Small Group Bible Studies

By Sara:

Almost three years ago, Anthony and I started hosting small group Bible studies at our house once or twice a month with some of our friends in Soroti.  There are around 20 of us total, mostly couples, but a few single people.  We all meet at the same time, but the women's group sits in one part of our yard and the men's group in another.  We are very grateful to be able to have fellowship and to study God's word with our friends.  This year, we had to take a long break from meeting together because of restrictions due to Covid, but now we have gotten started again.

Each time we meet, we provide tea and a simple breakfast, then we enjoy an hour or two of Bible study and discussion.  Sometimes, we also study and discuss books together.  Even though we are the hosts and usually the ones who plan our discussion topics, we are glad for the ways group members have taken ownership of the studies.  During the four months we were in the US last year, the groups met without us.  Various members sometimes also contribute to breakfast, including one time bringing these small deep-fried fish (very tasty):

In the beginning, the men were especially interested in studying the prosperity gospel, so they studied a book called "Prosperity? Seeking the True Gospel" while the women did Bible studies together.  But after that, we found some books which were of interest to everyone.  The first one was "Resolving Everyday Conflict."  We looked at issues such as: the ways different people deal with conflict (avoiding or attacking), the importance of acknowledging your part in a conflict, and being willing to be the first one to try to resolve a conflict.  Obviously everyone in the world has to deal with conflict pretty much every day, so it was a practical subject for all of us.  Group members were able to use what they learned from the book in their everyday lives to address conflicts at home, with their neighbors, and in church.

Currently, we are reading "Money, Possessions, and Eternity" by Randy Alcorn.  It is a long book with many chapters, so it will take a long time to complete (especially since we had to take almost 9 months off due to the Covid lockdown), but everyone is very interested in the topic and enjoying it.  First, we read about how much the Bible talks about money and discussed why the way we use our money and possessions matters to God.  Then, we looked at the opposite extremes of materialism - where God's gifts take the place of God, and asceticism - where any physical pleasures are avoided because they are seen as sin and in opposition to spirituality.

The men's group has been working on becoming open and vulnerable with each other.  They have been helping one another grow in holiness and in their relationship with Christ by gradually adding more intense questions and discussion about sin and struggles in their lives.

We also have fun just being together and getting assistance picking (and eating) the many fruits growing in our yard!

It is truly a blessing to have friends here who will speak truth to us and with whom we can share the joys and sorrows of life.  Everywhere we have lived, we have seen the truth of Mark 10:29-30 "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.'"

Biblical Counseling Classes

 By Sara:

As many of you know, I've been taking online biblical counseling classes through the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF).  At the beginning of August, I finished the first class and just last week finished the next two.  Although being in-person with people is better than online classes, what I do really like about the online format is how my classmates are from all over the world.  We gain a lot of helpful insights from the different cultures and backgrounds everyone comes from.

I am enjoying the classes very much, though at the same time they are quite challenging in how practical they are.  Many assignments involve going out and practicing the skills we are learning or having discussions with others about their experiences related to the class topics.  I have also had to try counseling myself by recognizing my own sins and focusing on how to address them.  Obviously this is not a very comfortable task!

In the classes I just completed, one was about how we can counsel one another through our everyday relationships and friendships.  It is helping push me to ask better questions in conversation, learn more about what is important to my friends and acquaintances, pray for others well, and deepen relationships.  I am enjoying meeting with a Ugandan friend every week to practice these new skills and discuss with her how they apply to a Ugandan context.

The other class about counseling people who are dealing with challenging problems such as anxiety, PTSD and trauma, addictions, etc., had a lot of readings so I read many interesting books throughout the term.  One of the first books was about what grieving people wish you would or wouldn't say to them.  The main point of the book is that generally, it is very hurtful not to acknowledge someone's grief or to avoid them.  Rather, we should reach out to those who are grieving, ask good questions and listen, as well as showing up to do helpful tasks for them to lighten their physical burdens.  And we should continue to remember their losses with them even months and years later.

The practicality of these classes make them very applicable not only in my work, but also in all of my relationships.  Every day I'm thinking about what I am learning and trying hard to put it into practice.  I hope having a conversation with me is better now than it was a few months ago.  Let me know if you notice anything new if we talk to each other!

