Computer Maintenance Training

By Anthony:

Both Sara and I know a lot about computers just by virtue of being Americans and using them in our daily lives since we were children.  But throughout the years, as I played computer games with friends, took computer classes in school, and learned tricks from friends who work with IT, I have become quite knowledgeable about computers and general computer maintenance.

We knew that computer knowledge is very needed in Uganda, but we both tried to hide our knowledge to some extent because neither of us feel called to teach about computers, and we don't really enjoy it.  But when we saw that the Ugandan development staff of the partner organizations we work with could greatly increase their productivity were they trained on how to use their computers to the fullest potential and take care of them well, we finally were willing to let God use us to teach a bit about computers.

I put together a training about computer maintenance, both physical maintenance and software maintenance.  Sara then prepared a little teaching about how to use certain features in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. 

I'm so glad Sara agreed to lead this training with me because I could not have done it on my own.  We spent one full day doing the training, and while I was up front teaching and demonstrating on the screen, Sara was even more busy constantly moving around to everyone's computers helping them install programs, know where to click, and follow the steps I was explaining.

It was a difficult training as computer stuff can be tricky to learn, and we had a diverse crowd.  Some of the people at the training were still pretty new with computers and some were very proficient already.  But overall, it went really well and people appreciated it.

When we taught them how to use disk cleanup to remove junk files taking up their computer space, one person was able to delete 10 gigabytes of junk files, and another person 13 gigabytes!  90% of the computers had never installed Windows updates before.  When we did scans to fix registry errors, it was very fulfilling for them to be able to find and quickly fix 300 errors here, 600 errors there.  Those little moments were very fun.

It's hard to do computer maintenance in Uganda because internet airtime is very expensive.  Even I wait until we are at guesthouses to do much of my downloading.  In the US, we take for granted being constantly connected to the internet to download Windows updates, programs, antivirus definitions, etc.  But for some of these people who had never done Windows updates before, it would take the money they normally would use for a few months of internet time just to download the updates.  But they are going to try to do at least some of our recommendations.

Here are some pictures of Sara teaching her parts about Microsoft Office.  For people who have to write project proposals and reports, it brightens your day to learn about a feature like spell check if you never knew it existed! 

Conservation Agriculture in Soroti - Part 2

Remember how I trained ladies in Soroti about the theory of conservation agriculture?  Well, we found a time to start a demonstration garden with some of the conservation agriculture techniques.  I felt very under-dressed compared to these ladies (at first I thought they had forgotten that we were going to be working in the garden.  But no, they just took their shoes off and went to work in their nice dresses).

They worked really hard and started a very nice garden.  Unfortunately, the water company needed to do work in the area and dug the whole thing up without telling/asking anyone.  So we'll have to start again sometime so they can see the results of their labor.

Fireless Cooker

By Sara:

When I traveled to Kenya for the Farming God's Way training, they also talked to us about "fireless cookers" that you can use to reduce the amount of fuel used for cooking.  Although it sounded amazing, I didn't want to tell other people about it until I tried it myself.  Well, I tried it and it definitely worked.

Technically, the cooking isn't "fireless" because you need to start the food cooking before you put it into your fireless cooker, where it continues to cook without fire.  This is actually a technique that people used in the past, not something new.  Some people call it a haybox cooker.  Anyway, I used a giant basket and crumpled up a lot of paper, then packed it into the basket to make a layer of insulation about five inches thick.  Then, I put some towels in to fill in all the space between the paper and the edges of my cooking pot.

Here's where the fire comes in.  I took the pot back out, put dry chickpeas in it, and let them soak overnight.  In the morning, I put them on the stove, brought them to a boil, and let them cook for 10 minutes.  Then, I took the pot off the stove, covered it, and fit it snugly back into the fireless cooker.  Like so:

I covered the pot with more blankets and towels for insulation and left it for four hours.

When I opened it up after that time, my chickpeas were fully cooked and still very hot!

So I decided to try rice too.  The rice I brought to a boil and then simmered it for five minutes.  Then, I put it in the fireless cooker for 2 hours (I think it would have been done in 1 or 1.5 hours, but it was 2 hours until dinner, so I just waited until then).  And then, there was the cooked rice!

