MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 12-23-2012

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Merry Almost Christmas! We are busily preparing for the Christmas parties out at the refugee camp tomorrow. We are having a short party at each of the three places for the church kids, and then giving out presents. The cars we've received are ready. The little stuffed bears for the girls are ready. It's going to be awesome! On Sunday, we will be sharing a meal together and having a joint service of the three churches, and giving gifts to the adults, including a bunch of purses Anna made for the ladies. It's going to be a great time. Being in the ministry means giving Christ's love to others, and Christmas is the supreme example of this. We love it.

Last week, Anna went with me to the class at Sangano. She's been teaching on the Women of Genesis, and doing a great job (I do my best to teach both the men and the women, but they really like having a lady to teach them). There was a fairly boisterous storm while there, and this was the result: Tree In the Road

I hopped out of the car and reacted like you would expect an American male to react, "C'mon guys! There's 20 of us! We can move this thing!" I mean seriously, how often do you get the chance to pick up a tree? My fellow travelers, also stuck like us, were less than enthusiastic. Here's where culture intrudes on progress. I, being the American, immediately view the obstacle as a challenge to be overcome. The Ugandans view it as a job to be done for which they are not likely to be paid, so none of them wanted to get involved. Also, the tree was bleeding this nasty sticky white sap that they didn't want to get on their Sunday clothes (Ugandans are very keen on keeping their nice clothes looking 'smart'). They finally fetched a guy with an axe to chop off some of the canopy so a car could get through. I'm thinking about carrying a shovel and an axe with me when I go out there, for situations like this.

Busy weekend ahead!

God Bless You!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 12-01-2011

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Hello, from the rain forest! While many of you are dealing with winter weather, the rainy season is in full swing here in Uganda. It rains, hard, nearly every day. Our yard is a swamp. Thankfully, we have some good grass on most of the yard, but it still makes it rather messy. I'm saving money to pave the muddy bits that remain, so we don't have to slog through the mess all the time. I bought a swing set for the kids for Christmas, and it promptly sank into the saturated soil (never fear, I'm getting some concrete pads made to prevent this, but it, as always, takes time).

I failed to get out to Nakivale on Wednesday because the seasonal runoff from the mountain had washed out the road. I parked the car in line with all the others, and hiked down the road to survey the damage. It was pretty bad. The Chinese road crew that's working on paving this road was on hand with a bulldozer, and dumped a bucket load in the breach. This worked briefly, but since it was only soil and not marm, it quickly turned to mud. They had extricated the two trucks blocking the road, and then another banana truck got stuck again. I'd been sitting there for two hours when this happened. It became readily apparent we weren't getting through that day, so I had to make my way back to Mbarara.

A couple weeks ago, we were driving out there on a Sunday and got stuck behind a UN truck hauling grain or other food items out to the camp. The road crew had been spreading lime on the road (binds with the soil, makes it harder, more resistant to rain). This creates dense clouds of white dust. It's sort of like driving in snow with whiteout conditions (you guys from Alaska know what I mean). I was blind, and kamikaze pedestrians kept materializing out of the cloud. So, I decided to pass the guy before somebody got killed. Well, there was a nice rock that the bulldozers had been good enough to excavate and leave directly in my path. It was too late to stop, so I ran over it. This dented our muffler and, as we found out later after we limped back to Mbarara, the brake line was cut. I had nearly made it home when the brake went to the floor. Not cool. I'm very glad I didn't try to forge ahead anyway.

Stuff like that has been happening a lot lately. Pray for the state of our vehicle. It's a good car, but the road conditions are very hard on it. The maintenance on it has been quite expensive of late, and is putting a lot of pressure on the finances. We need the car to do this ministry, so I have to keep pouring money into it to keep it in good repair.

Thanksgiving went very well. We had all the other missionaries over to our house again. As has become the tradition, we buy two live turkeys, and slaughter and prep them both (I paid a guy to do it. I'm by no means squeamish, but they are much more skilled and do a vastly better job.). One gets cooked and served for Thanksgiving, the other goes in the freezer for our private consumption later. Even on the other side of the world, we still have a great Thanksgiving (it helps to have so many good cooks around).

