Katakwi TLT - Christian Stewardship

I just got back from a week of Timothy Leadership Training in Katakwi.  It was very hot!  So hot that the pastors were complaining each day about it and fighting off sleep.  I was uncomfortable myself sitting all day with my clothes thoroughly soaked in sweat.  It is the dry season.  Each night of the training I slept in a 90 degree room with no fan (and had to listen to cocks crowing and Muslim calls to prayer throughout the night).  But regardless of such challenges, it was a very successful training.  Here is a video of morning worship.

As usual when the pastors reported on their previous action plans, there were powerful stories of transformation.  Many people got saved, families were reconciled, and even a health center was thoroughly cleaned by 24 church members, toilets and all.  It was a powerful witness to the community.

However, there were many action plans that were not successful.  You need to please pray for these leaders who are attending all of my TLT trainings.  I am certain that Satan is throwing up roadblocks to hinder these actions plans.  This Katakwi group is small, but in this group some had unsuccessful plans because of financial challenges, because church leaders refused to be trained, because a pastor's bicycle was stolen, because a pastor got very sick, and because a pastor got into a motorcycle accident.  Pray for them.

This time Lazarus could not come and be my co-facilitator, because he was on his honeymoon after just getting married!  But Baker came and helped me instead.  You may have read about him in Sara's recent post.  He is a gifted leader and was a huge help to me especially with translating.  His testimony is very interesting.  For example, I learned that he used to be part of the Arrow Boys, the local militia that fought Joseph Kony and the LRA near Soroti.  He is a very strong Christian leader and is doing important ministry as you can see from Sara's blog post.

I won't go into much detail about what we learned in this manual, as I've already told you in two other posts.  If you need a refresher, here are the links -  Amuria TLT - Christian Stewardship.  
Kaberamaido TLT - Christian Stewardship.

This TLT group is only about 18 people but that makes for very interactive discussion and people being able to talk much more than if they were in a large group.  I was privileged to have my World Renew supervisor, Edward Etanu, join this group.  It was funny helping him write his action plan one minute, guiding him what to do, and then the next minute during a break he was telling me about some things I have to do.  Not everyone is blessed to have such a humble supervisor.

A few Ugandans have beards like me, but not many.  This pastor says he knows most Ugandans think facial hair is scruffy looking, but he and his wife like his beard!

One leader, Tom, is a treasurer of his church, so he helped me by writing some example budgets to teach the students how to budget.  About half of the churches represented had never written a budget of any kind.

Here is Baker and a pastor helping an older women's leader who has trouble reading English.  The women's leader is 65 years old, but has the strength of a 30 year old.  You are never too old to learn.

I felt very loved this TLT as I was sent home with a monstrous bag of G-nuts (groundnuts, that is peanuts) from one student, and the women's leader above gave me a bottle of oil from the shea-nut tree.

Above and below you see students with their action plans. 

• This time most of the plans were about planting trees at churches.  
• Another leader has a plan to take care of his body through exercise and diet. 
• Another plan involved cleaning a local health center. 
• One pastor plans to train 7 church treasurers on report writing. 
• Another pastor hopes to see the giving increase at his church by 10%. 
• Another pastor, Richard, plans to train 6 pastors in the whole Stewardship manual. 
• An elder has a plan to give all 12 pastors in his assembly some time to rest (as they are all extremely overworked with almost no rest ever).  He is going to make sure they get a two day un-programmed retreat with their wives at a guesthouse.