The beauty of this is not only that it saves hugely on fuel (if you can cook beans for 10 minutes instead of for 2-3 hours), but it also is a way that someone could start food cooking before going to work in the garden.  Then, by the time they got back home, food would be ready, instead of having to wait to cook it after getting home.

Random Fun Pictures

By Anthony:

Sorry for the randomness of this post, but here are pictures we wanted to share with you that didn't really fit in with other blog posts.  They are not really in chronological order.

Video of drumming at a wedding we went to.

In Uganda, people mow entire lawns with weed whackers.

Interesting things in stores. 

It's always fun while driving to look for crazy long church names.

Live for now, or for eternity?  One building, two messages.

Canadian Restaurant.  The sign says -  "For Local Foods." 

Also entertaining while driving is looking at the messages on trucks and taxis.  Another one we missed a picture of was, "Never Trust Some Body" and another, "Never trust a smiling face."  These taxi and truck drivers have trust issues.

While Sara's parents were here in February we visited friends (former Pentecostal Theological College students), out in the village.  We had a very enjoyable afternoon talking in the shade after church.

Pictures of our animals at home.  Sara was having fun with her goat Romulus.

Taking a walk near our house with Sara's parents.

Sara swarmed by school girls when we had to drop something off at a school in Amuria.

At Sara's baking training in February there was the funniest cow I've ever seen.  It seemed to be very afraid of people.  It would peer around the corner of the church watching us.  It would not walk further out than this.  It just wanted to keep an eye on us.  When I moved around to the other side of the church it would peer around the corner on that side too.

It finally rained, and rained a lot in April!



This plant grew fast.  It was the spiky bush part, but then when it rained, it grew this hard tree-like stalk in a few weeks.  Crazy growth spurt!



Easter Pictures

People here have different kinds of interactions with animals in their daily lives than most of you have in the USA.  These chickens are all very much alive, they are just being transported.  WARNING - Some dead animal pictures are below.

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Amuria TLT - Biblical Preaching

By Anthony:

Exuberant Praise:  (You might catch "Yahweh" in the song)

I just finished a very tiring but wonderful week in Amuria for Timothy Leadership Training.  We went through the Biblical Preaching manual.  Before I get into the details, I want to give you some encouraging reports from the last manual ("Overcoming Violence in the Family"), about how God used the pastors in their action plans.

Part of the family violence manual was about the dangers of pornography.  While giving reports, Pastor Andrew confessed that he had been looking at pornography but quit doing so after that TLT week.  This confession got another pastor to open up and confess as well.  It was a powerful moment.  I asked Pastor Andrew if I could share what he said, and he said it was fine, and he even was willing to share his testimony which he wrote down for us.

Pastor Andrew - Testimony

"I would like to thank God for Timothy Leadership Training (TLT).  This course is a life changing course.  I have been a pastor for many years.  Before this training came to Amuria, I used to watch pornographic films.  I even loaded some pornographic images in my phone and this thing was taking most of my time.  I took it as fun for me and my wife.  I used it to discover sex styles in my house. 

But when I joined TLT training, I learned manual 1,2, and 3 respectfully, but when it came to manual 3 I was actually caught, when we learnt about overcoming sexual harm and violence (lesson 7).  When the facilitator (Rev. Anthony Sytsma) gave a statement that 'some of the women seen in blue movies are slaves, they are mistreated and raped, and if you are good at watching and practicing pornography, you are entertaining and promoting sex under slavery.  This is sin.'  This topic touched my heart.  I discovered that it was sin.  I was living in sin unknowingly.  I deleted all those pornographic films from my phone and I asked God for forgiveness.  Right now I thank God he has helped me.  I no longer watch these pornographic movies and I am free indeed.  God bless TLT."

Break time:

There were so many encouraging reports about service and changes in families, but here are just a few:

• George and Peter had wanted to see 20 people in Amuria town give up drinking.  While they did not reach their goal, they were very happy to see 5 people give up drinking, and 3 of them even came to know Christ!  It's amazing to me what God is doing through these pastors.

• Two Pastors, from different denominations, made a TLT action plan together to reach out to families in Amuria town who were experiencing violence.  Their plan was successful in that 5 families were reconciled, and the conflicts settled.  In the process of making these visits, 3 different people came to Christ.  When it came to the issue of what church they should attend, the pastors left it totally up to them.  I love this picture of unity and teamwork, rather than competition, exhibited by these two pastors.

