Sending Out Gandalfs

By Anthony:

Here is a recent article I wrote about Resonate's ministry around the world - Sending Out Gandalfs. 

More Pictures from the Abim Visit

By Anthony:

We visited Morulem in Abim with Skip and Mary VandenBerg while they were here in August. Sara already posted about that, but we received some more photos from Skip so I wanted to share a few more with you. It's not often that we have a gifted photographer around who takes photos of us engaged in ministry.

First here is a video of us driving. You can see how driving can be tiring when you drive for a few hours on a road like this. Very bumpy.

The trickiest thing about driving on a road like this is not a worry about getting stuck, or worry about the bumps. The hard thing is the puddles because you have to slow down a lot for every puddle so that you don't splash the people walking and riding on bicycles that are continually on the road with you. On roads like this you can choose to drive on whatever side looks the best at any given moment.

The Abim area is breathtakingly beautiful.

This is a very common way for people to travel because it's cheap. There might be 30-40 people in the back of that lorry. When a lorry like this falls off the road or hits another vehicle, very many people die. After writing this post, I just saw in the news that one of these fell off Awoja bridge near Soroti, and five people died instantly, and another 8 had serious broken bones.

This home in Morulem is a bit different from the homes in Teso, the region we live in. Here they make fences/walls for better security from cattle rustlers.

Reading the Bible during Sara's Bible study teaching:

Mary, me, and our friend David answering questions from the pastors and other church leaders at the end of the day:

After Mary preached, David invited people to commit their lives to Christ. Many people and children came forward. David said that many of the people there were not from the church but they came that day. You can see them on their knees praying with us. It's hard or impossible to know how many of the people were genuinely beginning a new life with Christ and how many were just joining in the excitement of praying with the visitors. But we trust that God was at work in ways that we cannot easily see.

CLEAR Conference in Soroti

By Anthony:

In August 2022, a Resonate partner called LEMA hosted a theological conference in Soroti where we live. LEMA has a school in Nigeria and partners with Resonate there, and they have just started a school in Uganda as well. Joshua Amaezechi who leads LEMA was a classmate with us at Calvin Seminary. Resonate partnered with LEMA for this conference and it was a joyful time of reunion, fellowship, and teaching. Here is Josh on the left with me.

The conference was a big success with around 250 pastors and leaders present. There were plenary speeches and then breakout workshops. We were grateful that LEMA invited Mary VandenBerg from Calvin Seminary to teach at the conference. We know Mary and had her as a teacher, so it was great to have her and her husband Skip visit us. They were a great encouragement to us personally in our ministry and a joy to spend time with. Mary led a workshop on the Kingdom of God which is a very important topic here, one that is not talked about much. Thank you Skip for your photography! The good photos in this post are from him.

 

The conference was held at Soroti Secondary School which has a large number of classrooms and halls.

I led a plenary on God's sovereignty and the problems of the prosperity gospel. Pastors found it to be a very new teaching and very challenging, but it was warmly received and many people told me how much they appreciated it. I decided I should try to wear my suit at least once every three years, so I took it out for my plenary. And then Sara convinced me I should wear my clerical collar. I have never had so many of my friends needing to take my photo, haha. Now I know that people think I generally dress like a too casual American.

Many of our Resonate colleagues were able to lead workshops. Jonny Kabiswa led a workshop on community development, Stephen Omoko led a workshop on pastoral care, Barbara Kakembo taught about caring for people with disabilities, and I taught about setting up a local church's benevolence ministry. My friend Bishop Okwalinga Emmanuel led a workshop on preaching Christ in the Old Testament. We also had a fascinating panel discussion on the state of theological education in Africa. 

Emmanuel during his plenary:

 

Mary VandenBerg with Barbara Kakembo from Resonate.

 

Me with Jonny Kabiswa, my Resonate colleague and Helping Without Hurting in Africa co-author (center), and Stephen Omoko (left) who works on Timothy Leadership Training with me.

 

Mary, Emmanuel and his wife Joyce, Jonny, and us at our home.

Other facilitators were from the US, Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya from various theological colleges and organizations. Since the conference was such a big success, LEMA is planning to do another one in the coming years. Here are two photos of the facilitators and conference planners.

Permit me to share a bunch of photos of me teaching because it's rare that I think about having someone take photos of me in my work.

Snapshots from Daily Life

By Anthony:

We hope you enjoy these photos and videos from the last few months. First, here is a picture taken from Soroti's big market building, overlooking part of the city and Soroti Rock:

Here is a photo of Robert Okello, a PAG pastor we know well. He is one of the pastors we have been sponsoring to complete a degree online through Christian Leaders Institute. An in-person school in Uganda would have been preferable but it's hard for pastors to leave their churches and families for so long. He was very happy to receive the diploma for his Associate of Divinity degree! If you have wanted to get theological training but don't have time or money to go to a college in person, I recommend Christian Leaders Institute to you. And for those who don't need the actual degree, but still want more knowledge, you can still take classes online at their website for free.

This picture is self-explanatory:

Here is Sara with Beorn:

Here is a video of a hailstorm we experienced in Kampala:

Here is a video of our colleague Stephen explaining how he harvests and cooks "white ants" (we also eat them).

Sara reuniting with some of her Bible study youth during one of their term holidays:

Sara and Walter (one of our guards) harvested the first jackfruit the tree in our yard produced. It is a fruit Sara loves, but which I loathe and even the smell makes me want to leave the house!

We had to fix our vehicle at the mechanic recently. Our mechanic did not have one intern, but literally had around 30 student interns that were going to be with him for several weeks. It was quite a crowd of people working on our vehicle.

Sara's ducklings. It's an old picture, they have already grown up!

The only problem with ducks is that you have this every morning:

This is a group of women that Sara taught about chaya. It is one of the things she commonly teaches people about as she shares with them stems so that they can plant it. Slowly but surely she is spreading it around Uganda.

Sara roasting a marshmallow:

A nice photo Sara took near our house when it was raining in the distance:

This proverb makes us laugh and cry as it is truly how many Ugandans live. At least once a week, a random friend will tell us that you can't trust anyone. Therefore, we often teach about forming close friendships and how to build trust and keep confidentiality.

You never know what you will see on the road. Sara managed to get a picture of two precarious setups at the same time. There is a bicycle underneath all of those baskets:

Interesting creatures in hotel rooms:

I went to the burial recently of a friend, Pastor Opio Brian. This is the same pastor that Resonate made a video about. His brother is the Bishop of Apac PAG Pastorate and also our long-time friend. Brian had just graduated from TLT and he was going to be an excellent facilitator. He died of spinal tuberculosis after weeks of sickness. He was a man of solid reputation and integrity, a real servant of the church and of the community. He was well loved by many and I think there were around 2000 people at the burial. At the burial, they invited me to speak briefly, along with other TLT facilitators who had known Brian. His wife is now left with many young children. Please pray for the family. Here are some photos and videos from that burial. At the burial, they announced that another of the pastors from the same area had just passed away, from tetanus, after stepping on a nail.

When it rained there wasn't much some people could do except use their own chairs as umbrellas.