Computer Trainings

By Anthony:

Over 2018, Sara and I led three computer maintenance trainings together. Although I might know more about computers than Sara (thanks to growing up with so many IT friends), Sara also knows some things I don't know, and we are both teaching 100% of the time during these trainings. One of us is lecturing while the other is going around and helping people to do what we are instructing them to do on their computers. I'm sorry that I failed to get any photos of Sara teaching.



We were able to train the World Renew Tanzania team, a group of pastors and development workers from Soroti, and then development workers from World Renew's partner organizations in the Teso region. These trainings are not our favorite thing to do. It's one of the only times we feel like we are sacrificing in our work. But we have had opportunities to learn how to use computers well, and we feel a burden to share our knowledge and skills with others here in East Africa.



Why don't we enjoy these trainings? Sara doesn't enjoy having to spend more time with computers and would rather have her hands in dirt or plants! And for me, these trainings are frustrating because most people have serious computer issues that I cannot fix during a training. For example, there isn't much I can do if everyone has an pirated version of Windows and pirated version of Microsoft Office, because the people that sold them their computers in Kampala sold them stolen versions that are not activated. There's not much I can do when people have old and decrepit computers that need to be recycled or at least reformatted. There's not much I can do when people need Windows updates, but they don't have the money to pay for the 10 gigabytes of data to download such big updates.





Our trainings are really a mix of random knowledge and skills. For example:

• Physical maintenance
• Software maintenance and free programs that will fix errors
• Backing up files and preparing for reformatting
• How to track a stolen computer
• How to make a good password
• How to protect your computer while on WIFI
• How to protect your computer from viruses
• Email sorting options, email signatures, email away messages
• How to use Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Drive
• How to install and use Open Office in case you don't own Microsoft Office legally 
• How to password protect your computer 
• How to make archive files
• How to adjust your battery and power options
• Changing what programs start up when you restart your computer
• How to make internet bookmarks and back them up 
• The only really fun part is having everyone take a typing test, and then showing people programs and websites where they can take lessons to learn how to type faster. Most people who take the test get between 2 words per minute and 20 words per minute. Imagine how much their productivity could be increased if they went up to 60 or 100 words per minute?

Here is a photo of me showing how to blow dust out of a computer (though ideally you would get help to unscrew and open up the computer first).



A new recent addition to our training, although only a couple minutes long, is that we explain how to verify articles on the internet before sharing them on social media. It is terribly common here for people to believe whatever someone sends on social media, and then they widely share it. (Of course this happens in the USA too!) One lady at one of our trainings refused to eat the rice at lunch, because there was a fake news article on social media about the Chinese creating fake plastic rice. At another training, people were afraid to eat eggs because of a fake article going around about people creating fake eggs. In various whatsapp groups we are a part of, it is almost a daily task for us to correct fake news, whether about wars Donald Trump is starting, or about how eating eggs and bananas together can kill you, or about giant snakes in South America that are as big as a building. More important than correcting fake news that we see, we are helping people to learn how to check sites like www.snopes.com, and helping people to learn how to search on google for the real story.

Diverse Animals in our Yard

By Anthony:

Enjoy this post of animals we find in our yard including pets, livestock, and wild creatures. First, here is a chameleon we found in the garden. Holding the chameleon is Paul who works for us during the day cleaning the compound and being around for security when we travel.

Here is a little guy we found in our bedroom recently:

Here are a couple videos of Beorn and Caleb having a tug of war with a stick:

It's really hard for Caleb and Beorn to be patient when waiting for papaya handouts:

Here is a cool walking stick insect that Sara found:

Here are the ducks who are very interested in ping pong balls.

Beorn annoyingly licks us and everything else constantly. But we still love him.

This video is of Beorn taunting Caleb until he gets attacked:

Sara cooked us up some nice rabbits the other day.

We've been enjoying having chicks running around the yard lately.

And here are some ducklings. This video is really old, so these ducklings are already full grown and we've eaten some already.

