Hiking in Mbale

By Sara:

As you saw from Geoff's guest post, we had the opportunity to go on a beautiful hike while he was visiting us.  This is a hike we learned about when we lived in Mbale and took about six years ago.  So we took Geoff back to Mbale and joined our friend Eric, who is working there, then made our way up Mount Wanale, which can be seen towering above town, on the slopes of Mount Elgon.  We were very pleased with ourselves that we managed to find the way up, six years after the last time we made this hike.  (It helped that Marissa and I took the wrong path when she visited, allowing me to be confident this time about the correct route...).  Here, I am mostly just going to share with you some of the beautiful pictures from the hike.

This is where we got lost:

Just kidding.  We didn't get lost.  I don't really know exactly what was going on there, but maybe we are looking at plants.  Poor Anthony had to put up with lots of agricultural conversations since Eric, Geoff, and I have all been working with farmers and enjoy agriculture.  Anthony kept asking, "are we still talking about phosphorus deficiency?"

We had to climb WAY up to the top of that hill you can see in the distance.

There were all sorts of lovely waterfalls along the way.

Once we reached the top, we sat in this little meadow next to the stream to rest.

The view from the top. 

Looking out over Mbale and the long trek we had taken.  Don't get too close to the edge!

Relief Assessment in Kaberamaido

By Sara:

As Geoff mentioned in his post, we had the unfortunate but interesting opportunity to be part of a small disaster assessment in Kaberamaido.  It is a long story, but there was a murder in one of the villages and a mob from the murdered woman's clan came and caused havoc and destruction in the community she had married into.  The good news is that most people were not at home during the time that the mob was active, but two people did get killed and some were injured.  More than thirty households had their homes burned, ransacked, and robbed.  If you want, you can read more about it here.

As representatives of World Renew, we visited the community with our Ugandan partner organization, KMDP (who already work in that district).  We went to see the damage in order to figure out how KMDP and World Renew can help with the situation.

Many people have been sleeping at one of the local churches (a grass-thatched building) and at the home of someone who has a house with a metal roof that didn't get burned.

A nice part of this tragedy is that some young people are helping to put a roof back on a widow's house (see below):

Everything that was inside peoples' homes got either burned or stolen or broken.  This included mattresses, clothes, cooking utensils, ox ploughs, children's notebooks for school, etc.

Along with material possessions, much of the grain that people had just harvested and put into granaries as food for the coming months, got burned (see below).

Some people even lost animals, which the mob killed and ate outside.

The KMDP staff and local government interviewed a representative from all the households to find out what they lost and how they have been doing since the time of the tragedy.

Many people have been afraid to go back home because of concern about continued reprisals.  There is also a risk of people from this clan going to take revenge on the people who did this.  Pray for the people who have been affected and the families from both sides who are hurting emotionally. 

The most immediate need was for food, since most peoples' food stores were burned.  But they will also eventually need seeds for re-planting next year since the stored grain was both for eating and planting.  In the end, World Renew did not need to give assistance because the Ugandan government and TEAR Australia were able to meet most of the needs.  The local church is also helping to bring reconciliation and build peace between the two clans and has been giving some immediate assistance.  Even the PAG church in Soroti collected clothes to replace the ones that were burned.

TLT Graduation Dates and Information

By Anthony:

I have three TLT (Timothy Leadership Training) groups.  One is in Amuria district, one in Katakwi district, and one in Kaberamaido district.  Soroti, where we live, is nicely positioned in the middle between all these districts.  Two of the groups are from one PAG pastorate (a pastorate is a region of churches with a bishop to oversee them), and one group is from a different PAG pastorate.

I called representatives from each group, as well as the two bishops, to a meeting in Soroti to discuss the graduation.  We discussed and planned for an afternoon and they decided that instead of having three graduations, they would like to do one big graduation all together.

They decided to have Kaberamaido be the host and the graduation will take place at the main PAG church in Kaberamaido town.  Kaberamaido is taking care of the meal since the people from Amuria and Katakwi will have to pay a lot for their transport back and forth.  Some of the pastors struggle financially, as you know, because their churches don't support them well.  So I am asking all of you to please pray that God provides the funds that are needed for everyone involved in planning and attending this big event. 

The graduation will be a very big event in the lives of these pastors.  For some of them, it will be the most important graduation, (or the only graduation of any kind), that they've ever been a part of.  They are very excited to wear graduation gowns and receive a certificate for completing Timothy Leadership Training.  Most will become master trainers (completing all 6 manuals and certified to start their own TLT groups), and a few will graduate as basic trainers (completing at least 3 manuals). 