Community Transformation is Hard

By Anthony:

The oppressive stench of trash piles full of diapers, rotten fruit, swarming insects and dead animals completely encompasses you as you walk by and is enough to make you long for a shower.

But surprisingly, most of us who live in Uganda or similar countries around the world quickly get used to the roads and ditches being filled with trash (known as rubbish in Uganda). The problem of trash here is multi-faceted:

• People litter without a second thought (which is somewhat understandable given that people are used to throwing organic rubbish on the ground and having it disappear quickly from being eaten by animals or decomposing).
• There has been a sudden and overwhelming introduction of plastic into Uganda over a short amount of time (especially bags and bottles).
• There is government inefficiency and corruption.
• Uganda is greatly lacking in organized systems of rubbish pickup and land designated for landfills.
• People generally know that burning plastic isn't very good for the environment, and it is far more difficult and time-consuming than you might expect to burn trash down to nothing.
• The shame and fatalism that material poverty often brings to people can make them feel hopeless about improving their own community.
  
• Rubbish on the ground can be viewed as a small concern and a waste of time when life seems so short and hard. 
• There is a growing individualism in urban areas where people no longer have a community mindset ("we are in this together").

While I often teach about stewardship of God's creation in my Timothy Leadership Training sessions, I myself had become fairly fatalistic on this issue. It just seems so impossible to make any kind of difference when we see people throw trash out the windows of their vehicles whenever we drive anywhere, and as we see dumpsters that are overflowing with garbage just sitting there for months and months without the city coming to empty them. Many of the dumpsters are rusting away with huge holes in them. I've had bursts of hope when pastors who have gone through TLT organize their church members to pick up rubbish in their neighborhoods, but often those very same people who graduated TLT fall back to old habits, and I catch them throwing trash out the window of my vehicle as I am driving them somewhere.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me recently and pushed me out of my lethargy was this: There is a short path going across someone's land near us that connects together two roads. I use this path often when jogging. Unfortunately people have been dumping trash along this path into someone's garden. It's super depressing and icky. One day I was jogging near there and saw a young man carrying a bin of rubbish. I stopped jogging and started up a conversation with him and I was very friendly. But I did ask in a very gentle way if he was going to dump that rubbish into that person's land, and he smiled and said, "yes." I suggested he burn it instead of putting it in someone's garden, but he wouldn't change his mind. It was at that point that I felt like I wanted to at least try doing something. Here is a picture of the area I'm talking about. The picture only shows about half of the rubbish dumped along this short path.  What looks like grass next to all the trash is a garden of rice.

So I decided I should at least do some trash pick-up along our neighborhood roads, to try to lead by example and see if it could help change the mind-set in our community. One of my friends and neighbors, Otidi, agreed to help me. But we were uncertain of what to do with the trash we would pick up and didn't want to get into trouble by burning it in a public area, so I suggested we talk to our local government officials first. That idea bore much fruit.

Sara and I invited Otidi and two local government leaders over to our home for tea and discussion. These leaders were really enthusiastic about the idea. They have been trying to deal with the trash for years but they continually are frustrated by ongoing problems. In the end, we decided we would make this a bigger thing and try to invite other community members to join us in a 1 day trash pickup event. We agreed that the local government leaders would recruit community members and also try to petition the city officials to send a truck to pick up the rubbish we would collect and take it to the landfill, supposedly somewhere in Soroti. And then Sara and I agreed to briefly host all the people for refreshments after the trash pickup.

The local government officials came through with flying colors, and they did things in a very Ugandan way that no longer surprises me. Things had to be "official." They had to draw up minutes of our simple meeting we had over tea, make photocopies, and everyone had to sign them. Then, from what I gather, these two leaders spent many days and hours waiting around in the city offices trying to get some support for our idea, and petitioning the city to send a truck, and maybe support us with some gloves or tools as well. (They wanted me to come to the offices too, but I didn't want the city to do something just because a mzungu was pushing them to do so). These leaders really tried hard, and I see them as very sacrificial local leaders. One thing to understand about Uganda is that much of the real work is done by these local leaders that are practically volunteers, and the bureaucracy and corruption come in at higher levels.

