a very appropriate term for driving on this particular road. A live hen and a young goat rode home with us behind the back seat of the van, but were silent the entire trip, undoubtedly praying!

Thank you for your prayers, which have supported and sustained us!

Kirk and the Tired Travelers

 

Discernment and the Drive to Ndolwa

This morning we left early, as those who had been to Ndolwa before agreed that the road was really bad. They were not kidding! If you like roller coasters, you would love riding in Jawale’s decrepit Toyota van over and around the potholes and construction obstacles on this rocky red clay road! We stopped to check in and drop our bags at a guest house in Kamuli, an hour and a half from our destination but still the closest facility that could house all of us. Then we continued on through the same kind of bush country as en route to Nawaikoke, but drier, as there has been drought here in recent years.

When we arrived at Ndolwa we were warmly greeted by Pastor Godfrey and watched with great interest by the children of the school he has started in the rented warehouse where his congregation worships. Because our journey took longer than expected and the village men had not yet gathered, we walked through the small village to Pastor Godfrey’s house where we were treated to heaping platters of matoke, rice, and potatoes, with steaming bowls of cooked greens, chicken, and beef.

Following lunch we walked back to the church, where around a hundred men and women had now joined the school children. We did not have either the space or the personnel to deal with men, women, and children separately, so we made a quick decision that Becca and Martha would minister to the children, while I would improvise a sermon to instruct the adults for an hour! It went well, thanks to Pastor Robert’s dynamic translation, even though we lost our sound system for a while when a passing rain squall required the generator to be moved inside and restarted. Meanwhile Becca and Martha presented stories, songs, and games to around 180 children!

After the children were dismissed, Becca and Martha led the women in a discussion of the helpfulness of Dorcas and the importance of hygiene for healthy families. At the same time, around 40 village men, including several pastors and elders, met outside under a large tree with Pastor Ken, Pastor Robert and me for a question and answer time. Some of the pastors do not even have Bibles, and much of the rumors and fanatics who reach them are wildly untruthful, so we had a very challenging time helping them sort fact from fiction with regard to the Christian faith. We were also occasionally interrupted by the bellows of a colicky cow grazing a few meters away. It must have gone well, however, as the men invited me to come back and give a three day seminar next year, if possible, and after listening to our discussion one young man came forward desiring to become a Christian!

On the way back to Kamuli we drove through a rain storm, which turned the already difficult road into a series of muddy streams, puddles, and wash outs. Jawale got us through and to the guest house just in time for dinner, except that the storm had taken out the electricity and the final preparation of our food had to wait until a generator was started. After we finally ate, we were all really tired from the intense travel and teaching, so we turned in early in the hopes of getting another early start tomorrow.

Thanks for paving the way for us through your prayers. Sola balunji,

Kirk and the Rough Riders

Children and Challenges in Buloba

Happy Independence Day to our American friends! Today we prepared packed five sets of food staples to bless people with and headed out in Jawale’s van to Buloba. The church there meets in a school started four years ago by a Christian man named Henry, who greeted us as we pulled onto the property. Since the government does not subsidize education in Uganda, anyone can start a school, and Henry decided it would be a good use for his land. Though he has not been able to afford to build more than a pair of dirt floored, plank sided classrooms and has no books, he has ambitions to build permanent buildings, run electricity, and even get computers for the children. He had the children sing and dance for us, then gave a speech welcoming us and asking for support.

Two brothers, Benjamin and Fred, pastor the congregation meeting at the school and work as carpenters during the week. They were already believers when Pastor Robert became a Christian in 1997, so they helped him grow in his faith and encouraged him to lead the youth organization they had founded. They told us that Buloba is a village plagued by alcoholism, adultery, and illness made very resistant to the gospel due to the strong Muslim influence.

Pastor Ken and I saw the latter factors as we went out to bless people with the food staples we had brought. We visited a man with some undiagnosed illness, a pair of elderly women who became believers with one daughter but whose other daughter and granddaughter remained Muslim, and a very poor woman who said she wanted to know Christ but feared the response of her Muslim husband. Her son was lame from an infection on his foot so Pastor Peter gave him money for medicine. Then we visited a woman with no family left crippled by chigger bites on her feet, and a woman with a grandson suffering from meningitis who had no money to get him treated.

While we were out visiting homes, Martha and Becca shared stories, songs, and sweets with the children at the school, many of whom were also suffering from illnesses. After saying good-bye to the children we traveled to Robert’s home town to visit Bosco’s mother, who lives in Robert and Sarah’s first home, a building he and Jawale had built. The house is surrounded by Robert’s relatives and near the family cemetery, but Robert had moved away after his relatives persecuted him for refusing to help with pagan burial rituals after his conversion. Now, however, his success as a pastor has made him a hometown hero, and we visited his cousin Balam who is a believer and manages the facility at Fountain of Hope.