The date will be January 15th, 2016, which is a Friday.  We plan to be prompt with time.  Graduates arrive at 8:00am to prepare and the graduation is promptly at 12:00-2:00pm.  If you are in the area at this time, you are most welcome to attend this graduation and celebrate what God has done through all of these pastors and leaders!  If you plan to be there, let me know so I can prepare well and give you more information.  Thank you all for your support and encouragement over this long journey of two years of training these same groups.

Katakwi TLT - Preaching

By Anthony:

At the beginning of August, I taught the Preaching manual to our Timothy Leadership Training group in Katakwi.  It was a great success.  TLTI (Timothy Leadership Training Institute) has been having me assist in editing and revising the Preaching manual. I have greatly enjoyed working on this project.  In Katakwi, I tested out my newly edited version that has never been used before, and which includes the 4-Page Method for organizing sermons, which I explained in my Amuria TLT - Preaching post.  It's not an official version yet, just a work in progress that still needs a lot of testing and editing by other people.  But I was excited to see my hard work in action and seeing pastors learn so much about preaching in a short four days. 

The preaching manual, especially the newer version that we are revising, definitely needs five days.  But all the participants wanted to be able to sell their things at market on Friday, so they agreed to go long hours and finish in four days.  Some of the days we went as long as 7:30am to 7:30pm with only about an hour of breaks total for meals.  Needless to say, by the end of the four days I was exhausted, but also fulfilled.  I am so privileged to have such a fun job.  I love teaching. 

There is a lot of small group work in this new manual and the leaders really enjoyed those times of collaboration.  Near the end each group had to prepare a sermon after being assigned a biblical text.  They had to carefully go through all the steps they learned for studying a Bible passage.  They only spent 3-4 hours making the sermon.  When I've asked people how long they spend working on their sermons at home, they talk about spending hours and hours, up to 10 hours.  Yet they were astonished at the amount of work they had to do in these 4 hours, which makes me think that maybe they don't truly spend 10 hours preparing at home.  While preparing they said, "wow, we can now see it's very hard to be a leader, a big responsibility!"

During the week, we took some time to share reports about how their action plans went from the last manual, Overcoming Family Violence.  There are always so many stories to tell and I can't tell you them all.  But these pastors really worked hard to teach others what they learned, counsel families, and restore relationships.  This is the power of TLT, how God uses these leaders in the Church.  For me, I just teach and facilitate discussion, but it is the pastors and leaders who are doing the hard work on the ground, in the realities of life, with all of its discouragements and complications.  When you consider that they are all volunteers who don't really get paid much of anything, it's amazing all the things that God accomplishes through them.

One pastor visited and taught 15 families about family relationships, marriage, and family violence.  Ten of the families had previously stopped coming to church because of broken relationships in their families.  But after her visits, there was reconciliation and restored peace, and those 10 families have resumed coming to church. 

A pastor and usher visited 4 families, each with at least one parent who is an alcoholic.  Although none of them gave up drinking, one of the family members gave his life to Christ.

Two pastors teamed up together to teach 27 people the lessons about family violence and healthy loving relationships.  One of the husbands who was trained, confessed that he regularly beats his wife.  He viewed her as his property that he paid dowry for, so he should be able to order her around and beat her.  At the training, he confessed his mistake, explained his new understanding of his wife as his partner made in the image of God, and promised to never beat her again.  A married couple confessed that they had been having marriage issues in the area of sex.  The wife had been having great pain during sex, but the husband used to not care and not listen.  After the training, he realized he needs to love his wife's body as his own body, and now he is being sensitive and they are seeking treatment together.

Pastor Clement visited a married couple from his church, who were on the brink of divorce because the wife was refusing to have sex with her husband.  After Clement's teaching and counseling, the wife confessed that the reason she was refusing was because she was having an affair with a neighbor.  And she was even pregnant through that illicit relationship.  But she repented, and there was a beautiful time of reconciliation and forgiveness.  The husband even said he would accept the child as his own.  They are now living at peace together.  (Unfortunately they will need more prayer, as the neighbor could potentially make things complicated years later by claiming the child as his own when it comes to financial issues like land ownership, dowry, etc.)

Pastor Max went home and decided to make change in his own family first to set an example.  He has been appreciating members of the family for the service and chores they do, and teaching his children to do the same.  He's been teaching the family to serve one another.  Max has even been doing things like washing clothes (something normally just done by women), and cooking for his wife.   People in the community have been scrutinizing and watching how his family operates.  Remember that homes here are open, a series of huts with an open space in the middle.  Neighbors even walk through compounds of other families because paths go right through people's homes.  As they have been observing Max and how well behaved his children are and how everyone serves one another, one member of the community came to visit and asked, "What is the secret to the success of your home and how well your children behave?"

