TLT Graduation!

By Anthony:

On January 15th, we had our TLT Graduation in Kaberamaido!  As they say here: "It was a very colorful day of celebration!"  It was amazing to see all these pastors and leaders come together at once to celebrate what God has done for them and through them these two years.  In total we had 104 graduates.  They were from my three groups in Amuria, Katakwi, and Kaberamaido.  There were also three graduates from Serere who were trained by Baker Obua (a fellow facilitator).

Here are the graduates getting their graduation gowns and trying them on.  In the meantime many people are happily greeting friends from far off places.

We marched throughout the town before going to our chairs at the church to begin the ceremony.  Amazingly, we started the march on time and started the ceremony on time.  Here are a few videos of the marching taken by Sara.

 



Marching through town not only is fun for everyone watching, but it spreads the idea that training and education are important.  In a country in which many pastors are not trained at all, in which many pastors say, "just listen to the Holy Spirit, you don't need education," this testimony is powerful.

Even family members couldn't help but get involved in the marching and cheering!

They rented tents because the church would not fit all of the people who came.  Each graduate was supposed to bring their spouse and one other person so food costs could be manageable.  Some people were so excited though, that they brought 5 people, and some people brought as many as 8-10 people.  Thankfully, there was enough food for everyone.  Or God multiplied it like the feeding of the five thousand.

The ceremony was supposed to go from 11:30am to 2:15pm.  However, there were many speakers, and when we handed out certificates it was a chaotic wonderful cheerful celebration that took longer than expected.  We finished by a bit after 3:00 and then ate lunch after that.   In the ceremony there was brief praise and worship:

Both of the bishops who helped to organize these trainings spoke.  The local government chairperson spoke.  The principal of Pentecostal Theological College spoke.  A top leader from PAG National Office spoke.  He explained that in order to be a good leader we must first learn how to be a good follower, something he said many African leaders have not understood.

And our guest of honor was Munyiva Wa Kitavi.  She came all the way from Nairobi.  She is in charge of TLT for all of East Africa.  It was special for us and for her as she is one of the people who trained me, and she also trained all of the Soroti graduates who were my co-facilitators.  She called us her children and these new graduates her grandchildren.  I love how TLT spreads.

We then had a testimony from each of the three main TLT groups.  This is Melda saying in my paraphrase, "before I was timid and didn't understand God's Word well, but now I can understand God's word and really preach it well anytime and anywhere!"

I was also able to speak.  I had to cram a lot in 15 minutes - Introduction, recognizing a plethora of people and having us clap for them, saying goodbye which was emotional for everyone, and preaching a very short sermon.  The sermon was on John 13, Jesus washing his disciples' feet.  Foot washing was a part of our graduation ceremony.  It was a new thing for just about all of them, which when they first heard we were going to be doing it, made some people uncomfortable.  But after I explained it, people really valued it and were at ease.  I explained how Jesus served his disciples by washing their feet, as a precursor to his larger service to all of us on the cross.  I talked about how we need to follow his example.

The point of my message was to say that as Jesus has served us, so the facilitators sacrificed their time and energy and money to train these graduates.  In the same way, the graduates should not go out boastfully, but instead should go out and empower others.  They should go out and serve as they have been served.  I explained that the foot washing was not really an act of service itself.  We were not going to be really trying to clean their feet with soap.  It was only a symbol so that it would be forever etched into their memories that they should go out and teach others as they have been taught.

Madalena ushered me to the table to speak:

I didn't get teared up saying goodbye.  I had already got that out of my system during our closing sessions of each of my three groups.  I was mostly just full of joy and smiles this whole day of the graduation.  Here is Betty translating for me:

It got rainy in the middle of the dry season.

Here is the foot washing ceremony.  As Peter was ashamed to have Jesus wash his feet, so I think were many of my students to think of their teacher, who is also a mzungu, wash their feet.  My hope is that this little ceremony helped to make people realize that we are all equal whether Ugandan or American, and there is no reason I shouldn't be serving them.  Some of the men whose feet I washed got choked up while I was doing that.   We had all the facilitators washing at once, plus Munyiva Wa Kitavi as well.  Each graduate had their feet dried with a new towel, that they then got to take home.  Each towel says "Timothy Leadership Training" on it.

When we gave out the certificates there was so much cheering and ululating and yelling that it was hard to keep track of what was going on.  But it was so great to see their joy and the support of their family members.  For most of the graduates, family members appeared out of nowhere as they came up to get the certificate.  In some cases the graduate was even carried in the air by family members as in the case of William here below in the video.  After getting the certificate they shook hands with all the facilitators.