We walked to the nearby home of Pastor Fred and were treated to a wonderful lunch prepared by his wife Esther. Their infant daughter Angela Joy was unfortunately afraid of the muzungu ghosts who invaded her home and hid her face the whole time!

After lunch we went to Fountain of Hope, where I played peek-a-boo with some laughing children while Martha and Becca paid school fees for some of the sponsored students, then sorted out and privately delivered supplies and gifts the children had needed. As they were doing that a thunderstorm struck, which was welcomed as a blessing for the crops and a diversion for the kids! We lost electricity after the storm, but it just came back on in time for dinner back here in Njeru.

Tomorrow we will leave early for Ndolwa and we will stay in a guest house tomorrow night, as the potholed dirt roads make travel to the village difficult and time consuming. If you don’t hear from us tomorrow, no need to worry; it just means we may not have internet, or for that matter electricity!

Thanks, once again, for your prayers.

 
Kirk and the Friendly Ghosts

Counting the Cost in Jinja

Today we headed into Jinja to buy more food staples with which to bless families and supplies for some of the children at Fountain of Hope. Sarah again led us down a dusty, crowded alley to a Christian woman she knew who would give us the best price for huge bags of rice, beans, and sugar. She then worked the shop stalls and street vendors for some additional needs. At one shop she had negotiated a price of $1,500 USH each for some clothes hangers if she bought two, but as soon as she turned to ask Martha about it, the price suddenly changed to the “mzungu price” of $2,000 USH each. After that we kept a low profile while Sarah and Jawale bought supplies at fairer prices. 

Martha had recovered from the fever she had yesterday and insisted that I accompany her, Becca, and Sarah to do some more shopping in a huge warren of tarp covered, rickety wooden stalls called the central market. There were hot, dirty, open air stalls selling an amazing array of fruits, vegetables, seeds and flours in one section, fish in the next, and animal parts in another. In spite of her recovery, Martha seemed a little faint as we passed the stomach and intestines section! When we got to the clothing stalls we found seamstresses at work on heavy old sewing machines doing alterations and making clothes to order from new cloth along with all sorts of used clothing, much of it bought in bulk bundles from US thrift stores and collection boxes.

After shopping for supplies we headed to the more upscale “mzungu section” of the city.  There a lady from one of Robert’s congregations gave us fair prices on souvenir items. It was actually a bit of a shock to see white people not part of our team for the first time in over two weeks, especially a few I noticed spending money with abandon, practically buying out the entire stock of one store. No wonder so many Ugandans automatically assume mzungus to be extremely rich.

After lunch we had the wonderful opportunity to visit the home of our driver, Jawale, and his family. He cares for eight children of his own, six grandchildren, and two orphans, on his taxi driving fares, in a tiny brick home built in two days. His wife helps by raising four cows, six goats, chickens, bananas, and other crops in their small back yard. Robert grew up with Jawale’s wife and the two men were both observant Muslims who spent a year arguing with Christian evangelists, until Robert converted to Christianity. Jawale remained Muslim, but they remain friends and Robert continues to pray for and witness to Jawale. Though our team filled Jawale’s front room so completely that he and his family had to sit outside, they insisted on treating us to sodas, avocados, and some incredibly sweet, flavorful bananas. We then brought out the gifts we had brought, sacks of beans, rice, four and sugar, which delighted his entire family.

This evening we decided to celebrate our day off by eating American food at a restaurant with Robert, Sarah, Jawale, Bosco, Steven, and Cedric. The food was quite good—burgers, sandwiches, and milkshakes—though all the food we have had here has been good, and a better reason for choosing the restaurant was that the American couple who started it use it to fund charitable organizations through which they serve in Uganda.

Cedric is a friend of Robert’s from Kenya who now teaches as an adjunct instructor at the seminary where they met in Jinja. He has a strong love of and call to teaching Biblical theology, especially in rural areas where pastors have very little training or background in the Bible, but is torn by the fact that he must leave his family back in Kenya to teach for months at a time, and when he returns to them they can’t make ends meet on an adjunct’s salary. I really empathized with him and am praying his situation changes, as he has such a passion for equipping pastors but also loves his family deeply.

Well, we just experienced a fairly pronounced earthquake here, which I will take as a sign that it is time to go to bed. As I do I am praying for those whose mud, brick, and stick shelters may not have withstood the tremors as well as the house where we stay did.

Thanks, once again, for your prayers.

 
Kirk and the Shakedown Crew

Beauty and Blessings in the Bush

This morning we left early for the long drive to Nawaikoke and Kafundakire, a small town and even smaller village in "the bush." The term is misleading if it raises images of sparsely populated, arid land overrun with wild animals. Here in eastern Uganda it means a poor, rural region far from major cities, but still fairly populated with people, cows, goats, and chickens. The trip took us from a two lane highway to a one lane paved road to a rocky, red dirt road, passing beautiful, lush, green fields of corn, sugar cane, sweet potato, and rice, with banana, jack fruit, and many other flowering and fruiting trees. As we went along we noticed more and more traditional housing in the form of round, thatch roofed huts, and as we approached our destination we crossed swamplands with marsh grass, water lilies, and papyrus. A flatbed truck passed us loaded with fishermen, indicating our close proximity to Lake Kyoga.