One pastor from Soroti gave a report from the Stewardship manual.  His small church gave 129,000 shillings in the month of January (about $38).  But he went back from TLT to teach about stewardship and set a good example by tithing himself.  By March their giving was up to 156,000.  And by July up to 185,000 shillings.

My co-leader Lazarus helping pastors with action plans:

In this photo you see a translator multitasking, translating the sermon for her group's preacher and taking care of the child. 

One group standing together for the judgment!  Actually we were very loving and gentle in the evaluations.

Two of the sermons needed quite a bit more work, but two groups' sermons were excellent.  And all of them received helpful evaluations from us and the rest of the TLT group, so when they go home they will perfect these sermons and preach them to their churches.

As a random tidbit, I figured out this week that the Ateso Bible that they use was either translated from the King James Version, or at least the Ateso in it is similar to how the King James Version reads.  Thus, most people can't understand it very well.  Even Ateso speakers who only have a rudimentary knowledge of English prepare their sermons with an English Bible, and then they preach in Ateso.  They said it's high time for the Ateso Bible to be updated to fit modern Ateso language.

Most of the group (some left before the photo) holding their action plans!  They are ready to go home and preach using the new method they learned!

When Helping Hurts training in Soroti

By Anthony:

Recently Sara and I were able to lead a When Helping Hurts Training together in our town of Soroti.  Many were invited from all kinds of churches, but most of the participants were PAG (Pentecostal Assemblies of God) pastors, deacons, youth leaders, and women's leaders from the many PAG churches in and around Soroti.  Overall, we had about 40 participants.  This training was our first chance to test out the third version of the training manual which I developed (in communication with one of the authors) based on the book When Helping Hurts.  Sara and I together have been continuing to edit and improve it and this is by far the best version yet.  I've talked a lot about this training already in other posts, so this time I want to highlight the very interesting discussions we had about common frustrations Ugandans have about missionaries and vice versa.  I'll put those reflections at the end.

This was a particularly unique training of all that I've done so far.  Firstly, Sara and I took turns leading the lecture portions.  Secondly, we had several missionary friends who attended the training as participants.  One was Geoff, who we met on the farm in Texas.  He just finished a year working in Tanzania and was visiting us for a week before going back to the US.  Then we also had Eric, who is volunteering at Pentecostal Theological College in Mbale (where we used to teach).  Then we also had Jennifer, a local missionary nurse in Soroti who also works in Karamoja.  Having so many people from different walks of life fostered many interesting discussions.  Here is Geoff below and his discussion group from the first day.  You may notice a couple of my TLT co-leaders in the photo below.

You can just make out Sara and Jennifer in the background of this photo.

We met over three days: two days one week, and one day the next week.  We met in different places and one day we decided to use our vehicle as our wall for papers.

About half the training is lecture and large group exercises.  The other half of the training is small group discussion.

As I noted at the beginning we had some heavy but gentle discussions about missionary / Ugandan interactions and frustrations on both sides.  This was the last lesson of the manual but it relates to all the complications about how to best help the poor, how to work together, and money issues that we dealt with in the rest of the training.  I was very happy that we had several missionaries taking part in the small group conversations about this.  I was also happy to see that the conversations were done gently and with love.  I did not detect anyone feeling uncomfortable or tense.  If anyone was uncomfortable, it was me!  I was worried about how the discussions would go because this was the first time having this discussion in any of my trainings.  In addition, I was trying to get myself ready to be a humble listener in case any of our Ugandan friends gave a frustration about me!  There were helpful things I learned, but overall I sensed that they very much appreciate Sara and me as missionaries.

I want to give you a few of many reflections from those discussions.  There were some stories that were especially interesting but I don't want to break any confidentiality so I cannot share those.  Some stories were very funny, trying to imagine silly things missionaries have done.  Other stories were disturbingly awful, and some hit close to home because I could see similarities in myself.

One of the things that touched me (because I have a dog who I take for walks publicly), was how offended Ugandans can be by the way we treat our dogs.  Many Ugandans use the term "dog" as a symbol for immorality or an immoral person.  "Dogs are security animals, not friends."  They are shocked by how much money Americans spend on their pets while there are people who are hungry and dying.  In general, I can tell you that stories were shared of missionaries caring more about their dog's food than the person's hunger who was working for them. 