An attempt at getting everyone in one picture:

The facilitating team (minus Jane and Daniel who were not around at this moment).  From left to right, Agnes, Martin, Moses, Joseph, Anthony, Lazarus, Baker, and Betty.

Sara gave me amazing support not only through this whole program over the two years, but especially at the graduation.  She was a jack-of-all-trades.  She was a baker, decorator, usher, photographer, driver, runner, and cake-cutter at the least.  She made four cakes as you can see in the photo below.  I am so thankful for her.

I thank the Lord for how he was willing to use me these two years in Uganda.  It was a tremendous privilege.  Thank you to all of you for supporting me to be here!

Boat Race

By Sara:

Our partner organization, KMDP, in Kaberamaido, is doing a program to help reduce the spread of HIV in a community along the shore of Lake Kyoga.

As a fun event to keep the whole community informed about the project and the way that participants' lives are being changed, they have a couple boat races each year.

People do catch lots of big fish in Lake Kyoga, but they also catch these tiny fish and then dry them like this in the sun:

Before the boat race, the people who have been participating in KMDP's program put on some very dramatic skits to show what they have been learning.  Everyone seemed to be quite entertained!

There was an unexpected guest at the event too - a wild Grey Crowned Crane (Uganda's national bird) just walked in and was eating grains of corn that little kids were throwing to it.

After the dramas and speakers, everyone headed over to the lake shore for the boat race.

From the following pictures and video, you can see how excited the spectators got, cheering on the members of their community who were competing in the race.

When Helping Hurts in Irundu

By Sara:

Last year in December, we visited our friend Silas in Irundu, across Lake Kyoga from Soroti.  We discussed the When Helping Hurts training with him and he said he would like to have one of us come teach it there.  After several attempts at planning and having to keep pushing the dates back, I was able to go there the week before Christmas to facilitate the training.

To get to Irundu, I took a motor boat across the lake.  It was very beautiful!  I am always amused that people even carry motorcycles with them on these little boats (there are two plus a bicycle in the boat pictured below that I was on - I was in the back by the motor).

After so much struggling to try to plan a time for this training, I was starting to despair and even hoping that it wouldn't work out because it didn't seem worth it.  However, once I was there, I was very thankful that I came.  Irundu is somewhat remote, so they don't get many trainings like this and Silas, our friend, is the only pastor who has been to the Bible College.  The Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG) church there is pretty young as well.  Although there was not a large number of participants at the training, those who came were enthusiastic and learned a lot.

Some people commented that they hadn't known before that Israel was sent into captivity in the Old Testament, not only because of idolatry, but also because they did not care for the poor.  They also appreciated thinking about what kinds of different situations require giving relief, what needs rehabilitation, and what needs development.  They said that it will help them in their churches to know when to give money to people who come asking for help.

Since I stayed right there next to the church for all four nights I was in Irundu, I was able to do some other interesting things in the evenings.  One night, I taught some young people how to make friendship bracelets out of yarn (I never thought that I would use that skill outside of elementary school).  They started out struggling, but the next morning, they showed me what they had done and it was perfect!

And on the last evening, I taught all the training participants (and quite a few neighbors) how to make a cake by steaming it.

As usual, it was very fun and many people said they would go home and bake their families a cake for Christmas.  One person actually called me the day before Christmas to make sure he understood the technique correctly since he was in the process of making his family a Christmas cake.

When we cut the cake, it was like the feeding of the 5,000 because lots of kids from far and wide came to see what we were doing and to taste the cake.  They lined them up and gave them all a bite.  I think we fed about 50 people with this little cake.

Eating Lablab Leaves

By Sara:

One of the green manure cover crops that we are promoting with farmers is called lablab.  This is a legume and you can eat the seeds just like beans.  The leaves are also edible, but none of the farmers had ever tasted them before.  I learned from our friend Neil, that you can prepare the leaves just like cowpea leaves, which are a common green vegetable in this region.

So, Sam the agriculture field officer of KMDP, Trent, and I met with some of the lead farmers to try it out.  I "taught" them how to cook the lablab leaves.  And when I say taught, I mean encouraged because they already know how to cook cowpea leaves and we did these leaves exactly the same way.  But since I had tried it at home, I was able to attest to the fact that it tasted good and give encouragement that they were doing the right thing as they cooked.  Here are the leaves they picked:

Josephine shelling peanuts for the sauce:

Everyone knows how to cook cowpea leaves.  Sometimes there were a few too many opinions about how to do it!

The final product!

Everyone was impressed that it tasted just like cowpea leaves.  They are especially excited about being able to eat lablab leaves, though, because the plants continue to produce tender leaves throughout most of the year, whereas cowpea leaves can only be harvested for a short time before you have to let the plant go to seed.