Last Amuria TLT - Work and Worship

By Anthony:

 

Martin and I just finished leading our last week of TLT in Amuria.  It was bittersweet, knowing it was our last TLT as a group, but everyone felt relief and a sense of accomplishment for finally completing all 6 manuals.  During the discussions, the pastors raised so many good questions, and I realized I could spend many more years here teaching these same pastors.  But TLT has given them basic skills in pastoring, and a good biblical foundation to build on as they continue to grow and learn.  My favorite testimony about TLT that I've heard many times in different ways from pastors in all the TLT groups is this: "Before TLT we were just playing games trying to pastor."  "Now that we've done TLT, we no longer feel like we are just gambling as pastors."

 

My last training in Amuria proved to be my first time to eat cow intestines and chunks of stomach or rumen.  It wasn't bad!

 

Here is Martin leading below:

 

This last manual is called, "Serving God in Work and Worship."  The idea of the manual is to help people realize that we are to worship God in all of our lives, not only on Sundays.  So the first part of the manual talks about how to glorify God in our daily work, whether farming, business, or pastoring.  Then the rest of the manual is dedicated to learning about the various parts of a worship service - praise, confession, sermon, offerings, blessing, etc.  In TLT we don't just discuss these topics generally, but we get down into details of how to really do these things well in churches, what things we are missing, and what problems we regularly face in the worship times.

The reports this time were encouraging as always.  So many Sunday school teachers have been trained since the last manual, and so many children made happy.

I'll share with you one report just to give you a sense of the different kinds of struggles people face here in Uganda.  Elizabeth's plan was to train up other women's leaders using the apprentice method, meaning she does the ministry alongside with them, giving them chances to also minister, and afterwards she gives feedback and instruction.  After she ministered together to the church with the other ladies, several Christians came up to give her testimonies about how they were touched through the ministry.  One Christian said he had been planning to kill his brother the next week (perhaps over land disputes?), but through the teaching he was convicted and is no longer going to do that.  Another Christian said she was preparing to go to see the witch doctor to find help for some problem, but now she is going to go to God instead.  A third Christian testified that he was planning to poison his brother's family (guns are scarce, so poisoning is the usual method of getting revenge), but he was convicted and has now repented of such a horrible idea.



 

I don't want to make this post too long, but we had SO MANY vigorous and interesting discussions about such a big variety of topics.  When you start reading the Bible together, questions come to mind, and sometimes they are important, even if tangential to the manual and what we are supposed to be discussing.  The questions revealed to me how much teaching is still needed even after these pastors graduate TLT.  Some kinds of knowledge we take for granted.  But as these pastors read the Bible, and try to understand it, and try to literally obey it and take it seriously, interesting questions get raised.  These are topics I addressed:

• Many of them thought that Eden is over in the Middle East, and you can go there and see the tree of life still.
• There is a teaching in the villages (I don't think any of my students believed this though), that the sin of Eve was not eating fruit but having sex with Satan.  Besides just being very incorrect, this idea helps to reinforce the prevalent belief among Christians that sex is shameful even if necessary.
• In talking about how the curse has made work more difficult, it was interesting to learn that all but two of the participants said that pastoring is more difficult than farming.  But perhaps this is partly due to their feeling not trained enough to be pastors, in addition to the fact that they aren't really paid to be pastors.
• We talked about lament, and being honest with God in our prayers and songs, and looked at the Psalms as our examples. 
• Some pastors thought it was sinful to have sex on Saturday, the day before going to church.  So we had to discuss sexuality, a bit about the OT law, and cleanness/uncleanness.
• We discussed circumcision, and I found out that some of the participants believe that circumcision makes you weak and completely impotent.
• We discussed polygamy and if the man has to get rid of a wife when he becomes a Christian.  Polygamy is less common than it used to be, but it still exists in Uganda.  Interestingly, the bishop is very open that he had more than one wife before he got saved, many years ago.  After getting saved, he had one wife leave.  But he took good care of her until she married again.
• We discussed Baptism and the Lord's Supper.  We discussed whether it's okay to use wine, what kind of foods should be used, how often the Lord's Supper should be taken, and who should be allowed to partake and who should not be allowed. 
• We discussed whether you should put someone under church discipline in different scenarios.  For example, what if a young unmarried couple confesses fornication and repents, but the young woman is already pregnant.  Here, most pastors would put the young couple under church discipline to "safeguard the testimony of the church" (that they take sin seriously and don't encourage such behavior).  This lasts for a short time, mostly is just a public statement, and they can keep attending church in the meantime.
• The blessing at the end of a worship service is not a guarantee of riches or good health.
• We talked a lot about religious rituals, everything from kneeling, to making the sign of the cross, to having a cross necklace.  We talked about how they can be good or bad depending on why we do them, and that it's more important that we are living rightly in the rest of our lives.  We discussed how with some rituals we forget their meanings over time and they become ritual only.  Many of these Pentecostal pastors grew up in Catholic churches and have since rejected many rituals for that very reason.  But they learned that many rituals can still be good if done from the heart and for the right reasons.  In the process, we examined many of the rituals and traditions that we use in PAG (Pentecostal Assemblies of God).  It was very funny when the pastors brought up that too often they say, "Praise God!" or "Hallelujah!" and don't always mean it.  One elderly women's leader in our group said, "we need to stop using praise God as a comma!" Everyone laughed really hard because they know very well that most of them while preaching say "Praise God" in between every sentence. 

Praying for action plans:

The action plans this time mostly involve training others in this manual about work and worship, especially the worship leaders.  Others want to help their Christians take joy in their daily farm work, or see an increase in the offerings given in their churches.  One pastor hopes to see that all of his Christians stop working on Sundays and rest instead.   Please pray for these pastors as they try to carry out their plans.

Building an Oven With Betty

I have really enjoyed working with a small group of women in Soroti to teach them on various skills they are interested in.  We have done baking of different kinds and making soap.  After teaching them about using my clay oven, some of them wanted to build their own oven at home.  Just recently, we built the first one at Betty's house.  Her husband did an amazing job building the base.  His looks so much more beautiful than the one I built!

While he was building the base, we ladies had tea.  Betty prepared us the biscuits I had taught them to bake on a frying pan.  This is the first time anyone has prepared something for me from one of my recipes and I can't tell you how much joy it gave me!

I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was covered in clay and sand, and I didn't want to get it all over the camera, but here's the whole group working on the oven.

WHH Kabale and Thoughts on Helping the Poor

By Anthony:

Recently, as Sara traveled to Arua for the ECHO conference, I traveled to Kabale to lead a When Helping Hurts Training.  Sara had 2 days of driving each way, and so did I.  We went together to Kampala then she went all the way to the North-western corner of Uganda, while I went all the way to the South-western corner.  To make the travel more tolerable we treated ourselves to a nice dessert.  Now you have proof that we don't live only on termites and maize.  (We were travelling with some World Renew colleagues).

 

 

This training was a bit tougher for me.  Besides being tired from so much driving, I was extremely cold in Kabale!  They live in the hills/mountains and in my room it was around 63 degrees during the day (not a heated room) and colder than that at night.  I wasn't warm enough even with my fleece!  February in the US is going to be a rude awakening.  In addition to being cold, I had a cold.  It's not fun to lead a training when your body just wants to sleep and you blow your nose all day.  But God gave me strength and it was a successful training.

 

Here is a video of worship:

 

Every day when I looked at the participants I chuckled a bit.  I was in Uganda, and yet everyone was wearing sweaters, coats, and scarves.  It's what I would imagine Soroti would be like in winter if we had the seasons of the US.

I had to change some of the examples in my training manual.  In the manual we discuss how we would appropriately offer help for a famine in Karamoja (the region next to Teso where we live).  So for this training in Kabale we discussed how the local churches might help the Batwa people, using principles we learn in the training.  The Batwa are pygmies and live nearby in the Kabale area and are perhaps one of the most marginalized peoples in Uganda.  They are by tradition a forest dwelling people, but they were evicted from their lands when the government created a National Park, the Bwindi Impenetrable forest.  They suffer regular discrimination and oppression and their rights are not recognized.  I learned from the pastors that some NGO's and missionaries work with the Batwa people.  Honestly I haven't researched what projects the NGO's are doing there so I cannot make a true judgment.  But the pastors told me that much of the work is being done without really partnering with the people and consulting them for their ideas.  For example, they said that an organization built for the Batwa a bunch of houses, but the people didn't want houses built like that (with metal roofs) so they don't live in them but use them as kitchens and storage rooms.  If this it true, it is another reminder to all of us that it is so important that we work WITH the people we are helping and get their ideas and wisdom!  We don't just go out and start doing stuff for them when they weren't involved at all in our planning meetings, whether they are a tribe in Africa, or the poor family in our church who needs help.

Prayer time:

One discussion that usually comes up during these trainings is: "is it really okay to say "no" to people when they ask us to give them things?  Didn't Jesus say to give to whoever asks from you?"  This is a really good and important question.  It's one I've wrestled with a lot.  But I am at peace and don't feel guilty when I say usually "no" to people on the street who ask me to give them things.  While there are many Bible passages that command us to be generous, to give to others who lack (1 John 3:16-18, Matthew 5:42), there are also Bible passages that tell us not to give in certain situations (2 Thes. 3, 1 Tim. 5).  Are they at odds?  No. I don't think so.  God wants us to be generous but also to use our minds and wisdom when giving so that we truly help people be who they were created to be.  We have to take all of the Bible passages and apply them at once, not put them at odds together.  Should we always be generous?  Yes.  Should we sometimes not give?  Yes.  Sometimes not giving is the more loving thing to do, but we don't then turn away from the person, we figure out the better way to help them that will usually be more difficult and time consuming.  For example we might help them out of an alcohol addiction, or we might help them find meaningful work to do to earn their own income.  One pastor disagreed with me, and said we should always give when people ask, to obey these Bible passages.  One reason I like these trainings is that we can disagree openly at times, but still remain brothers and sisters in Christ and learn from one another.



As per usual, people had a good time drawing pictures of "community development" and evaluating them with a lot of laughter.  In the photo you can also see some of what I wrote for people during the training on the big pieces of paper.  I'm amazed they can read my terrible writing!

 

 

 

 

I don't remember how it came up, but we discussed the problem of how many NGO's and missionaries pay people to come to trainings.  This creates so much dependency.  What development workers sometimes fail to realize is that doing this is a way to treat poor people as if they are helpless, inferior, powerless and can contribute nothing to their own development.  It's one more way for us to indirectly hit home the false point that they are way different from us, and inferior to us.  This is a big problem all over Uganda (and I'm sure all over much of the world).  The result of this practice is that people go to trainings as their livelihood in some cases, rather than focusing on developing their own gardens or businesses.  It also prevents real development from happening in places where this practice has gone on, for people will no longer attend good trainings, even ones that would benefit them, unless they are not only facilitated to come, but paid for their time while there.  Reflecting on this problem caused me to recently post on facebook:

Please missionaries, NGO's, development organizations, please please stop paying people to come to your trainings. This is happening in so many places even by big organizations that many of you in the US support financially. Such practices are ruining any chance for development and change in Africa. I'm not trying to be harsh, but this is a serious issue that needs to change.  The more we keep treating the poor as helpless and unable to contribute, the more they will listen to us and feel helpless and unable to do anything on their own, thus such practices are keeping people trapped in poverty. It's much more affirming to have someone encourage you that you CAN do something, you can contribute, you can grow and develop. That's when real change begins.

I humbly suggest you do some research on the organizations that you support financially, find out if they are doing this, and please don't support this harmful practice.  In many ways it is the exact opposite of development. Last, in case you are curious, this is how my trainings work (as well as Sara's).   I pay for my own fuel and accommodation and time (well actually YOU pay for those).  The participants pay for their own transport, their manuals, their own feeding, and usually my feeding as well.  It's a true partnership with everyone contributing what they are able to contribute!

Fun Activities With Kathleen

By Sara:

While Kathleen came to visit, we did some other fun activities together that she didn't have room to share about in her guest post.

First of all, we dressed in ridiculous (but safe) clothes for making soap

 
She brought us marshmallows, so we made s'mores over the gas burner on the stove

We put the clay oven to work

Kathleen helped Anthony give Caleb his worm medicine

We took a morning hike up the nearby hill and watched the sun rise while eating breakfast

We also found a chameleon when we took Caleb for a walk, so we brought it home on a stick and put it in the garden

Finally, Kathleen made lots of small children very happy when we were working with farmers in Kaberamaido.

All that to say, I am so thankful for her visit to us!

ECHO Conference in Arua, Uganda

By Sara:

I had the opportunity to attend and to even present at an ECHO conference in Arua, Uganda with a couple other people from World Renew just last week.  This particular conference was on the topic of "Best Practices in Areas of Conflict".  I was not really sure what to expect from the conference, but I have to say, it was really good.  Anthony and I spend a lot of time thinking, talking, and reading about all the problems that missions and development have caused to the extent that sometimes we miss out on the positive side of it all.  So, I found the conference really encouraging.  There were lots of presenters who shared about the good things that God is doing in the world, in the midst of conflict.  I am very glad that I went and I will share some of the highlights of what I heard.

But first, like I said, I got to be a presenter at this conference myself.  I feel very honored to be included among the people who got to share.  I was able to share from the experiences of World Renew and our partner organization, KIDO, of working in Amuria and Katakwi during and after conflicts, which included cattle raiders from a neighboring tribe, a rebel group fighting against the national government, and the Lord's Resistance Army.
(Thanks to Trent for being the photographer)

I talked about how it is important to differentiate between relief, rehabilitation, and development, and shared some lessons that World Renew and KIDO have learned about that.  For example, when people left their homes and went to live in IDP camps or in towns, they got rid of (or lost) all their animals.  So when they returned home, they didn't have oxen to help them plow their land.  Many NGOs gave people hoes to dig with, but without enough food, they didn't have energy to clear and plant in large areas of land.  This teaches us that it is important to involve the community in the planning for any sort of project, in order to address the needs that are most important and urgent to them.

Another example is that KIDO has seen great progress made in communities that went through PEP (Participatory Evaluation Process: Bible studies led by pastors that help a community plan and implement their own development process).  One community realized that many adults and children had not received a good education, so they decided to start a nursery school.  Parents donated food and firewood to feed the children and the church gave some land.  After a while, they were able to hire more teachers with the money from school fees.  The community also came together to supply the resources and the labor to build a school building.  And one of the school administrators shares that they "are committed to [the school's] success, with or without external support."  You can read the detailed story and more here.

Okay, enough about me.  Let me share a few encouraging things from the other presenters.  A Catholic priest from Italy, Father Tonino Pasolini, who has been working in Uganda for about 40 years, gave devotions every morning. I really loved how, one morning, he talked about how sometimes we look at the work of development in front of us and like Moses, say "who am I?" to do this job - it seems impossible.  But we are doing the work with and for God.  It isn't actually our job and he is with us.

Bishop Joel Obetia (of the Ma'di and West Nile Diocese) talked about reconciliation and said some great things about how Christ's love motivates and compels us to be reconciled to God and to each other, even to our enemies.  Because, if Christ died to reconcile us to God even while we were sinners, how can we hold the sins of others against them?  Of course, reconciliation is hard work, but it is the work of the Church, so we need to do it.

Juliet Namukasa, from IAS (International Aid Services), talked about how transformation starts with us.  If we go to a community and expect them to be transformed in some way, we cannot expect that this will happen if we are not transformed ourselves.  We cannot give what we do not have.  I appreciated this point - that even as development workers, we need to be willing to change ourselves, instead of just looking at the people we work with and thinking they are the only ones who need transformation.

There was also a great presentation by John Ngota, a colleague from World Renew in South Sudan about the work World Renew is doing there through a weekly farm radio program.  As you may know, South Sudan is a country still full of turmoil and with the unrest and violence, it is difficult for development workers to get to farmers and do field work with them.  This farm radio program is great because it reaches people who are hard to reach.  About 63% of the farmers in that particular area listen to the program, which comes to about 20,000 families!  They talk about things like the current market price of foods that people produce and give a short extension message which fits with the current farming season and the weather.  It is very relevant to the farmers who listen in.  Please pray for World Renew in that country and for South Sudan, in general, that there would be peace.

Finally, there was a presentation from David Sharland, from CMS in Arua, who talked about the great things he has seen God do in the midst of terrible situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (when it was still Zaire), in Sudan, and in Uganda.  He told a lot of amazing stories about how God gave him and others courage to stand up for what was right even when they were afraid and he encouraged us that there is redemption found in all situations.  We should always be open and waiting for God to do the unexpected.

I hope that you have also been encouraged by these tidbits.  I got to go on a field trip on the last day and we saw a beautiful demonstration farm that the aforementioned David Sharland works with.  I am inspired and hope I can be a part of something like that someday!

TLTI Uganda Video (showing my work!)

By Anthony:

Timothy Leadership Training Institute recently released several new videos highlighting the work of TLT.  This one focuses on what is happening in Uganda and shows some of my trainings and those who are training with me!

Katakwi TLT - Teaching the Christian Faith and Testimonies

By Anthony:

 

A few weeks ago we finished the fifth TLT manual in Katakwi, "Teaching the Christian Faith."  You've already read what this manual is about in my other TLT posts from Amuria and Kaberamaido.  But I want to share with you some highlights from this training.  Here is a video of worship time together:

I'm very excited to share with you some of the reports and testimonies I heard from the church leaders concerning their preaching action plans.

Rose, the pastorate women's leader, organized families to come together for fellowships and she had the opportunity to preach at those gatherings.  She did many of these over 3 months and in total 70 people got saved through that ministry!

Max grew greatly in his preaching and three people recently got saved as a result of his sermons.  People gave him many testimonies about how much his preaching had changed, and now he is getting invitations from other churches in town to come and preach, even Anglican churches.

Two pastors, Berna and Andrew, each in their separate churches greatly improved in their preaching.  Without any solicitation, the church members unanimously said that they noticed a huge change in their preaching.  In each of their cases, the church members themselves said, "we see the fruit of this TLT program, next time you go we are going to pay for your transport and for your manual and training fee." And the churches did this, they followed through.  For Andrew, a church member said, "no more are you going to bicycle to this TLT training, I'm going to take you on my motorcycle and when you are done, call me, and I will come and pick you up."  These testimonies are so touching to me, because first of all, the best evidence of the training accomplishing something is the church members' testimonies, not the participant's testimonies.  Secondly, pastors are really not supported very well in Uganda, and especially in the district of Katakwi.  They are given almost nothing, so this is a huge change in these two cases.

This time I had a new master trainer join us because she wanted to get some experience leading as a facilitator.  Her name is Jane.  Baker also came along.  I had the two of them lead most of the lessons.  That made this training a bit more restful than my normal trainings.

Again, at the end of the training, we had them divide into groups to prepare Bible lessons for children, and then act it out.  This step always crystallizes in their minds the steps they learned in the training for making a Bible lesson and it gives them confidence that not only do they have the ability to teach the children in their churches, they have the ability to train others.

One group did a nice job of making drawings to use in their Bible lesson:

Some videos of the lessons: 

I am excited to see how God uses them in their new action plans.  Most of them are going back to train Sunday school teachers.  One is going to teach the manual to all the teachers at his primary school that he started.  Some are going to teach and lead their family members, especially the children, in memorizing Scripture.

One older lady is going to work with other women to cultivate a plot of land.  She'll buy the seeds and provide the land, and they'll do the farm work.  She hopes through this effort to raise at least 50,000 shillings (about $15) for her church's Sunday School Program.

Another lady is going to work with the church to build a grass thatched building.  This will then be used for the Sunday School program at the church. 

Guest Post from Kathleen

We had a great visit from our friend Kathleen during the month of August!  Below, you get to hear her reflections on her time with us.  Enjoy!

By Kathleen:

I have found that spending real time with friends always brings joy, conflict, and learning which leads to deeper relationships between ourselves and God. I was able to experience all of these things during my visit with Sara and Anthony as they allowed me to visit their home for over two weeks. Our paths crossed in Waco, TX during January 2013 at the World Hunger Relief Farm. Eventually, Sara and I bonded over searching for owls, reading books, and a mutual love of goats, while Anthony and I became friends through interesting conversations during Monday morning milkings and while sorting through pig slop. While they have been serving in Soroti, I have been working with urban gardening in Waco, TX.

During my time in Soroti with the Sytsmas I was happy to make new friends, learn more about their work, deepen my understanding of Ugandan culture, have challenging conversations, and spend time with snuggly animals.  Here are a few highlights of our time together. 

First, Sara and I butchered our first rabbit. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Anthony for being our excellent photographer and sidekick. Without him none of these pictures would be possible. While Sara and I both love animals, we also both realize their usefulness (and tastiness) as a source of food. Neither of us had ever butchered or eviscerated a rabbit, so we thought it was time for us to learn. Here is the rabbit, known as Little Chinchilla, who became our tasty dinner.

[***Just so you are aware, there are some dead rabbit pictures coming after this one, in case you want to skip them***]

During her life she was a lovely and curious rabbit who was served her favorite meal, sweet potato leaves, before her death. We thanked God for her life and sacrifice.

Here are a couple more pictures of the process.

One interesting thing I learned a couple years ago was that if you have two female rabbits (does) and one male rabbit (buck) you can produce as much meat in one year as you would if you had a cow. This was quite interesting to me, especially when you consider the differences between the resources needed to sustain a cow vs. three rabbits.

Here are a few more animal pictures --

Another highlight of our journey together was working with the excellent team in Kaberamaido, KMDP, and their conservation agriculture program. I am still fairly new to agriculture, this past July I celebrated my third “agri-versary.” (Short for “Agricultural anniversary” – Only three years ago I realized for the first time that I loved agriculture and farming.)  Getting to work with the farmers in Apapai, along with other villages, was one of my favorite experiences during my time in Uganda. I felt I was able to watch and learn from the farmers as we mapped out and planted their demonstration farms. Seeing farmers who had already done it experience success with the process was encouraging. It was exciting to see the similarities and differences between things you can and cannot grow when looking at agriculture in Uganda and Texas. I wish we could grow bananas and mangoes. Perhaps I should move but then I would probably never eat vegetables because I would only want to eat bananas, oranges, and mangoes all day.

I also learned about crops like mucuna and jackbean for the first time. I think I prefer agriculture in Uganda over Texas. No offense, Texas.

Jackbeans and cabbage

My last highlight is when Sara and I shared about the DivaCup with a few women in Kaberamaido. In the U.S. menstruation is a subject that often makes people feel uncomfortable. I was curious to see what the lovely women at KMDP would think about the DivaCup. For those who do not know the DivaCup is a menstrual cup that women use during their periods. I have been a faithful DivaCup user for many years. The benefits of the cup include that it is safe, easily cleaned, and you can use it for years. Through using the Diva Cup you are not only able to save money because you no longer need to use tampons and sanitary pads, you also are able to support the environment because you are not burying or burning those items each month.

Living with the Sytsmas allowed me to have a brief picture of the important work they are engaged in. I was unable to spend much time observing Anthony during his work with TLT and When Helping Hurts, however, it has been exciting hearing about the initiatives and strategic plans that pastors and church leaders have developed through these trainings.

Here is one last picture from a beautiful hike we took.

Thanks again Sara and Anthony for your friendship – for both challenging and loving me well. I will close this post with a favorite of mine --

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
Wherever He may send you

May He guide you through the wilderness,

Protect you through the storm

May He bring you home rejoicing,

At the wonders He has shown you

May He bring you home rejoicing,

Once again into our doors