The Earth is the Lord's Bible Studies

By Sara:

I have been enjoying introducing "The Earth is the Lord's" Bible studies in various communities and churches.  It is always encouraging to see people learn how to read and study God's word for themselves. If you haven't had a chance to read about the curriculum yet, you can look at this page, where it is also available for download.

It seems that the most challenging aspect for many people is making a plan for how they can put what they learned into practice.  Although it is easy to see ways they want to change, in general, like: "Because of what I learned from Proverbs 12:10, I will treat my animals well and make sure they are well cared for", it is much more difficult to make that plan specific, such as saying: "Because of what I learned...I will build a better shelter for my animals this week so they don't get wet when it rains."

One group of pastors I meet with regularly, in Owalei (near Soroti) always has volunteers act as secretary to write down in Ateso the main points they learn from each passage.  So far, we are about halfway through the Bible study curriculum and it gives me joy to see how well the participants have picked up on the Bible study method and their interest in putting what they learn into practice.  Many have made plans to go home and teach their family members or children about the Bible passages we study together.

You'll hear more about our trip to Kotido from Anthony in a couple weeks, but while we were there, I introduced the Bible study method to some women from Karamoja Pastorate (Karamoja is the region and Kotido is a town).  In a future visit, we'll spend time on "The Earth is the Lord's" Bible studies.  Some of the women are church leaders from around Karamoja and others are the wives of pastors who are participating in Anthony's TLT group.

One of the biggest challenges of this Bible study group was that we had 3 different languages represented: English, Luo, and N'Karamajong.  Therefore, there was translation into 2 languages at once the whole time.  Here's a video to give you a little of an idea of how that went:

Nevertheless, the ladies were really enthusiastic about the studies and didn't want to stop sharing what they had learned from the different passages or what they were going to do to be obedient to what God taught them.  Many of them made plans to visit and encourage the sick from their churches or to bring food to their neighbors in order to show them the love of God.  At the end, one of the women encouraged all of them, whether they are church leaders or not, to take this new knowledge home and at least teach their children how to study the Bible for themselves.

From the Garden

By Sara:

At the moment, we could survive entirely on our own animals, fruits, and crops.  I've got beans, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, amaranth, millet, all kinds of greens, okra, eggplant, tomatoes, oranges, papaya, passion fruit, guavas, duck and chicken eggs, and of course ducks, chickens, and rabbits.  Here are some interesting garden and garden-product pictures.  First, just a few of the fruits I picked today (not including 6 additional papayas):

Then, the current state of my garden.  The inside garden today:

The outside garden and other side of our wall, also from today:

Popped pearl millet (left) and amaranth (right) from my garden.

Passion fruit flowers:

I found shade cloth in Kampala and thought it would make a better, more durable sack garden than a normal (plastic) sack, which disintegrates in the sun within less than a year.  Someone gave me some strawberry cuttings, so I'm trying them out as the first sack garden crop!

Compost piles made with the compost which has been building up in my giant lazy-style pile for the last 10 months...

Pumpkins (Anthony has learned that he really enjoys eating boiled pumpkin):

Not a garden product, but a critter who appeared in the garden - a chameleon:

Interesting Scenes in Uganda

By Sara:

Here are some interesting pictures for you to see different sides of Uganda.

Construction going on at a hotel in Kampala:

In a big city like Kampala, your neighbors are a lot closer than they are out in rural areas:

Lots of people are still out at night:

Goats hiding out from the rain in Mbale:

This guard was apparently very confident that the place he was guarding was secure during the day:

And just when you thought you'd seen everything, here's a rollerblader catching a ride on the back of a car in the midst of heavy traffic and reckless motorcycles in Kampala...

Don't we all wish we could get this guy's award?

Women busy preparing food:

A few months ago we got to enjoy a total lunar eclipse out our window:

Sunset at the PAG church in Kotido:

Um, not in Uganda, but a lovely view of Mount Kilimanjaro from our World Renew regional team meeting in September:

Plus (although it might not be an interesting scene? and also was in Tanzania) all these World Renew people we love to work with:

Cakes and Scones and Beans

By Sara:

This post is a summary of the many baking trainings I (with the help of Betty - my friend, co-teacher, and translator) have done over the past months, with some of the best pictures.  It is always fun to see the way that God can use something as simple as learning how to make a cake to bring joy into peoples' lives.

With one group, we made biscuits and scones on an upside-down lid from a pot.  It worked really well.

These baking students had already learned from me how to bake cakes.  I heard later that they baked 3 big cakes for their church's 20-year celebration and decorated them beautifully.  The church members all got to taste the cake and wondered if they had come from Soroti or Kampala.  They were amazed to find out that the cakes had been made there in the village by some of their own church members!  That was clever advertising on their part.  Hopefully this will be a way for them to get some business and use their new knowledge to serve the church.

With another group, we made cakes outside over a temporary charcoal stove put together using bricks and a bicycle wheel.  It was really creative, something I had never seen before.

One woman jumped up and did a dance after tasting the first cake the group had baked.  She later shared that she was 50 years old and had never known how to make a cake before that day.  From now on, she said, she was going to be baking wedding cakes for people!

At the same time that we were making cakes, beans were cooking in the fireless cooker.  As usual, it was an amazing moment of taking them out and finding that they had cooked after being boiled for only 10 minutes!

Here is another day in the same village, making scones.  Since these people already had experience making cakes, it was relaxing for me and Betty to teach them to make scones.  We just shared with them the basic idea and then put them to work practicing.

Several months ago, I taught a group of women in the local Reformed Church to bake cakes.  We went back there on a Sunday because Anthony was invited to preach.  And those ladies had baked us a cake using the skills they learned from my training!

I can't tell you how special it was to see how they had put their knowledge into practice and then came back to share it with me.

Yet another group asked to be taught how to make mandazi, as well as scones, so Betty, being much more of an expert mandazi-maker than I am, taught that part of the lesson. 

 They were so excited because they had customers buying the mandazi and scones before they were even finished making them all!  However, Betty and I calculated with them the cost of materials and discussed how much they must sell those mandazi/scones for in order to see make a profit.  It turned out that they were selling that day at a price which caused them a loss.  Hopefully they will work together to see whether or not making mandazi or scones can be a profitable business for them.