Me with the dogs. They need some attention each day.

Here is a cool tree-frog I found:

Some of our animals like the ducks don't mind the rain, and others don't like it so much.

Some animals are not quite so warmly welcomed in our house:

Last, for the few of you who are not bored yet and want to watch more dog videos, here you go:

Pollution

By Sara:

Sometimes I get really stressed out thinking about the problems of pollution in the world today.  While we were on our retreat in Kenya in July, we found all sorts of rubbish washed up on the beach every evening and morning.

I'm sure this dump pouring into the ocean in Mombasa doesn't help.

Although the problem seems overwhelming, it does push me to continue guiding people to the truths in Scripture of God's care for his creation so we can all work towards being better stewards of it.

Bidibidi Refugee Settlement

By Sara:

World Renew not only does development work, but also works in the area of relief.  In Uganda, there has been a need for relief for the many South Sudanese refugees who have fled from their homes into Uganda.  In northern Uganda, World Renew has partnered with an organization called Here is Life to help care for these refugees.  We recently had the opportunity to visit with Here is Life and see one of the refugee settlements near Yumbe, Uganda.  The main work Here is Life has been doing with the refugees is to help build nice latrines - mainly for people with disabilities or child-headed households, as well as training some leaders to be counselors to their fellow refugees to help them heal from the trauma they have experienced.

We are so grateful to Here is Life for sharing with us what they were doing.  We learned a lot and saw the many challenges they face in their work with refugees.  There are no easy answers for solving refugee crises in the world, but the people who are working in these areas are certainly working hard to do what they can.

The refugee settlement we visited is called Bidibidi.  The refugees living there all arrived between August and December of 2016, so they have been living there for two years now.  As a result, while you may envision a field full of tents, Bidibidi in fact, looks more like a Ugandan town.  There are close to a quarter of a million people living there (80% of whom are women and children) and it is very neatly divided up with roads (with road signs), schools, health centers, shops, and plots allocated to each family/household.

Below is one of the latrines being constructed through Here is Life's work:

And here is an example of someone's home plot - each family is given a 30x30 meter plot for their home and then one the outskirts of the camp another 50x50 meter plot for a small farm.  This is part of a 30x30 home plot: 

Here is a street of shops, similar to what you might find in a village center in other parts of Uganda:

You can see that there are trees in all of these pictures, but we were told that the area used to be pretty forested.  All the trees which are remaining have an X painted on them so people know not to cut them down.  The trees that used to be there were used to build houses and for firewood.  Now, people have to go searching in the surrounding area for firewood to cook with.  They receive a monthly ration of food: maize, beans, and cooking oil.  Maize and beans don't cook very quickly, so lots of firewood is necessary.  Hopefully, Here is Life will be able to try out the fireless cooker with me to see if we can make it work for the people living in the settlement.

Water is also a challenge.  In the picture below, you can see a water truck delivering water to that big tank and all the people waiting to fill their jerrycans with water.  There are wells throughout the camp, but we were told that during the dry season many of them eventually dry up, making water more scarce.

But despite all the challenges, children are going to school and there are health centers for people to get treatment for their sicknesses.  There are two pictures below of schools.

The Ugandan communities are also benefiting from all of the NGOs working with the refugees.  The Ugandan government requires that 30% of the money/resources spent on helping refugees goes to help the Ugandans living around them.

Below are some videos from our drive through Bidibidi.  These can give you more of a feel for the size of this settlement and for what is happening there.

TLT Testimonies from Amuria!

By Anthony:

Soon after we moved back to Uganda, we went around with Edward, our colleague from World Renew, to my three Timothy Leadership Training groups in Amuria, Katakwi, and Kaberamaido, in order to collect testimonies about how Timothy Leadership Training has continued to impact them and their churches since the graduation back in January 2016. I am humbled and amazed at what God has done through these leaders and the changes he has brought in their lives. Please continue to pray for them, especially as they start up new TLT groups in the near future. This post includes testimonies from the Amuria group.

