New US World Renew Address

We want to let you know of a change in the address for World Renew.  If you happen to be supporting us financially and mailing checks to the physical address, it has changed and mail forwarding probably won't be going on for much longer.

The World Renew address is now:

World Renew

1700 28th St.

Grand Rapids, MI 49508 

Funny Ugandan Signs

While we were stuck in a ridiculous traffic jam between Kampala and Entebbe, we took that time to photograph some interesting and amusing signs.  We really enjoy the names that people give to their shops and restaurants.

But first, we saw this one before the traffic got too bad:

These next two signs were clearly not designed by Pentecostals!

 I love that this restaurant is serving African foods in Africa.

I wish I shopped at the best supermarket.

 And an interesting advertisement.

There are also some churches out there with pretty elaborate names, like this one:

As a result, Anthony is always making up the most complicated church names he can think of.  But he was outdone by an actual church: the Universal Apostles Fellowship Church of Righteousness.  I kid you not.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because traffic was moving at the time.

Short TLT Video

In case some of you are interested in hearing more about Timothy Leadership Training and it's impact around the world, here is a well done video about it.

The Sytsma Farm

To begin with, my garden is growing happily at the moment since there has been sufficient rain.  I have struggled with termites destroying my corn and I while I was gone, they got all but two plants (for some reason, they love to attack living corn, sorghum, and millet, but nothing else in my garden), so I am trying various experiments to repel them (constantly adding mulch, using leaves from the castor oil plant as mulch, etc.).  Here are some pictures:

I made myself a sack garden like I saw in Kenya as well as planting potatoes in mulch/compost surrounded by wire mesh.  You can see how they grew in one month.  The plants exploding out of the sack are fennel.

There are all sorts of chicks - I have two hens and one has six and the other seven.

But even better than all the baby chickens is the new baby goat!  I took this picture of Bendita the day before we left for the US and the next day (after we were gone), she gave birth.

Here are some irresistibly cute baby goat pictures.  Her name is sweet Caroline.

Even Caleb likes her.

Luthien is doing well too.  She is a bit more relaxed than Caroline, so she'll even hang out in the hammock with Anthony.

Anthony's pets have not been doing quite as well.  Caleb is very healthy and fun but he ate both of the guinea fowl chicks (Anthony says we don't know for sure, but I say he is wrong...) and so we have to keep him chained up sometimes when no one is generally keeping an eye on him.  Here is one of the departed chicks:

But on a positive note, Caleb is taking a walk with us nearly every day and enjoys it a lot.  While we were in the US, I found a leash on sale that came with two collars, so now he has an official leash and two of my goats have dog collars.  People think we are strange when we are out walking him and we get lots of compliments about what a smart looking dog he is.  Other people say, "mzungu, give me your dog!"

You may also remember that Anthony had a few hedgehogs, but some died.  Our friends suggested that there may not be enough food for all of them in the compound.  So Anthony decided not to keep collecting them.  He was going to try to eat at least one of them like some people in this region do.  But he decided it would be cruel and instead gave the remaining ones to some missionary friends.

Finally, there are no more chameleons in the cage in our yard, though there is at least one which we set loose in our mango tree and another in my garden.  How great is it to see this while working in the garden?

The one that had been living in the cage died right after laying eggs (which is not too unexpected given the stress of laying eggs plus the stress of captivity).  We salvaged the eggs and put them in sand in a container in our kitchen.  They should hatch in about eight months.  If they survive, they will be super cute and Anthony will release them all over our compound.

Steaming Cakes

After I have been sharing about training people on how to make cakes/bread without an oven, you may be wondering exactly how it is done.  It is actually a very simple process, which I learned to do when living in Mbale in 2009-2010 without an oven.  The basic idea is that you bake the cake using the heat produced by steam from boiling water.  

First, you mix up your cake batter/bread dough and put it into a greased pot that is small enough to fit completely into a larger pot which has a lid. 

Fill the large pot about 1/4 or 1/3 of the way with water and put some spoons or canning jar rings at the bottom of the pot to keep your cake from touching the bottom of the larger pot which is directly on the heating element.  Place the smaller pot with the cake batter in it inside the large pot.  At this point, it should actually be floating on the water.