On the day of cleaning it rained, so we started with only a few people, but our numbers then grew over the morning. In the end we had over 30 people in various groups! We spent around 3 or 4 hours. We covered lengths of roads that maybe were the equivalent of 12-15 American city blocks. Not a huge area, but with roadsides already covered with many layers of plastic trash, it takes a while. We collected everything into two big piles in different locations, with one near the garden dump site. We were very limited in our equipment. Otidi gave everyone plastic gloves, but otherwise we had a few wheelbarrows and shovels, and basically no bags for carrying trash. However, given the quantity of garbage everywhere, most of us were able to find old bags or sacks on the ground that we could use to carry stuff we were picking up. 

When our volunteers saw the trash that had been thrown down the hill into someone's land, some were very upset about it. It was thrown in an area that is not easy to clean out or for a truck to pick up. It was good to know I wasn't the only one who felt strongly about this.

This other large pile (in both the picture above and picture below) was not exclusively stuff that we picked up from other places. There used to be a dumpster here, but no longer. Much of this pile was simply spread out over the side of the road for about 50 meters. They did a great job of raking it up.

The best encouragement I got was when I and a few kids were picking up trash along one road, and one of the neighbors came outside and said, "thank you so much for what you are all doing! Please tell us next time you do it and we will join you!" 

People had a good time talking and joking as we picked up trash together. Everyone felt really good that we did something together, and for the benefit of the whole community. I think probably the best result of the whole thing was that these kids learned how great it feels to come together to try to work for the good of your neighborhood. At our home afterwards, people were very excited for corn bread (maize cake) and sodas. 

So what was the final result? It took over 3 weeks and many visits by Otidi and the two local leaders to the city offices before a truck finally came. By the time a truck came, the rain and animals had disorganized our pile. And that truck and crew picked up only one of the big piles we made. The one in the person's garden was apparently too hard for the truck to get at. For the pile they did pick up, I was really disappointed that they seemed to have left about 30% of the original pile and spread it out all over again along the road. I guess I should rejoice at least that they picked up some of it. A few weeks after that truck pick-up, that stretch of road was already just as bad as it was before. Clearly, people still don't know where to bring their trash. I understand that, but it bothers me that people don't make a neat pile, and instead it gets thrown anywhere and everywhere along that road, and the wind blows the trash into people's yards and gardens. It's just awful. As of this week that I'm writing this post, it appears that the city sent a truck to pick up from that pile again. That is something to be thankful for.

As a group, we had talked about doing trash pick-up again, to keep up the momentum and create real change, with the hope that eventually the city would make some changes to their trash pick-up policies. But we haven't yet done another event. I'm waiting to hear from the community members or local leaders again. There's much yet to do. We barely scratched the surface last time. 

On a walk a few weeks after our trash pick-up, I saw a bunch of kids from one home carrying two wheelbarrows of stuff to dump down the hill into the same garden I mentioned before. I suggested they put it in an official dumping site or burn it instead. I'm not sure what they ended up doing. But that person's garden keeps filling up.

The moral of the story? Community transformation is a hard and slow process. It needs incredible patience and repeated effort. We took some steps in a better direction, and as they say here, "we sensitized the community about the rubbish problem" as they observed us cleaning. But leading by example doesn't immediately solve these big systemic problems. The streets we cleared are full of rubbish again. People go back to old habits. 

I think it's a two steps forward one step backward kind of thing. It's going to be a long process of change. But we made a start, and we all enjoyed doing so together. Please pray that something more would come from this. I am thankful for the leaders and community members for the good work that they did, and I praise the Lord for the trash pick-up day that we were able to have.

November 2020 Prayer Letter

 Thank you for your prayers for us. See the prayer letter here.

Going Deeper: The Bible and Theology Hour

By Anthony:

Our radio program is called Going Deeper: The Bible and Theology Hour. It is going really well. It is one of the most fulfilling parts of my ministry right now. I work with a great team of people who love the Lord, are great at what they do, and are passionate evangelists. We all go to the same local church here in Soroti. I trained Simon over the past few months on how to create a website and edit audio files. Through his hard work, we now have our radio program website up! You can download previous radio show recordings there. Check it out - Going Deeper. We are working on raising up other teachers as well. We might also translate the recordings into other languages to be downloaded.

In this post, I'd like to share some more testimonies from this year. The first section is written by Moses Adoput, one of our translators on the program. I changed the names in the testimonies he shared.

