Science Garden

 By Sara:

When the lockdown started in Uganda, I began thinking of creative things I could do to learn and gain helpful skills for my work.  One activity I decided on was setting up a small experimental garden in which I could compare different methods of growing the same crops to see which one was best.

A friend who runs a business school just outside of Soroti offered to let me use some of his land for a garden, so I went and planted what I call my "science garden" there.  If I keep up the crops there, when schools open up again, I'll have opportunities to share with the business school students what is going on in my garden. 

I looked at two crops in particular: cowpeas (black-eyed peas) and millet.  For the cowpeas, I was comparing different spacing between the rows and between the plants and then seeing what effect harvesting leaves as greens would have on the yield of the cowpeas themselves.

 

For the millet, I had four sections, each planted using a different method.  The first was the control, the second had mulch between the rows, the third had cowpeas intercropped between the rows of millet, and the last one used a method of intensification where I planted the millet in a seed bed and then transplanted it a few weeks later at a very specific spacing between plants.  As the millet was growing, it was apparent that the plants in that fourth section looked the biggest and healthiest.  When I harvested, the yield from that very section weighed more than 3 times as much as any of the others!  In the picture below, it is the pile in the bottom right of the picture.  After the initial harvest, more grain matured later on the plants and I got similar results.

 

Next year, I am going to have to set up a comparison garden at home with millet, half simply planted in rows and the other half using the method of intensification.  More people stop by our house, so I would like to 1) do a second trial to see how productive the intensification method is and 2) have it be nearby and easy to show people who visit.

The cowpeas did not give quite as obvious results since it seemed like there were differences in parts of the garden in terms of soil quality and water holding capacity.  When I calculated the average yield per plant, though, the section with more space between rows and from which I weekly harvested leaves from every row for two months, produced by far the most grain and greens.  But I will have to try that one again to be more sure.

Another Soroti Clay Oven

 By Sara:

A few months ago, a church women's leader in Soroti asked me to help her and her daughter build a clay oven at their house.  It turns out we are fairly close neighbors, so I can walk over to their house in just about 5 minutes.  We had fun stomping the clay and sand together and working hard on construction:

Margaret wanted to have an oven at her house because her daughter, Esther, is very enthusiastic about baking and might try to start up a business selling what she makes.  She also wanted an example to try out in order to see if it would be helpful to build such an oven at the church eventually.

We built a bigger oven than I've made before since they had enough materials and thought it would be more practical for a business to bake more things at once.  I enjoyed doing something new with the oven size and the challenge of mixing way more building materials.

After the oven was fully dry, we planned a day to try it out.  We baked all kinds of fun things: roasted sweet potatoes, pizza, pita bread, loaves, sweet potato scones, carrot cake, banana bread, and cornbread muffins.  I thought I could bake a lot in my oven - what can be made in a bigger oven is even more impressive!

The whole family appreciated all the effort Esther put into learning to bake all these things - they got to enjoy tasting everything at breakfast and lunch!

God is Working in Kotido through TLT!

By Anthony:

Through Timothy Leadership Training in Kotido, Uganda (Kotido is a town in the region of Karamoja), God is moving mightily through a small group of participants. It is such a great joy to me to be able to hear their testimonies. I was not at the last training personally, but it is one of the trainings that I help to oversee and organize. We started with a much bigger group, but due to the vast distances in Karamoja, it was hard for many of the participants to keep coming to each new manual. Here is the group that has continued and is near graduation:

As you read the testimonies below, I think it's helpful to point out that while Uganda is a largely Christian country, the region of Karamoja is still somewhat an unreached area. Karamoja has been marginalized by the rest of the country in many ways and struggles a lot with material poverty as well as dependency. There is a big lack of infrastructure which makes it hard to travel, and it has proved difficult for many missionaries (foreign and Ugandan) to make inroads in Karamoja due to cultural differences. In addition, Karamoja has been a volatile region for many years, with a long history of violent cattle raiding within Karamoja and against neighboring tribes. I've heard reports from our TLT participants that they've had to guide church and community members away from wanting to join the raiding parties that have formed up again during the lock-downs this year. Poverty can make people desperate. While the news doesn't talk about it much, I heard through local sources over the past 6 months about burned villages, fights between Karamajong warriors and the Ugandan army, and many deaths. Thankfully in the Kotido area of Karamoja, things have been peaceful this year.

Lucy says: “In my own family, before doing the manual From Harm to Harmony, I used to have conflicts with my husband. We could quarrel and my husband would fight me. After the training I forgave my husband and reconciled with him. Now we live in harmony with each other and love each other."

