MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 03-16-2023

Greetings!

THE PAPERWORK SAGA

Since the last prayer letter, I got Anna’s Dependent’s Pass and Brennah’s Student’s Pass completed. It went off without a hitch. After seven months of struggling to get my Work Permit renewed, once I had that their passes took 48 hours to complete. Thank you for praying.

Then I started in on renewing my Ugandan driver’s license. In the past, you could drive around on your American driver’s license, but they changed some laws to restrict this, and police have been cracking down. I never get harassed on the way to the refugee camp, but going to Kampala, in the very rare instances I have to go, they are legion. So I decided to renew.

My old license expired back in 2017. I never bothered renewing because I didn’t really NEED to back then, plus they closed our license office in Mbarara (we have a lovely new Ugandan Drivers License System office now). There was no way I was going to Kampala just for that. Time went on, and of course COVID happened, so now I get ready to renew and it’s been six years. I thought I needed to do a Foreign Driver’s License Exchange, given how long my license had lapsed. As it turns out, you remain in Uganda’s licensing system I think until the heat death of the universe.

I actually needed to RENEW, but they require the old license. I was pretty sure I had pitched it. They require you, if your license is lost or stolen, to put an announcement in the local paper about it. The police need to see this, then you pay a fee (who knows how much that would wind up being), get a letter from the police stating the license was lost, and then you can proceed to the next step. Fortunately, Anna had kept it and tucked it away. So I dodged that bullet.

Next step I had to go to the Inspectorate of Vehicles (their version of the DMV) to take the sign test and a driving test. I had to actually register with one of our town’s local driving schools, sit for a class, then go in to the IOV to take their tests. That was fun.

I had to wait a couple weeks for them to send the result into Kampala and generate a Certificate of Competency, then go back in to the UDLS to try once again to complete the process.

Now I find out that when they put my information in WAY BACK in 2014, they entered my birthdate for the date of issue by mistake, AND they won’t correct it in their system without a letter from the DMV in Missouri. So now, I have to fill out the form from the Missouri DMV to request a Clearance Letter stating the original date of issue for my American license, track down a lawyer in our town here to notarize it, send that in, and wait an additional week for them to send me the result.

I finally got my letter, went back to the UDLS once again, and they begin processing it. I had to sit there for three hours while the people in Kampala took their sweet time updating their database. Then, they balked at the payment. I have paid twice at this point. First for the exchange, which was wrong. Then for the renewal, but using the Tax ID Number for our NGO. Since it was in the name of the NGO, and not in MY name, they wouldn’t accept it.

Now I have to go to my bank, where I waited for over an hour because the lady responsible for generating payments with the URA (the Ugandan Revenue Authority, their version of the DOR) had gone to lunch, and finally paid a THIRD time, this time in my name, not the NGO.

I went back to the UDLS, and finally got everything processed, and received my temporary license. I went to the URA on Tuesday to fill out more forms to get refunded on the two erroneous payments. Then I went back by the UDLS yesterday and finally had my brand spanking new Ugandan drivers license, after a month of effort.

This is typically how doing ANYTHING with Uganda’s labyrinthian bureaucracy always goes.

At last, after all this time, every single thing has been renewed, everything that was switched off has been restored, and we are fully plugged into Uganda. Now we are free to travel if we need to, and to come back to America without being hassled by customs agents (hired goons).

PRAYER NEEDS

Be in prayer. Anna and I have been spending extra time out at the camp teaching classes for the ladies (Anna) and the men (me), using Titus 2 as our template. This has allowed us to deal with problems that have been disturbing our church members for some time. Ugandans have to learn to obey the Bible and how to make their marriages healthy as much or more than Americans do. We deal with a lot of abuse here. I am convinced this is why the Apostle Paul commands men to regard their wife as their own body, and and to care for her, because of cultures where beating your wife is allowed.

We have the added wrinkle of the United Nations promoting homosexual behavior and other godless heathen perversion to our refugees. On top of all this, there is a Pentecostal cult here that teaches women how to be preachers (it’s a class – you get a certificate and everything). It is complete with fake miracles, howling like wild animals, casting out demons, and going into trances and convulsions to prophesy. It is pure paganism, but it targets women. So it has morphed into this weird, proto-feminist, pagan cult. Sort of like the Nicolaitans I suspect.

I have been directly teaching about spiritual warfare, so our people do not need to fear demons and witchcraft (we have actual witches here, many of them in the Pentecostal cult). Next I am going to have to speak out against the Pentecostal movement directly. They are paying people to come to their pagan temples by bribing them with food (people are hungry). Then they brainwash them with their false doctrine. They get sucked into their pagan worship services, which is easy to do because East African culture has only a thin veneer of “Christianity” over their old tribal pagan practices. It elevates women within the cult by giving them a platform via false miracles such as speaking in tongues, slaying in the “spirit”, and (false) prophesying. We still have a cabal of women, practicing witchcraft, and organized around the lady we had to cast out of the church over a year ago – our very own Jezebel. They have, I am told, tried to curse / poison me, but so far it has not worked – the Spirit of God in me is greater than he that is in the world.

I need your help. I need money to fix our car, and I need money to fix the motorcycle I bought for our deacons to use. We are leaving to come to America at the end of April, and they are going to need that to keep doing visits, and support our smaller churches who are struggling (we have had some shakeups in leadership due to sin). I need to fix my vehicle in the short term so I don’t wind up missing church due to car trouble, or worse, get stranded out at the camp.

The motorcycle needs an engine overhaul, or possibly a new engine. My car needs the 4WD repaired, and a myriad of other smaller issues fixed that have developed over the past month on the terrible roads we have to traverse – it’s the violent shaking that does it.

God bless and keep you. Thank you for praying!