"Praise be to God the Almighty for the gift of his Son Jesus Christ and all that He has done especially for the Going Deeper programme. Through it many souls have been reached and changed especially during the time of the covid-19 lockdown when most people had no access to public worship places. From the time the programme began, I have interacted with a lot of listeners who could not hide their joy because of the powerful and inspirational messages taught in it. Here are a few encounters:

In the month of August, after the programme on one Saturday evening, a young lady, Margaret, beeped my phone [number] which we had given to the listeners on the radio. I called back and she was deeply sorrowful about how her family (mother and father) were leading their lives. She was from Katakwi - east of Soroti District. Her father was a drunkard and her mother was just religious who did not know or mind about salvation. Even Margaret herself was just religious and did not know what salvation was. I asked her if she could receive Jesus as her personal savior. She accepted and so I led her to Christ. I further talked to her mother who also accepted Jesus and they asked for the Ateso Bible. I got for them a new Bible and the whole family was joyous for all that had happened. They thanked Rev. Anthony too for his endeavors in teaching the Word of God.

Later in that very month of August, a certain soldier from Soroti town called just after the radio program. He was burdened with problems of persecution, feeling like he had bad luck, and he asked for spiritual help. That month Rev. Anthony was handling a series of teachings on prayer. The soldier requested to be prayed for but he had not received Jesus yet. I led him to salvation and kept on encouraging him to strive more and more in his prayer life. He appreciated God for the good work through Rev. Anthony and the team.

In the month of September, an elderly woman called from Bukedia district. She had listened to the series on prayer. She wanted us to pray for her son Alex who had challenges in his family. Alex was always tormented by evil spirits. So the mother asked that I call him and gave me his number. I later called him and led him to Christ and I was overwhelmed by how God had connected us to him. Alex promised to come and meet the team personally when he gets some time off of his work as he is a policeman in Karamoja region.

There are more great testimonies I always receive from listeners in various places and they always thank the Lord for the powerful and inspirational topics that Rev. Anthony and the team handle on the Radio. Thanks to God for the Going Deeper Radio Program."

Here are some other miscellaneous testimonies. For confidentiality, I've removed the names.

One listener talked to Simon on our radio team over the phone after my teaching. He was from the cult called Isa Masiya, (‘Isa the Messiah’). This is a common cult in Uganda. They believe that salvation is found in Isa, and not in the name of Jesus. Isa is the Arabic translation of Jesus but these people are not Muslims. Simon talked through what we had been teaching on the radio and then answered this man’s questions related to the cult’s beliefs versus what the Bible teaches. In the end, the man was convinced that what the Bible says about Jesus is true, and he prayed over the phone with Simon to believe in Jesus as his savior.

From a pastor I taught at Pentecostal Theological College in 2009 – “Hi Rev. Praise be to God. Thank you for your program at Etop radio. Your teaching has helped me and some Christians that listen. One day you preached about suffering and one of my church members, a teacher who lost his job in this period of covid-19, he told me that he was about to backslide (backsliding means falling away from Christ and leaving the Church) because of the storms (suffering in his life), but when you explained the causes of suffering and that sometimes God allows suffering in our lives, from that day he keeps time for your messages. Please keep it up and we build God’s kingdom. May God bless you 1cor.15:58.”

From a pastor – 
“The teaching on God’s providence has encouraged me to have hope of life during this pandemic. Since God knew about it and is in control over it. The teaching on prayer, I learnt to have my secret times of prayer as Christ our Lord did. It was his lifestyle.”

From a woman - 
“Praise God Rev. May God bless you. Your teachings have uplifted me a lot. I can’t wait for the next series on “Prayer.” Today’s summary teaching (on God’s providence) was wonderful. I know what it means to wait for the morning wishing I could rush the time for it to come.”

From a young man - 
He said he has learned so much about suffering in the Christian life and about prayer. He learned from our teachings about what lament prayers are, and he has started to also pray that way. It has really helped him. This also gave him the motivation to make an action plan of reading through the whole book of Psalms which he has now done.

From a pastor - 
“Hello Rev! I praise God so much for you. I love your teachings because its scripture based, of meat and bones that have marrow.” 

From a Christian –
“Thank you so much dear pastors. May God bless you all. The word has really inspired my life. We give him all the glory for what happens. Continue to build us spiritually.”