For the Teaching the Christian faith manual, Lucy says: "I had planned to train 3 Sunday school teachers on teaching the Christian faith. COVID 19 affected my training plans. We decided to take the training to the home-cell group. I was able to train 2 Sunday School teachers. As these teachers implemented the training, while teaching children in the community – 40 children got saved. Many of these were Muslim children. As the children witnessed to their Muslim parents, one Muslim woman came to know the Lord as her savior." 

Rev. Amadi wrote: "I had planned to train 2 Sunday school teachers by the apprenticeship method on how to mentor junior girls to witness for Christ. After training 3 Sunday school teachers (apprentices) they were able to train other 15 girls and boys. A missions team of 15 girls has been formed. As a result of their involvement in missions 100 souls have been won to Christ."

Here is a video testimony from Lucy that she was happy to share with us:

During the training week, there were other unexpected things happening. Emmanuel Okwalinga, the facilitator, who is Bishop of North Teso Pastorate, decided to take two recently trained evangelists with him to Kotido. They took part in some of the TLT lessons, but they also went out and met with other Christians in the area. They trained 18 young boys and girls in the Discipleship and Soul Winning training program that they had gone through themselves back in Amuria. 

As a result of this training, the young people were able to reach out to their neighboring communities and 306 new believers confessed Jesus as their Lord and Savior during the same week as the TLT training! During the outreaches, Emmanuel also reports that God performed signs of healing and deliverance for 3 of the new believers.

Emmanuel and the TLT participants who are church leaders of the area stayed up late each night planning together how to best disciple the new converts and organize new churches. Emmanuel has now sent two missionaries from his pastorate to stay in Kotido for six months to help with follow up, discipling, baptizing, and planting two new churches for these new believers. One of these missionaries that was sent was my TLT student back in 2014-2015. 

Please pray for these new disciples and for the TLT participants! Praise the Lord for what he is doing.

Book Recommendation - Bloodlines

 By Anthony:

I would like to strongly recommend the book Bloodlines, by John Piper. It is the best theological book I've read on the issue of racism and ethnocentrism. There are so many important books to read about racism, especially by people who share their own stories of experiencing racism, or by authors who examine the history of the USA and the problems that continue up to today. But if you are looking for a thorough biblical and theological treatment of the topic, this book does a masterful job.

And you can download it for free here! It's amazing that almost all of Piper's hundred plus books are free. It's so fun to give my Ugandan pastor friends hundreds of digital books at a time, legally, including all of Piper's books. Piper's generosity has enabled me to experience the joy of giving as well.

He writes about hard issues with nuance and care. In this book, he looks directly and honestly at his own overt racism in his youth, and he also doesn't shy away from talking about the real problems of systemic racism today (what he terms structural racism). But what is most important, in my mind, is that he applies the Gospel, the good news about Christ, to all of these really tough racial issues.

Like many of you I have read dozens of articles and watched many videos about racism over the past 6 months. This book does what most of them don't. Piper looks at the issue of racism connected to every different aspect and feature of the Gospel. The Gospel is what the world needs. And the Gospel is what we need if we want to have any hope at fighting against racism in ourselves and in society. Over the past months, I have mourned a bit when I see that some people use the phrase - "we need to bring the Gospel into this" as a way to avoid dealing with the real practical issues of racism. But I've also mourned when people assume that because Christians want to bring the Gospel into the discussions then that means they don't really want to push for real change in our society. As Piper points out, the Gospel will make us aware of our guilt and racist sin, but the Gospel will not leave us paralyzed in guilt. The Gospel is the solution to our guilt and sin, and the Gospel is what will bring us together with people who are different from us. The Gospel is what will bring reconciliation. And the Gospel is what gives us humility, a willingness to listen, and the power to actually change how we behave.

Here are some other interesting things I learned from Piper in this book:

• I was shocked to learn that in some US states the laws against interracial marriage were only removed about 20 years ago.
• I now look at some Bible stories in completely new ways. For example, I now see the racial undertones when Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses for having a black African wife, and it is awfully interesting that God makes Miriam leprous as a punishment; it says she was made as white as snow. As if God was saying, "so you think it's better to be white do you?" 
• There was an excellent analysis of the importance of generalizing and having stereotypes in every day life, but also showing the ways that using stereotypes can lead to sin. He gave helpful strategies for avoiding falling into those sinful patterns.  
• Piper argued that ethnicity is a more helpful category than race, and I strongly agree.
  "When you stand before a man who is manifestly different from you in skin color, hair type, and facial features, and you want to respectfully and intelligently take his significant differences into account in your interaction, it is generally more helpful to know that he is a Korean-American-third-generation-born-in-Philadelphia than to know that he belongs to the Asian race. Or if you are an African American standing before a “white” man whom you would like to interact with in an intelligent and respectful way, it will probably be more relevant to know that he is a Danish-international-student-studying-urban-trends than to know that he belongs to the Caucasian race."