Eselu George William is in charge of education of pastors in the pastorate (picture below). He has taught TLT in a church assembly and is now leading the TLT Amuria Area Coordination team to lead other graduates in starting more trainings in other places. George has also been working with World Renew to lead a TLT group with Church of Uganda in Nebbi. He learned a lot about planning and scheduling from TLT. From the ideas he got at TLT, he helped to start a nursery and primary school which now has 120 students. It is located near his home. He also learned from TLT how to have a healthier marriage. He tries to spend most nights at home and always calls his wife to tell her where he is.

Here is a video of the school that George started:

Ebiru William is an evangelist. Through TLT he learned how to read and understand English much better than before. After graduation, he went to the prisoners in jail and talked to them about stewardship. That began a good relationship with them. Now he goes to meet with them every Sunday and preaches the Gospel to them.  

Egwalu Andrew is a church leader in Amuria (picture below). TLT has taught Andrew to be a good steward of time, to know how to teach his children God's Word, and the importance of planting trees. He also learned in TLT to treat family members fairly, so now he has taught his boys that it is also good for them to help wash dishes, and not to leave all the work for the girls, even if the culture expects the girls to do all of it. 

After graduation, he started a TLT group within his church training church members. They have done the first four manuals. The members from his group also came to our meeting and shared their testimonies. They are very excited about TLT. In Andrew's group, one person learned how to be a good pastor not only on Sunday, but also during the week by caring for people and visiting people. Others said that they learned how to preach the Gospel effectively. They have seen the financial giving at their church improve through TLT, and they have also seen that the church members are becoming much better at caring for the sick. Through TLT action planning, they were also able to put up metal shutters on the windows of the church.

Oriokot Stephen is a pastor (picture below). TLT has helped him to plan well for the future, and to make sure to keep enough food at home to provide for his family. Because of TLT, he has also planted 25 trees. He wants to train all the youth of his church in TLT. Through the planning method he learned, he helped the youth to start a poultry project to give the youth productive work to do.

Ocen Peter is a pastor (picture below). Through TLT, he learned to care for God’s creation. He learned that men and women are created equally, and learned to treat his wife as well as he treats himself. He taught four of the TLT manuals to his church members. He had the youth of his church start projects for productive work like poultry, goats, and savings groups. Amazingly, he also started a primary and nursery school using the SMART method of action planning he learned in TLT. The school has 11 teachers, and 240 children already!

Praise the Lord for how he has worked through this program! Continue to pray for me and the other pastors who are working with me as we train new TLT groups.

Solar Cooking for Fun

By Sara:

I recently bought a solar oven from another missionary in Soroti and have been trying it out for fun.  I found that the way it is designed, it doesn't get all that hot, so I made my own reflector panels (see the second picture below), which helps it get hotter inside.  (Note that you can make hard "boiled" eggs in a solar oven, it just takes way longer than on a stove)

Every time I would decide to cook something in the solar oven, I would look outside and see not a cloud in the sky.  Unfortunately, by the time I'd put the oven out and get the food inside 15 minutes later, it would be cloudy.  So...I have decided that I need to be doing my experimentation more during the dry season, like from December - February, to be safe.

Sara's Other Kotido Activities

By Sara:

During our visit to Kotido, besides doing Bible studies, my group of women learned how to use the fireless cooker and how to make cakes and scones.  The fireless cooker was exciting.  Some women who arrived late on that day could hardly believe that we had used dry beans - they thought they must have been fresh in order to get ready so quickly! 

Many of them said they were going home to make their own fireless cooker; I look forward to hearing reports back next time about whether they did or not and their successes or failures with it.

They also had a lot of fun making cakes.  Compared to people in most other areas, I think that many of them might be able to turn cake baking into a business.  They are from pretty remote communities where people order cakes from Soroti (4+ hours away) or Kampala (10+ hours away), which is ridiculous and obviously very expensive.  If they are able to advertise well, they should be able to start making cakes for weddings in their own area at a much lower cost.