At Nawaikoke we met Pastor Fred and got to see the siding that our congregation funded to enclose his congregation’s pole structure and protect them from the elements. Fred had also started a school with forty students in the building. Martha had stayed home at Njeru with a fever and headache, so Becca had help from Sarah and Irene as she taught the children . This was a very quiet group, perhaps because they were much less familiar with mzungus than other children we have encountered. They had limited English, and their Lugandan was a different dialect from Sarah’s. Still, they were very polite: smiling, clapping in unison, and thanking Becca after each section of the lesson. They especially lit up when Becca brought out the universal languages of sweets and small toys!

At Kafundafire we waited while people came in from the fields and served as a novelty for people of the village to watch and discuss. Our advance team of Bosco, Philip, and Pastor Peter had set up a generator, sound system, and keyboard in the church building, which turned out to be a shelter of tree branches lashed together with an old, holey orange tarp overhead and sides made of sown together flour sacks. Before long the congregation had gathered and was singing praise songs that could be heard throughout the village.

After being seated in plastic patio chairs on the packed dirt platform, we were introduced to the congregation. We also met the young mayor of the village and Pastor Fred’s father Wycliff, who serves as volunteer pastor of the congregation, since it is 16km away from Nawaikoke. Pastor Ken then preached on Elijah and how God strengthens us when we feel we cannot go on. Pastor Robert translated and followed up, then I preached on how Jesus’ defiance of Herod revealed his courage and care for us. Pastor Robert invited people forward for prayer, and we were concerned about a woman who brought forward a very sick baby with skin infections visible on both its face and arm. Medical help is neither available nor affordable for bush people, so even Christians are tempted to turn out of desperation to witch doctors, thought their treatments make the situation worse.

Fortunately, we had brought a gift for Pastor Fred: his own boda-boda, to enable him to travel between his job, the two congregations, and the homes of his people. Our hope is that it also will allow Fred to meet needs such as taking people to get medical help. He was completely surprised, and his congregation was thrilled with the gift.

After the service we were treated to a delicious lunch of potatoes, sweet potatoes, chapate, chicken, and beef excellently prepared by the poor congregation. We then piled back into Jawale’s van for the long drive home under a dramatic, rainy sky.

Tomorrow we will be heading into town to prepare some more surprise blessings, but first we need sleep! Thanks for your continued prayers,

 
Kirk and the Surprise Committee

Updated Plans, Praise, and Propaganda

Today we had planned to go to Nawaikoke, but the taxi drivers had shut down the main roads and were threatening to stone vehicles carrying passengers in protest of excessive traffic fines recently enacted by the government, so we decided to play it safe and stay home. Pastor Robert does not think the drivers can afford to strike a second day, so we are planning to travel to both Kafundakire and Nawaikoke tomorrow, perhaps splitting into two teams to minister at both places in a single day.

We spent our time packaging blessings of food staples and hygiene supplies to distribute as we have opportunity later in the week. We also had fun singing through two books of Christian worship music a donor had sent to Sarah. Pastor Robert brought over the one guitar shared by his congregation and Fountain of Hope School. It had one string missing and all the rest were heavily corroded, so after lunch I set about restringing it with strings Sarah had bought in Kampala. After tuning the guitar we rigged a shoestring to attach the strap and cut some picks out of an old credit card so that I could use it to accompany our singing. I had talked to a couple of student musicians at the sports tournament over the weekend, including the Congolese student who plays the guitar. They eagerly asked if we could find some musicians to come teach them to play “American style” worship songs and help them get an electric guitar, bass, and other instruments for their worship team.

We also spent some time today in the sitting room watching the news and reading a Ugandan newspaper. It was striking to me how much American news Africans get, in contrast to how little African news Americans get. Aljazeera was reporting on the tragic death of the 19 firefighters in Arizona, the drought in many American states, and the Snowden debacle, but I am sure no American media picked up the 30 people killed and 29 hospitalized in a fuel tanker collision and explosion here in Uganda.

Of course, President Obama’s visit to South Africa was also big news here, though Pastor Robert told me that many Christian pastors consider Obama to be the anti-Christ, having learned from American evangelicals that Obama-care will require all people to have the mark of the beast in the form of microchips inserted into their hands. Pastor Robert seems to find such paranoid propaganda somewhat amusing, but I find it terribly embarrassing. I wonder what part of “not bear false witness” some of my countrymen don’t understand.

Tonight we will relax and prepare for an early start tomorrow. Thanks for your prayers!

Kirk and the Sitting Roomers