MISSION: Uganda Blog Post 06-29-2017

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Greetings! My wife, Anna’s, blog posts pretty well sum up the chaos and confusion of international travel. They are worth reading if you want a more detailed view of what missionaries deal with just getting back to the field. It’s a madhouse!

The last month before the big trip is intensely stressful. We spent a lot of time getting packed, re-packed, re-re-packed, and so forth until Anna got us drilled down to the maximum amount of luggage allowed, and a couple extra pieces. Having done this before, we are both well aware of all the many, many things that can go wrong. You wind up lying awake worrying about the pending disaster that could be yours for the low, low price of just 8 plane tickets!

Thank you all so much for praying! This trip went very smoothly. We managed to get all our luggage to Chicago by train, then from there by plane to Uganda with nothing lost, stolen, or damaged. I am amazed by how well it all went. The good people of Northwest Bible Baptist Church in Elgin, IL went above and beyond the call of duty, helping us get from the train station to the college where we would be staying over the weekend, then from there to the airport on Monday to begin our long journey to Uganda. The ticket agents with Delta were awesome. They only charged us for three of our overweight bags. I was anticipating much more, but with one act of kindness, they saved us a lot of money. The TSA in Chicago, as always, were professional and helpful. They opened everything I expected they would, but zip tied all the bins, and taped everything well.

Ssemuko brought us our new and improved Land Cruiser. I had saved enough money to be able to get a new engine put in, the 4WD fixed, and a myriad of other things repaired or replaced. It looks like a new car. Drives like one, too! Thank you everyone who helped with this unavoidable, necessary expense.

We are finally plugged back in, over jet lag, and living in a clean house. I have at last done all the many maintenance tasks that needed doing after our return, and we are settling back into the work well. It is such a blessing to be back, and busy with the ministry once again.

The week we got back, our female dog was in heat, and as a consequence, our male dog was more aggressive than normal. He attacked our youngest son, Gaelin, and tore his upper lip badly enough to need a skin graft. Thank God we live in Mbarara where all the doctors are! We got him to Mayanja Memorial Hospital right away, and the plastic surgeon came immediately to see him. We had him in the next morning to be operated on. He is healing, and the skin graft looks great. Pray for his recovery.

I have listed our goals in the last letter, so I won’t repeat those. I have the money needed to drill at least one well (and have been in touch with a man who drills village wells), buy a motorcycle to aid in getting a new church started among the Burundians, and buy some medicine and food.

Upon my return to our churches, I discovered that they are filled beyond capacity every Sunday and are in terrible condition. I would like to repair all our existing sanctuaries and keep those as a classroom for Sunday School, and build a new, larger sanctuary for each church. This would be a simple building without running water or electricity, padded pews, or carpet. In order to keep growing, this has to happen. Each church except Sangano needs its own baptistry and better toilets. In order to baptize properly, and get through the dry seasons alive, it has to happen. They all need water storage tanks. In order to avoid disease and privation, it must happen.

If I can do this, it will allow us to have Sunday School for the children, and church for the adults at the same time. This would allow us to be more efficient with our time. It would also allow me to do baptisms at each church. Please pray about helping us with this. It is expensive, but compared to the hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars churches spend in America for their buildings, it’s a really good deal.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Each church will need approximately $15,000 for the new larger sanctuary.

A baptistry will cost $250 to construct.

The water reclamation tanks and guttering I mentioned before will cost $1500 each.

A new toilet with places for 4 (2 men and 2 women) will cost $2000.

Cost of repairs to the old buildings, including new metal doors and windows, will be approximately $5000 each.

Now, cast your gaze on even the simplest of your church buildings, and consider the numerous luxuries you enjoy, and the vast cost of your structures compared to these. It is not unreasonable. Please pray about helping us.

I’m going to work with what I have for now, and spend what has been given on the things for which they were given. They will be a blessing to many.

God bless you! Thank you for praying! Thank you for helping!

Blow wind blow!