On the last day, the group decided to make a huge cake (they quadrupled the banana cake recipe) for practice and celebration. I just watched. They were very happy with how beautifully it turned out.

Using the Rocket Stove - Finally

By Sara:

After much trial and error and research, I managed to get my rocket stove to work.  My first success was with biscuits.

After that, however, I figured out that there was an even better way.  I changed the place where you put the firewood so that the wood goes down into the place where it burns instead of straight in.  This made for a much hotter fire with less smoke.  The water started boiling very quickly this time.

I hard boiled duck eggs and therefore also learned that it is REALLY hard to get the peel off of fresh, boiled duck eggs.  I actually ended up breaking them in half and scooping the boiled egg out with a spoon.  But now I know.  Use duck eggs for baking or as fried/scrambled eggs.

October 2018 Prayer Letter

Thank you for praying for us. Here is our recent prayer letter.

Karamoja TLT - Caring for God's People

By Anthony:

In September we went to Kotido, in the Karamoja region of Uganda, for me to start Timothy Leadership Training (TLT) and for Sara to train a group of women in baking, Bible studies, and the fireless cooker. It was a very fruitful week of trainings. First let me talk about the journey there. We drove for four hours, mostly on very bad roads full of bumps and potholes. But the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. Much of the drive was like the pictures below, with interesting rock formations coming out of the flat terrain. At least the road was flat for part of the way as you can see in the photos.





Driving through Karamoja is completely different from driving through the rest of Uganda. After you pass through a town, you can drive 20-50 kilometers through empty bush with almost no homes. The land is nearly devoid of people until you get to the next town, but that land is used for cattle grazers during certain seasons.

We drove through areas that in the 1980s and 90s would have been off-limits, full of bandits and cattle raiders. When you think of cattle raiders, picture in your mind 10-50 men walking in a group, sometimes for days, carrying AK-47s. Many people died in those days from the fighting. But the government did a good job of disarming the people of their guns (guns brought from Sudan mostly) and things have become very peaceful in Karamoja. The Karamajong were feared cattle raiders who had long-term conflicts with the Iteso (the tribe we live among in Soroti). But there have been a lot of really powerful reconciliation efforts between the two tribes in the past years. What I learned during this trip was that within the Karamoja region people also suffered because the various groups within were all raiding cattle from one another. Furthermore, they had raiding conflicts with the Pokot and Turkana from Kenya. People in Karamoja have been through a lot of suffering, especially with regular droughts and famines.



This TLT training was with PAG (Pentecostal Assemblies of God). But the pastors and church leaders came from various districts spread throughout the Karamoja region. Some of them traveled far. And they represented various tribes and languages. With my small training group of 16 participants, we had 5 languages represented, not counting Swahili which was also used in bits here and there. Even more interesting was that several people were supposed to attend the training but failed because of other commitments, and they would have added 2 more languages to the mix. They might come next time. Thankfully, we were able to do the whole training in English, only having to do interpretation for certain key words and ideas. We are starting with the most educated pastors, and then when they graduate they can start new TLT groups themselves in their various local languages.



I was accompanied by Rev. Ekubu Daniel (photo below) from Soroti who co-led the training with me. He is an excellent facilitator and was a great help to me. (Read here for more information about the people helping me with TLT).





Although God really blessed the week and made the training effective, it was really tiring. It's a good thing I had Daniel there to help me. God gave us all strength and energy to finish well. We went from 8:00am to 6:00 or 7:00pm each day. We spent long hours each day because people are busy and it's hard for them to be away from home, and also because the money people bring for food is limited so we cannot meet for too long.