A retired bishop –
He called and said he really appreciated learning about God’s providence. It was the first time he heard good teaching about it and he plans to go out and preach about it to others in his churches.

From a woman –
She called and said our program has changed her family already. Her husband was an alcoholic, and now he has stopped drinking. He continues to listen to our program and she is waiting for him to get saved.

Exotic Foods and Animals

By Anthony:

Okay, this first video is not of an exotic food. But it is hilarious, so I wanted to begin with it. Sara is demonstrating how a dead rooster can still crow!

On to the fun foods. While I was running a couple months ago, I found this huge rat, some type of bush-rat dead on the ground. I heard from friends later that it is edible, but I didn't want to eat this one in case it was poisoned.

But after I shared that picture, my Soroti friends learned that I would be willing to eat one of these. And it was only about a week later that one of my neighbors, my friend Emmanuel, found one! There were other neighbors digging the foundation of a new house and they found one in the ground, and Emmanuel talked to them so that I could purchase it from them for a couple dollars. Don't worry, these are not like sewer rats. It's closer to being like a rabbit, just eating insects and grass and whatever else.

Some of our other missionary friends from Argentina, Federico and Belen, also had been wanting to try eating one of these, so they cooked it up for all of us to eat! They did well. It was tasty.

Traditionally in Teso, it is referred to as ebebele. Most of my Iteso friends just laughed really hard that I had eaten it! Some of the Ugandans we invited to eat with us happily enjoyed it, and others abstained. The ones who abstained said, "we ate that as children back in the old days! But we don't eat that anymore!" As time goes by, culture changes, and people's food preferences change much more rapidly than we might think. 

The meat was very good. It was a dark meat, more gamey than say chicken. But it was very nice. It didn't seem like I was eating a rat. The only hard thing was some really thin bones that I had to pick out.

Don't worry, this little guy might be similar, but we didn't eat him. They get in under our kitchen door once every few months. 

We had a termite colony underground in our yard. Finally we decided to deal with it since they kept causing problems. So Paul dug it up for us and found the queen so that they wouldn't keep coming back. Here is a video showing inside the termite colony.

Here is the termite queen, as long as one of our fingers almost.

Here is a video of the queen.

I decided to catch a bunch of the termites so we could fry them up to eat them. We've eaten them often, but I've only cooked them myself one other time. Although the queen is very edible, I could not handle eating that one! So the chickens got to enjoy her. The termites I got were pretty clean, but I had to clean a bit of the dirt and clay out of the container that got in there while catching them.

The final tasty result. We put cumin and salt and other spices on them. They might look odd, but in your mouth it's like eating chips or popcorn or something like that.

When I visited the home of a friend to pray with his sick mother, they served me bambara groundnuts. They're related to peanuts, but are softer and much bigger. Super good.

And the most exotic food yet, the magnificent Sneepo! Hungry? Why wait? Grab a Sneepo. If I had to describe the taste and compare it to the Snickers bar, the very best way to put it would be that it tasted like you might imagine a sneepo to taste like if sneepo was a taste rather than a sound. Haha.

Not related to our own food, but here is a video of our dogs enjoying bones. Our dogs are both having serious health issues that may not be treatable. But we are trying to at least give them some good nutrition through getting some meat bones once in a while. We just get these directly from the butcher in the market for a few dollars with the raw meat still on them.

This was 2 weeks later, after Caleb gathered up all the bones for himself.

We found this in the garden the other day, some kind of shrew.

Lizards get stuck in Sara's fences all the time. I rescued this one. I really love lizards. We have geckos inside our house too. They poop over everything but otherwise they are really fun.

We have been getting one of these frogs in our house about once a week lately, maybe because of having a lot of rain. They are tiny, like the size of your thumb-nail.

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."

Youth Bible Study Group

By Sara:

Ever since March when the schools in Uganda were closed and children sent home, families in Uganda have been in an unusual situation.  Since the majority of students study at a boarding school, it is rare for an entire family to be home together for longer than the few weeks over Christmas holidays.  But now, everyone has been together for over 6 months!