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James is preaching through Romans in our churches. He started today with Paul’s greeting and introduction in chapter 1.

Today is also Eid and the end of Ramadan. Muslims don’t go to mosque on Sunday but this morning they were going in droves. It was strange to see so many Muslims walking to their meeting along with everyone else who attends Catholic or Protestant services.

I taught Sunday School at Ngarama and Isanja today for the first time in over a year. Years ago, I started teaching through the Bible in Genesis. We’ve reached the life of David.

I felt like I couldn’t quite get it together for the class this week. For one thing, I can’t remember where I put my quiet seat prizes. I know I have them. Somewhere. But I haven’t seen them in the stuff I’ve put away and cleaned so far. Gotta love it when you put something somewhere so you can remember where it is — and then you can’t find it. 😀

It’s very windy today. I got through the whole lesson at Ngarama with only one or two of the flannel graph pieces blowing off. I tried to be cool about it, pick the piece up and put it back while not losing pace in my lesson. Theogen shut a window to help with the draft.

Then the whole bottom panel with all the pieces fell off and landed on the ground.

I picked it up but didn’t put it back because I was so close to the end and I couldn’t be cool about it and not get distracted.

Elizabeth stood next to the board at Isanja just in case. Next week I’m taking clothes pins to keep it on!

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(She wasn’t upset, she was just bored. All she had to do was stand there and block the wind and it didn’t fall off again. 😉 )

Welcome Back! Karibu Sana!

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The road to church was good, today. The best it’s been in a long time. Gone were the potholes and washes that plagued us before we left for furlough. They must have graded the road recently, because they were still working on a section of it toward Kabazana and the rain hadn’t had a chance to damage it — so within the last month.

We rounded the bend to Ngarama and I could see Elizabet and several of the church children waiting outside the church. They were laughing and yelling in excitement as we pulled up.

Several of the other church ladies ran up just then. We all stood there laughing and crying and hugging and saying “You are very welcome!” (Karibu Sana) and “thank you!” (asante sana) over and over again.

My heart felt like it would explode from the joy and excitement of it!

All the children had grown. Some of the boys we left are now young men some of the girls are young women.

Gloria’s baby boy, Trevor was shy and didn’t want me to hold him, but he flirted with me all the way through church at Isanja. She was still expecting him when we left last year and I’ll I’d seen so far was pictures. I think he’ll warm up to us. 😉

Both Kabazana and Sangano had prepared food for us. I understood Kinyarwanda today when the one of the ladies who’d cooked for us said “We’re happy you’ve returned.” I was so surprised to understand her that I couldn’t even reply in Runyankore which is the language I know best here.

I hope there will be African rice, stew, and beans at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. It’s some of the best food I’ve ever had. Oh, can our church ladies cook!

A few weeks ago, in the throws of all the goodbyes we were saying I wrote about the sadness it caused. There is so much joy in saying hello! In seeing people you haven’t seen in a long time, on both sides of the ocean. Just think, one day we will say hello and never have to say goodbye again! That will be the day!

Pizza! (Part 2.1)

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Months ago, I posted about pizza crust. I promised I would follow up with how to make our homemade sauce. Afterward, it occurred to me that, in order to properly post about the sauce, I would need to be back in Africa so you, dear reader, could get the full effect of our process for getting sauce.

Pizza sauce for us is more than just a delicious recipe, though that is an important part of it. It’s also about the acquisition of the ingredients, the proper processing thereof, and then cooking it all until it tastes just right.

Years ago, when my kids were small and I’d make homemade pizza, I’d just buy sauce at the grocery store. I wasn’t convinced that homemade sauce could taste as good as store-bought.

Then we moved to Uganda. An 8-oz. jar of pasta sauce cost almost $10 and I knew we’d need at least two of them to make pizza for our family if I skimped on sauce. At first I “cheated” and used tomato paste and herbs to make a sort of sauce that we used for pizza sauce. It was cheaper than using the ready made pasta sauce but it was easier than making sauce from scratch. The canned tomato paste here has a strong metallic flavor. The more I used that method for sauce, the less I liked the flavor of the sauce and the more I could taste the metal.

