MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-30-2012

Greetings! We had a great trip down to Rwanda. We stopped in at Kabale near the border for lunch, then made the border crossing without a hitch. You drive from Mbarara about two-and-a-half hours to the border, and then it’s about 80 km from the border to the capitol city of Kigali. Driving through the mountains to Kigali is beautiful.

Kigali

You drive on the right, like America, and the roads are in pristine condition (unlike Uganda’s roads, which are more like something from a post-nuclear landscape). You wind through the mountains on your way there, and it reminded me quite a bit of traveling through West Virginia. They call Rwanda the land of a thousand hills, and that it is. I don’t think there’s a flat place anywhere in the whole country. We drove from the northern border to the southern border in a little over 4 hours, on excellent roads the whole way. This country, about the size of Maryland, has a population of 11,689,696, of which 900,000 live and work in Kigali (the actual state of Maryland has a population of 5,828,289). AIDS here has had a catastrophic effect, much like everywhere else in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1994, as you know, the Hutu Power movement launched a program of state-sponsored genocide in which a million Tutsi tribesman (three quarters of the Tutsi tribe), men, women, children, even babies, were brutally murdered over the course of 100 days. We visited one of the largest mass graves, now a memorial and flower garden in Kigali, where over 250,000 Tutsi are buried. It was heartbreaking.

Nevertheless, the Rwandans have sought to bring unity and order to their society, and have crafted one of the most stable, orderly, clean, and efficient little African republics I have ever seen. Political corruption is nearly unheard of in Rwanda. Rule of law is enforced, and public monies are spent on their intended purpose, to dramatic effect. Cost of living is higher than Uganda, but a missionary could factor that in when raising support.

We spent a few days visiting with Gregg and Angela Schoof, FBMI missionaries who have been working in Kigali for 9 years. To my knowledge, they are the only Baptist missionaries in the entire country. Gregg began and maintains a Christian radio station here, which is reaching the entire city and beyond with the Gospel. Pray for laborers who can come and assist him. I’ll be taking my family down there for a visit soon so my six kids can play with his six kids (they were a hoot).

We had very productive meetings with the government officials who have authority to authorize new religious organizations within Rwanda. Their Parliament will be enacting legislation soon that will regulate this process. Pray this goes smoothly, and that BIMI will obtain the necessary permission to gain legal status in Rwanda. We have missionaries in the pipeline already, called of God to Rwanda and raising support to go there. We need more. Pray for laborers for this marvelous country.

We drove down to Butare, the second largest city in Rwanda. It is a university town up in the mountains about 30 km from the Burundi border. It was a beautiful, active place. I would go there in a heartbeat if God so desired. You could have ongoing ministry in the university to the 15,000 or so students there, who will become the professionals and leaders of their country. You could have an influence that ripples outward for decades to come. Additionally, it’s close to Burundi, so you could have a cross-border ministry to that country just like we do here in Mbarara. I intend to learn Kinyarwanda also, which I already need in the refugee camp. This will give me the ability to communicate there, and in Rwanda with any ministries we find ourselves involved.

Since we were so close, we decided to drop down into Burundi and visit the capitol city, Bujumbura. It is situated on the north shore of Lake Tanganyika, the world’s longest freshwater lake (420 miles long). We ate fresh mukeke (fish) at a dockside restaurant for lunch while hippos snoozed and grunted to each other nearby. On the way through the mountains, we observed this curious phenomenon: Klingons.

KlingonsPublic Transportation

As trucks would approach turns while climbing the mountains and slow down, pedestrians and/or cyclists would latch on to the back and ride the trucks all the way up the mountain and down the other side. This explains why all the males in Burundi have right arms that are six inches longer than the left (kidding!). On the downhill slope, they’d be zipping along at 80 or 100 km/h, with vehicles right behind them. Crazy, and kind of cool.

 

It takes two-and-a-half hours to make your way through the mountains, and then suddenly, it levels out into the Great Rift Valley and Bujumbura spread out below like a postcard. Awesome place. Again, another nation that needs laborers, for the harvest is ready. Pray the LORD will summon laborers here also.

Bujumburu

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a very positive, blessedly uneventful (thank you for praying) five day tour of some of the other Great Lakes nations in East Africa. The fields are prime, the area is stable, and the whole region is wide open for missionaries. Pray God will send many laborers, so many more in East Africa may be saved.

Pray for us here. We are having difficulties with our landlady. She is being stubborn, not wanting to honor our 5-year contract, which fixes the cost of rent for the whole period. She also does not wish to allow us to take the cost off of the rent for the many, many improvements which were necessary to complete her rough, ugly, undeveloped property. In two years, we have made it into a park. However, as do many Ugandans, she is suffering from MIM, or Money Induced Madness. The dollar signs in her eyes are distorting her sense of reality. Honestly, how many tenants come into a place and progressively and consistently improve it in every way? Certainly none I’ve ever had in our place in America. So, instead of simply being able to come to an amicable arrangement like two adults, she’s being childish and petty. Now I’m going to have to get a lawyer and make her see reason. If she will not, we may have to move, which we REALLY don’t want to do. Please pray this can be resolved in a way that benefits us, with minimal complications and cost, and allows us to remain here.

In addition (because, you know, we can’t have just a few problems), the tenant who was going to rent our place in the States lost her job (naturally), and cannot rent our home. This means we are continuing to have to pay for two houses, one here and one there. We cannot long continue doing this. We are going to reach the point where we can no longer afford to live here if it does. Please pray we will either get the house sold, or find a reliable, gainfully employed tenant within the month.

God bless you!