A very important point in relation to the book When Helping Hurts, is that Ugandans want to be fundraising partners and contributors and don't want the missionaries to do everything or raise all the funds.  They should be asked to help with projects financially too.  (When missionaries don't ask, this is to treat Ugandans like dependent helpless children, which only sustains poverty and dependency, prevents development, and makes missionaries feel superior and prideful).

Another interesting point was that all the Ugandans agreed they would rather have a few long term missionaries than a few or many short term missionaries.  Short term missionaries leave by the time they start learning the culture.  This is very frustrating.  Not all missionaries come with a learning attitude, and even if they do, there is only so much they can do or learn in one week or one month.  I heard some lovely stories of missionaries who came with a learning attitude and formed deep relationships and the Ugandans were so sad to have them leave so soon, and then they have to start over with new missionaries again.  And we all, missionaries and Ugandans alike, laughed and lamented over the missionaries who think they can come and solve all the problems of Uganda in one week.

Another issue raised that is difficult for Sara and me to adjust to is that Ugandans get frustrated when a missionary only wants to meet a few people when visiting a home.  Ugandans just cannot understand why missionaries do not want to meet and fellowship with the entire extended family and other friends.

Also touching to me (since my Ateso is still so limited) is that Ugandans get frustrated when missionaries are not willing to learn the local language and expect all the Ugandans to know and speak in English.

They also shared frustrations about donors.  Many donors from other countries around the world say: "we want to give such and such, and the money can only be used for that."  Even if the Ugandans know that such a project is not fitting or unwise or will only create dependency, it's very difficult for them to say, "No."  Many donors will not listen at all and will be very "stubborn."  And if the Ugandans refuse to partner with them, they know that the things will be given to another church or city anyway, so again it's hard to say, "No."

There was also a significant discussion about missionaries not taking the time to greet people fully, asking how is home?, how is your family?, etc.  Ugandans know our Western cultures and they try to be understanding, so most of the time they don't force us to do these long greetings and just let us go our way in our hurry.  But they did admit that it frustrated them and it is much better for the relationship if the missionary is willing to spend more time greeting and talking and not be so rushed.  I do fairly well with this one most of the time, but it is not easy.  I have to force myself to ask all of those questions.

They are also frustrated when missionaries are sent from the USA who are not trained, or who are not strong in faith.  Someone asked, "are the donors back home actually strong in faith but are just sending middle-men?"  They want missionaries who are strong in faith, theologically trained, able to preach, and willing to abide by the standards of the church (such as not drinking alcohol).  They wonder, "if they are not trained and not able to teach, then why are they sent to work here?"

Connected to the above, Ugandans are frustrated when missionaries teach against the local teachings of the church.  Even if this is done by accident, it is frustrating that the missionary did not take the time to learn about the beliefs of the local churches.

Last, Ugandans are also very offended when missionaries do not accept gifts from them.  Ugandans want to be able to experience the joy of giving.  So if a missionary always says, "no, you cannot pay for that meal, or guesthouse, you must let me pay," or they refuse to accept a gift in the village like a chicken, this is really offensive and it shows that the missionary feels superior and feels like Ugandans have nothing to contribute.

Although I'm not going to write about it here, the Ugandans were also able to learn about the frustrations that missionaries have with Ugandans.  Those exist too and some of them are quite important, especially with the issues of money.  It's easy for us and probably for you to think about and imagine those frustrations.  That is why I wanted to focus on how Ugandans feel so we can all learn from these reflections.

At the end they said this was the first time ever that they ever heard of missionaries being willing to talk about the "dirty part of missions" which they appreciated very much.   The training did a lot to crush superiority and inferiority complexes and build better relationships.

Here are some of the fun drawings of community development.  On the right is Eric who is working at PTC.  In the middle are Lazarus and Betty who also help me lead TLT. 

 

 

World Renew Work in Kabale

By Sara:

I recently had the opportunity to visit a very different part of the country from Soroti - Kabale.  Kabale is located in the far southwest corner of Uganda, right next to the Rwanda border.  It is hilly, densely populated, and much cooler than Soroti (I slept under blankets at night and needed to wear a sweater in the mornings and evenings!).  I was there with World Renew staff to do an evaluation of the projects World Renew supports in that region. 