This PAG pastorate in Karamoja covers 7 political districts. The area is wide. Some of the pastors had to travel extremely far to make it to our training. The long distances regularly make ministry challenging and expensive for pastors in this region. It is also a region with a history of underdevelopment and challenges of poverty. To make things more complicated, there is a lot of dependency in the region because of too many NGOs giving handouts and paying people to come to trainings. That said, I didn't have any of those issues with this TLT training. People were eager to learn and willing to pay their own transport and food costs in order to come. My impression of the people in the training group is that they love God deeply, are sacrificing in immense ways in order to follow God's calling in their lives, and they are really caring for their people.

One of the fun things in this group was that we got to be with our former student David (pictured in blue to my right in the photo below). We were with him at Pentecostal Theological College back in 2009! It was nice to reconnect. Most of our previous Bible college students have risen to high positions of leadership and quickly. This is because most pastors in PAG throughout Uganda still do not have a Bible college education. David is in charge of education for Karamoja pastorate.



The training was a great success, so much so that we are planning another training for November that will cover the same manual, to try to get 15-20 more people who missed this week. That way those new people can also join us for Manual 2 in February. I'll send Daniel and another facilitator to handle this extra training. The pastorate leaders think this training is just what their pastors need, especially since most have not been able to go to Bible college.

The group has been learning to be good stewards of time. They decided to give each other heavy fines for being late. Being good stewards of time is an important aspect of TLT. The money will go towards their graduation, so they aren't actually losing it.

In our group, we had mostly men, but we had four women as well. One of the confusing things was that we had two people named "Grace" in our group, but one was a man and one a woman.

We covered many topics such as how to be a good shepherd, how to visit God's people during crises, training other church members in visiting, getting enough rest as a pastor, how to guide and counsel people, what Bible passages to use when comforting those who are grieving, the problem of favoritism in the church, and the ministry of reconciliation.

One of the more sensitive topics was about taking care of your family as a pastor. Unfortunately, because of the needs of ministry, many pastors live away from their families. This is true especially in this pastorate, but it is common throughout all of Uganda. The main reason for this is that if you are called to pastor a church somewhere, you are not given land to farm in the new place and you are given very little in a salary. So a pastor's wife and children will stay on the land that they own, however far away it is, to keep on farming to support themselves and the pastor. There is no quick and easy fix to this problem. But besides the obvious problem of making people prone to sexual temptation, it also has been stressing mothers, making them feel like they are single mothers raising their children alone. Some participants said that children of pastors are some of the most problematic and disruptive children in the community because of this.

Another interesting conversation was about making visits to people's homes as a pastor. Should it normally be a 30 minute visit? Or should you follow the Ugandan culture where the pastor is served a meal and he is there for many hours? There were various opinions, but in the end all agreed that the culture is keeping people stuck to some degree. Church members fear having their pastors visit because they may not have nice chairs for them to sit on, or they may not have a chicken to kill for the meal. Yet culture demands a nice meal. Pastors fear visiting because they don't want to spend all of their time sitting alone waiting for the host family to prepare the meal, and they don't want to have such long visits when they need to visit many different people within a single day. Yet culture demands being served a meal and staying a long time. But if they as pastors are making five visits in an afternoon, it doesn't work to have lunch five times! So we talked about how to change the expectations of church members and yet still honor the Ugandan culture of hospitality. The best advice was to tell church members in advance that you will be visiting many people in one day for brief visits so no one should prepare a meal. But that if someone wants to have the blessing of giving a meal to the pastor, they should be the ones to invite the pastor another time for a meal.

As always happens in this manual, we spent way too long on the lesson about healing. It was very controversial talking about anointing people with oil. There are so many charlatans selling "holy oil" or "holy water" in Africa that these pastors refuse to ever anoint a sick person with oil, even if it is just supposed to be symbolic of the Holy Spirit. They fear people misinterpreting it, so they think it's better just to avoid it completely in the current culture. Perhaps that is the wisest decision.