Felix, the son of one of our friends came to me a few months ago and asked if I would help him start a Bible study group with some other youth.  Right after schools closed, many of them had been getting assignments and homework from their teachers, but that quickly dropped off.  So they were just at home, helping with chores but overall feeling pretty bored.  Felix thought it would benefit many of them to study the Bible and gain some new ideas which they can use once they eventually go back to school.  He gathered a few young men and women who live near him and agreed with them to meet weekly on Saturday afternoons.  He and his sisters host us at their house each week.

For the first several weeks, I facilitated the Bible study to give everyone a chance to learn and practice the method we're using.  Then, the kids got the chance to start facilitating.  During the week, I meet with the volunteer to help him or her prepare and then on Saturday, they lead us all through the Bible study.  After they finish, we each give them a compliment or encouragement about how they did.  All of them are excited about their new skills which will help them lead Bible studies with classmates when they eventually go back to school.  But they also encouraged one another to lead Bible studies with their families/siblings/other friends even now while they are at home.  This opportunity to facilitate a Bible study has helped them gain confidence in their own abilities and in understanding how to read the Bible.

They have made a lot of interesting plans for how they will put into practice what they are learning from scripture.  Many times, it involves obeying their parents' instructions without complaining or playing with younger siblings/helping them with school work.  They have also been working on being more truthful, reading the Bible or praying more often, and making plans for getting their chores done on time.  One young lady said she will now look people in the eye when she talks to them because she has felt self-conscious about her eyes being small but now realizes she is made in God's image and doesn't need to be ashamed.

Since these kids go to boarding schools, even though their families are neighbors, they didn't all know each other very well before starting the Bible study group.  They have mentioned how much they appreciate spending time together and realizing that people they might have thought were unapproachable before are actually very friendly.  One week, it started to rain right when we were finishing the Bible study, so we all had to sit inside for almost an hour waiting for the rain to stop before we could to go home.  They spent the whole time asking each other their theological/Biblical questions and discussing possible answers!

It gives me such joy to see these young people who are so passionate about studying God's word and putting it into practice.  I hope their parents are as proud of them as I am.

A Wedding During COVID-19

By Anthony:

One of our guards, Paul, has talked about his desire to get married for many years. Unfortunately, it takes a long time in Uganda to save up for bride-price, besides the more important concern of finding the right lady you want to marry! We have prayed with him about this for the past six years. Many people simply start living together with another person because it seems impossible to remain faithful while waiting years to save money, and then they pay the bride-price gradually, sometimes completing the bride-price payments and getting officially married after already having five or six children together. Paul and Rachael, however, went about things the right way according to the guidelines of the churches here. Paul's time finally came this year, during the COVID-19 restrictions. Here is Paul and his best man at home where I picked them up for the wedding. 

Paul and Rachael were able to have a simple wedding that was not nearly as expensive as it normally is. The government allows you to have a wedding of 10 people with special government permission during this COVID-19 season. Sara and I couldn't attend the wedding because of the limit of people, but Sara helped with the church decorations, and I helped by driving the bride and groom around town. The police were at the church and made sure the proper protocols were followed including making sure the church had a volunteer to check the temperature of every person going into the church building. Here is Paul getting checked:

And the bride:

The newly married couple:

Unfortunately, Paul had both malaria and typhoid in the week coming up to the wedding, and then also in the week after the wedding. But God gave him the strength to enjoy the festive day!

Sara made the cake that they enjoyed at the reception! We didn't go to the reception either because we wanted to obey the government restrictions. But we had a separate party with Paul and Rachael and the best couple a few weeks later which was very meaningful and gave us a chance to actually talk together about their new marriage. We are very happy for them!

The Power of Four Page Sermons in Uganda

By Anthony:

Here is an article I wrote about teaching the four page preaching method to pastors in Uganda:

https://network.crcna.org/global-mission/power-four-page-sermons-uganda

August Prayer Letter

 Here's a link to our latest prayer letter.  Thank you for continuing to keep us in your prayers!

Pictures from the lock-down

By Anthony:

There hasn't been too much to blog about during this time of COVID-19 since we are unable to do trainings with large groups of people. But life continues and we have stayed active. The most exciting news is that we accepted new positions with Resonate Global Mission! We will tell you more about this in our next prayer letter. Here are some random photos from the last 4-5 months.

