Katakwi TLT - Overcoming Family Violence

I just finished another round of Timothy Leadership Training in Katakwi, teaching the third manual, "Overcoming Violence in the Family."  It went very well and we had unique discussion as we had people there from Katakwi, Soroti, Kaberamaido, and Amuria.  My other TLT groups had already done this manual, so those pastors that missed taking it in their home places had to travel with me to Katakwi to catch up on this manual.  They'll continue TLT in their home places, but in order to graduate they cannot miss any of the manuals.  I know how committed they are to finishing TLT because for most of them, they had never traveled to Katakwi before, and it was a big time and money commitment for them.  Everyone greatly enjoyed the diverse fellowship.

It was exciting to hear their reports about what God has done through their action plans from manual 2, "Christian Stewardship" and some reports from manual 1, "Caring for God's People."  Some of the pastors faced challenges and their plans did not succeed, and we prayed for them.  But please celebrate with me these successful reports:

- The mayor of Amuria was at this Katakwi training.  I had told you that in the TLT Stewardship training he got the idea that he should take care of God's creation better in Amuria.  He made a plan to see Amuria town completely free of trash, litter, and plastic bags.  As he implemented his plan, he was glad to see the town very clean by Christmas time.  Unfortunately, as you can imagine, after the clean-up, things went back to normal and soon the town was covered in trash again.  But the mayor did not stop there.  He has put in place a new law that is about to be approved by the district.  It's already displayed all over town.  This new law means a 40,000 shillings fine or imprisonment for anyone littering.  As part of the initiative, the mayor also put in place dumping points and bins around the town for proper disposal of the waste.  He is very optimistic that things will change.  He continues to find ways to better carry out this plan.  He knows that change will take time and he will not give up!

- Several people taught church members lessons from the TLT stewardship manual.  Some of those members applied their new knowledge by building two nursery school classrooms.

- Many others planned to plant trees but because of the dry season, the plans were delayed.  But all of them made the preparations, saved the money, and dug the holes, and now are ready to plant the trees since the rain has come.

- A pastor and a women's leader together trained the 7 treasurers in their assembly in financial accountability, record keeping, and reporting.  They have seen change already in that now all the churches give reports to their congregations about the offerings that are collected.

Pastor Lazarus from Victory Outreach Church in Soroti came with me to help me lead this training.  He also was with me for manual 1 in Katakwi.  He recently got married and is enjoying the married life!  He is in the middle of the photo below.

This time we had three languages represented, English, Ateso, and Kumam.  It was a bit challenging making sure we translated everything and making sure all the different people understood every comment.  It makes discussion slower but in a way that is good too, because it makes people slow down and think more carefully about what they want to say.

We had some powerful discussions about honoring God's image in other people.  We talked long about honoring people who are not usually honored, like children, the poor, the mentally or physically disabled, and sinners.  We then talked specifically about who is honored in our churches, and it is usually pastors, and those with money.  I was disturbed to hear stories of church ushers removing poor people from their seats to give the seats to wealthier or more educated members of the church, despite the poor people arriving early to get those good seats.  This is in direct contradiction to James 2, and it was a vigorous discussion of thinking through how to properly follow this passage, while practically thinking through the realities of the culture here.  Some poor people here feel embarrassed to be honored and don't want to be offered the good seats, and some rich people might be expecting to get the good seats and could get offended.  But we left all the pastors with a strong challenge to continue thinking this issue through and honoring people of all kinds in their churches.

We also discussed marriage at length, and were challenged to go against the culture by not beating our wives, and serving our wives even through activities like washing and cooking.  One of my TLT members already serves his wife like this at home, but even at TLT he has been setting a good example.  When the female cooks serve us our food, sometimes they could use an extra hand.  This TLT member often jumps in to help the women serve the food, and I've witnessed the surprise of other TLT members wondering at this man who would do the women's work of helping to serve food.  But now it seems everyone is used to him doing this, and I think all the men want to go home and serve their wives and children more.



We discussed the problem of pornography at length.  Although the issue is relatively new in some ways in Uganda because of the newness of technology, it is coming quickly.  Not too many years ago mobile phones probably weren't that common here, and there are no landline phones to speak of.  But now everyone has a mobile phone, including out in the villages.  With the spread of technology, the internet is spreading too, and that means the access to internet pornography which people can get on their phones.  Thankfully, pornography is still mostly foreign for some pastors in Uganda.  However, because of this, sometimes at seminars when people are trained about pornography, pastors will be shown an example of it just so that they understand better what is being talked about and what their church members might be looking at.  I don't think this is necessary.  I think it's easy enough to talk about it and its dangers without playing with fire by looking at it.  In the same way, I can counsel alcoholics without getting drunk myself to experience it.

One pastor told us that in his trading center he was going to the place where they charge people's mobile phones.  When he got there he found a "blue movie" being shown on a screen.  It was a pornographic movie playing and all types of people were there watching, married couples, youth, old men and women, and children.  Probably many of these people were just curious to see "how the whites play sex."  This pastor was appalled and said he "thoroughly disorganized them" which brought a smile to my face.  He told them to watch those things in private and that if they showed it in public again he would call the police.

We also talked about the importance of teaching a healthy, biblical view of sexuality to our children.  This proved to be an intense discussion as in Ateso culture these things are not normally talked about in direct ways.  Even to find Ateso vocabulary words for some words we regularly use in English can be difficult.  Because most parents don't talk to their children about this, children learn from kids at school and from pornography instead.  So we spent a long time talking about what things children should know about sex, and why, and what things at what ages.

Below is a photo of a casual breakfast as the participants talked about what it was like to live through the war when Iteso rebels were fighting against the government.  That was before the time of the Lord's Resistance Army conflict.  It was so odd to me trying to imagine what it was like.  It doesn't seem real, that our whole region was so war-torn multiple times.  It's strange that it was so recent, and that all these men have lived through it, some of them narrowly avoiding death.  Most of them have lost children, parents, and friends to the various conflicts.  My upbringing was so tame compared to what they have experienced.

Here are some encouraging action plans of the students for this manual 3, Overcoming Violence in the Family.  I appreciate your prayers for them.

- There were multiple plans about training family members to honor one another and overcome violence in their own families.

- Two members want to see alcoholics quit drinking and come to Christ.

- One pastor, through preaching, wants to see 6 families openly repent and forgive each others' wrongs.

-  Some of the pastors are going to teach church families using lessons from this TLT manual.

- One member wants to train church youth on biblical sexuality and how to overcome sexual harm in families.

Here is most of our group besides a few people who had to leave early.