Put the lid on the large (outer) pot and if it doesn't seal very well, you can use aluminum foil to keep too much steam from escaping from around the edges.  

Then, put the whole thing onto your stovetop/campfire/charcoal stove and bring the water to a boil.  Once the water is boiling, start timing and bake the cake for about the same amount of time as the recipe calls for it to be baked in an oven.  The thinner the cake is going to be, the shorter the time required for it to bake.  And as long as you don't boil all of the water off, it is impossible to burn your cake.  So if you keep it in "too long" it will not be a problem.

Once you have reached the proper time, whip the lid off of the large pot so the condensation doesn't all drip onto your cake, and check it with a toothpick to see if it is done in the middle.  If it isn't, just re-cover it and keep on boiling the water.

The end result is a very moist cake or bread (so don't expect crispy crust if you make a loaf of bread or cinnamon rolls or fruit crisp - see photos below), but it will certainly be done and it still tastes good!

You can learn more about oven-less baking from a post I did in 2009 here.

September 2014 Prayer Letter

To view our September 2014 Prayer Letter - click here.   Thank you so much for your prayers for us.  We believe God hears and answers prayers!

Soroti - When Helping Hurts

I had the opportunity to do my "When Helping Hurts" training in our town of Soroti through the IBS program (In-Service Bible teaching) for PAG pastors in the district.  But we invited the larger community to join in with the IBS students.  I was able to stay at home throughout the week.  Each morning we began by singing some praise songs together as you can hear briefly in the video below.

Many people showed up late, but it was still a successful training.  We had church leaders joining us from different denominations from all over town.  We started with only about 40-50 participants, but as people heard about the training, more showed up on subsequent days.  By the end of the training 77 people had purchased manuals, with probably another 10 people who participated without buying a manual.

Pictures from small group discussion times:

We still had to translate into Ateso because many of the IBS students were from the wider district and struggled a bit with English.

 

Below are drawings of what community development means to them.  In this photo, on the right is Martin who is helping me teach Timothy Leadership Training in Amuria.  The IBS coordinator planned my training, but Martin was a big help to me as well, especially with advertising to the community.  I'm learning how important it is to have a good team of gifted, passionate, service-minded people around you who can help you in your work.  If you try to do things alone, you won't be successful.

On the left in this picture below is Tom, who is chairman of the board for the development organization that World Renew partners with in Kaberamaido, but he also goes to Soroti PAG where the training was held.  This is his second time to come to this training of mine because he is so passionate about it.  He also was a big help in advertising and helping with participant registration.

 

Several church leaders from Soroti PAG hope to teach the training to more people in the 2,000 member church.   I've also been invited to teach it to more people in Soroti and will do so if I have time.  Clearly this training has been helpful in transforming people's mindsets in Uganda, so I'm going to begin working on a third revision of the manual.

Testimonies:

- "I have known that work is a gift, and not a punishment."

- "I am too also a donor."

- "I have learnt to start with the little I have."

- "In any situation, I must not feel inferior, humiliated, depressed, or voiceless."

- "All people are very important in the community and we are all equal."

- "I need to change my mindset and begin a new life and give to the needy."

- "I will not be always to give money to the poor alone but I will always give skills, counseling, and encouragement."

- "I am going to start with my family to change."

- "In my attempt to help people I have always kept them in shame and voiceless."

- "People in Teso no longer need relief but development."

- "Your teaching is exceptional and pray that you stay longer teaching the people."

- "In Africa, Uganda, we can do development.  We have all that can make us to achieve the goal."

- "I am starting a life that is different from the one I have been living.  I feel you should continue teaching this message to all people."

- "Perhaps not giving is the most loving thing to do sometimes."

- "I have learnt to extend a helping hand to any person, not only a relative or from our denomination."

- "This training has awaketh my understanding to forgive even those who does wrong things to us."

This one is pretty funny and over the top:

- "The teaching/trainer is really a reality, no error.  It is wonderful, perfect, beyond doubt."

Animals from travels and home

Here are some of the animals we saw on our trip to Kenya and Tanzania.

Here are some animals from around our home.