Before the lock-down restrictions started, I began an exercise group for local pastors in Soroti. I wanted to help them take care of themselves and stay healthy. We began with a small number, but we were gradually increasing until COVID-19 hit. Below is a photo of the pastors at our house after we finished jogging together. We also had plans to try out football (soccer), swimming, weight lifting, biking, and ping pong together. Hopefully, sometime later this year or next year we can resume our group.

During the lock-down, my nice computer chair broke. But Sara came up with a simple fix using a stool and strong wire. It looks unsteady but it's actually quite sturdy, and I am more comfortable now than I was before since now the chair doesn't move too much.

Some cool animal pictures:

A mushroom which grew in our yard. We added it to our stir-fry. We made very sure with local friends that it was safe to eat. We wouldn't take a risk! The one mushroom was like a whole packet worth of mushrooms from the store. It was huge.

A funny jar:

We made a fun meal of Ethiopian food the other night.

We have two great dogs, but both have significant health problems we have been dealing with this year. Thankfully God provided us with wonderful friends who are vets who have been guiding us as much as they can. For Beorn, we had to make a cone of shame using a large water bottle. It worked well, and although Beorn didn't like it at first, he adapted to it very quickly and it was like he forgot it was there.

We were finally able to take the cone off of him and he is doing better now, though he still likes to sleep in awkward positions.

Sara's fowl have reproduced like crazy. The cock (rooster) is my nemesis. He crows all day long every day, and it makes it hard to do zoom calls or talk on the phone. I threaten to eat him but Sara claims he is necessary if we want to keep having new chicks!

Here are the chickens eating a feast of termites that I exposed for them. It's hard to see in the video but there were hundreds of termites under the wood.

When the Ugandan government first said that everyone had to wear masks, people actually started to do so and it seemed about 1/2 or even 3/4 of the people in town wore them. But then the government promised to give masks to every person. After that promise, almost no one wears masks even if they own them, and we feel a bit foolish being some of the few people to wear a mask in town. Unfortunately the promised free masks never came. It's been a really weird year, in that restrictions are enforced in some places but not in others. Kampala, the capital, is very regimented, but where we are, people are having weddings and burials with hundreds or thousands of people, and without masks, even though the government rules are 10 people for burials and 7 people for weddings, and that is with getting special permission from local officials. As guests in the country of Uganda we are trying to personally obey all the rules even when they aren't being enforced or followed by our friends. It puts us in an awkward position sometimes. Uganda has had its first reported deaths due to COVID-19 in the past week. Restrictions were just beginning to lessen in the country, but now perhaps things will get really strict again. 

It's always disconcerting to find a snake skin in your yard when you live in Africa! (There are mambas and cobras in our area, especially the farther you get to the outskirts of town). But I am 90% sure, according to my snake book, that this is from a harmless snake. Anyway, it hasn't been seen again.

And a different living snake, but harmless. This one has been seen a few times. It freaked our guard out when he wanted to urinate in the latrine and it was there on the wall.

Sometimes when you buy meat from the butcher here, you get mostly skin and fat. This is pork and if you look closely you'll see that the meat was only about 1/4 or less of what we got. I read online that pork fat is actually quite nutritious. When we eat pork at friend's homes, we also usually get a lot of skin and fat (and hair), but the way they fry it, it ends up being really good and I enjoy it. In this case we made this into meatballs, and it turned out well.

You can see a little yard maintenance below. Papaya trees grow incredibly fast like most things in Uganda with such a great climate. Many of our trees had gotten way too tall to be useful, with their papayas out of reach. And these are weak trees despite their appearance and some were in danger of falling on the house. So we got help from Raymond, one of our guards, to cut them and pull them down. The trunks are so soft you can whack them apart with a machete.

Sara is a master farmer and our friends were shocked at the size of her cassava that she and Walter (one of our other guards) harvested together. This is from one plant only. Cassava is not very nutritious but it fills the stomach, and Sara has been able to help a lot of hungry people in Soroti with her cassava during the last several months.

Sara's garden in the plot next to us is becoming like a jungle. This is an old picture already. Many of the plants are taller than the walls. I always remember what our friend Jim told us during one of our first visits to Uganda. "In Uganda, you can just put a stick in the ground and it will grow." It's funny but true. The cassava you see above and below is planted just like that. As you harvest it, you break apart the stems and then just put the stick into the ground. It will then grow into another huge plant. 

Last, a picture post is never complete without baby rabbits.