It was controversial for people to find out that I don't believe God heals us from a sickness every time we pray with faith. I've talked about this in many posts before, so I won't repeat everything here. We spent hours debating about this, which was fruitful since it also touches on the important issues of suffering, prayer, God's Will, and faith. People learned so much from this discussion and appreciated it very much. Some of the most interesting comments for me to respond to were:

• We believe that every time we pray with faith for a demon possessed person to be delivered that Jesus will deliver them, so why should healing be any different?
• Yes, God's will sometimes is to allow suffering into our lives. But when you pray with faith, you can't be praying, "heal them only if it's your will," because you need to pray with faith, without doubts, believing that you will get the healing you will ask for. Otherwise your prayer loses it's power.
• You can know and believe with faith that God will heal the person because if you are in touch with the Holy Spirit, God tells you which sick people to pray for healing for and which ones not to. So you pray for healing for only those God tells you about, and all of them will be healed, whether today or next week or next month.

During the week I learned that one of the pastors, Luke, is good at receiving feedback. He asks his congregation for critique three times a year about anything. His life, character, plans, preaching, etc. They all write on paper anonymously and then he goes home and reads them and works on changing. What he reads he announces back to the church, explaining what he wants to work on, and then he asks people to meet with him to give him help. Then people meet with him to give him advice and ideas to work on those things. I asked if it was painful and he said yes but it helps him grow. And he said that they write a lot! Haha. I really respect him for this.

One of the lessons in the manual is about caring for church members during times of community crisis. We happened to arrive in the middle of a crisis and one of the pastors, John, almost had to leave in the middle of the training to deal with it. It's quite complicated, but I'll try to summarize. In many parts of Karamoja there are some rigid clan structures and traditions (a clan is a smaller unit within a tribe, but larger than an extended family). There are expectations that chickens and other animals be given at designated times to the elders of the clan to take care of their needs. But Christians have been resisting this practice. They view it as harmful because the amount that is supposed to be given is way too much and people go into debt just trying to give these gifts. Furthermore, there are rituals and sacrifices involved that Christians cannot do in good conscience now that they are followers of Christ.

The elders and others in the clans have been persecuting Christians who refuse to give in. Christians are being beaten all the time for their refusal and some have even been killed. Other times each clan may send youths to steal people's animals and cook them up before the animals' owners can be identified. Pastor John who was dealing with this was receiving constant phone calls during our training. His friends were telling him about the people ready to snatch him as soon as he would arrive at home. Police, government officials, and human rights organizations have all been getting involved in these disputes, so there is good hope for change.

We drove pastor John part of the way to his home. He was laughing and ready to face anything with courage, knowing that the Lord is on his side. He heard by phone that the elders planned to curse him and his family. To this, John only laughed knowing that their curses could do nothing against him! I called him a couple weeks after the training and found out that one of his pastor colleagues had been beaten, but survived. Also, 30 men with clubs showed up at John's home recently and he had to run away. But he is now back home and they are getting the police involved. Please keep him and other Christians in this area in your prayers.



This was the participants' first time to be introduced to TLT action planning. They found it challenging to learn at first, but they have really appreciated it so far. Their new action plans were about:

• Training pastors or church members on how to visit Christians
• Evangelism
• Counseling and teaching people with HIV
• Cleaning health centers with volunteers from church and encouraging doctors and staff
• Visiting and comforting the sick in hospitals
• One pastor wants to install a solar light in a children's ward that is always dark

Here is a video of people praying for action their action plans. They are passionate in prayer.

At the end of my training, we were gathering outside to take a photo. Then all of a sudden from the other building I see Sara being escorted by her women's group over to us. Watch the video. I could see she was dressed more like the traditional Karamajong people. I didn't know what exactly was happening! Haha. All I could think of was our wedding, and wondered what kind of ceremony was about to happen. But they only wanted to give me the same attire and then take photos together. It was a fun gift.

Below is Daniel and then Amadi and his wife who worked extremely hard to feed us during the week and organize the trainings.