MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-09-2016

Good morning! We are doing well in Uganda. We are down to 10 weeks remaining before furlough, so it’s beginning to feel like being pressed into a funnel. Coming home on furlough is a massive undertaking, and requires a lot of organization and work to pull off. In a few weeks, we have to go to Kampala to renew Brennah’s passport. We also have loads of cleaning, organizing, packing, and some yard sales to do. Pray we can get it all done.

A few weeks back we had another wedding/baptism service. About once a quarter, I try to bring all the churches together for a joint service, whereupon we baptize all the folks what need baptizing, and also do any weddings that are needed. We baptized 20 this time, including a certain cutie pie mzungu I know, and I married two couples.

I have tried to encourage marriage wherever possible. Due to the nature of traditional weddings here, and the high cost of bride prices, couples very often flee from the village and simply live together. They live together long enough to have children, and to qualify for common law in the States. Also, a lot of times, you’ll have lawfully married people who have no documentation because they were married in the village, or they had to flee their home countries and all the records were lost. In some cases, the village where they were wed no longer exists due to war. So, I try to provide an inexpensive church wedding to whomever wants one, and the accompanying documentation to go with it. Many times we’ll have couples who are married, but they want to be married again in the church because they have been saved since then, or because they want a marriage certificate from us. I think we ought to do whatever we can to encourage people to marry, and to make the whole process as simple and as painless as possible.

The very next week, because we are gluttons for punishment, we did another Marathon VBS. As our regular readers know, we have VBS at each of the 4 preaching points, one after the other, for three days. As per usual, by the final day, we had over 600 children in attendance. We baptized a lot of children this time, and every time, and our ministry to children is the reason why.

Uganda had another “election”, during the VBS as it turned out. I know some of you worry, but you don’t need to. As predicted, it was not a problem. There were some shenanigans, as is typical of elections here, but no violence, apart from some clashes between supporters of the various political factions. At no time were we in danger. Pray for the government of Uganda, and the continued peace of the nation so we may continue to minister for Jesus Christ here.

My preaching through Galatians is nearly finished. I am going to start on the Church Constitution afterwards, and begin moving to get all the churches organized under a Constitution before we leave on furlough. Pray for the churches, and the church leadership.

After a year, I still do not have our NGO set up. The latest delay that the bureaucrats have crafted for our benefit is I have to make some changes to the Constitution and some of the other documents. Our local government in Mbarara delayed us so long, that the some of the laws have changed, and some of the organizational documents I made a year ago are no longer valid. Pray I’ll be able to get this all finalized before we leave in 10 weeks.

Thank you to everyone who has assisted me with leads for churches to contact and schedule meetings while in America. I am making good progress with the scheduling. I still have some gaps in the schedule to fill, so pray I’ll be able to get in touch with the right churches, and succeed in raising the support we need so we can remain on the field and keep doing God’s work here.

I am also making good progress towards our Savings goals for furlough. Thank you to everyone who has sent money to help with our travel expenses. We still have a ways to go, and I believe my church is still raising money for our Vehicle Fund. If anyone still wants to get involved with meeting these needs, you still have time.

God bless you all, and thank you for praying!