Clay Oven Inauguration

By Sara:

We finally got around to the "using the clay oven" lesson in the practical class I'm teaching.  I spent 3 hours before the class keeping a fire going in the oven and making bread dough so we could start baking right when class started (it's usually a 2 hour class and we were going to make several kinds of bread, bake sweet potatoes, and make a cake.  So I prepared some dough before the class that we could make right away, then had the students make more dough that I baked later that night at home).

This is what it looks like to prepare for this kind of a class:

When we took a picture with the oven while things were baking inside, everyone wanted to be in the picture, even some people who weren't part of the class! 

Everyone was pretty amazed that the pita bread was really ready in only a few minutes!

The students really got into the process of baking!  Since they already knew how to read a recipe and how to measure ingredients, I didn't need to do much to guide them.

Some of the beautiful finished products.  With 14 students in the class plus many interested bystanders, most of it didn't last long enough to take pictures of!

Anglicans and a Pentecostal (and neighborhood photos)

By Anthony:

Our friend Tom Engolu came to visit us for a weekend, all the way from Soroti, Uganda.  We had a great time.  He is a close friend who is a secondary school teacher, and an elder and treasurer in his Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG) church. One of the highlights was that I set up a time for him to discuss with some of the students who were interested in talking to him.  About 8 students came and discussed, mainly about the differences between the Anglican Church of Kenya and the PAG churches in Uganda.  I did not get a photo of the historic event, but here is a photo of Tom walking with us near our home.

The discussion was a great time of mutual learning.  Topics that came up included: marriage, searching for a spouse, family planning, sex, baptism, ordination, pastoral calling, theological education, salary, and more.

The most interesting discussion was when they compared what pastors are paid in the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) in the village, and what village pastors are paid in Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG) churches in Uganda.  In the ACK, pastors make the equivalent of $400 a month, plus some allowances, and almost every pastor has a vehicle.  In PAG in Uganda, pastors in towns do okay, but in the village they get about the equivalent of $1 per month, and so have to be full-time farmers as well.  It was so interesting to see Tom in complete disbelief about how much pastors in the ACK are paid, and seeing the students in complete disbelief about how little the PAG pastors are paid.  The students themselves said that it's too easy for someone to become a pastor in the ACK just to make money and many refuse to work when there is no money.  So they were inspired by the PAG pastors who serve their churches as near-volunteers.  They wondered if the PAG churches might be more spiritually healthy because of that difference.  The cost of living is higher in Kenya, but the difference in pay is still huge.  The city pastors in Uganda still make way way less than the city pastors in Kenya.  Excepting Kampala, it's rare to find a pastor in Uganda who owns a vehicle.

Similarly, Tom was shocked that the Anglican churches have full-time evangelists who are paid $300 per month.  Tom said the evangelists in PAG are voluntary, and the whole church is expected to do evangelism.  Clearly, Kenya is more developed than Uganda and doing better economically.   In addition, it seems that the Anglican churches are doing a better job of stewardship and paying their pastors and church leaders compared to the Pentecostal churches.  However, this does not always lead to spiritual growth.  In some cases, the students said it leads to corruption, to buying and selling of church offices, and people joining the ministry just for money.  Furthermore, since pastors have such a high expectation in payment, most churches in the Anglican Church of Kenya cannot afford their own pastor, so each pastor ends up overseeing 5-10 different churches.  So you can definitely see positives and negatives for both the PAG system and the ACK system.

Another discussion that was very interesting was about ordination and calling.  In PAG, you begin with being involved in active church ministry, and the church calls you to be a pastor or leader, and then you go to school to get trained.  It's not so much about your personal calling, but more about the church recognizing your gifts.  In the ACK, you begin by feeling the personal calling, then you go to school, then you get ordained after going to Bible school.  So the result is that the ACK pastors are much better trained, but the ordination happens quickly without a long time relationship with a church who knows their character.  The result in PAG is pastors who are trusted, their testimony is solid, and they have a lot of ministry experience, but most of the PAG pastors have very little training.  In the Christian Reformed Church where I'm from, I think we have a nice balance of the two.  People like me felt a personal calling, but I can't be automatically be ordained just from going to Bible college.  A local church has to call me and accept me before I can be ordained, many other people had to be involved in recognizing my gifts, life, and calling.

It was a really wonderful discussion, where people were eager to learn from each other and appreciate new things.  There is much more ecumenism of this type in East Africa now than in years past, so I'm told.  This is a great thing.  I see Pentecostal churches changing and taking on some good ideas from the Anglican Church, and I see Anglican churches becoming more charismatic as they are influenced by Pentecostals.

Other photos from our time with Tom on our walks near our home:

Uganda's Alcohol Epidemic Video

By Anthony:

Here is an interesting documentary that Sara and I recently watched.  It gives you a good glimpse into Uganda's terrible alcohol problem.  It is called Uganda's Moonshine Epidemic.  As a disclaimer, there are a few instances of language in the video.  But this video will help you to see visually how Uganda is the alcoholic capital of Africa, and likely the world.  You might also be interested in just getting a sense of what the cities and villages look like in Uganda.

It is not hard to understand, after watching this, why our Anglican and Pentecostal friends here in East Africa say that drinking alcohol is sinful, period.  While in the US, Christians can talk about drinking in moderation, here that is just not part of the culture.  People drink to get drunk.  They say beer is like drinking water.  In Uganda, we worked with many church leaders who had been drunkards, falling over themselves, just like the people in the video.  One women's leader used to brew alcohol just like the woman in the video, but she would be drunk herself all the time too.

Living in a culture like this, we don't drink alcohol at all while here.  And when students ask me if it's okay to drink, I always have to clarify my answer.  While I don't believe it's wrong to drink alcohol in moderation, I think it is inappropriate for Christians to drink in public here (especially the local brews) when alcoholism is so rampant, and when the drinks are so much more alcoholic than wine or beer.

What makes it all the more terrible is to think about the issue of poverty in East Africa.  You can understand how frustrated our pastor friends get when they see fathers neglecting their families completely or abusing them, forcing their wives to do all of the work of the home and garden, while they waste the days away at the drinking joints, and use their families' precious money there.  Imagine how much the countries of East Africa could develop if they stopped using all of their money at drinking joints?

Fighting poverty is not just about giving money.  You can see that if the Church can slowly transform the culture and attract people to Jesus instead of alcohol, it can really change people's circumstances, and the communities can develop.

If you are interested in learning more about alcohol in Uganda, you can see the great initiative that the churches and some of missionaries we know are working on in Gulu, in northern Uganda.  They have been working with the churches and government to ban sachets (tiny alcohol packets that end up in even children's hands) from Gulu.  Here are a few representative blog posts of theirs, but feel free to read more of their posts on your own:
"He sells his land to drink"
March On - Video
Sachet Ban - Where are we at?
Gulu's Alcohol Law. Launched!
Old cops new tricks: alcohol seizures

April 2017 Prayer Letter

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