The construction on the church building at Juru continues. The walls have been raised nearly to the roof. It's looking really good. I expect within the month we'll need to start looking at buying cement to do the floor and the walls. Pray we'll have the money we need for this. I like to have churches give to these projects, because then I can truly say to the people there, "God provided the money to do this work. I did not do it." I'm trying to teach them to depend on God, not look to foreign interests to provide all their needs (this is the African way, after all). Once the building is done, and they have been organized under a constitution, there will be no further assistance. They are going to have to grow up, and take care of their own needs. It's a process though. Culture is very hard to overcome, because it takes a lifetime to develop.

I will be going through the church constitutions soon. This mostly involves discussing the rationale and Biblical basis for the policies contained therein, and giving detailed teaching on the doctrine to which we rightly adhere as Baptists. I have been spending a lot of preaching on dealing with false doctrine lately, so this will make for good followup.

We are already making plans for the Children's Christmas parties we are going to do out at the three churches on Christmas Eve Day, and the VBS we will be conducting in January. Thank you all so much for the toy cars you sent! There are going to be an awful lot of ecstatic little boys because of your loving generosity. We have enough to be able to give them all two cars each, and have plenty left over to give as prizes for VBS. It's always such a joy to be able to minister to children. Children tend to get treated as an afterthought around here, so we feel a particular burden to see they are cared for.

On Christmas Day, we'll be having church, and giving gifts to the adults. We are busily assembling the gifts, and I am looking forward to having services on Christmas Day. Then on Monday, we will celebrate Christmas at home as a family. That's the cool thing about living here. Christmas lasts way longer than just one day.

God bless you!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 11-14-2011

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Greetings and salutations! Work is progressing very well on the church building at Juru. Every time we go out there, I find that the wall is higher. This week, you could see the windows. Another three feet or so and they will have reached the roof. Meanwhile, they are constructing latrines at the other places. I remind them often that this time it needs to have a door and roof tall enough that 6'6" missionaries don't have to urinate stooped over.

The Genesis class I'm teaching is doing well. Last week, we studied Genesis 10, The Table of Nations. Even though much of our knowledge about the distant past is sketchy (we lost a LOT of ancient knowledge during the Dark Ages), the Bible provides unparalleled insight into how the nations formed and dispersed following the Flood. It was fascinating to them. It also provided a valuable opportunity to dispel a racist myth that has been viciously imposed upon African nations by their unwanted European colonizers – the curse of Ham. These people actually feel that their bloodline is cursed because of the curse directed at the Canaanites by Noah. The Europeans have used this to justify their wicked exploitation of the African continent. It's all a lot of white supremacist, racist garbage of course, but it is a very persistent belief.

I taught them the truth – the descendants of Ham are inferior to no one. Some of their tribes may have been enslaved by Shemites and Japhethites, and they were, but Noah was only prophesying what would happen, not declaring what should happen. In truth, the Bible only said that Ham's children would serve their cousins, and they would all serve each other, and this is certainly so. We know that the earliest exploration of the world was done by Hamites. Everywhere the Europeans went, much later, they found the children of Ham had arrived first. The earliest and some of the greatest civilizations were created by Hamites (Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, the Hittites, and possibly the Mongols, Chinese, and Amerindians). They developed the earliest forms of agriculture, masonry, and metallurgy, and taught that knowledge to all the others. The modern world would have never existed in its current form without the foundation laid by the children of Ham. Even now, for all their difficulties, they have such potential. What difficulties they do have are the product of sin, common to all of Noah's children, and not due to any mythical curse. Once their hearts belong to God, and the evils that human nature produces have been overcome, they can accomplish nearly anything. They don't have to feel inferior to white, Western cultures.

We preach. We teach. We admonish. We plant churches and train leaders, and through this, we can change the world. That' s what we're up to here in Uganda, and what missionaries are attempting to accomplish all over Africa, and around the world.

