All our adventures as missionaries, past and present.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 09-18-2020

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Howdy! I hope everybody is doing well wherever you are in this, the sixth month of “14 days to flatten the curve.”

Unfortunately, I have no good news on the Uganda lockdown situation. Earlier this month, a recommendation was made to the Ugandan President Museveni to open up schools and the airport on October 1. I waited a couple weeks to see if he would do it and… nothing. He has gone radio silent. No word at all.

So the old lockdown protocols are still in effect. No school. No church. Borders are closed to regular international and domestic travel. Curfew in effect from 2100h-0530h daily. Nothing has changed.

As it stands now, I am planning on staying here at least through the election. I have not voted in person for a Presidential election since 2008, and I wish to do so for this one. I have concerns about civil unrest following President Trump’s massive landslide victory, and wish to be here to protect my family if things get ugly, as we live close to St. Louis City. The irony is that before the Scamdemic locked everything down we were planning to come back in February in case the election in Uganda turned violent. I can no longer think of my country as an advanced nation that has free and fair elections. Thank you for that Democrats.

Meanwhile, I am prepping some doctrines courses to put to work when we get back. I am still ready to get the church building rebuilt at Isanja and the new library building at Ngarama. There are other projects of equal importance for which I lack funding. They will remain undone unless I have sufficient money for materials and labor. Pray about helping us. I have half of what is needed for all projects.

Pray for our churches in Uganda. They are still on lockdown. Pray for our people, for their health, physical, mental and spiritual. The United States is sending new rations to refugees there, as the UN has cut funding to our people because of the Scamdemic.

Recent changes in immigration policy pretty much guarantees that none of our refugees will ever leave there, or make it to America if they do. This is the unfortunate result of the criminal behavior of Democrats in our own country who want to flood our country with poor, easily manipulated illegal immigrants from countries that hate America, while rejecting the excellent highly educated refugees who love America and want to become Americans. So now nobody gets to come in.

This is particularly discouraging to my friend and co-laborer Pastor Zizi, who’s sister and mother made it to America under Obama, but have now been stranded in bureaucratic limbo due to these changes. He is frantic with worry for his mother who is in poor health, but cannot go to her to care for her because he is stuck in Uganda.

And we are stuck here. 

Quite the year we’re having, isn’t it?

Thank you for praying for us. Pray for America. Pray for Uganda.

God bless you.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 07-24-2020

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Good morning! Since the pandemic has the world locked down, probably unnecessarily, and since changes come suddenly and with little warning, it is necessary to update you all more often. 

We are still on standby in America, awaiting the reopening of the Ugandan border. As of today, Entebbe airport is still closed to international travel. The only exception is special diplomatic flights that are being run to let foreign nationals return to their home countries, or to allow Ugandan citizens trapped overseas to return to Uganda. KLM, the airline where we had bought tickets to fly home on April 1, has cancelled all regular flights to Uganda for the foreseeable future. There is no indication of when this will change. 

Uganda has hit its peak for cases, and is keeping a tight lid on travel across its borders. I do not know how long this will persist. I hate to make predictions, because it is impossible to know with certainty how long our exile will last.

In any case, schools and churches are still closed in Uganda. A curfew from 1900 – 0630 remains in effect. Travel within the country has eased slightly, but is still very restricted. So even if we were there, our ability to minister would be greatly hindered.

I am doing what I can to support the works there while we await clearance to return. We have sent money to help the refugees purchase food. Their rations have been cut due to reduced funding. 

When church resumes, I will begin recording audio sermons and lessons to send to the Pastors to encourage and support the churches.

When we are finally permitted to enter the country, my plan is to immediately commence work on the new church building at Isanja. While that is constructing, I will get bookshelves made for the Christian school at Ngarama and get books into the classrooms. When the work at Isanja is complete, the next step will be to construct the new library building. I will also have electricity run to the building for lighting. Then all the books can be transferred into the new building, and the library project will finally be complete. If there is sufficient funding remaining, I will get water tanks installed at Ngarama and Kabazana to assist the church members there with clean water.

That will probably be all I can accomplish with the money we raised during this furlough before the lockdown. I still need to refurbish the Kabazana church building. I need to rebuild our Sangano pastor’s house, as it has collapsed. I need to refurbish the Sangano building. Additionally, I need to build a larger sanctuary there. It may be possible to do both as one job. If this is not possible, then I will need to rebuild that structure entirely. I will need an additional $20,000-$30,000 to complete these projects. These are critical projects. Our ministry, as well as the health and well-being of our church members, hinges on getting these done as expeditiously as possible when we are allowed to return.

Anna and I are looking forward to resuming our various ministries, and to expand the work into new areas. We are going to focus on men’s and women’s ministries, in addition to our regular church, Sunday school, and children’s ministries. Anna has raised money with her book sales to buy sewing machines to aid the school at Sangano with making their own school uniforms, and also provide a means to teach a trade to those wanting to learn tailoring. 