• Three pastors together trained 25 church members in the TLT lessons about family life.  They had many powerful testimonies of changes from the church members, but there was one that stuck with me.  A husband said that since he paid dowry for his wife, he treated her as his servant, and he didn't feel that that was bad.  After the training, he looked at his wife in a new way, as a fellow image bearer of God, and now was going to treat her not as a servant but a partner.

• Below in the picture you see Okodu and Peter, two pastors from the same assembly.  They taught the third manual to 12 church leaders in their assembly, as they have also done with the first two manuals.  Their whole assembly of 1 main church and 6 branch churches is changing because of TLT.  The 12 church leaders are from the various branch churches, and those leaders have been teaching their whole churches what they've learned from TLT.  This is what TLT is supposed to be all about, multiplication and reproduction, but it doesn't always happen.  These pastors are certainly doing it and now also plan to teach manual 4, preaching.

 

This manual was definitely the most challenging one to teach.  Most of the manuals you just read Bible passages and discuss.  But this one about how to study a Bible passage and how to make a sermon was a bit technical.  That meant I had to do more speaking than usual, and for the pastors it was much harder to grasp than the material in the other manuals. But they stuck with it and by the end of the week, they had a totally new view of how to preach.

I had Martin with me once again to help train.  He is a great facilitator and loving disciplinarian.  He always knows when we need to stop at powerful spiritual moments to pray or sing.  And he is good at keeping order.  For example, sometimes when people are talking and not listening to the speakers, Martin will make them stand up and sing a song alone!  Fortunately, in Uganda these are all leaders who are used to singing all the time, so its not quite as bad of a punishment as it would be for us in the US!

Break time:  

This TLT manual helps pastors to focus on 3 things in their preaching:
1. Preaching the text (really having their sermon grounded in Scripture and catching the main ideas of the text).
2. Preaching the Gospel (making the sermon not simple moralisms such as "be brave like David was brave", but instead proclaiming the good news about what God has done in the text).
3. Preaching for results (preaching with good application so people will live differently - not living obediently to earn salvation, but living obediently as a response to God's grace).

I added my own teaching based on the 4-page method of preaching which I learned at Calvin Seminary.  It took me an extra day but it worked out perfectly and I really think it should become part of the TLT preaching manual.  The 3 keys give pastors excellent preparation by studying the text really well, but then the 4 page method gives the pastors an excellent way to organize their sermon into 4 points.
1. Trouble in the text.
2. Similar trouble in the world today.
3. God's grace in the text.
4. God's grace in the world today. 
I knew that the 4-page method would fit with the TLT manual, but after teaching them together I realized that they fit together perfectly, so much so that I could not imagine doing one without the other.

After going through numerous passages as examples in the TLT manual, and then again when teaching the 4 page method, I preached to them myself and had them critique me using an evaluation form that I had given each of them.  Then I divided them into groups of 5.  I assigned them each a passage: Exodus 32, 2 Samuel 11, Matthew 28, and Acts 1.  Each group had to go through all of the TLT manual's steps to study the passage, and then they had to put a sermon together using the 4-page method.  Here are photos of some of the groups working hard for many hours.

One person from each group was designated as the preacher, but they each got to use notes and were only evaluated based on their content that the whole group worked on together.  They planned together every point of the sermon, including stories, illustrations, and application.  They took turns preaching and we gently picked their sermons apart so that everyone could understand the preaching method better and learn from the evaluations.  I tell you the truth, the 4 sermons preached were some of the best sermons I've heard in Uganda, and they agreed.  They were convinced that what they learned was important and all of them are excited to go home and not only preach these very sermons but continue to write more sermons with the same method.  I was so proud of all of them.  It convinced me that if pastors put their minds to it, they can write powerful biblical sermons, even without commentaries and without much education, just by studying God's Word.

Most of the action plans involved either teaching this new preaching method to other pastors, or planning to improve their own preaching using the 3 keys and 4 page method, and hoping to see at least several church members come to them and tell them their preaching has improved without even being asked.

Most (not all) of the group holding their action plans: