Last year in December, we visited our friend Silas in Irundu, across Lake Kyoga from Soroti. We discussed the When Helping Hurts training with him and he said he would like to have one of us come teach it there. After several attempts at planning and having to keep pushing the dates back, I was able to go there the week before Christmas to facilitate the training.
To get to Irundu, I took a motor boat across the lake. It was very beautiful! I am always amused that people even carry motorcycles with them on these little boats (there are two plus a bicycle in the boat pictured below that I was on - I was in the back by the motor).
After so much struggling to try to plan a time for this training, I was starting to despair and even hoping that it wouldn't work out because it didn't seem worth it. However, once I was there, I was very thankful that I came. Irundu is somewhat remote, so they don't get many trainings like this and Silas, our friend, is the only pastor who has been to the Bible College. The Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG) church there is pretty young as well. Although there was not a large number of participants at the training, those who came were enthusiastic and learned a lot.
Some people commented that they hadn't known before that Israel was sent into captivity in the Old Testament, not only because of idolatry, but also because they did not care for the poor. They also appreciated thinking about what kinds of different situations require giving relief, what needs rehabilitation, and what needs development. They said that it will help them in their churches to know when to give money to people who come asking for help.
Since I stayed right there next to the church for all four nights I was in Irundu, I was able to do some other interesting things in the evenings. One night, I taught some young people how to make friendship bracelets out of yarn (I never thought that I would use that skill outside of elementary school). They started out struggling, but the next morning, they showed me what they had done and it was perfect!
And on the last evening, I taught all the training participants (and quite a few neighbors) how to make a cake by steaming it.
As usual, it was very fun and many people said they would go home and bake their families a cake for Christmas. One person actually called me the day before Christmas to make sure he understood the technique correctly since he was in the process of making his family a Christmas cake.
When we cut the cake, it was like the feeding of the 5,000 because lots of kids from far and wide came to see what we were doing and to taste the cake. They lined them up and gave them all a bite. I think we fed about 50 people with this little cake.
No comments:
Post a Comment