As it stands right now, there will be at least another two months of lockdown, possibly longer depending on whether cases continue to increase.

Pray for us. Pray for our churches and our people. Pray the government there will allow religious services in the country to resume soon. Pray that the low number of cases across Africa remains low. Pray for the health and the safety of church members while this lockdown keeps them in their homes, exposed to malaria, dirty water, and insufficient nourishment.

CORRECTION and a Small Update

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Greetings! I have fresh information and a correction on the lockdown situation in Uganda. First the correction. Ugandan churches and schools are still closed. I misunderstood a report from one of my pastors there. They are meeting in small groups for worship, but official church (meeting in the actual buildings) is still forbidden. 

The President is allowing taxis to move around, and has increased the number of passengers to 4. The airport in Entebbe is still closed. Ugandan nationals were going to be allowed to return, but the President has again extended that by two weeks. At this point, there is no indicator when non-citizens like us will be allowed to return home.

I sent money to help our folks with food during the lockdown. They bought approximately 1.5 tons of rice and distributed it amongst our members. They will likely need more in the future. If you would like to help with that, and decide to send anything for that purpose, make sure you mark it accordingly.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 06-08-2020

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Greetings! I think 2020 is going to go down as one of the most bizarro years in recent memory. Not much has changed since the last update. Uganda is still on lockdown. We are still in America, waiting for the government there to open their borders again. We have heard conflicting news from President Museveni. Either they are opening the border to some foreign travel on June 26, or the border remains closed until there’s a vaccine for the fake pandemic. It is currently unclear. In any case, KLM is not flying to Uganda at all right now, and there is no indicator when they plan to resume flights. So here we are.

In more local news, our sons have finished their first year of college, and are home working hard earning money for next semester. We are enjoying this unexpected extension of our time in America to be with our children. We were fully expecting to have to leave them back on April 1, but those plans were changed, obviously.

In Uganda, our people have been enduring Uganda’s strict stay-at-home orders. Churches were cancelled until this past weekend. Schools are still closed. I have sent relief to them to purchase food and medicine. The cost of medicine has increased due to scarcity. Ditto for food. Pray for our churches and for the country of Uganda.

I succeeded in raising money for several projects, but we didn’t reach all of our goals. If you were still wanting to help with that, we could very much use it. The moment I get back I want to start rebuilding our church buildings and constructing the new library building. I still need about $20,000 in order to do all the projects that were outstanding when we left last June.

Since we have been unavoidably detained for the foreseeable future, and now that the Wuhan Flu hysteria is starting to subside, if you would like a visit from me in the next month or two, let me know and I will see what I can do. Or, Zoom, since the China virus taught us that Zoom is also a viable option. I can still be reached at 314-915-8164.

Thanks for praying for us. I am praying for all of you as your various municipalities begin to allow the 1st amendment to function again, and, possibly you may be facing some civil unrest too. I expect locusts, volcanic eruptions and meteors will strike at any moment. 🙂

God bless you!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-01-2020

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Greetings, fellow China flu combatants! 2020 is shaping up to be quite a year, isn’t it?

Today was the day we were to fly back home to Uganda. We had our tickets bought. We had wrapped up a busy schedule of meetings in churches, working hard to raise more support, raise money for building projects, and then get ourselves back to Uganda and get to work. God clearly had other plans.

Within three days it all changed. We had just returned to Missouri from the hot zone in Florida. We were prepping for the flight, with one last missions conference in Texas lined out for last week. We were going to be quite busy preparing to leave. And then we heard that Pensacola Christian College was possibly closing. Then it did close and our boys were coming home early. Then flights started re-routing. Then Uganda closed its borders. And here we are.

We are in America for the foreseeable future. I do not know how long. It will probably be June. Africa got to the party late, so their peak is going to hit late, and they are ill-prepared to deal with it. I hope it doesn’t get bad, but it might. And when it does, it is going to extend the shutdown for perhaps months. We are monitoring the situation, but as you well know, things change from day to day, sometimes hour to hour.

We are in fine shape. We are weathering this temporary setback like millions of other Americans. We are attending pajama church on Sundays like all of you. We are trying to stay busy. We are enjoying the break, and spring time in Missouri. We are enjoying more time with our sons before we go back.

Pray for our churches in Uganda. The Ugandan government has put their whole country on lockdown. Travel is severely restricted. Flights in and out are grounded. They aren’t allowed to have church. Our people have enough problems without the threat of the Wuhan Flu on top of it. I can’t send them money to help with problems, because even if I did they would not be permitted to go anywhere to buy anything. It’s a tricky situation. The saving grace in all this for Africa is that this Made in China Plague is vulnerable to heat and sunshine, of which Africa has plenty. And it is killed by malaria meds, which most Africans are already taking. Pray it does not spike.

Pray for our missionary friends who are trapped in Uganda and can’t get out. Pray for the health of the nation. Pray the crisis passes and that deaths will be minimal. Pray for America.

God bless you. Stay safe. Stay healthy.