God bless you!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-10-2011

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Greetings! I thought I’d send a brief letter and let you see the latest construction out at the Juru church. They have put the roof on the pole building, and we had our first service at the new location yesterday. Thank you to the church that sent us money for the construction. This is what your money built:

Juru Church Building

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great service. The morale of the church is greatly improved. I know it wasn’t terribly comfortable meeting in the old place, which had mud walls and a tarp roof (’til some lowlife stole it). It was wet in there when it rained, and hot in the sun. This new building is dry and cool. There’s always a nice breeze.

As you can see, they are constructing the walls now. Once they are complete, they pour the floor and plaster the walls. Final phase, we get some windows made and some doors and attach them, then paint. It will make it much easier to teach and preach, and give the children a good place to meet for VBS. It’s a great blessing.

God bless and keep you

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-04-2011

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Baptism. It’s how we Baptists got our name. I conducted my first BaptismBaptismal service out at Nakivale refugee camp a few weeks back. It went great. I must say, I was a tad nervous, but I am happy to report nobody drowned. One of the advantages of my height is that I have the leverage to baptize nearly anybody. I baptized 5 brothers and sisters in Christ, and then we had a wonderful meal with the 3 churches represented. The church building at Sangano is fully repaired now. They are working on some cosmetic things (painting, cement repair, extending the front with an awning using the old roof pieces). Juru Church BuildingMeanwhile, the church building at Juru has commenced construction. We received a gift from a church in Arkansas which covered the costs of the poles and iron sheets they are using to get started. Thank you! Later, they’ll build the walls and floor, which will require lots of cement. Pray the money becomes available to continue the construction. In the meantime, we can meet there and be out of the rain and the sun. It’s also much closer to the town center, which is a help to everyone.

ElephantWe took a vacation last month, our first since coming to the field. Since we are only an hour or so away from Queen Elizabeth National Park, we decided to stay there for a few days and go see the many kinds of wildlife Africa has in abundance. We saw lots of elephants, gazelles, hippos, warthogs, baboons, Cape buffalo, and game wardens in their natural habitats. The kids got to swim lots, we spent time relaxing and playing games, and we took an hour-and-a-half hike down the mountain behind the lodge. It was great fun. Because we live so close, we can take these little vacations more often during the year, or just drive up there early, see the animals, have lunch, and then drive back to town. It’s one of the many perks of living here.Hike

In other news, the rains are coming well and with regularity. Our garden is growing, so we will have tomatoes, zucchini, squash, corn, peas, broccoli, and very soon STRAWBERRIES! Plus, our banana trees have begun producing, so we are getting bananas from the trees we planted a year ago. As always, our two avocado trees are producing bushels of avocados, so it’s a good thing we like guacamole. Our young mango tree is finally maturing, which is awesome because I love mangoes.

I finally got the last of the money paid for the car, and I think I have located and fixed nearly everything that needed repair. It is a great blessing to have a reliable vehicle. I am getting a more powerful inverter constructed. Turns out you can get inverters built locally, much cheaper than the cost of a manufactured one. This is great because Umeme (world’s most hated utility) has gone to 12-hour every other day power outages (load shedding), and occasionally 24-hour whenever it suits them. I have finally got us upgraded to six 200Ah batteries, which gives us approximately 24 hours of stored power. The world economic crisis is hitting Uganda pretty hard. In addition to the high cost of fuel, which translates into higher costs for virtually anything manufactured or imported, we are seeing much higher costs for food due to the high inflation Uganda is experiencing right now. Some sugar plants have curtailed production, which has caused the cost of sugar to skyrocket. All these things, in concert with the high cost of energy, are really putting the pinch on everybody, but especially the average Ugandan citizen, who didn’t have a lot of economic advantages to begin with. Please pray for better government here. Uganda can no longer afford the levels of corruption and graft to which their government has become accustomed. Pray the economy will recover soon.

Pray about our house situation. Like tens of thousands of other Americans, we are upside down on our mortgage. We are looking into either doing a short sale, or trying to get another renter if that doesn’t pan out (the last tenant stopped paying the bills, and trashed the place before she skipped town). God has provided thus far, but if we could eliminate our house and it’s mortgage, it would be that much more funds available every month for the ministry.

God bless you all!