Visit to Timu, Karamoja

By Anthony:


Some of you may remember that Resonate Global Mission is supporting our partner, PAG Uganda, with their church planting efforts in Karamoja. You can read about that here. I'll try not to repeat too much in this new post. In September 2022 we visited Timu, Karamoja again, and the two new church plants, somewhat nearby, in Tultul and Morungole. Our goal was to see how the church planting was going and encourage and pray for the church planters. In addition, we had another day to train the pastors and their wives from the Timu area.

If you are not familiar with the Karamoja region, I highly suggest this podcast I was able to make with the Bishop of PAG Karamoja Pastorate who was with us on the whole trip. He talks about the beauty of the people and land, the diverse tribes and cultural practices, the violence and insecurity, and the poverty and dependency in the region. He shares incredible stories of God's protection over his life, and also shares how some warriors have given up their guns and turned to Christ.

This trip took us 5 hours by road to reach our guesthouse, and then another 1 hour drive to where we did the training in Timu on the next day. These are remote areas and you see very few other vehicles. We are thankful that God kept us safe on the roads from car trouble and that we had no encounters with cattle rustlers.




The view from the church at Timu is amazing (minus the rubbish on the ground).



Our colleague Stephen came with us as well. We had the whole day to teach some church leaders at Timu. Sara taught about the fireless cooker and made maize and beans with the participants. I taught about community development and utilizing the resources that God has given us. Stephen then taught about the biblical view of marriage and the challenges pastors face in their marriages.



The fireless cooker is not truly fireless. The beans need to be boiled for 10 minutes instead of the normal 3 hours. Here is the outdoor kitchen:









There are two Timothy Leadership Training groups in the area that were started as part of the initiative of raising up new leaders, especially to help some of the young churches, but we didn't get to visit those TLT groups on this trip.

First we visited Tultul PAG. It is a small church but steadily growing. Here is a picture of their worship service taken soon after the church was started, many months before our September visit:



When we visited, the church now looks like this (though a few of the people were just curious neighbors seeing what we were up to):



When you want people to know it's time to meet, you begin by singing a song. Then slowly people trickle in:



Here is Jacob speaking to the church. He is the one overseeing, caring for, and teaching the church planters in the two church planting sites. He needs your prayers. It's a difficult task, especially traveling in areas of insecurity.



While we visited them, Stephen gave a short biblical encouragement.


A couple people committed their lives to Christ during our visit.



The church in Morungole was another full hour drive away from Timu. And when you drive from Timu to Morungole you drive through basically just bush with almost no homes. In Morungole, PAG already has land and a church building. The church has had challenges in turnover of pastors, but the members are committed. Most of the members are women and children, and only a few men. This may be partly due to cultural issues like men not wanting to give up drinking.





Stephen again preached.



Amazingly, around 70 people prayed to receive Jesus as their savior. It is possible that many of these people have been attending the church every week, but never made an official commitment to Christ.



Last, I leave you with this incredibly encouraging testimony from Pastor Hillary Angura, who used to be a fierce Karamojong warrior but became born again, and now he is working with PAG as an evangelist and pastor (in a different area of Karamoja from where the new churches are). I took this video with him during our trip and interviewed him for my podcast as well.



Here is Pastor Hillary's podcast that you can download and listen to. It's longer than I wanted it to be, but does include some very interesting testimonies.