Hiking in Mbale

By Sara:

As you saw from Geoff's guest post, we had the opportunity to go on a beautiful hike while he was visiting us.  This is a hike we learned about when we lived in Mbale and took about six years ago.  So we took Geoff back to Mbale and joined our friend Eric, who is working there, then made our way up Mount Wanale, which can be seen towering above town, on the slopes of Mount Elgon.  We were very pleased with ourselves that we managed to find the way up, six years after the last time we made this hike.  (It helped that Marissa and I took the wrong path when she visited, allowing me to be confident this time about the correct route...).  Here, I am mostly just going to share with you some of the beautiful pictures from the hike.

This is where we got lost:

Just kidding.  We didn't get lost.  I don't really know exactly what was going on there, but maybe we are looking at plants.  Poor Anthony had to put up with lots of agricultural conversations since Eric, Geoff, and I have all been working with farmers and enjoy agriculture.  Anthony kept asking, "are we still talking about phosphorus deficiency?"

We had to climb WAY up to the top of that hill you can see in the distance.

There were all sorts of lovely waterfalls along the way.

Once we reached the top, we sat in this little meadow next to the stream to rest.

The view from the top. 

Looking out over Mbale and the long trek we had taken.  Don't get too close to the edge!

Relief Assessment in Kaberamaido

By Sara:

As Geoff mentioned in his post, we had the unfortunate but interesting opportunity to be part of a small disaster assessment in Kaberamaido.  It is a long story, but there was a murder in one of the villages and a mob from the murdered woman's clan came and caused havoc and destruction in the community she had married into.  The good news is that most people were not at home during the time that the mob was active, but two people did get killed and some were injured.  More than thirty households had their homes burned, ransacked, and robbed.  If you want, you can read more about it here.

As representatives of World Renew, we visited the community with our Ugandan partner organization, KMDP (who already work in that district).  We went to see the damage in order to figure out how KMDP and World Renew can help with the situation.

Many people have been sleeping at one of the local churches (a grass-thatched building) and at the home of someone who has a house with a metal roof that didn't get burned.

A nice part of this tragedy is that some young people are helping to put a roof back on a widow's house (see below):

Everything that was inside peoples' homes got either burned or stolen or broken.  This included mattresses, clothes, cooking utensils, ox ploughs, children's notebooks for school, etc.

Along with material possessions, much of the grain that people had just harvested and put into granaries as food for the coming months, got burned (see below).

Some people even lost animals, which the mob killed and ate outside.

The KMDP staff and local government interviewed a representative from all the households to find out what they lost and how they have been doing since the time of the tragedy.

Many people have been afraid to go back home because of concern about continued reprisals.  There is also a risk of people from this clan going to take revenge on the people who did this.  Pray for the people who have been affected and the families from both sides who are hurting emotionally. 

The most immediate need was for food, since most peoples' food stores were burned.  But they will also eventually need seeds for re-planting next year since the stored grain was both for eating and planting.  In the end, World Renew did not need to give assistance because the Ugandan government and TEAR Australia were able to meet most of the needs.  The local church is also helping to bring reconciliation and build peace between the two clans and has been giving some immediate assistance.  Even the PAG church in Soroti collected clothes to replace the ones that were burned.

TLT Graduation Dates and Information

By Anthony:

I have three TLT (Timothy Leadership Training) groups.  One is in Amuria district, one in Katakwi district, and one in Kaberamaido district.  Soroti, where we live, is nicely positioned in the middle between all these districts.  Two of the groups are from one PAG pastorate (a pastorate is a region of churches with a bishop to oversee them), and one group is from a different PAG pastorate.

I called representatives from each group, as well as the two bishops, to a meeting in Soroti to discuss the graduation.  We discussed and planned for an afternoon and they decided that instead of having three graduations, they would like to do one big graduation all together.

They decided to have Kaberamaido be the host and the graduation will take place at the main PAG church in Kaberamaido town.  Kaberamaido is taking care of the meal since the people from Amuria and Katakwi will have to pay a lot for their transport back and forth.  Some of the pastors struggle financially, as you know, because their churches don't support them well.  So I am asking all of you to please pray that God provides the funds that are needed for everyone involved in planning and attending this big event. 

The graduation will be a very big event in the lives of these pastors.  For some of them, it will be the most important graduation, (or the only graduation of any kind), that they've ever been a part of.  They are very excited to wear graduation gowns and receive a certificate for completing Timothy Leadership Training.  Most will become master trainers (completing all 6 manuals and certified to start their own TLT groups), and a few will graduate as basic trainers (completing at least 3 manuals). 

The date will be January 15th, 2016, which is a Friday.  We plan to be prompt with time.  Graduates arrive at 8:00am to prepare and the graduation is promptly at 12:00-2:00pm.  If you are in the area at this time, you are most welcome to attend this graduation and celebrate what God has done through all of these pastors and leaders!  If you plan to be there, let me know so I can prepare well and give you more information.  Thank you all for your support and encouragement over this long journey of two years of training these same groups.