Taking part in evaluations of World Renew projects is part of my job here.  Basically, in an evaluation, a group of people both from World Renew Uganda and from outside Uganda or outside World Renew, go and visit the actual participants/beneficiaries involved in projects, asking questions about how they have been affected by the programs and seeing what exists on the ground, then also meet with the program staff to see how they are doing in their work.  This helps to avoid problems, for example if a project is supported financially, but nothing is in reality being done.  Since World Renew does its work much of the time through supporting partner organizations, evaluations are part of the accountability.  In an evaluation, we also offer ideas for improving the project and future projects, and it is a learning experience for everyone participating to learn about what is working or not working in development. For this evaluation in particular, since I have knowledge about agriculture, I was especially able to help the team in looking at the way the agricultural project is going there and in giving suggestions about how to continue that work well.

In Kabale, there is a health/HIV project, a village savings and loans (VSL) project, and an agricultural project (conservation agriculture).  Since I am focusing on agriculture in my work here, in this post I am also going to talk mostly about the agriculture I saw going on in Kabale.

First of all, here is some of the beautiful scenery:

A strong focus of the conservation agriculture program in Kabale is mulching and crop rotation.  Since most people only have a small amount of land, they have been constantly growing crops on that land, often the same crop season after season.  As a result, soil fertility has steadily been decreasing.  Mulch helps prevent erosion (which causes fertility to be lost) and adds nutrients to the soil.  Rotating crops also helps to keep the soil healthy.  So below is the home of Violet, one of the participants in the conservation agriculture program.  You can see how she mulched everything.  This might not seem like a big deal, but when land is scarce, it takes effort to find unused plant material for mulch.

Here Violet is showing how the mulch has improved her soil and how she doesn't have to work hard to weed since the weeds are not growing through the mulch.  She also mentioned how her banana plants have become healthy and are not yellow or stunted like those of her neighbors.  The basket of potatoes is a small part of her harvest this year.

She is also a volunteer for Kabale's program working with orphans and vulnerable children.  For that program, they taught some children about keeping rabbits so Violet started keeping rabbits too.  She said that she used to think that meat was only for rich people, but now that they keep rabbits, they have meat whenever they want it.

We walked up and down lots of beautiful hillsides.  It was great!

We visited another woman, Vasta, who has been mulching her garden for three planting seasons.  She planted potatoes on no more than 1/4 acre and the first time she harvested 8 sacks (and these are sacks about as tall as I am).  Then, she grew beans and the third season she went back to potatoes again and harvested about 13 sacks! 

The picture below shows about half of her field

We visited Jopista, a lady from the Village Savings and Loans program who used a loan to buy materials to make these lovely mats to sell.  With the profits, after she pays back the loan, she plans to hire someone to farm her land for her.

Here are some of the other participants in the programs:

The woman whose home we were at, Beatrice, showed us the great things that mulching and crop rotation are doing for her.  She is growing green peppers.

So far, she has been able to harvest peppers four times from the plants that were mulched.  The unmulched plants (on the top right side of the picture below), which were planted at the same time, haven't produced enough to be harvested from even once yet.

She also planted potatoes.  She mulched half of the garden and left the other half unmulched (this is the first season she has mulched that garden at all).  While we watched, she dug up on plant from the mulched garden and one from the unmulched garden.  The picture below shows the potatoes from the mulched plant.  You can see how big some of them are compared to that planner in the corner.

And then the potatoes from the unmulched plant below - all tiny.

Here, she is holding all of the potatoes from the unmulched plant in one hand.  It would have been hard to fit all of the potatoes from the mulched plant in two hands!

Mulched beets:

A happy pig:

Tree tomatoes - a super interesting plant:

One of the things that Beatrice and others are doing to add value to their crops is to make potato chips (or crisps, as they are called in Uganda - chips are fries).  Here she is showing how she slices the potatoes.

On another day, I went with one of my World Renew colleagues, Allen (far right in the picture below) to visit a family who is part of a VSL group.  We climbed up a steep hill to get to their home.

This family borrowed money to buy tree tomato seeds.  You can see the nursery beds for the seedlings below.  He bought the seeds and fertilizer for 50,000 shillings and has so far earned about 4 million shillings by selling the fruits across the border in Rwanda!

Here is the banana/tree tomato/cocoyam forest:

The family's savings group also planted a field of cabbages together to earn money as a group.  Everyone participates in the work of caring for the garden.

This is the beautiful path we followed to get to the hill in the distance, which we climbed.

There is a pile of bricks covered by a blue tarp about a quarter of the way below the middle of this picture.  That is where we went.

Later, we went to a community meeting with participants from all the different programs.  Some men sang us a super enthusiastic song full of dancing and jumping.  I only caught the end of it on video, but it was great.

So basically, World Renew is supporting great work in Kabale.  I'm glad I got to go and hear the stories and see the changed lives there!