MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 11-14-2011

Greetings and salutations! Work is progressing very well on the church building at Juru. Every time we go out there, I find that the wall is higher. This week, you could see the windows. Another three feet or so and they will have reached the roof. Meanwhile, they are constructing latrines at the other places. I remind them often that this time it needs to have a door and roof tall enough that 6'6" missionaries don't have to urinate stooped over.

The Genesis class I'm teaching is doing well. Last week, we studied Genesis 10, The Table of Nations. Even though much of our knowledge about the distant past is sketchy (we lost a LOT of ancient knowledge during the Dark Ages), the Bible provides unparalleled insight into how the nations formed and dispersed following the Flood. It was fascinating to them. It also provided a valuable opportunity to dispel a racist myth that has been viciously imposed upon African nations by their unwanted European colonizers – the curse of Ham. These people actually feel that their bloodline is cursed because of the curse directed at the Canaanites by Noah. The Europeans have used this to justify their wicked exploitation of the African continent. It's all a lot of white supremacist, racist garbage of course, but it is a very persistent belief.

I taught them the truth – the descendants of Ham are inferior to no one. Some of their tribes may have been enslaved by Shemites and Japhethites, and they were, but Noah was only prophesying what would happen, not declaring what should happen. In truth, the Bible only said that Ham's children would serve their cousins, and they would all serve each other, and this is certainly so. We know that the earliest exploration of the world was done by Hamites. Everywhere the Europeans went, much later, they found the children of Ham had arrived first. The earliest and some of the greatest civilizations were created by Hamites (Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, the Hittites, and possibly the Mongols, Chinese, and Amerindians). They developed the earliest forms of agriculture, masonry, and metallurgy, and taught that knowledge to all the others. The modern world would have never existed in its current form without the foundation laid by the children of Ham. Even now, for all their difficulties, they have such potential. What difficulties they do have are the product of sin, common to all of Noah's children, and not due to any mythical curse. Once their hearts belong to God, and the evils that human nature produces have been overcome, they can accomplish nearly anything. They don't have to feel inferior to white, Western cultures.

We preach. We teach. We admonish. We plant churches and train leaders, and through this, we can change the world. That' s what we're up to here in Uganda, and what missionaries are attempting to accomplish all over Africa, and around the world.

God bless you!