Katakwi TLT - Preaching

By Anthony:

At the beginning of August, I taught the Preaching manual to our Timothy Leadership Training group in Katakwi.  It was a great success.  TLTI (Timothy Leadership Training Institute) has been having me assist in editing and revising the Preaching manual. I have greatly enjoyed working on this project.  In Katakwi, I tested out my newly edited version that has never been used before, and which includes the 4-Page Method for organizing sermons, which I explained in my Amuria TLT - Preaching post.  It's not an official version yet, just a work in progress that still needs a lot of testing and editing by other people.  But I was excited to see my hard work in action and seeing pastors learn so much about preaching in a short four days. 

The preaching manual, especially the newer version that we are revising, definitely needs five days.  But all the participants wanted to be able to sell their things at market on Friday, so they agreed to go long hours and finish in four days.  Some of the days we went as long as 7:30am to 7:30pm with only about an hour of breaks total for meals.  Needless to say, by the end of the four days I was exhausted, but also fulfilled.  I am so privileged to have such a fun job.  I love teaching. 

There is a lot of small group work in this new manual and the leaders really enjoyed those times of collaboration.  Near the end each group had to prepare a sermon after being assigned a biblical text.  They had to carefully go through all the steps they learned for studying a Bible passage.  They only spent 3-4 hours making the sermon.  When I've asked people how long they spend working on their sermons at home, they talk about spending hours and hours, up to 10 hours.  Yet they were astonished at the amount of work they had to do in these 4 hours, which makes me think that maybe they don't truly spend 10 hours preparing at home.  While preparing they said, "wow, we can now see it's very hard to be a leader, a big responsibility!"

During the week, we took some time to share reports about how their action plans went from the last manual, Overcoming Family Violence.  There are always so many stories to tell and I can't tell you them all.  But these pastors really worked hard to teach others what they learned, counsel families, and restore relationships.  This is the power of TLT, how God uses these leaders in the Church.  For me, I just teach and facilitate discussion, but it is the pastors and leaders who are doing the hard work on the ground, in the realities of life, with all of its discouragements and complications.  When you consider that they are all volunteers who don't really get paid much of anything, it's amazing all the things that God accomplishes through them.

One pastor visited and taught 15 families about family relationships, marriage, and family violence.  Ten of the families had previously stopped coming to church because of broken relationships in their families.  But after her visits, there was reconciliation and restored peace, and those 10 families have resumed coming to church. 

A pastor and usher visited 4 families, each with at least one parent who is an alcoholic.  Although none of them gave up drinking, one of the family members gave his life to Christ.

Two pastors teamed up together to teach 27 people the lessons about family violence and healthy loving relationships.  One of the husbands who was trained, confessed that he regularly beats his wife.  He viewed her as his property that he paid dowry for, so he should be able to order her around and beat her.  At the training, he confessed his mistake, explained his new understanding of his wife as his partner made in the image of God, and promised to never beat her again.  A married couple confessed that they had been having marriage issues in the area of sex.  The wife had been having great pain during sex, but the husband used to not care and not listen.  After the training, he realized he needs to love his wife's body as his own body, and now he is being sensitive and they are seeking treatment together.

Pastor Clement visited a married couple from his church, who were on the brink of divorce because the wife was refusing to have sex with her husband.  After Clement's teaching and counseling, the wife confessed that the reason she was refusing was because she was having an affair with a neighbor.  And she was even pregnant through that illicit relationship.  But she repented, and there was a beautiful time of reconciliation and forgiveness.  The husband even said he would accept the child as his own.  They are now living at peace together.  (Unfortunately they will need more prayer, as the neighbor could potentially make things complicated years later by claiming the child as his own when it comes to financial issues like land ownership, dowry, etc.)

Pastor Max went home and decided to make change in his own family first to set an example.  He has been appreciating members of the family for the service and chores they do, and teaching his children to do the same.  He's been teaching the family to serve one another.  Max has even been doing things like washing clothes (something normally just done by women), and cooking for his wife.   People in the community have been scrutinizing and watching how his family operates.  Remember that homes here are open, a series of huts with an open space in the middle.  Neighbors even walk through compounds of other families because paths go right through people's homes.  As they have been observing Max and how well behaved his children are and how everyone serves one another, one member of the community came to visit and asked, "What is the secret to the success of your home and how well your children behave?"

One pastor from Soroti gave a report from the Stewardship manual.  His small church gave 129,000 shillings in the month of January (about $38).  But he went back from TLT to teach about stewardship and set a good example by tithing himself.  By March their giving was up to 156,000.  And by July up to 185,000 shillings.

My co-leader Lazarus helping pastors with action plans:

In this photo you see a translator multitasking, translating the sermon for her group's preacher and taking care of the child. 

One group standing together for the judgment!  Actually we were very loving and gentle in the evaluations.

Two of the sermons needed quite a bit more work, but two groups' sermons were excellent.  And all of them received helpful evaluations from us and the rest of the TLT group, so when they go home they will perfect these sermons and preach them to their churches.

As a random tidbit, I figured out this week that the Ateso Bible that they use was either translated from the King James Version, or at least the Ateso in it is similar to how the King James Version reads.  Thus, most people can't understand it very well.  Even Ateso speakers who only have a rudimentary knowledge of English prepare their sermons with an English Bible, and then they preach in Ateso.  They said it's high time for the Ateso Bible to be updated to fit modern Ateso language.

Most of the group (some left before the photo) holding their action plans!  They are ready to go home and preach using the new method they learned!