Bishop's Consecration

By Anthony:

We had the pleasure of attending the consecration ceremony of Bishop Emmanuel Okwalinga in Amuria, our dear friend. He has been serving as the Bishop of North Teso PAG pastorate for almost a year, and the official consecration happened earlier in Kampala, so this event was more of a celebration of the new leaders. Along with Emmanuel they were celebrating the new secretary and ministry coordinator on his team, Moses and George. All three of these leaders we love and respect, and we have known all three of them since 2009 when they were students at Pentecostal Theological College in Mbale, Uganda.

Here is Emmanuel and his wife Joyce entering the ceremony grounds. We and other church leaders escorted them to their seats.

We have done a lot with these three leaders. They have organized many trainings for us in their churches, and they have also served alongside of us in teaching other pastors. They have translated for us in our teachings countless times, they have visited our homes, we have visited their homes, they have invited me to preach, they have led TLT, and we have shared life's joys and sorrows together. It is such a joy for us to see how they have grown, and to see them come to these important church positions where God will use them and their integrity to bring transformation in their communities and churches in this pastorate.

Since they have taken up these new positions, we do even more together than before. I in particular spend a lot of time advising them as a team on issues like training leaders, budgets, fundraising, conflict resolution, using computers, accountability, and time management and scheduling. I mention that here because this is how I love to spend much of my time, but these things won't normally show up in our reports or blog posts.

Part of the ceremony included a triple wedding. I bet you haven't attended one of those! It's really a wonderful thing, and a way to save a lot of money. Weddings in Uganda involve inviting everyone in the community and that is an expensive food cost. 

Beautiful choirs to entertain us while they were getting the generator ready when the power went off:

One of the songs was a traditional Ateso drum beat. When the few people started beating the drums and people realized it was from their traditional culture, people started running up to join in the dance from all over the grounds. They then hoisted Emmanuel up on their shoulders and celebrated together.