So I pulled out my trusty family cookbook — a treasure that was given to me as a wedding present, with recipes from family and friends all over the world (It’s my go-to recipe book for almost everything). Inside, I found a pasta sauce recipe given to me by Sandy Panagos, a dear friend who’d been almost like a second mother when I was growing up. Years ago, I insisted that her sauce had come out of a bottle and she insisted it didn’t. One day, when we were doing school at her house (that tells you how long ago it was!), she made her signature sauce. I still could hardly believe that something that tasted that good didn’t come out of a bottle. (Oh! how naive I was!) She included the recipe for me in the family cookbook.

Yes, her recipe includes cans of processed tomatoes. I can get canned tomatoes here in Uganda, but one can costs as much as enough fresh tomatoes to make quadruple her recipe. So I use fresh tomatoes instead of canned.

It starts like this:

I go to the Wednesday market to buy produce and buy a large basin of tomatoes. They cost anywhere from $3-5 depending on the season. (The large basin holds around 20 pounds of tomatoes.)

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(You can see a large basin of tomatoes to the right in the above picture.)

I then bring them home and wash them. We sterilize all our produce in our drinking water and disinfectant. It’s a long, drawn-out process. Honestly, I don’t miss this step when we visit the US — where you can wash your produce in tap water and don’t have to worry about getting intestinal parasites or e-coli from it. The wash water from our produce here turns brown and has a layer of dirt in the bottom of the pan, so I’m happy to do this step in the process.

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Once that step is finished, I can refrigerate the produce until I’m ready to make the sauce.

I know most books about preserving vegetables say you must peel and seed your tomatoes. The skin and seeds change the flavor, especially if you are canning them. I’m not canning them, so I skip this step. I’d make some flippant comment about being too lazy, but the whole process is already so time consuming that the peeling/seeding step would take it from being doable to being a tedious, miserable chore. There are a couple adjustments I make when I cook it, but more about that later.

When my sauce comes out and looks like this:

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thick, red, flavorful, I could just eat it out of the pan with a spoon. It’s so good. Sandy Panagos was right. A good homemade sauce is far better than anything you can get from the store!

(I promise to share the recipe when Part 2 continues!)

How’s Africa?

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“How’s Africa?”

“What’s it like in Africa?”

We’ve been asked these questions over and over again when we visit the US. While I don’t mind these questions and I understand where they are coming from (a desire to get to know and understand the place where we live) they are difficult to answer for several reasons.

First of all, most Americans view the continent of Africa like they do the United States — as a conglomeration of country/states. It is nothing like that. Africa contains 55-57 countries (depending on where you get your information 😉 ). Travel is difficult and restrictive at times as you navigate the various processes for obtaining visas in each country. We’ve traveled to several of these and each one has a different procedure. The procedures change on a regular basis as well.

Second, Africa is a huge continent. The continental United States would fit in Africa just over 3 times. The Sahara desert alone is the size of the continental US.

Third, the continent has many different biomes, spans two different hemispheres, and four time zones. Both the northernmost and southernmost extremes of the continent will get snow. If we ever got snow where we live, 80 miles south of the equator, the world as we know it would be coming to an end 😀 . That said, a couple hundred miles from here, in the Ruwenzori Mountains, you can climb on glaciers.

For these reasons, among other things, I can’t really speak to the entire continent of Africa.

I can, however, share about my little corner of it, the part that I call home.

So, over the next few weeks and months, I’d like to tell you about my little part of Africa. Whenever you see a “How’s Africa?” title, expect to learn a little more about where I live and the people that live here. It won’t be a travelogue. You can find that kind of information in the CIA fact book.

I’m hoping to make this more personal, the things I like, maybe a few things I don’t like, how things work here and why we do things the way we do. I hope you enjoy it!